Civilization means that officials and authorities, whether uniformed or not, whether armed or not, are made to realize that they are servants and not masters. Thus wrote Winston Churchill in a 1936 article published in Collier’s, a then-popular American magazine. He was writing about constitutions, the British and the American, and about constitutionalism in general, at a time when free governments were under severe and growing challenge by virulent new dictatorships in Germany, Russia, and Italy. We serve by speaking truth, abiding by our agreements, seeing ourselves in others. As he saw it, democracy occupies a middle ground, walking a balance that holds away from tyranny on the one side and anarchy on the other. Ideologues may see it as an excluded middle, but that is true only if life is reducible to a syllogism. In his rich genius, he knew better than the grim ideologues who relentlessly and methodically used power to make the lives of their citizens as barren abstractions. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: The Bible: Kill Before They Kill) Tyrants always see anarchy in free societies and are offended by free institutions that clutter the simplicity of their conceptions with what to them is only meaningless debate and antiquated procedures.  In his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Churchill quotes the first King James complaining about Parliament to the ambassador of the profoundly autocratic Kingdom of Spain: The House of Commons is a body without a head. The Members give their opinions in a disorderly manner. At their meetings, nothing is heard but cries, shouts, and confusion. I am surprised that my ancestors should ever have permitted such an institution to come into existence … I am obliged to put up with what I cannot get rid of. Small wonder that the son of King James, feeling less of an obligation than his father to the status quo, got rid of Parliament for a decade, thereby propelling Britain towards civil war. Skipping ahead a few centuries, Mussolini posed a stark duality between democratic talk and fascist action, and he truly delivered on his promise to make the trains run on time. (Taken Amtrak lately?) To come home to America, we still look on the Sixties as the decade in which we took freedom to the extreme of cacophony, not just an unruly Parliament but seemingly a whole generation wildly off track. Interestingly, one of the strongest voices for freedom verging on chaos, Ken Kesey, was also an unromantic and severe critic of the excesses of the tripsters of those days. In an early Seventies interview, he criticized what he called “the communal lie”: I remember delegates from two large communes stopping by once at my farm and negotiating in great tones of importance the trade of one crate of cantaloupes, which the southern commune had grown, for one portable shower, which the northern commune had ripped off of a junk yard. When this was over, they strutted around in an effluvium of “See? We’re self-supporting.” A crate of melons and a ratty shower isn’t enough summer’s output for sixty-some people to get off behind. It was part of a lie that the entire psychedelic community, myself more than most, was participating in. When a bunch of people, in defense of their lifestyle, have to say, “Look how beautiful we were at Woodstock!” I can’t help but ask, “How was your cantaloupe crop this year?” Being beautiful, or cool, or hip is too often a clean-up for not pulling weeds. So how can free people coordinate with each other without indulging in self-deception? Can we embrace the truth that is the pre-requisite to a workable life? On the national level, the best method we’ve found has been constitutionalism. People choose to establish public coherence by foregoing the lies that deliver us only one box of cantaloupe and a broken stolen shower. We accept the difficulties of holding ourselves to a standard because we prefer the fruits of an abundant commonwealth to the ease of self-deception. We turn away from the fantasies sold to us by utopians to be true to the totality of what we have received so far, the intuition within and the examples without of those who provided us what we have needed to then take on our role of providers. We accept with gratitude the gifts of those who have sacrificed for us.  We embrace the reality of the larger self they modeled, the one that sees itself in the future, profoundly alive in all who adopt the ideal of service in personal and political life. This larger self is the key to our personal development and to our national development. It is the awakening to a truth that is timeless even as it plays out in the history of our lives. It makes possible unselfish service, to our families, our communities, and our nation, the concentric circles of realization and commitment. The dedication to truth brings us beyond the projection and exporting of blame to others, as, however blameworthy others may be, we only find the freedom to do better from within. There is the clarion call (the shofar blast) of Genesis’ declaration that we humans, both as individuals and as a group, are in the unified image of the One. The key to the good society and the key to the good personal life are the same thing. Which brings us back to Churchill on civilized government. When the Kesey’s communal lie rules, those wielding governmental power see themselves as comprehensively superior to those without power. Truth is only the truth of power, and this infects all their interactions. Worst of all, it infects language. They are sophists — the goal of communication is to persuade others, not to pursue truth together. So, the statement “The laptop bears all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation” was meant to conceal rather than to reveal the truth about the laptop, because the truth would have weakened the chances of these government officials to retain power. (READ MORE: As John Adams Knew, We Must Hold To Received Traditions) But clever parsing is only the first step. Though such parsing is clearly deceptive, at least it contains the hypocrite’s implicit nod to truth; as Kesey once said, “At least hypocrites acknowledge that truth exists. Today, we don’t even bother to be hypocrites.” And so eventually, it devolves to straightforward lying. Thus, Obama assured Alan Dershowitz in 2012 that he was going to be vigilant with Iran, as America expected. But Obama had no intention of being true , even by tortuous parsing, to the expectations he was deliberately cultivating. By 2015 Dershowitz was condemning the man he had supported for president, writing that Obama had betrayed “the promise he repeatedly made before he was re-elected: namely that ‘we are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons [so] rest assured, we will take no options off the table. We have been clear.’” As in the case of poison gas in Syria, Obama spoke of “red lines” only for the effect the words would have in controlling popular support. When Assad crossed that line, nothing happened. Clearly, Obama felt that the public was to be controlled, not persuaded. Such a person is no longer a public servant; such a person is using the public to serve himself. Churchill’s idea is rooted deeply in the constitutional tradition. John Selden, the 17th-century constitutionalist, repeatedly identified abiding by agreements as “the universal first principle of every law and society” as