By Colonel Kenneth Allard

Amidst all the insufferable virtue-claiming of the last week - including the ongoing morality play of the January 6th hearings - I've been pre-occupied by one thought: The Hullabaloo sounds awfully arrogant for a country with 60 million infant deaths on its much-abused conscience. Particularly nauseating examples of the self-deception orgy include the circumlocution of "reproductive freedom" and "women's health-care" to obscure the definitive act of the new Democratic sacrament: the surgical dismemberment of a live baby snatched from its mother 's womb.

How can a country with such a track record be so complacent, especially when our adversaries have directly threatened us over the last fortnight with nuclear war? Although such concerns are seldom raised in polite company, my military career included studying under Professor William Kaufman of MIT. He was the genius who authored, for SECDEF Robert McNamara, the Single Integrated Operations Plan by which American nuclear forces would attack the Soviet Union. The applied mathematics had a seductive logic: numbers of delivery vehicles and warheads, effective mega-tonnage, targets lists arrayed by Overall Probability of Kill (requiring two warheads per target). We tried to ignore the implications of over a thousand attacks by both Blue and Red forces. "We destroyed everything on our target list but would the world survive?" Sorry, but that was well beyond the scope of our classroom problem. Even more worrying, the Soviets engaged in similar war-games but with a critical difference. While Americans typically asked, "How much is enough?" our Soviet counter-parts had an entirely different approach: "How much is demonstrably too much?"

So why would today's Russian and Chinese adversaries be deterred from attacking the US to achieve those interests they consider vital - from Ukraine to Taiwan? Is there something in Joe Biden's halting demeanor that might make them hesitate? Or in the fearsome war-fighting mien of General Mark Milley, best known for suggesting that our armed forces should be imbued with an in-depth knowledge of critical race theory? National security practitioners in both Russia and China routinely point out that the United States is so far the only world power to use nuclear weapons in combat, relatively modest demonstration shots (by modern standards) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why should old white men in their dotage be the only ones to enjoy such a useful operational monopoly?

Naturally, those are inconvenient questions to pose with the virtue-claimants still in full cry. For me, one of the most appalling was a Supreme Court demonstrator carrying a hand-lettered sign: JEWS FOR ABORTION RIGHTS. Excuse me? Perhaps those rights were granted sometime after the conflicts in which Ancient Israel was specifically warned against tolerating Canaanite worship of their baby-killing god Molech. https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/4372130/jewish/The-Tragic-History-of-Molech-Child-Sacrifice.htm. And how to reconcile abortion with King David's eloquent words in Psalm 139: "You made all the delicate parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb...You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.." (Ps 139, 15-16 NIV).

Instead of defiling the Supreme Court, those pro-abortion demonstrators might have considered our history, when Americans were forcibly confronted by the manifold evils of slavery, our long-running foundational sin. On the north wall of the Lincoln Memorial are engraved the immortal words of his Second Inaugural, delivered just 41 days prior to his assassination. "Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' "

I keep wondering if that same calculus could be applied again - this time to atone for the 60 million infants sacrificed on the unholy altar of Roe v Wade. Would it include prompt mega-deaths from a nuclear strike or the lingering effects of radiation spread downwind from the smoking remnants of America’s great cities? Should we fall to our knees to pray for grace and forgiveness or just shrug and carry on as before, hoping that Lincoln was exaggerating when he declared that the Lord's judgments are "true and righteous altogether?"

Colonel Kenneth Allard, United States Army (Ret.) is a Vietnam-era draftee who became a West Point professor and Dean of the National War College. He is also the author of Command, Control and the Common Defense, winner of the 1991 National Security Book Award. After leaving active duty, he served for nearly a decade as an on-air military analyst for the networks of NBC News.

Megyn Kelly: "I know a sham trial when I see one."

Enough about COVID-19. Ever since Nancy Pelosi’s phony January 6 committee premiered its made-for-TV hearings, we’ve known that a much more serious health risk is posed by Trump Derangement Syndrome. We now have scientific proof that TDS is a brain-eating disease.

How do we know? Well, it turns out that when enough brain cells have been consumed by the fiery hatred of Donald Trump, it’s impossible to tell actual evidence from essentially worthless, uncorroborated hearsay and even outright lying. To the patient with this advanced level of brain damage, the only thing that gives such “evidence” value is its ability to put Trump in a bad light and damage his political viability as we careen towards 2024.

The testimony of a former aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about events she said took place on January 6 is perhaps the ultimate example of this. We’ve learned that this “emergency” meeting to quickly make public some fast-breaking testimony was nothing of the sort. It was a lie to create a sense of urgency around the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson. Why, it was so important, this kangaroo court had to change its plan for a two-week hiatus and hop to it! But by then, they’d already completed four video interviews with her.

So they’d had plenty of time to corroborate her hearsay testimony with the Secret Service but had never reached out. They still could’ve done it during their so-called hiatus. But perhaps they sensed it might spoil a good thing. Wouldn’t want to get in the way of a great anti-Trump story! (Like that fake “pee tape” yarn --- how long were they able to keep THAT going?)

