Nowadays, so many things that we know for certain turn out to be not so certain after all.  In the Fall, we knew for certain that Republicans were going to sweep the mid-term elections, and that a Red Wave would wash over the nation, giving Republicans the House of Representatives and the Senate.  We now know that the Red Wave wasn’t even a ripple.  We lost the Senate outright 51-49.  The only upside of this occurrence is that Kamala Harris now has absolutely nothing to do.  Republicans managed to flip the House, winning 222 seats to 213 Democrat.  Well, right now 212 Democrats, as one Virginia Democrat died right after his reelection.  January 3 was the first day for the newly elected 118th Congress.  The first order of business for this, as for every new Congress was the election of a Speaker of the House.  The office of Speaker of the House is required by the Constitution, which provides that “the House of Representatives shall chuse its Speaker and other officers.” (Yes, that’s how they spelled “choose” in those days)  The office originated in the British House of Commons during the 14th century.  Until the 17th century (King Charles I), the speaker elected by the House of Commons represented that body before the monarch but also served as the monarch’s representative in the Commons.  After Charles I, who was later beheaded, sparking a Civil War, British Speakers serve primarily as non-political parliamentary officers.  The U.S. Speaker has parliamentary duties as well, but also is second in the line of presidential succession, after the Vice President.  No Speaker has succeeded to the presidency by virtue of that office, and only one former Speaker, James Polk, has ever been elected president.  The Speaker doesn’t have to be a member of the House of Representatives.  Theoretically, anyone could be elected Speaker, even Donald Trump, who has gotten one vote this week.  Realistically, the election of a Speaker who is not in the House is about as likely as the election of a new Pope who’s not a Cardinal.  Anyhow, last year we knew for certain that the new Speaker was going to be California Representative Kevin McCarthy.  But not so fast.  Trouble is brewing in the Republican caucus, more specifically, in the Freedom Caucus, whose conservative members have let it be known that they’re tired of being lied to and overlooked by the RINOs who want to continue business as usual.  I guess McCarthy just didn’t take the Freedom Caucus threat seriously, because it came as no surprise.  From 10 to 20 Republicans have been saying for some time that they will not vote for McCarthy unless he makes commitments on conservative policies on such things as balancing the budget, tax reform and oversight investigations on little things like the Biden Crime Family.  Many people, including me, thought that the differences would be quickly resolved, and that Kevin McCarthy would be elected Speaker.  That hasn’t been the case.  As this is written, there have been 11 Speaker votes, and an 11th is expected today.  McCarthy has been unable to get the votes needed to be elected.  In the 11 ballots, McCarthy has received no more than 203 votes, his vote total then dropping to 200.  Conservatives have nominated Byron Donalds of Florida, but he has gotten no more than 20 votes.  Democrats have voted every time 212 votes for Hakeem Jeffries.  No surprise there.  If Democrats know one thing it’s the value of Party discipline.  We are told that negotiations are ongoing, but there’s been little movement.  Indeed, the opposition is getting more strident.  On January 5, Chief Embarrassment to the Country, Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden, called the situation, “an embarrassment to the country.”  He should know.  How long can this go on?  The longest election for Speaker took more than two months and 133 ballots before Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts was elected Speaker on February 2, 1856.  The Civil War began soon thereafter.  Let’s hope that’s not an omen.  The 1923 election went to 9 ballots before a winner emerged.  And what effect does a stalemate have?  Here’s the answer given by MSNBC –  Until a Speaker is chosen, the House can’t swear in its members and can’t vote on legislation, or work on investigations.  Right.  MSNBC can’t wait for House Republicans investigate the Biden Crime Family, Sam Bankman-Fried’s gift of $40 million stolen dollars to Democrats, and the FBI’s interference in our elections.  The reality is, they’ll get there, eventually.  And they don’t need to pass legislation right away, as they voted a $1.7 trillion boondoggle bill in December, precisely to keep the incoming House from cutting the budget.  Trust me.  Every day the Congress does nothing, it’s one more day that they don’t steal your freedom.  But what’s the endgame?  The Republican NK’s, that’s what they call the “Never Kevin” faction, are taking flak from Republicans of all stripes, including Newt Gingrich, who aptly points out that 10% of the caucus should not be permitted to dictate to the other 90%.  The NK’s do have valid complaints, and I hope they are trying to work toward a resolution.  Reportedly, there was a major concession on Thursday, in which McCarthy pledged that his political PAC, Club For Growth, would not contribute money to candidates in open seat Republican primaries in safe Republican districts.  This would permit more conservatives to win primaries without the Establishment Republicans putting their thumbs on the scale.  Is Kevin McCarthy the ideal candidate for Speaker?  No.  Would I be happy with a Byron Donalds, or a Jim Jordan?  Absolutely.  But McCarthy is as good as it’s going to get.  The Democrats are lurking with their 212 votes, and have offered to support “a Unity Speaker,” so long as they get some Committee Chairmanships and other concessions.  They have no right to such an outrage.  For all the talk of the “razor thin” Republican majority, with 222 seats, does anyone remember how many Democrats were in the last Congress?  222.  Did they agree to share power?  Don’t think so.  There’s also talk from liberal outlets that, “even if elected, McCarthy will be the weakest Speaker in recent times.”  McCarthy needs 217 votes to win.  Anyone remember how many votes Nancy Pelosi got in January 2021?  216.  Did anybody say she was weak?  Just sit tight.  This will be resolved, in favor of McCarthy or some other Republican, and life will go on.