Ofir Haivry put it. When language is subverted, no agreement is possible. Those who subvert language think agreement is unnecessary so long as they have power to act as they see fit. In the place of universal principles, divine law, to which all are accountable, such wielders of governmental power hold themselves answerable to no one and nothing. Churchill might then say: You may have power, but you will no longer have civilization. Civilization depends on using power to serve. We serve by speaking truth, abiding by our agreements, seeing ourselves in others, and so grounding patterns of reciprocal altruism in the core of our character. Our character and our civilization are both at stake in our politics. We have seen the results of choosing power over character. Let us choose faithful service instead. The post Civilization Means Power Used in Service to the Public appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Despite this wanton degeneracy, Biden still claims to be a Catholic — in fact, his lackeys in the media world often tout him as a “devout Catholic.” But a former Vatican official has a different term to describe America’s most radically pro-abortion President. In a recent speech at the Napa Institute in Washington, D.C., Cardinal Robert Sarah labeled Biden a “cafeteria Catholic.” Christ has already conquered death, that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Church. The former head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, Sarah lamented that Christianity’s influence has waned in the West. He noted, “The West, while not the birthplace of Christianity, is the home of much of what was once called ‘Christendom’ and much of what has become modern society, the roots of which are firmly European.” The West African prelate observed that many Catholics in the West have adopted the secular mindset of the “general population” and have allowed their faith to become dethroned, subjecting it to modern ideas and values. (READ MORE from: In Defense of the Sacred Heart) “You have a self-identified Catholic who is an example of what Cardinal Gregory recently described as ‘cafeteria Catholic,’” Sarah continued, referring to Washington archbishop Wilton Gregory’s comments earlier this year. Biden’s promotion of abortion, transgenderism, gay “marriage,” and a host of other evils or vices places him squarely in contradiction to the perennial moral teachings of the Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.” Therefore, the Church warns of the “moral evil of every procured abortion.” The Catechism continues, “This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” So grave, in fact, is the sin of abortion that it carries with it the penalty of latae sententiae excommunication — that is, the evil is so grave and so clear that excommunication is automatic, no trial or tribunal is required. In Catholic teaching, excommunication is the most stringent and serious of penalties that can be imposed, effectively cutting off the soul from communion with the Church, which is the mystical Body of Christ. More than just a penalty, latae sententiae excommunication serves as both a warning against and a remedy for extreme evils, too. Such a consequence denotes for Catholics the severe depravity of certain acts, warning those who value their faith to keep as far from such evils as possible. But it also serves to call those who obstinately engage in such evils to repent, seek forgiveness, and return to the Body of Christ. In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — at the time, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office and later Pope Benedict XVI — issued a strict warning that politicians who both promote abortion and claim to be Catholic must be informed of the evil they are endorsing and forbidden from receiving Holy Communion, which the Catholic Church proclaims to be the Body and Blood of Christ. Pope Francis reaffirmed this in 2013, declaring that those who call themselves Catholic “cannot receive Holy Communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and family are encouraged. This responsibility weighs particularly over legislators, heads of governments, and health professionals.” In his speech, Sarah lamented that authentic Catholic faith, already a minority belief in America, has “been traded for cultural assimilation.” Despite this, Sarah did see reasons for hope in the Church in America. “The Catholic Church in the United States is very different from the Church in Europe,” he said. “The Faith in Europe is dying, and in some places is dead. The interaction between severely secular governments and the Church have not served the Faith very well.” (READ MORE: Pride Month, Leftism, and ‘The Ape of the Church’) Nearly 100 years ago, the Catholic convert, essayist, novelist, and apologist G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” While the cognitively-dissonant apostasy of such a high-profile figure as Biden and the monstrous advance of not merely secular but openly anti-Christian ideologies and practices across the West — which, as Sarah so wisely noted, has long been the home of Christianity — may have the appearance of eventual and final defeat, may even appear apocalyptic at times, it is crucial to recall that Christ has already conquered death, that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Church He founded, and that even in what may look like the darkest of hours, Christ will lead those who love Him out of the grave. The post Cardinal Castigates ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ Joe Biden appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Three cheers for Lauren Bowman Bis and her searing, yet entertaining, video on “voters” in Nevada. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Nevada’s unforgiving ultraviolet rays have plenty to purify in and around Sin City. Bis — the Public Interest Legal Foundation’s communications director — guilelessly drives through the heavily Democrat deserts of greater Las Vegas. She searches high and low for voters registered with home addresses at a 7-11, a Walgreens, a Sonic restaurant, several bars, the UFC Performance Institute (a Mixed Martial Arts facility), a mortuary, and even vacant lots full of sand and cacti. Surprise, surprise! None of these voters actually resides in those places, as Nevada law requires. “Hi, my name’s Lauren,” Bis says at a Post Office in Pahrump, near the California border. “I’m looking for Michael Clark and Michael Woodford.” “Hi. Don’t know,” a female postal worker replies. “Okay,” Bis asks. “They don’t live here?” The postal staffer responds: “No. No one lives here.” “I’m looking for William Bidlack,” Bis tells an employee at Red Dragon Gaming & Spirits” on Vegas’ Sahara Avenue. “No idea,” says the lady behind the counter. Bis queries, “Okay, so he doesn’t live here?” Wondering why this is unclear, the Red Dragon lady explains: “This is a casino.” “Hi, I’m Lauren. I’m looking for William Sitton,” Bis announces at the Clark County Detention Center. “William Sitton,” a uniformed officer recalls. “I know for a fact he was an inmate here.” The lawman states: “William Sitton passed away last year.” These and many other systemic failures notwithstanding, state officials will spray mail-in ballots at imaginary people, in equally dubious places, all across Nevada. These phantom ballots likely will languish at these locations. How many will get