Andrew Sullivan seems to be back to blogging. About how democracies perish.

He just misses telling the horrible truth that the anti-democratic right are the legitimate offspring of their elders and legitimators in spite of themselves, the anti-democratic left.

It happened in Spain.

It happened in Weimar.

The Trap The Democrats Walked Right Into

But here’s one thing I have absolutely no conflict about. 

Rioting and lawlessness is evil. And any civil authority that permits, condones or dismisses violence, looting and mayhem in the streets disqualifies itself from any legitimacy. 

This comes first. 

If one party supports everything I believe in but doesn’t believe in maintaining law and order all the time and everywhere, I’ll back a party that does. 

In that sense, I’m a one-issue voter, because without order, there is no room for any other issue. 

Disorder always and everywhere begets more disorder; the minute the authorities appear to permit such violence, it is destined to grow. 

And if liberals do not defend order, fascists will.

I don't live where the rioters are running free, and I doubt AS does.

And my one issue is that I will never vote for a party sworn to kill me, but will instead vote for the party sworn to keep me alive.

I crucially need both Social Security and Medicare to avoid ending my life sleeping in an alley, fighting stray dogs for pizza out of a dumpster.

The GOP is profoundly devoted to destroying both of those, called "entitlements", by the way, because having paid to support both all our working lives we who now depend on them are entitled to count on them.

And so far the Dems are committed to coming through for us.

And as I’ve watched protests devolve over the summer into a series of riots, arson expeditions, and lawless occupations of city blocks, along with disgusting and often racist profanity, I’ve begun to feel similarly. 

And when I watched the Democratic Convention and heard close to nothing about ending this lawlessness, I noted the silence. 

. . . .

When a political party finds itself so wedded to a new and potent ideology it cannot call out violence when it sees it, then it is walking straight into a trap. 

When the discourse on the left has become one in which scholars and editors and Tweeters vie with one another to up the ante on how inherently evil America has always been, redescribe it as a slaveocracy, and endorse racist books that foment the most egregious stereotypes about “whiteness”, most ordinary people, who love their country and are mostly proud of its past, will rightly balk. 

One of the most devastating lines in president Trump’s convention speech last night was this: 

“Tonight, I ask you a very simple question: How can the Democrat Party ask to lead our country when it spends so much time tearing down our country?” 

A cheap shot, yes. 

But in the current context, a political bullseye.

. . . .

And look at the icons Trump invoked: Wyatt Earp, Annie Oakley, Davy Crockett, and Buffalo Bill. You can mock. 

But in the midst of a culture being redescribed by the left as a form of foul and relentless “white supremacy”, and in a moment of arson and rioting, it felt like a kind of balm. 

All this reassurance played out against a backdrop of Kenosha, which was burning, and Minneapolis, where a suicide led to a bout of opportunistic looting, and Washington DC, where mobs of wokesters went through the city chanting obscenities, invading others’ spaces, demanding bystanders raise fists in solidarity, with occasional spasms of violence. 

These despicable fanatics, like it or not, are now in part the face of the Democrats: a snarling bunch of self-righteous, entitled bigots, chanting slogans rooted in pseudo-Marxist claptrap, erecting guillotines — guillotines! — in the streets as emblems of their agenda. 

They are not arguing; they are attempting to coerce. 

And liberals, from the Biden campaign to the New York Times, are too cowardly and intimidated to call out these bullies and expel them from the ranks. 

. . . .

It was a sign that the establishment left were willing to tolerate disorder and chaos if they were directed toward the ideologically correct ends — which is how Democratic establishments in Minneapolis and Seattle and Portland responded. 

The NYT, CNN and the rest tried to ignore the inexcusable, and find increasingly pathetic ways to dismiss it. 

This week, their staggering bias was exposed as absurd.

. . . .

And let’s be frank about this and call this by its name: this is very Weimar. 

The center has collapsed. 

Armed street gangs of far right and far left are at war on the streets. 

Tribalism is intensifying in every nook and cranny of the culture. 

The establishment right and mainstream left tolerate their respective extremes because they hate each other so much.

And so on.

He pretty much predicts the worst, even if Biden wins.

Pence, GOP overshoot the mark, shoot selves in foot.

NPR plays a clip of Pence last night telling America the riots everywhere must stop, Americans must stop hurting and killing Americans, Biden is complicit with the rioters and will not make Americans safe, but he and Trump will not tolerate rioting and violence and destruction, Trump will put an end to it and make Americans safe!