It’s obvious to anyone with a brain and two eyes that our southern border situation is out of control.  All the news this week has been about the the expected end of Title 42 restrictions on the entry of aliens.  Democrats want to end the restrictions.  Republicans want to extend the restrictions.  There’s lots of yelling, bitching, name-calling and lawsuits.  But just what is the big deal about Title 42?  Federal laws are contained in the United States Code.  The U.S. Code is broken down into sections (Titles) that cover different areas of the law.  For instance, federal crimes are contained in Title 18.  Title 42 deals with public health.  Title 42 became a concern at the border with the advent of the Wuhan plague.  It gives the federal government the ability to take emergency action to keep communicable diseases out of the country.  One way to achieve this goal is to deny entry to illegal aliens (a/k/a migrants) who show up at the southern border.  The Trump Administration adopted the Title 42 provision to control illegal border crossings during the Wuhan crisis.  It made sense.  After all, the Wuhan has killed 1.1 million people in the U.S., and another 1.7 million in Latin America.  Of course, Trump was castigated for invoking Title 42.  NBC News described the Trump Administration’s use of Title 42 as follows, “Trump invoked the law when the coronavirus pandemic broke out, ostensibly to prevent the spread of Covid, but mostly to drum out migrants more quickly and without having to consider them for asylum.  The Biden administration has continued to expel migrants from the country under the law.  More than 2 million people have been expelled since Trump put it into effect.”  Don’t you just love a fair report?  And how screwed up in the head are the people on the Left?  The people who label Trump’s exclusion of illegal aliens during a pandemic as racist, are the same people who locked American citizens in their homes, and banned them from attending church services.  That said, NBC isn’t totally wrong about there being an ulterior motive for invoking Title 42.  More about that later.  The news this week has been what will happen if Title 42 restrictions are ended.  Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden has declared the pandemic over, so logically, the Title 42 restrictions should end as well.  However, logic has nothing to do with our present situation.  Critics warn that, should Title 42 end, there will be a flood of illegals crossing the border.  The pertinent question, however is, how can things get any worse?  In the last 3 months alone, border agents have encountered 617,000 aliens crossing the border.  An additional 204,000 are considered “got aways,” aliens who got into the country without being “processed” by border agents.  That’s about 7,000 a day, or 2.5 million a year.  And it’s not a new development.  These multitudes have been coming across the border since Biden was elected.  The area around El Paso, Texas is hardest hit.  The Biden Administration has responded by building a tent structure more than 100 yards long, to accommodate 1,000 “migrants.”