scooped up, completed, and “harvested” by evildoers? Who knows? The November 5 election might be very close, as so many races have been lately. The White House could hinge on Nevada’s six electoral votes, as could control of the U.S. Senate and House. So, I asked one congressional candidate for his views on PILF’s video and the ominous problem it highlights. My friend Drew Johnson is the Republican nominee for the U.S. House in Nevada’s Third District. He is an industrious and intrepid free-market activist, policy analyst, and opinion journalist whom I have known and admired since 2002. Johnson’s detailed reflections on this matter demand attention: PILF’s video mentioned a voter who resides at a strip club in my district. I looked up the address. It’s a Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, and the voter is still registered there, according to Nevada voting records. That one bogus vote could change the outcome of an election. In 2022, I ran as a Republican for a seat on the Clark County Commission, the body that oversees elections for 73 percent of Nevadans. All seven commissioners have been Democrats since 2008. But on Election Night, I led by 2,900 votes. A week later, after several thousand late ballots trickled in — many without postmarks to prove that they were sent by Election Day, and others from voters residing at these bogus addresses — the county election department determined that I lost by 336 votes out of 107,182 cast. The problem in Nevada is that during COVID-19, the Democrat state legislature passed a law to mail an absentee ballot to every active voter, whether the voter requested one or not. Beyond that, Nevada has no photo ID requirement to determine whether the person who completed and submitted the ballot is the actual voter. The only verification is a machine that judges whether the signature on the ballot envelope is authentic. Each county election chief can select the machines’ signature-verification sensitivity level. If it’s set low enough, nearly every squiggle qualifies as a valid signature, and every ballot gets counted, so long as it isn’t signed with an X or a straight line. In 2022, 10 Clark County races were decided by fewer than 1,500 votes. Miraculously, Democrats won, and Republicans lost, all 10 of these races. This is either an amazing statistical anomaly or one hell of a lot of shenanigans. I’m the Republican nominee for one of America’s most competitive U.S. House seats, and I know going in that my election will not be totally fair. My entire district is in Clark County, so which ballots are and are not counted will be decided by a bureaucrat hired by the all-Democrat County Commission. Will she clean the voter rolls before the election and remove the guy who supposedly lives at the strip club? Will she set the signature-verification levels so low that ballots with possibly forged signatures get counted? Will she let ballots potentially harvested from apartment-mailroom trash cans drift in, days after the election, without postmarks, and then get counted? Sad as it is, my team and I assume that to win by one vote, we must secure 4,000 to 5,000 more actual voters than my opponent. It’s unfair, but when one party controls the system, and the courts refuse to step in, clean the voter rolls, and prevent illegitimate mail-in ballots from being counted, the system is stacked against us. Fortunately, if we do our jobs and turn out enough voters, we will win. Unfortunately, the terms “too big to rig” and “outvote the cheat” are not responses to ridiculous conspiracy theories. They are the reality of how Republicans have to run their campaigns in Nevada. With the Oval Office potentially in the balance, the time is now to end this nonsense. Silver State leaders desperately need to obey the National Voters Registration Act of 1993 (AKA the Motor Voter Law). Under 52 U.S. Code § 205079(a)(4), state election officials “shall … conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters by reason of (A) the death of the registrant; or (B) a change in the residence of the registrant.” “Shall” means that Nevada authorities are legally obligated to get off their asses, stop breaking federal law, and get on with the vital business of cleansing election rolls of the unqualified, the relocated, and the deceased, as well as voters who do not actually live beneath craps tables and roulette wheels. Until America Makes Election Day Great Again, rather than suffer through Election Quarter, officials must assure that mail-in ballots reach only genuine, living, breathing, qualified voters at the residences where they fall asleep at night and awaken in the morning. This is not a suggestion. It’s a statute. And, as Democrats never tire of saying, no one is above the law. This includes election officials from Las Vegas to Lake Tahoe. PILF is suing to get this done. “After years of failing to identify and fix commercial addresses on the voter roll, PILF has taken legal action asking a court to force Nevada election officials to investigate and resolve these improper addresses listed on the voter roll,” PILF’s video explains. “These commercial addresses must be investigated and fixed by election officials before 2024 ballots hit the mail.” (Full disclosure: PILF represents your humble polemicist and three other plaintiffs in our federal lawsuit against New York City’s Board of Elections. We are trying to plunge a sharp, red-hot, 15th Amendment knife into the heart of NYC’s law that lets foreign citizens vote in local elections.) Democrat authorities must halt their relentless malfeasance, follow PILF’s lead, and sanitize their soiled vote records already. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. Nevada’s unforgiving ultraviolet rays have plenty to purify in and around Sin City, starting with Nevada’s corrupt voter registry. Many thanks to PILF and the disarmingly straightforward Lauren Bis and her video team. In just over six minutes, they showcase this festering boil in a manner that is, at once, amusing, enraging, and devastating. Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor. READ MORE from Deroy Murdock: Judge Merchan Is a Hoodlum in Black Robes In Sum, Trump’s Defense Focuses on Accounting, Prosecution Obsesses Over Adultery The Libertarian Case for Donald J. Trump   The post New Video: Vegas Voters ‘Reside’ in Bars and Strip Clubs appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I am sick and tired of reading headlines about the uninsured rate (i.e. the percentage of people who don’t have health insurance). When it’s down, pundits say Obamacare is working. When it’s up, Democrats claim it is Republicans’ fault for ruining healthcare. Americans care only because that’s what is shouted in their ears and constantly before their eyes: uninsured rate, uninsured rate. Maximum average wait times for care increased after the ACA to a medically dangerous 122 days for a primary care appointment. The goal of healthcare is not to have everyone insured. A healthcare system exists solely so provide the services of a medical professional. Not the promise of care but the reality of care, when patients need it. Complicit media has successfully sold snake oil. They make us believe that coverage — a health insurance policy — equals medical care. If you have the former, you will get the latter. Evidence proves precisely the opposite. First, people who have no insurance get care through the Emergency Medical Transport and Labor Act of 1986. EMTALA requires hospitals to provide urgent or emergent care for all persons regardless of whether the patient has insurance or does not, i.e., whether the hospital and doctors will be paid for care provided, or not. (READ MORE from Deane Waldman: Government Health Coverage for Illegals is a Bad Idea) Second, people who have insurance, particularly government-provided insurance, often wait so long for care they die while waiting in line. Such death-by-queue has been reported in Medicaid enrollees as well as veterans covered by Tricare. The false promise of coverage equals care is exploded by the seesaw effect. As the number of Americans with government insurance goes up, access to care goes down! This inverse (and adverse) consequence is proven by two facts. 