Vote for Trump and he'll put a stop to it!

NPR interviewer to GOP spokesperson:

Really? Why wait? 

Trump is in the White House now and has been for nearly four years, over all the time the rioting has been happening. 

It's all happening on his watch. Why wait?

Pence jabs at Roberts, peanut gallery says "Yeah!"

Maybe they missed his handling of the trial in the senate?

So Pence and others are pressuring him to line up with the other Republican justices in future by accusing him of voting against them in the past only because he has repeatedly caved to pressure.

Mike Pence is 'totally right' to criticize Roberts and conservatives are deeply 'alarmed': Carrie Severino

Vice President Mike Pence is "totally right" in his criticism of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as the court is once again a paramount issue for voters going to the polls in November, author and former Supreme Court clerk Carrie Severino told "Fox & Friends" Friday.

Pence tore into Roberts, calling him a "disappointment to conservatives," during a discussion with Christian broadcaster CBN News on Thursday. 

His comments came in the wake of several cases in which Roberts, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, sided with the court's liberals in majority opinions.

"Conservatives are deeply alarmed at this pattern of decisions that make Chief Justice Roberts look much more like a politician than a judge and that is not his job," Severino said.

Severino is president of the Judicial Crisis Network and one of the people involved in putting together President Trump's new Supreme Court list.

"I'm not sure if that's sort of an anti-Trump effect on his part," Severino said, pointing out, "[Roberts] likes to say there are no Trump judges or Obama judges, but he seems to be an anti-Trump judge at this point."

Pence pointed in particular to Roberts voting in 2012 to uphold ObamaCare, a more recent decision to uphold Nevada’s coronavirus-related limits on church gatherings, and a Louisiana case that determined whether abortion-clinic doctors should have admitting privileges at local hospitals, CBN reported, as "a reminder of just how important this election is for the future of the Supreme Court."

"What's so disturbing is you see this pattern and even some of the dissents from his own colleagues suggesting that, perhaps pressure from outside the court is what is making him not want him to appear too conservative, so he seems to be trying to play both sides," Severino said.

"Some of the most recent reporting from the court suggests in cases he has flipped his decision again, may be because he is concerned about the media backlash if the court rules certain ways," she said. 

"But, you know what? Chief justice, that's not your job. Your job isn't to look at the opinion pages and figure out what's going to make them put the court in the best light. Your job is to follow the Constitution and the law."

We have the stupidest fucking government in the world. And those who aren't stupid are weak little cowards.

Stupid first.

Pence: 'It’s time for us to get our kids back to school'

Echoing the president, Mike Pence pushed for the reopening of America’s schools despite lingering concerns over the spread of coronavirus in the classroom.

“It’s time for us to get our kids back to school,” Pence said during the White House coronavirus task force briefing at the US department of education.

Trump made the same argument during an event on school reopenings yesterday, and this morning, he threatened to withhold funding from schools that do not reopen.

The funding threat struck many as counterintuitive, considering a number of school districts have said they do not have the money to safely reopen.

Weak and cowardly next.

Allegheny County's COVID cases soar past 4,000; Butler County sets new single-day mark

Complaints about Allegheny County bars, restaurants flouting face-mask rules skyrocket

Officials to consider posting names of establishments that violate COVID-19 health protocols

That's their idea of enforcement.

Allegheny County considering modifying bar, restaurant order

With the virus skyrocketing they're considering weakening their own restrictions.

Why the Great Fat Orange Klansman is mad as heck and itching to appoint another supreme

Supreme Court, in 5-4 ruling, strikes down restrictive Louisiana abortion law

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Louisiana's tough restriction on abortions violates the Constitution, a surprising victory for abortion rights advocates from an increasingly conservative court.

The 5-4 decision, in which Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court's four more liberal justices, struck down a law passed by the Louisiana Legislature in 2014 that required any doctor offering abortion services to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.

. . . .

The challengers said the requirement was identical to a Texas law the Supreme Court struck down in 2016. 

With the vote of then-Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court ruled that Texas imposed an obstacle on women seeking access to abortion services without providing any medical benefits. 

Kennedy was succeeded by the more conservative Brett Kavanaugh, appointed by President Donald Trump, who was among the four dissenters Monday.

Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the Texas decision, also wrote Monday's ruling.

. . . .