That’s a fine gesture, but won’t help much, with more than 10,000 illegals a week crossing the Rio Grande, and even popping out of manhole covers in the city.  One wonders how things can get worse.  But the Biden Administration seems content with the situation, as it continues to exist in a dream world, pretending that the border is under control.  Biden spokes-idiot Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly claimed that the border is secure.  On the subject of the potential end of Title 42 restrictions, she said this week, “We are advancing our preparations to manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 eventually lifts and will continue expanding legal pathways for immigration.”  Huh?  You have to hand it to them.  No matter how dark it gets, they just keep pulling down the shades.  But an even greater inflow of illegals is expected should Title 42 restrictions end.  To that end, a federal judge in Louisiana issued a stay, preventing the restrictions from being lifted.  The Biden Administration, apparently not content with admitting only 2.5 million illegals a year, wants the stay lifted.  This week, the Supreme Court extended the stay, preventing the restrictions from being lifted, and scheduled argument on the issue in February.  Back to ulterior motives.  The Supreme Court vote was 5-4 in favor of continuing the restrictions.  Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and Barrett voted for the stay.  Justice Gorsuch joined the liberals, Sotomayor, Kagan and Brown Jackson, voting against continuing Title 42.  But the 4 Justices in the minority voted that way for different reasons.  The 3 liberal women are not judges, they’re liberal rubber stamps for whatever loony Leftist garbage the Democrats are looking to foist on the populace this week.  Justice Gorsuch voted with them based on principle, writing, “Even the federal government acknowledges that the end of the Title 42 orders will likely have disruptive consequences.  But the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis.  And courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency.  We are a court of law, not policymakers of last resort.”  Amen brother.  Justice Scalia has to be smiling down on Justice Gorsuch.  I feel like Diogenes, I’ve finally found an honest judge, or to be more accurate, I’ve found a judge, not a partisan who’s advancing some agenda.  The real problem is that our government has abdicated its authority.  Article I of the Constitution vests Congress with the duty to make immigration laws.  And indeed, past Congresses have done just that, enacting Title 8 of the U.S Code, which pertains to all issues of immigrants and immigration.  The present Congress, and its recent incarnations have abandoned their duty.  We’re told that the laws are unfair and need changing.  It that’s true, then only Congress can do it, but they won’t.  The truth is we don’t need Title 42 to control illegal border crossings.  All we need a president who is willing to enforce the provisions of Title 8.  We don’t have one.  Did you know that section 1157 of Title 8 says the president must set the number of refugees to be admitted each year?  Has Sleepy Joe done that?  Section 1182 permits the exclusion of immigrants who aren’t vaccinated, or who have mental disorders, or drug habits.  Is anyone asking those questions?  That section permits the exclusion of criminals and persons committing crimes, like prostitution and drug smuggling.  What is Biden doing to stop the influx of human traffickers and drugs like fentanyl, being sent in by the Mexican cartels?  Nothing.  And it’s not a mistake, not a failure of policy, or a case of ignorance because Biden won’t visit the border.  It’s exactly what Biden and Company want.  They could end the crisis today if they chose to, using the border wall and the provisions of Title 8, but they won’t.  Forget about Title 42 and just enforce the law.

A Visit From The Big Guy

With sincere apologies to Clement Clark Moore

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when in the White House,
Not a creature was stealing, not even Hunter, that louse;
The stockings were hung for the pervert to sniff,
In hopes that The Big Guy would arrive in a jiff;
The Congress was full of bad liars and Reds,
And visions of Socialists danced in their heads;
Dr. Jill had decided, aww who gives a crap?
I might as well stay four more years with that sap;
When out on the lawn I heard someone mumble,
He tripped and he cursed, and then took a tumble.
I went to the window expecting the worst,
He looked like he’d fallen right out of a hearse.
He was wandering back and forth in the snow,
And he gave the impression he just didn’t know.
Then all of a sudden what should appear?
A limo and guys with those things in their ears.
And the guy who looked lost, he wasn’t too spry,
I knew in a moment it was The Big Guy.