1) As Obamacare expanded the Medicaid rolls, fewer doctors were willing to accept these patients for care. Approximately 30 percent are considering early retirement. More demand (for care) with less supply (fewer care givers) produces the seesaw effect. 2) Maximum average wait times for care increased after the ACA to a medically dangerous 122 days for a primary care appointment. Another metric commonly thrown at the public is cost. That medical costs are too high is obvious by simple observation, by painful direct experience, and by the number of bankruptcies induced by medical bills. When Washington fixes prices, viz., for drugs in Biden’s falsely titled Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, they claim to “make healthcare affordable for all Americans.” Like the mirage that coverage equals care, fixing prices does not make medical care more accessible, in fact, just the opposite. Price fixing by the government, no matter what is being price-fixed, invariably produces shortages and low quality. History has proven this economic fact. Recall the long lines of people in the U.S.S.R. waiting for “free” shoes, toilet paper, and medical care. Furthermore, fixing low prices for medicines will force pharmaceutical companies to cease research and development. So no new medical miracle drugs. Had Washington fixed drug prices back in the 1970s, today it is likely that children with leukemia would die instead of their 90+ percent cure rate. Americans are already suffering from price fixing in medical professional services. What the public sees as exorbitant doctor’s charges make great targets for price fixing or even price transparency advocates. A physician’s charges are meaningless in the real world. Medicaid and Medicare issue “allowable reimbursement schedules,” which are lists of predetermined payments for care services, usually a small fraction of the actual charges. Insurance companies and health plans generally follow these schedules when contracting with physicians.  And since Washington prohibits physicians from seeking the unpaid balance from patients, doctors are paid whatever Washington says, not what they charged. When asked why they are refusing to see new Medicaid patients, doctors point to two factors: the low reimbursement schedules, often below their cost-of-doing-business, and the time-wasting, costly regulatory burden. Price fixing strikes again — hurting, not helping, We the Patients. To offer the public a useful and accurate measure of how well our healthcare system is doing, do not offer the uninsured rate or fixed (low) prices for care. Show us the maximum wait times to get care. The title of an article in the British Medical Journal shows the danger patients face, “Every month delayed in cancer treatment can raise risk of death by around 10%.” Imagine what the current four-month delay is doing. (READ MORE: In Health Care, Job Growth Is Not Always Good) This author does not need to imagine. My wife waited seven months to see her primary doctor for abdominal pain. The diagnosis was inoperable pancreatic cancer. She died 22 months later. Might her cancer have been operable if her wait time had been four days instead of seven months? Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science; former Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former Director, New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of the multi-award winning book Curing the Cancer in U.S. Healthcare: StatesCare and Market-Based Medicine. The post Wait Times for Medical Care Matter appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The latest phase in the center ring of the longest circus in American politics, the 2024 campaign, has ended. Hunter Biden is guilty on all counts — where have we heard that before? — and up next is sentencing, another federal trial, and … It is only June, but Christmas might have come early for Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Dispassionate citizens, if there are any left across the landscape, my be satisfied that justice has been done; it was a case where the circumstances and charges were blatant, to an almost caricatured degree. Sympathetic parents and friends of addicts and self-destructive personalities they love, can withhold feelings of joy over the five-alarm fire that is Hunter Biden. (READ MORE from Rick Marschall: The Last of the Bidenocrats) There is no doubt, except for his cognitive cluelessness, that Joe Biden, father, grieves over this outcome. There is no doubt either that Joe Biden, politician, rejoices at the ironic life-preserver that has been tossed to him as he flails in the vortex of a doomed presidency and a cursed campaign. Biden and his wife and sister and handlers now have an ideal face-saving, if not life-saving, “out.” Beltway Biden has fashioned a career from his small-state sinecure of Delaware by excusing, evading, and enduring uncountable scandals, gaffes, and what would have been toxic disqualifications for other pols in other states. For half a century the Bidens’ sense of entitlement has been their hedge of protection. Finally, America understands Joe’s mantra about “threats to democracy” because his manipulation of the system has served him well. He has been the personification of that Threat. Yet “democracy” now is his undoing. There is too much toothpaste to put back in the tubes; too many defections from his obsequious base; too many people now laughing at the exposure of Emperor Joe’s new clothes. The sands of Rehobeth Beach finally have run through his hourglass. The big debate within his party and the nation at large is not the economy nor the border nor foreign-policy disasters, but … how to kick Joe off the ticket. With grace. Without offending the Old Man. Without insulting Kamala — because surely, her elevation would be the only worse situation than Four More Years of Joe. Who, what, when, where … and how? Then, along comes the blindfolded Goddess of Justice, on a charging steed. Things done in her name have been ineffectual in Donald Trump’s case, and cases, but she can save the day for Biden and his “legacy” and the Democrat Party in 2024. The political survival of Joe Biden has also been a perennial routine of whining and evading and changed subjects. From college suspension over plagiarism, to lying about his first wife’s death, to faking his academic resume, to inventing facts about his family — one of the times causing him to drop his 1988 presidential candidacy — to shamelessly distorting circumstances of his views on race, his voting record, his son’s death. Everything but actual tears have stained his record. He has aged like a Fine Whine. Hunter Biden is destined, or doomed, to wallow in a multitude of consequences for his multitude of sins, legal transgressions, and moral failures, for the rest of his life. He will be convicted, sentenced, pardoned, acquitted, re-tried — all or none of the above, and long after Biden Fatigue Syndrome has expired. Celebrity justice for a grifter. Since that is the inevitable case, Whiner-in-Chief Joe can see yet another opportunity to turn a lemon grove into lemonade. We can expect an announcement from the Whine House, that all of the family’s problems — this conviction being only the latest — have convinced Joe that his immediate priority is to “help his family heal,” to “be there” for his son, to focus on the family. He will leave the nomination to the convention, without recommendation.  