Rule 8

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Nov 2016

Number 8 of Saul D. Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals reads , “Keep the pressure on.  Never let up.”  Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance.  As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.  (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)

Barack Obama is an acolyte of Saul D. Alinsky, having trained at his school of social organization.  He is an acolyte of ACORN, a now -defunct Alinskyite organization for which he served as legal counsel.  He is a disciple of Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers, and racist reverend Jeremiah (God damned Amerika!) Wright, in whose pews he sat for twenty years allegedly without hearing or learning anything.  Progressives across America have been violently protesting the election of Donald Trump to succeed Obama as President of the United States, and when invited by the press to tell his people to stifle and give the new man a chance, Obama replied with advice for his fellow- travelers “not to stay silent.”

We have the cast of the Broadway play “Hamilton” presuming to lecture the Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence from the stage.  The actors have been immersed in the history of the American revolution and have learned nothing about the need for civil discourse in public affairs.

Senator Charles Schumer (N-NY) will become the new minority leader in the Senate in the next session of congress with the retirement of the execrable Harry Reid (D-NV).  Schumer promises fierce resistance to the judicial and cabinet appointments of the incoming administration.  In particular, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is going to receive his second dose of “borking.”

Thirty years ago, President Ronald Reagan nominated Alabama Attorney-General Jeff Sessions to a Federal judgeship, an appointment that requires Senate confirmation.  Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Senator Joe Bite-me (D-Neptune) run the Senate judiciary committee at the time.  Kennedy and Bite-me developed the technique which came to be known as “borking” on Jeff Sessions.  Entirely false and scurrilous accusations were made against the nominee, a cloud of suspicion was created, and the nomination was scuttled on the basis of suspicion.  Sessions’ nomination was a small affair, but when the same method was employed later in the year against Reagan’s nominee for the Supreme Court Robert Bork, it became known as ‘borking.”

The people of Alabama knew Sessions better than the news media in Washington, D.C. and they elected him repeatedly to the U.S. Senate to serve alongside such ornaments as Senator Kennedy and Senator Bite-me.  At his last election, Senator Sessions was elected unopposed.

Now that Sessions has been selected to serve as President Donald Trump’s Attorney-General, Chuck Schumer is promising a bruising nomination battle, founded upon the scurrilous falsehoods leveled against Sessions thirty years ago.  Schumer is not as progressive as Barack Obama, but Schumer is nevertheless a vicious partisan.  During the nomination hearings of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, I witnessed Schumer saying that he had “not yet made up his mind” about how he was going to vote on the nomination, and I saw Schumer’s nose grow an inch there and then.  As expected, Schumer voted against the nomination.  One can only hope that since Schumer has openly declared that he is going to engage in scurrilous, partisan mud-slinging to block the Sessions appointment, that Republican Senators apply the lessons they’ve learned and play smash-mouth politics themselves.  No parliamentary maneuver is too low to defeat Senator Schumer’s campaign.

Then there is the media.  Since I do not watch the Clinton News Network or MSNBC, I get my news primarily from Fox.  Juan Williams is Fox’s view into the liberal-progressivist mind, and he too is making entirely worrisome noises about the Trump Administration.  On the Nov 20^th edition of Fox News Sunday, Williams said this about retired Lt-Gen Michael Flynn, the incoming National Security Adviser and retired head of the Defense Intelligence Agency:

“I think the question really is about the appointments and the appointment process. So you have people who I would say don't fit into exactly a team of rivals, but to many people a team of radicals. A team of radicals in terms of, what are these people representing? Flynn, Mike Flynn, I don't think he could be confirmed, but so he's getting the -- the national security advisor job. …. And the way that he left there and questions about his management style and about sharing information and what some in the intelligence community call "Flynn facts," which is facts that don't comport with what others in the intelligence community believe to be true. Colin Powell writing in the WikiLeaks leak that he thought he was unhinged. I think this tells you this -- it would be very difficult….Well, I think when you think about someone like Flynn, Americans, … are concerned when you look at his ties to Russia, his ties to Vladimir Putin. When they think about his ties to Turkey –“

At this point, panelist and Trump supporter Laura Ingraham interrupted:

INGRAHAM: What are they, Juan? What are you talking about?

WILLIAMS: Well, remember, he went --

INGRAHAM: Are you just throwing out --

INGRAHAM: Yes. OK. Well, there was a lot said by Juan. But you said team of radicals. This is the kind of stuff that has turned people against Washington, D.C. And these type -- this -- these types of lines against true patriots, who sacrificed for their country, who are beloved among the men and women in the military, who actually do the heavy lifting for all of us. Mattis, General Mattis, is one of the most beloved Marines of the last 50 years. General Flynn is considered one of the pre-eminent intelligence experts of our age. So to throw out these lines, a team of radicals, that serves nobody's interest. If you have a substantive disagreement with their approach to fighting terror or their approach to intelligence, that's fine. But these blithe comments, I think, have poisoned political discussion in this country, and I think it's exactly why people despise this city.”

Exactly right.  Mike Flynn is a thirty-year career intelligence officer who rose to the highest ranks and responsibilities of his profession.  His security clearance is so high it would give Juan Williams a nose-bleed.  Yet the insight into liberal thinking is suggesting that Flynn would sell-out America to Russia or Turkey, for what?  A dinner?

It used to be that Americans selling-out America was a noble thing to liberals.  And Russia used to be a favored liberal and progressive place during the days of the old Soviet Union.  Now, when it’s convenient, the liberal is now saying that selling-out is bad, and that a conservative patriot highly, highly trusted and vetted by the U.S government was going to do it.

Progressives never give in.  That is why they deserve no quarter from the Republicans, or from Trump.  Incivility breeds incivility.  Incivility can only be smashed by incivility.

-30-