More rapid than eagles his handlers they came,
And he mumbled, and stumbled, and called them by name;
“Now, Blinken! now, Yellen! now, Garland and Fudge!
On, Austin! on, Klain! On, Mayorkas, Buttigieg!”
The migrants are coming right through the Trump wall!
Deny it! Deny it!, Just deny all!”
Then up to the White House – the limo it flew,
With a sack full of cash, and The Big Guy too.
Then from up above came the sound of a hoof,
The senile old bastard was up on the roof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney The Big Guy came with a bound.
His gait was unsteady, like he was walking on eggs,
He was mumbling something about hairy legs.

A bundle of graft he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a swindler just opening his pack.
His eyes looked so vacant his face it was sunken,
His nose like a cherry, from something he’d drunken.
His droll little mouth was drawn up in a scowl,
The hair on his head as if combed with a towel.
He flashed an odd smile, through brilliant white teeth,
Then tried to converse with a low hanging wreath.
He had a pale face and a little round gut,
And he laughed for no reason, like some kind of nut.
He was useless and limp, a senile old fart,
I remembered his job and it gave me a start.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
His very appearance filled me with dread;
He said something to Cornpop, then went straight to his work,
And sniffed all the stockings, like a weird jerk.
He took cash from his sack, to the stockings he went,
Then he filled all the stockings 90 percent.
Why not 100, I queried him,” Why?”
He said that the rest was for The Big Guy.
Then pulling his finger out of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
But he walked the wrong way, and the roof had a pitch,
He tripped, and he teetered, almost fell off that bitch.
But the agents corralled him, and threw him inside,
And away from the rooftop the limo did ride.
But I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight,

And a very Merry Christmas from Frank on Friday

As a lifelong Loony Tunes fan, I’m a firm believer that there’s no issue that hasn’t already been commented upon by Bugs Bunny and friends.  This week, Elon Musk’s outrageous tendency to believe that he and others should be free to use Twitter to voice opinions that don’t agree with Leftist orthodoxy, sparked yet another public furor.  The spark for the fire came from Musk’s seemingly innocuous tweet, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” which caused those on the lockdown Left to lose what’s left of their minds.  This strife reminded me of the 1952 Bugs Bunny cartoon, Rabbit Seasoning, in which Bugs’ careful use of language results in Daffy Duck being repeatedly shot by hunter Elmer Fudd.  They just don’t make children’s entertainment like that anymore.