But Biden’s “out” will provide major rejuvenation for the Democrat Party. A dozen candidates will emerge from under rocks. Kamala can be ignored, with no specific misogynist racist to blame. Public attention will be riveted, with a dose of optimistic hope and projection, on the shakeup in the 2024 campaign. Momentum might shift to a “peoples’ choice” as the election draws near, in the media’s breathless script. (READ MORE: My Career as George Santos’ Press Secretary) Joe will have a tribute video, perhaps even in prime time, at the convention. He will be propped up in a balcony seat and maybe even wave in the proper direction. Then he will be forgotten. Citizens, in turn, will forget Hunter and his manifold smoking guns — so to speak — and the nominee, and probably the next president — will forget them both. Biden will become as much of a forgotten figure as Jimmy Carter became in counsels and councils. It is only June, but Christmas might have come early for Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Rick Marschall is a former political cartoonist and frequent commentator. His 75th book, The Most Interesting American, about Theodore Roosevelt, recently was published by Post Hill Press. His weekly blog is MondayMinistry.com/blog. The post Biden Will Not Be the Nominee appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — Overspending has been such a part of the fabric of the nation’s capital that the fiscal watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste has gone through a number of pig mascots. It was Coburn who famously dismissed earmarks as “the gateway drug to Washington’s spending addiction.” Poppy the potbelly pig attended a CAGW news conference Wednesday to mark the release of its “2024 Congressional Pig Book,” which exposes billions in dubious spending via congressional earmarks. CAGW calls the pink pamphlet “The Book Washington Doesn’t Want You to Read.” (READ MORE from Debra J. Saunders: Hunter Biden Is Guilty. But You Knew That.) As Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican and rare skinflint politician in the town that math forgot, explained, the 8,222 earmarks exposed this year represent projects so unnecessary that sponsors don’t “dare spend their own taxpayers’ money, but they’re perfectly happy to have taxpayers in other communities foot the bill for them.” Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., summed up the practice, saying, “Earmarks are used to buy bad votes for bad bills.” The tab for these earmarks this fiscal year: $22.7 billion, according to CAGW. Both political parties look bad. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is the top earmark spender — followed by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Angus King, an Independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. CAGW gave Collins “the Whole Hog Award” while its “You Cannot be Serious Award” went to Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., for granting $1.7 million to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, even though, CAGW protests, the Gotham landmark held assets of $5 billion last year. To qualify for the Pig Book, a project must check at least one of these boxes — requested by only one chamber of Congress, not specifically authorized, not competitively awarded, not requested by the president, funded in excess of POTUS‘ spending plan or the previous year’s funding, not the subject of congressional hearings or serve only a local or special interest. Under such circumstances, the results are not optimal. As then Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James stated in 2015, “The biggest lesson I have learned from the F-35 is never again should we be flying an aircraft while we’re building it.” Overall, Democrats took advantage of earmarking opportunities by a much larger margin than Republicans, according to CAGW — 99.6 percent versus 62.4 percent. Some readers may recall the days when Washington could boast a small but hearty band of fiscal hawks reliably ready to take on big-spending boondoggles. Political giants such as former GOP Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma fought pork barrel profligacy and made senators who sponsored said projects squirm. It was Coburn who famously dismissed earmarks as “the gateway drug to Washington’s spending addiction.” Stories about a $223 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska inflamed public opinion against the practice. The heat was sufficiently intense that Washington did away with the practice for a decade, only to see it reemerge in 2021. This new Pig Book shines the spotlight on 8,222 earmarks. Since 1991, President Thomas Schatz said, CAGW has identified more than 130,000 earmarks that cost $460.3 billion. Since the mid-1990s, Communications Director Alexandra Schatz Abrams tells me, CAGW has used at least six pigs and piglets. Poppy was preceded by, among others, Faye and Annabelle, Rudy and Churchill. (READ MORE: November Is Coming and Biden Has Another Border Plan) Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Arizona, blamed the media for rewarding members with positive coverage “when they bring home the bacon.” They’re not giving away their money, Lesko warned. “That’s our money.” Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post This Porkbelly Pig Says Just Say No To Pork appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

It was a proud moment when the Philippines, where I lived for over five years, became the first country to accept biotech Golden Rice. That was in 2021. It’s now a dismal moment that the nation’s highest courts, acting independently of President Marcos or the legislature, have banned it, along with genetically-engineered Bt eggplant. Golden Rice began in the 1990s with collaboration between the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH-Zurich) and the University of Freiburg, Germany. Ingo Potrykus and Peter Byer were its main developers. ETH-Zurich itself, the European Commission’s agricultural research program, and the Rockefeller Foundation funded the project. As the FDA notes, the old-fashioned engineering through cross-breeding … is haphazard and slow, often taking centuries. Underdeveloped countries in Asia rely on rice to an extent Westerners cannot imagine. On my first trip here my female companion startled me when as a way of saying she was hungry she exclaimed “I need rice!” Unfortunately, in parallel with Western sliced white bread, their white rice provides little nutrition other than calories with a quick sugar fix. They start