Roberts said he thought the court was wrong to strike down the Texas law, but he voted with the majority because that was the binding precedent. 

"The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana's law cannot stand under our precedents."

Will he respect precedent enough to uphold Roe?

Others surely would not.

Democrats liked Roberts' call but noted Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were not on their side.

Sara Gideon attacks Susan Collins on abortion rights after Supreme Court ruling

Gideon touted her endorsements from groups supporting abortion rights like NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Action and publicly questioned whether Collins still believed that Kavanaugh viewed Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision in which the court ruled that the Constitution protects a pregnant woman's right to choose to have an abortion, as "settled law."

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the four liberal justices because of Supreme Court precedent, emphasizing that the Louisiana law was identical to a credentialing requirement in a Texas statute invalidated by the court's 2016 ruling in the case of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. 

Kavanaugh dissented with the other conservative justices, writing that the Supreme Court "should remand the case for a new trial and additional fact finding under the appropriate legal standards."

Thomas tears into abortion precedent, says Roe v. Wade should fall in dissent on Louisiana case

Thomas called Roe v. Wade 'farcical,' the court's reasoning for calling abortion a right 'amorphous' and its abortion jurisprudence 'grievously wrong'

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas filed a blistering opinion dissenting from a Monday decision to strike down a Louisiana law that required abortion doctors to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, calling the court's record on abortion "grievously wrong."

The pitched dissent made clear that Thomas is ready to tear down the court's protections for abortion completely in his most explicit comments yet that precedents all the way back to Roe v. Wade should fall.

Conservative groups see abortion ruling as catalyst for reelecting Trump

Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, “After today’s disappointing decision by SCOTUS, one thing is clear: We need more Conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

White House Ironically Complains That SCOTUS Judges Can Make Decisions Without Being Elected

So of course he wants to appoint more of them to put unelected conservatives in possession of the law.

Birx changes the tune, a little.

Just now on the tube.

They used to say the especially vulnerable were the elderly with comorbidities.

Then it was those 65 and over and those of any age with comorbidities.

Today it's those 80 and over and those of any age with comorbidities.

Pence is useless and full of shit.

But even the docs, including Fauci, did not balk at Pence's happy-talk.

Fauci was clear but gentle, even rather sweet-talking the young idiots blowing off social distancing and masks.

And very gently and politely attributed our current disaster to them and to states re-opening too far and too soon, against the rules provided by the White House documents.

He did not for a second blame Trump or any GOP person or GOP media for heaping contempt on those documents and those who obey them and telling many different lies to cause people to ignore the danger and party like it's pledge week.

Not Fauci.

Not with that giant yellow streak down his back.

The three docs on stage wore masks except while at the mic, speaking.

Pence at no time went anywhere near a mask.

So, who was undermining the credibility of whose message?

Less bad. But not actually good.

Replace the gangster whoremaster with Elmer Gantry?

The best you can say is Pence wouldn't urge us to shoot up sick kids with Lysol.

Pompeo's unsupported, inflammatory accusation against "the Chinese Communist Party"

Mike Pompeo says "The Chinese Communist Party had the opportunity to prevent all of the calamity that has befallen the world".

The party, he says, not the government.

A feature of the continuing Republican effort to deflect blame from the Dumbo Duce is to highlight the Chinese government's enduring subservience to the Chinese Communist Party, and even to shift blame for what the government does directly onto the party, though it is less clear than it was in former days which is the dog and which is the tail of these two.

The true boss of both and pretty much everything in China is Xi Jinping, Paramount Leader, etc., etc..

And did either one (or did he?) actually have such an opportunity?

Even allowing that Pompeo's "all the calamity that has befallen the world" refers only to the calamity of the Coronavirus, of course.

Have we seen any reason to believe that?

Given the track record, I'd say it's just another lie only a little less inflammatory, gratuitous, and stupid on its face than saying they deliberately unleashed this bug on their own people and thence the world in order to ruin Dumbo's re-election chances.

Who will be the Republican candidate in November?

If Pence and the White House gang invoke Article 25 who will be the candidate?

Can we imagine the GOP, in that case, running Bozo?

Vice President and 2nd in mendacity

Pence falsely links Iranian general to 9/11 attacks

Trying to pin it on Iran, or at least on Suleimani.

Made me laugh

Irish PM Brings His Boyfriend To Pence's Residence and Talks about love and God

Pence actually invited them.

He must have been gagging.