RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/and-the-fair-land-thanksgiving-11669155343?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-desolate-wilderness-thanksgiving-plymouth-pilgrims-nathaniel-morton-william-bradford-11669155132?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof:

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

https://amac.us/pelosis-legacy-of-failure-and-political-malfeasance/

Late last week, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi formally announced that she would officially step down from leadership, marking an end to a two-decade reign as the top House Democrat. While elected Democrats and the mainstream media have unsurprisingly heaped praise on the 82-year-old Californian, gushing about the “historic” nature of her speakership, the harsh reality is that Pelosi’s tenure was marked by some of the most disastrous decisions in U.S. history, the radicalization of the Democratic Party, and the degradation of American political culture more broadly.

Pelosi has often said that her entire approach to governance can be summarized by a vital lesson her father taught her in her formative years: “No one is going to give you power. You have to seize it.” From the time she first rose to prominence as the House Minority Leader in 2003, Pelosi has taken that refrain to heart, constantly clawing for as much power as possible. While in the minority, Pelosi had a limited ability to stop Republican legislation. But where she could cause the GOP headaches, she did, including on popular border security and Social Security reform measures.

Democrats finally won back the House majority in 2006, handing Pelosi the Speaker’s gavel for the first time, and she was reelected in 2008. The defining moment of her first tenure as Speaker would come in 2010 with the passage of Obamacare. With large Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress, a Democrat in the White House, and a liberal Supreme Court, Pelosi mortgaged the political future of dozens of House Democrats to ram through a gargantuan and deeply unpopular bill that upended the American healthcare system.

In defending the legislation, Pelosi inadvertently let slip one of her most infamous quotes: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” When Americans did find out, they were none too happy, and Democrats lost 63 House seats later that year.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/22/hard-truths-and-radical-possibilities/

The constitutional republic created by our founders no longer exists. Most everyone on the Right seems to agree with that—though we differ about how deep the rot is, and whether we are now living under a new regime that is essentially different in kind, not merely degree. 

Most of us also agree that we want to restore the American founders’ principles and institutions. (I’m setting aside, for now, those on the Right who share our disgust with the woke oligarchy, but who have given up on—or never believed in—republican government, and would prefer something else, like a monarchy.) But how exactly we recover the founders’ constitutionalism is a question no one has been able to answer with any specificity. Any course of action has to be clear about where we are and the challenges we face. The following outline is intended to help us think about these questions. 

Here are the key things that I think are new or different, in some cases fundamentally so. These claims will be unsettling or even upsetting to some readers; but I don’t think they can be dismissed out of hand. At the end, I offer some ideas about what has not changed, which might provide some grounds for optimism. 

I.

Elections—and therefore consent and popular sovereignty—are no longer meaningful.

This is the big one, and in a way, everything flows from it. It is helpful to break it down into two discrete pieces.

First, even if conducted legitimately, elections no longer reflect the will of the people. 

Set aside for the moment any concerns about outright fraud and ballot tampering. The steady growth of the administrative state since the 1960s means that bureaucracy has become increasingly indifferent to—even openly hostile to—the will of the people over the last half-century. A clear majority of Americans, including Democrats (at least until recently), has been demanding and voting for comprehensive immigration reform, including strict control of the border, for decades. The Republican establishment in Congress—which made its peace with the deep state some time ago—has made numerous promises to fix this problem, and broken them all, always finding a reason for “amnesty now, enforcement later.” The decision about who gets to be part of the political community was the basic principle of popular sovereignty in the founders’ social compact theory. To the degree that the elites have simply ignored the American people on this point, neither the United States as a nation nor its citizens can still be considered a sovereign people. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/what-the-gop-can-do-in-a-divided-government/

Now that the Republicans have a slim majority in the House, they need to use all the powers available to them to slow down the Dems’ abuse of power and assault on the Constitution. This means both now and next term,  no “bipartisanship,” no preemptive cringes to ward off media attacks, and no “negotiations,” over raising the debt ceiling, for example, that don’t get some substantive concessions for pruning back the Democrats’ fiscal excesses.

Come January, the most obvious actions are House committee hearings and investigations. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, along with Jim Jordan (Ohio), James Comer (Ky), and other representatives, have already announced possible hearings on numerous issues: the origins of Covid, the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the porous southern border, the politicizing of federal law enforcement, Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme, and Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling. About the latter, Comer said, “We are going to make it very clear that this is now an investigation of President Biden.”

In addition, the House will have the power to boot Dems from committees, as Speaker-elect Kevin McCarthy has promised. Then there’s the power to pass articles of impeachment, not just of the president, but of officials like AG Merrick Garland, FBI chief Christopher Wray, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, on whose watch nearly four million illegal aliens have crossed the border. Without control of the Senate, however, a conviction is impossible, though the House investigation that precedes the vote on articles of impeachment can be a potent way to consolidate and publicize the administration’s many failures and violations of the Constitution.

More substantial, and politically risky, is exercising the “power of the purse” to slow down the profligate spending that has caused the worst inflation in 40 years. Article 1.7.1. of the Constitution stipulates that “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”

This power given to the House is one of the most consequential checks the Founders created to balance the powers of the Senate and the Executive branches. More important, it is a compensation to the people for the Constitution’s antidemocratic structures. For many Framers, the ancient Athenian  “extreme democracy,” as Aristotle called it, and its demise in the 4th century B.C. epitomized the dangers of popular rule. That ancient history, along with the political, sometimes violent disorder caused by the overly democratic state governments in the decade between the Revolution and the Constitutional convention, made many Founders wary of giving too much direct power to the volatile, uninformed masses.