with brown rice and strip out anything healthy. (READ MORE from Michael Fumento: We Unlocked the Secret to Beating Obesity. It’s Time to Act Like It.) I wrote at tremendous length about Golden Rice in my 2003 book BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing the world, and in numerous articles. My late friend Norman Borlaug, was a major advocate for the grain. In his 2000 paper “Ending World Hunger. The Promise of Biotechnology and the Threat of Antiscience Zealotry,” he wrote, “The affluent nations can afford to adopt elitist positions and pay more for food produced by the so-called natural methods; the one billion chronically poor and hungry people of this world cannot. New technology will be their salvation, freeing them from obsolete, low-yielding, and more costly production technology.” Borlaug, called “The Father of the Green Revolution,” received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, with the Nobel Committee declaring, “More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world.” He developed wheat varieties and improved crop management practices that first transformed agricultural production in Mexico during the 1940’s and 1950’s and later in Asia and Latin America, sparking what today is known as the “Green Revolution.” Because of Borlaug’s achievements in preventing hunger, famine, and misery around the world, when he died the executive director of the UN World Food Program said he “saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived.” Borlaug “believed firmly in exploiting the new opportunities for creating novel genetic combinations to meet the challenges arising from climate change. He was also an advocate of ‘public good’ research, and argued for the free exchange of genetic material,” according to his obituary in the world’s most prestigious science journal, Nature. Despite his and the best efforts of many others, including the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) in partnership with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the appeal of Golden Rice could not defeat the anti-biotech lobby that could give a rodent’s rump about stuff like malnutrition in poorer countries because they’re sitting fat (often literally) and happy, suffering over-nutrition from the likes of U.S. Twinkies and British Cadbury Mini-Rolls. (“GMO -free,” natch.) But finally, three years ago, sanity won out in the Philippines. In short order: In October 2022, farmers in the Philippine province of Antique harvested nearly 70 tons of Golden Rice on a large scale for the first time. In January 2023, the Department of Agriculture Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) announced that more than 100 tons of fresh paddy “Malusog Rice” had been harvested across 17 pioneer production sites in the country. The harvested Golden Rice was distributed to households with pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and preschool children at risk of vitamin A deficiency in selected provinces. The rice was developed by splicing two daffodil genes and a third bacterial gene into the rice plant that encoded enzymes into the rice genome. These allow the rice plant to produce and accumulate beta-carotene, not incidentally giving it that daffodil color. The body readily absorbs the beta-carotene. Sadly, in the urban areas, Filipinos, especially the women, are absolutely exploding in girth such that most are now overweight and perhaps 15 percent are obese. By next week it will be a fifth. But it’s different in the provinces. Around one in five children from the poorest communities in the Philippines suffer from vitamin A deficiency, which affects an estimated 190 million children worldwide. It’s the most common cause of childhood blindness, as well as a contributing factor to a weakened immune system. As to Bt eggplant, in the Philippines, bugs rule and the country loses up to about three-fourths of its eggplants from insects, requiring massive spraying to even make a dent. Bt eggplant has the insecticide spliced in. “This milestone puts the Philippines at the global forefront in leveraging agriculture research to address the issues of malnutrition and related health impacts in a safe and sustainable way” said Dr. Jean Balié director General of IRRI, a CGIAR research center, at the time of approval. “The regulatory success of Golden Rice demonstrates the research leadership of DA-PhilRice and the robustness of the Philippine biosafety regulatory system,” he added. The attractive-looking rice has also received food safety approvals from regulators in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S., but the Philippines was the first country to approve commercial cultivation. Developed countries just don’t have much need for beta-carotene supplementation, and megadosing with store-bought supplements can be harmful. The Golden Rice project was always an affair of the heart — good people just trying to do good.   Potrykus and Beyer worked to legally secure Golden Rice as a humanitarian project and licensed it to Syngenta, a biopharmaceutical company, to protect the technology for non-commercial use. The inventors established a “Golden Rice Humanitarian Board” to oversee the development of the technology and grant licenses to national and international research organizations to adapt Golden Rice to local conditions.   The humanitarian sublicense allows resource-poor farmers to grow Golden Rice varieties royalty-free without additional costs for the trait. . The inventors credit Adrian Dubock of Syngenta with helping them navigate the complex intellectual property legal system to protect the technology for humanitarian use.   Alas, both the obvious usefulness of the crop and the lack of a major agricompany like Bayer behind it, has made it an easy target for green groups to delay, delay, delay, regulation. (Six years now and running in Bangladesh.) And to ultimately kill it in the Philippines. Recombinant gene-splicing (with myriad synonyms such as “GMOs” or the one I commonly use, “biotech,”) that Borlaug hailed as the continuation of his Green Revolution, is touted as dangerous. And the reason is pretty much just because it’s new and first done in the laboratory — ostensibly by foolish if not evil scientists such as Victor Frankenstein and Henry Jekyll. It also takes a lot of money to develop these methods, meaning the multi-national environmentalists and the left stand opposed to deep-pocketed companies such as Monsanto, now part of the much bigger multi-national Bayer. Yes, since it’s a much better technique for breeding it theoretically could cause more harm. That’s true of so much technology such as the internal combustion engine, which initially saved cities from the horrors of mountains of horse manure but have brought us the trains, planes, and automobiles that we can’t imagine life without. The same engine, of course, has made war vastly more deadly, has polluted the air of many cities, and is tagged, rightly or wrongly, as a major contributor to alleged global climate change. The arguments against recombinant genetic engineering largely come come down to what in legal terminology is called “touchy-feely,” and “warm and fuzzy.” Or perhaps imagine a petulant child crying “I don’t wanna!” Thus Greenpeace, which brought the Philippines lawsuit, speaks of “food sovereignty.” Eh? The Center for Food Safety has warned of “super weeds and super bugs,” meaning they