Rice Bowls

The New Democrat Party

(VDH Speaks) Victor Davis Hanson lays out the composition of the new Democrats but in doing so, maybe minimizes the administrative state (DC Swamp, Military Industrial Complex, etc.)

First, there is the subsidized and often inner-city poor.

Second, the meat of the party, is the upscale, bicoastal professional and suburban credentialed classes.

Third, the real rulers of the party are the hyper-rich of Big Tech, Wall Street, Hollywood, the corporate boardroom, the administrative state, the media, and the legal world. Almost all these institutions have lost public confidence and poll miserably. Their cocooned leaders are never subject to the ramifications of their own often unworkable policies.

In a flurry of texts with LSP on different topics yesterday, I shared my expectation that the 118th Congress, which will be sworn in after the first of 2023 (if all goes according to plan, there is no nuclear war, etc.) will likely have the impeachment of Pedo Joe and Camela very high on their list of things to do. The return of the Executive Branch of Government to the Republican Party will no doubt be met by riots, managed by paid hirelings of the Democrat Party with the Military Industrial Complex wringing its hands and deciding which way to jump.

The Administrative State has a lot to lose in a return to Trump. There will be calls to severely reform the FBI and the US Intelligence Community that has increasingly violated their remit by collecting against political enemies of the Democrats inside the US. The policy toward funding Ukraine (with an eye toward kickbacks) would need to end as presently constituted, and the eye toward trade with China and allowing PR Chinese investment in the US would need to stop. The flood of “potential democrat voter” illegal aliens across the border would need to be stopped. In other words, all of the rice bowl issues would be on the table in 2023, two years ahead of the next general election. None of these corrupt operations would take a broken rice bowl without a fight.

Thus, it’s very difficult to predict how 2023 play out.

Quote of the Day

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes, at last, an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.” — Vincent Van Gogh

Identify the Officers

Bullet Points:

* The Russian lawmaker who called for an end to the war in Ukraine is comatose in a hospital after suffering serious head injuries. Anatoly Karpov, 71, who was a chess grandmaster in the 1970s before turning to politics, is thought to have been injured in Moscow sometime overnight on Saturday – amid claims he ‘suffered a fall’. He is now on a neurology ward at the renowned Sklifosovsky Institute and has been placed in a medically induced coma, with allies describing his condition as ‘serious’.

* “Vegetarian” is an old Indian word for “bad hunter”.

* Newspaper endorsements rarely count for much, unless they make a surprising choice that makes people take notice. John Fetterman’s hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has endorsed Republican Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania senate race.

Reflecting on Luther

In his thesis, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking for payment—called “indulgences”—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.

Luther’s frustration with this practice led him to write the 95 Theses, which were quickly snapped up, translated from Latin into German, and distributed widely.

A copy made its way to Rome, and efforts began to convince Luther to change his tune. He refused to keep silent, however, and in 1521 Pope Leo X formally excommunicated Luther from the Catholic Church. That same year, Luther again refused to recant his writings before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Germany, who issued the famous Edict of Worms declaring Luther an outlaw and a heretic and giving permission for anyone to kill him without consequence. Protected by Prince Frederick, Luther began working on a German translation of the Bible, a task that took 10 years to complete.