Anyhow, Daffy ascribes his predicament to a simple cause – “Pronoun trouble.”  And now, 70 years after Loony Tunes framed the issue, pronoun trouble unfortunately is still with us.  The Left demands that we all bow down and accept the notion that there are an unlimited number of genders, which may be adopted or discarded at will.  Because of this, Woke imbeciles are quick to attack any real or imagined dissenting opinion, which might interfere with their plans to, you should pardon the expression, shove their position down our throats.  The Musk tweet was no exception.  Astronaut Scott Kelly, who may have spent too much time in the vacuum of outer space, quickly hit back, “Elon, please don’t mock and promote hate toward already marginalized and at risk-of-violence members of the #LGBTQ+ community.  They are real people with real feelings.  Furthermore, Dr. Fauci is a dedicated public servant whose sole motivation was saving lives.”  For my part, I didn’t view the Musk tweet as any type of attack on or even comment on LGBT people, but simply as a comment on Fauci.  To my way of thinking, the notion that any reference to the word “pronouns” must be limited to a celebration of LGBT-whatever values is an insult to the English language.  However, the gauntlet having been thrown down, Musk was quick to respond.  “I strongly disagree.  Forcing your pronouns on others when they don’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone.  As for Dr. Fauci, he lied to Congress and funded gain of function research that killed millions of people.  Not awesome IMO.”  The Musk tweet garnered more than 1 million “likes,” but it set the medical community on Twitter afire, with some educational institutions threatening to leave the platform unless Musk renounces his post.  Dr. Peter Hotez,  of Texas Children’s Hospital tweeted, “Dr. Fauci has done nothing wrong.  200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives from Covid due to this kind of anti-science rhetoric and disinformation.”  Apparently, no one should be permitted to call for accountability from the medical community, which wants both the power to impose ruinous mandates, and immunity from its mistakes.  Personally, I don’t favor prosecuting Fauci, but expecting him to give honest answers to Congressional committees is the least Americans can expect from someone who poses as the foremost authority on all things medical.  And I don’t understand Dr. Hotez’s statistic.  If 200,000 died because they were not vaccinated, then what about the 800,000 Americans who died despite the fact that they listened to Fauci?  Someone needs to answer for that.   Comments from political sources were predictable.  From Senator Amy Klobuchar, “Courting vaccine deniers is not a sound business strategy.”  And all this from five little words posted by Musk, none of which mentioned vaccines or deniers thereof.  The Hill called it, “the latest attack” on Dr. Fauci.  ABC News, not to be outdone, said the tweet attacked Fauci and mocked the LGBT community.  The White House went even further, as spokes-idiot Karine Jean-Pierre proclaimed the tweet, “dangerous on Dr. Fauci and other public health professionals, disgusting and divorced from reality.”  Wow!  Anyone who works for Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden should be careful about commenting on reality.  And is this where we’ve come to?  Leftists should be careful about  condemning of Elon Musk’s words as hate speech that may subject others to violence, lest they be held to their own standard.  For about 7 years now, Democrats and their fellow-travelers in the lapdog media have been calling for the prosecution and imprisonment of President Trump, and anyone in any way connected to President Trump.  By the Left’s bogus standard, does this not condemn them as purveyors of hate speech (a form of speech that does not exist in the law) and inciters to violence?  Thanks to the efforts of Elon Musk, we now know that Twitter, and I’m sure every other social media and internet platform, cancelled accounts and banned messages that challenged Democrat policies, or were likely to damage Biden’s chance for election.  And they did this, not based on “hacked-materials” policies or based on some actual threat of violence, but simply because agencies such as the FBI and people the likes of Michele Obama directed them to do so.  Musk is about to release Twitter documents that prove that the site banned medical opinions from responsible medical professionals that contradicted the Fauci policies.  The uproar from the medical community over the Musk tweet proves only that the last thing these “experts” want is to be held accountable for their actions.  Furthermore, turning what was no more than a comment on Fauci into an attack on the LGBT community is the vilest form of hyperbole. Expecting the highest paid federal official to provide honest testimony before a Congressional committee isn’t really a case of pronoun trouble, it’s a case of governmental accountability trouble, from privileged bastards who have grown to believe they can get away with anything without consequences.