have resistance to insecticides. That’s a problem that goes back over a century. Penicillin use quickly led to resistant bacteria; good thing we didn’t have people like the Center for Food Safety when it was approved and rushed into use and inaugurated the age when people no longer feared death from a blister. Such was the fate of President Calvin Coolidge’s son. Indeed, penicillin remains first-line treatment for terrible diseases such as congenital syphilis. The Union of Concerned Scientists says it eschews genetic modification in favor of “sustainable farming practices that enhance resilience and promote food security.” That’s exactly what biotech food does. The real concern is that recombinant gene technology is new. As the FDA notes, the old-fashioned engineering through cross-breeding is as old as history. But the process is haphazard and slow, often taking centuries. Cattle, hogs, and turkeys are vastly larger and tastier than they were formerly and chickens lay far more eggs. Corn went from a grass to ears in pre-Columbian times to more recently standing as high as an elephant’s eye. But it took gene-splicing technology to create corn that produces a protein lethal to specific pests, such as the European corn borer, and corn that is resistant to herbicides, enabling them to be more easily and efficiently protected from weeds. Currently, over 90 percent  of U.S. corn, upland cotton, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets are produced using biotech varieties, and unless you’ve gone out of your way to avoid them, you’ve eaten (or worn) all of them. If you’re reading this, it’s likely they haven’t killed you. But the first recombinant product approved in the U.S. goes back to only 1994, a tomato that stayed fresh longer but apparently didn’t taste very good. More than 120 varieties of GM crops that have been approved in the U.S., mostly versions of herbicide tolerant or insect resistant crops. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications lists 32 distinct approved crops, although some haven’t been commercialized. Unlike with so many medications, none has ever been withdrawn. (READ MORE: Trillion Tree Trickery: The Sad Truth About Tree Planting for Climate Change and Diversity) In case global warming is real (or regardless thereof), biotechnology is being employed to develop drought-tolerant crops including wheat, rice, tomato, soybean, and cotton. Drought-tolerant corn, including certain varieties developed with genetic engineering, is already being grown across dry areas in the United States. Drought-tolerant wheat is approved for use in Argentina and Brazil. Of course, to the extent the threat of warming is useful to curb civilization one can see how these developments would be perceived as negative. Organizations like the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the European Commission have publicly said genetically modified foods are safe to eat. Left-leaning philanthropist Bill Gates, despite his execution in the first South Park movie for developing Windows 98,  believes that biotech food is “perfectly healthy” and sees them as important to fight against world hunger and malnutrition. Putting money behind mouth, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested heavily in the development of bio-fortified crops such as … wait for it …  Golden Rice. But major environmental groups? I haven’t been able to find one that sided with science and humanity. Nobody has been more influential than Greenpeace. In 2016, 127 Nobel Laureates signed a letter condemning the international group for “misrepresent[ing] the risks, benefits and impacts” of  genetically altered food plants. That included co-discoverer of the basic DNA structure, James Watson. The letter called on Greenpeace to “cease and desist,” and on governments to embrace “seeds improved through biotechnology.” Said the laureates, “Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped.” (Allegations that the group was directly behind a 2013 attack on a Filipino Golden Rice test field have never proferred hard evidence; although “encouraged” would certainly work.) So it was that Greenpeace filed suit in the Philippines in 2022, and in late April the Court of Appeals gave them what they wanted, with the Supreme Court upholding it. The ruling directed the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PRRI) and the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) to cease and desist from commercially propagating, field testing, and conducting activities related to Golden Rice. In doing so, the appeals court cited something called a Writ of Kalikasan, a legal remedy unique to Philippine law providing a constitutional right to “a balanced and healthy ecology in accordance with the rhythm and harmony of nature.” “Rhythm and harmony of nature?” Seriously? But yes, Greenpeace found a touchy-feely weapon to defend its touchy-feely position. Kalikasan is based on something called The Precautionary Principle, a mushy term environmentalists popularized that ignores what may be gained and instead concentrates 100 percent on potential harm, real or imagined. Not incidentally, I asked my favorite Chat AI, Perplexity, in neutral terms to describe The Precautionary Principle. Instead it went on the attack against it! If applied, the principle is effectively insurmountable — like the joke about putting someone in a round room and telling him to sit in the corner. “We conclude that concerns about risk-risk trade-offs are not a reasonable argument against future application of the precautionary principle,” stated a paper in The Journal of Risk Research, frequently citing work from an obscure author and journalist named Michael Fumento. “Indeed, sound decision-making processes in the face of uncertainty should always consider and attempt to mitigate reasonable risk-risk trade-offs.” (A companion meaningless term the greens love to use is “sustainable.” Once at a conference I asked the environmentalist speaker to define it without using the word “sustainable”; he could not. It’s explicable only with tautology.) Greenpeace called the Philippines decision a “monumental win.” And it was. For them. But Potrykus was horrified. “The court decision is a catastrophe for Golden Rice in the Philippines and elsewhere,” he told the journal Science. Many members of The National Academy of Science and Technology, Philippines quickly condemned the ruling. Whither hence? It’s definitely not going to help approval in Bangladesh, although presumably it doesn’t have such a ridiculous constitutional clause. But opponents will cite it. Meanwhile, gene-splicing may be the only hope to save the world’s Cavendish bananas, widely considered the best variety, from a disease called Fusarium or Panama Wilt. Australia has just licensed a biotech “back up” banana that is nearly immune to the disease. The Philippines is the world’s second-largest banana exporter with most comprising the Cavendish variety. (Although only an inferior type is sold domestically.) But if Panama Wilt comes to the country, Kalikasan and The Precautionary Principle would dictate that biotech bananas cannot be grown there. Except … Golden Rice has always been an affair of the heart with people donating time and patents and little money to be made. That might seem good, but it has continually made it an easy target for those seeking regulatory delays (six years now in Bangladesh) and