The fact that the committee failed to reach out to the Secret Service has been reported by POLITICO, not exactly a bastion of support for Trump.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/29/jan-6-hutchinson-secret-service-00043164

The leadership behind the J6 committee consists mostly of people with fancy law degrees and lots of experience with hearings and rules of evidence. The hypothesis that they’ve lost billions of brain cells due to TDS explains why they didn’t realize how quickly Hutchinson’s testimony would be demolished by people with firsthand knowledge, and how much that would discredit their entire operation.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/liz-cheney-republicans-loyal-trump-constitution

As POLITICO reported, attorneys for Hutchinson said Wednesday she stands by “all of the testimony.” But the Secret Service said it would have been a simple matter for committee members to access any documents or witnesses they’d thought might be relevant. They just didn’t do it.

One especially puzzling part of Hutchinson’s testimony is that she claimed to have written a particular note herself, when White House attorney Eric Herschmann says he wrote it. POLITICO and other news outlets are downplaying the significance of this apparent lie, saying it doesn’t matter who wrote the note, as the important thing is that it shows Trump was being advised to immediately instruct supporters to leave the Capitol. They’re failing to ask why the committee chose to call Hutchinson as a witness and not Herschmann. None of the committee’s choices are accidental; there must be some reason why they wanted the note in evidence but not Herschmann as a witness. They preferred Hutchinson on-camera, even if she had to misrepresent the note as hers. We’d like to know why.

Also, Mark Meadows, Hutchinson’s boss at the time, denies that he requested a pardon from Trump over the events of January 6, as Hutchinson testified he did. Here’s an excellent take:

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/06/29/mark-meadows-my-aide-is-lying-about-me-requesting-a-pardon-over-january-6-n2609552

Megyn Kelly, no fan of Trump, thinks Trump “embarrassed himself” with his reaction to the outcome of the election, but even so, she says a “first-year law student” could drive a truck through the holes in Hutchinson’s testimony. Actually, we think any reasoned person should be able to do it, no law school necessary.

https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/06/29/megyn-kelly-explains-why-a-first-year-law-student-could-have-driven-a-truck-through-holes-in-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony/

That touch of TDS Kelly experienced –- presumably when he made a less-than-gentlemanly remark about her during his presidential campaign –- was perhaps just enough to inoculate her against the more serious and incapacitating form. So even though she still has doubts about Trump’s “temperament,” she’s able to think coherently and objectively about the workings of this committee.

Her video is a must-watch, and reiterates quite bluntly what we’ve been saying. “This committee has one goal and only one goal,” she says. “Stop Donald Trump from running again in 2024. They’re worried he could win. They absolutely loathe him. And they will do what it takes to stop his political resurrection.”

She debunks these hearings in short order, particularly the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson. She notes all the paraphrases of stories Hutchinson heard secondhand and even features a montage of her using the frequent qualifier “something to the effect of.”

This deficiency obviously didn’t matter to the committee. It “cloaks itself in sanctimony,” Kelly said, “purporting to be a fair-minded, down-the-middle finder of fact, just looking to get to the truth of January 6. IT’S A LIE. And they prove every time they get together that it’s a lie.”

Note: Kelly personally has a view different from mine on Trump’s feelings about the violence at the Capitol; her take-away is that he approved of it. Perhaps some residual mild TDS infection is still lurking in some of her cells, as after chickenpox. She’s to be commended for functioning so well in spite of this.

Kelly also does not mention the denial from Tony Ornato that he had the conversation with Hutchinson described by her in testimony, about Trump attacking Secret Service agents and grabbing the steering wheel. That might have been reported after she made this video, but she doesn’t need it to debunk the hearing.

What she demonstrates in this video is how the testimony might have gone if there'd been any cross-examination. And let me tell you, Megyn would have been a great one to do it. She has got skills.

“I actually think I’m in a unique spot on this front,” she concludes. “I feel no need to defend Trump or his character, as this audience knows. But I know a sham trial when I see one. And this is not justice, it is not fair, and it is not to be trusted.”

Further reading:

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2022/06/28/j6-committee-just-kneecapped-themselves-over-evidence-in-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony-n585882

https://dailycaller.com/2022/06/29/january-6-committee-razors-edge-andrew-mccarthy/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/secret-service-wasnt-contacted-by-jan-6-committee-before-hutchinson-testimony

Andrew C. McCarthy sees this as less of a problem with the witness’s hearsay testimony than it is with the committee’s failure to question and cross-examine.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-closer-look-at-the-hearsay-claims-surrounding-hutchinsons-trump-testimony/

LEAVE ME A COMMENT HERE, I READ THEM!

A Biden Flip-flop

For those keeping score, President Biden, is so horrified that the people’s representatives might be allowed to decide the issue of abortion instead of unelected judges, he has now flip-flopped and supports killing the Senate filibuster so that the Supreme Court can be stacked to always do whatever the left wants. Wow, I'm so glad we have these people in charge to protect "our democracy!"

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-support-ending-filibuster-protect-abortion-access

Let’s hope that Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema continue to resist the pressure and threats and prevent the Democrats from doing something so destructive, anti-American, and considering the upcoming elections, potentially suicidal for them.

Mission impossible: Translating for VP Harris