I recently finished the book Double Cross about the life of Chicago gangster, Sam “Mooney” Giancana.  The book tells the story through the memories of its author, Sam’s brother Chuck, and it paints an ugly picture of the corruption of every aspect of American government by organized crime figures, whose reach extended even into the Vatican.  I was familiar with Sam Giancana’s criminal exploits, but some of the revelations were frankly hard to swallow.  According to the book, starting in the 1920’s, Sam Giancana corrupted local police, elected officials, judges, governors, FBI agents, congressmen and even presidents.  Federal law enforcement largely was kept at bay by Giancana’s work with the CIA, which included running guns and other weapons to revolutionaries, assassinations of foreign officials, narcotics distribution (in which the CIA participated), not to mention the well publicized attempts to kill Fidel Castro.  If the book is to be believed, Giancana was intimately involved in securing JFK’s 1960 victory, the bay of Pigs invasion, the JFK assassination, and even the Watergate scandal.  If true, Sam Giancana was the Forrest Gump of the underworld.  In a nutshell, the basic message of the book validates Frank’s First Rule of Life – “The world runs on bullshit, and it never runs out.”  Essentially, everything the public is told by “honest politicians,” law enforcement, the media, and even the Church is a fraud, hiding the fact that a very few corrupt bastards are pulling the strings behind the scenes.  All that said, the book’s revelations were hard even for me to accept, until last weekend, when new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, began to release Twitter internal documents to reporter Matt Taibi about the extent of FBI involvement in the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story.  Let’s recap.  In April 2019, computer repair store owner Mac Isaac received a laptop from Hunter Biden, which Biden never returned to retrieve.  The computer contained, in addition to pornographic photographs featuring Hunter smoking crack with a variety of hookers, thousands of emails indicating payments to the Biden family from foreign nations, including Ukraine.  Mac Isaac correctly suspected that the evidence raised national security concerns and called the FBI.  The FBI took the laptop in December 2019, but not before Isaac had given a copy of the hard drive to Rudy Giuliani.  Giuliani gave a copy to the New York Post, which, along with Rudy, verified the authenticity of the material.  When the Post published the bombshell information in October 2020, Twitter, which already had banned President Trump from its site, Facebook, Google, and the rest of the lapdog media censored the reports as “hacked materials,” preventing any publication of or comment on the story.  As a result, Americans went to the polls in November 2020 blissfully unaware that irrefutable evidence exists proving that candidate Joe Biden is a crook who’s been selling his office for more than 40 years.  You know what happened.  The Twitter documents provide the previously missing explanation of why nearly all the social media, mainstream media, and print media outlets so quickly censored the laptop story.  Enter the FBI, now known in some circles as the Fascist Bureau of Intimidation.  It turns out that the same FBI officials who participated in the 2015-2020 spying on President Trump, the Russian collusion hoax, and the Crossfire-Hurricane attempted coup de etat, were behind the censorship of the Hunter laptop story.  For years, we’ve been listening to crap from Woke social media billionaires about how First Amendment freedom of speech doesn’t apply to them because they’re private companies.  We now know that that’s just part of the bullshit which makes the world go round.  Here’s the legal principle.  The Bill of Rights applies to the government, but not to private entities.  Thus, in criminal law, we have something known as “the silver platter doctrine,” which means that if a landlord, or other private citizen, independently uncovers evidence of a crime and turns it over to law enforcement, the evidence can be used against the defendant regardless of how it was seized.  But, if the cops “suggest” that the landlord go look for the evidence, that’s government action, and constitutional protections apply.  What the Twitter documents reveal is that the government, namely the FBI, directed the companies to censor the laptop story.  Social media, and presumably other media executives met weekly with FBI agents, led by one Elvis Chan, an agent whose post-graduate thesis argued that the Russians had gotten Trump elected in 2016 (don’t you just love a fair trial?) repeatedly warned Twitter and the others to expect “hack and leak” operations from “State actors” before the election.  The FBI knew the Post story was coming because it was monitoring Rudy Giuliani’s communications with the Post.  Twitter officials expressed concern that what they were being told didn’t meet the “hacked material” standard for censorship, but they were overruled by Vijaya Godde, Twitter’s head of Legal Policy and Trust (Orwell couldn’t have thought of a better title), who already had banned President Trump from the site, and General Counsel James Baker.  Is that name familiar?  Yes, the same James Baker who was Counsel for the FBI till 2018, when he left after disclosures that he had directed spying on candidate Trump, and the coup attempt on President Trump.  Simply put, the FBI knew the Russian collusion story was a lie made up by Hillary Clinton, but used it to frame Trump.  Likewise, the FBI knew the Hunter laptop was genuine, and that its contents were not Russian propaganda, but they used their position to affect the outcome of a presidential election.  In a sense, the FBI warning about interference by a “State actor” was the truth.  The State actor was the U.S. government, tampering to benefit its candidate of choice.  Both Baker and Godde were fired by Musk this week, but the damage is done, and I’m sad to say it makes the Sam Giancana book more believable.  According to Chuck Giancana, his brother got JFK elected on the promise of being left alone by law enforcement.  The Kennedys broke their promise and both JFK and RFK died at the hands of Mob and CIA operatives.  The Twitter documents prove that nothing has changed.  First Amendment freedom of the press has become Freedom of Suppress, and the government’s hidden puppeteers now decide what you may and may not hear.  Elon Musk and Matt Taibi are being castigated in the media, which somehow considers confirmation of the truth the equivalent of misinformation.  When the truth is what the government tells you it is, we’re done.  The White House reaction to the revelations?  “This is not healthy.”  Not healthy for whom?  Sam Giancana knew too much, so they whacked him.  I hope Elon Musk has good bodyguards.