now an outright revocation. It might be okay to have kids go blind but the moneyed interests are not going to let any court stop a lucrative export. Rest assured The Precautionary Principle will give way to the Profit Principle. Michael Fumento is an attorney, author, and journalist, who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The National Review, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Forbes, Reason, Policy Review, the Spectator (London), the Sunday Times of London, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. The post The Developing World (Still) Needs Golden Rice appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“Game seven.” The words themselves have a magical ring. Just saying the two “most exciting words in sports” sends the cliché generator into the red zone. For, indeed, players give “110 percent” in these games and “don’t leave anything on the field” as both teams have their “backs against the wall” and “everything is on the line”; it’s “winner take all” in a “do-or-die seventh game.” The hockey game Monday night … provides an opportunity for the rarest of rare feats — a comeback from a 3–0 deficit to win a finals series. They’re the words that plant even non–sports fans in front of the flat screen to partake of the drama, the urgency, the finality that a game seven offers. And on Monday evening, the National Hockey League will have its ultimate showdown, its cash cow, the event that puts the suits in the home office in back-slapping mode as they watch the TV ratings soar: a Stanley Cup Final game seven between the Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers, and it’s for — forgive me — all the marbles. Game sevens weren’t always a thing. The early days of baseball featured random final series in which the finale could come in game three or, in 1887, in game 15. From 1919 to 1921 baseball experimented with a best-of-nine World Series, before settling, for the 1922 fall classic, on a best-of-seven, which is where baseball has been ever since. (READ MORE from Tom Raabe: The WNBA Needs Caitlin Clark) Professional hockey, too, has used a variety of formats to crown its champion. In the early years, a single game determined the champion. Since then, Cup-winning teams have been determined by composite score after two games, best-of-three series, and best-of-five series. Only in 1939 did major league hockey settle on the present best-of-seven format. So intriguing — and profitable — is the idea of a final do-or-die game that three of the four major American sports have built this finality into their playoff structure. Seven seems like a fair number. Fewer games could produce a less-than-deserving champion; more seem gratuitous, possibly lending to boring contests, and self-defeating. Writes Michael Weinreb in Grantland: It is only natural to presume that — since it has proven near impossible for a team to rebound from a 3–0 deficit to win a seven-game series, and since a 2–0 deficit seems like so much less of a psychological black hole — the seven-game series is a Platonic ideal, and to extend it or shorten or otherwise experiment with it would be blasphemous. The finality, the urgency of the game has produced some of the most memorable events in all of sports. Maybe because it’s been around the longest, maybe because it still lays claim (at least officially) to the moniker “America’s pastime,” baseball has offered the brunt of these. Two game sevens in the 1920s stand out. In the seventh game of the 1924 World Series, Walter Johnson, one of five inductees in the initial Hall of Fame class of 1936 and widely regarded as one of the nicest guys in baseball history, lost his first two starts in the series. In the ninth inning of a tied seventh game, the Big Train was brought in as a reliever and pitched three scoreless innings to give the Washington Senators their first and only world championship while playing in Washington. Nearly a century would elapse until another Washington baseball team won a world championship, the Nationals, in 2019, also in a seven-game series. Two years later, in 1926, the St. Louis Cardinals, down three games to two to the New York Yankees, behind a great pitching performance by Grover Cleveland Alexander, took game six and were up 3–2 in the seventh inning of game seven when manager Rogers Hornsby signaled down to the bullpen to bring in “Ol’ Pete,” as he was called. The thirty-nine-year-old, however — and the report is disputed — was sleeping off a hangover from overtippling after his game six triumph. Up to the task, the cagey old-timer set down the Yankees for three innings until Babe Ruth reached first with two outs in the ninth. With Bob Meusal at the plate (a .315 hitter) and Lou Gehrig on deck, the Babe inexplicably took off for second base, and was gunned down easily to end the game, and the Series. The Cardinals have had a knack for seventh-game appearances, winning in 1926, as mentioned, but also in 1931, 1934 (Gashouse Gang teams), 1946 (billed as Stan Musial v. Ted Williams but won when Enos Slaughter scored from first on a single in the eighth inning), 1964, 1967, 1982, and 2011, but losing game sevens in 1968, 1985, and 1987. The Yankees, for all their historic glory, have lost more World Series seventh games (6) than they’ve won (5), and those losses have been heartbreakingly memorable — from the loss to Brooklyn in 1955 (Sandy Amoros’s sensational catch) to the 3–2 loss to the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001. But it was the seventh game in the 1960 series, often called the best game seven of all time, that everyone remembers. With the game tied 9–9 in the bottom of the ninth, Pittsburgh second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a 1–0 pitch over the Forbes Field left-field wall for the only walk-off homer in World Series game seven history. In the last decade, only the Cubs’ 8–7 final game victory over Cleveland in 2016, which ended their 108-year title drought and stripped them of their “lovable losers” label, had commensurate seventh-game emotion. Some of the great moments in World Series history have occurred not in game sevens but in earlier contests, whether deciding or not. Willie Mays chased down Vic Wertz’s deep fly to center in the Polo Grounds in a 1954 game one, and Kirk Gibson launched his hobbling, fist-pumping walk-off homer in game one of the 1988 Series. Lou Brock’s infamous non-slide into home plate, which gave the Detroit Tigers life and ended up costing the Cardinals the 1968 Series, came in game five. Don Larsen’s perfecto was in game 5 of the 1956 Series. Joe Carter’s walk-off homer in 1993 was in a game six, as was Carlton Fisk’s wave-it-fair home run (in 1975). Possibly the most exciting game in recent World Series history also came in a game six, in 2011, when the Cardinals warded off two last-out, last-strike threats to tie the Texas Rangers in the ninth and also the 10th, and then win on a walk-off home run by David Freese in the 11th, 10–9. (READ MORE: Trouble in the Picklesphere) NBA finals game sevens have lacked baseball’s level of drama. Although 19 Finals have been decided with an ultimate contest, many of the iconic NBA finals moments have occurred in games other than the last one. Michael Jordan’s 1998 game-winner versus Utah came in game six; his “shrug” game was game one of the 1992 finals; his “flu” game came in game five of the 1997 finals. Magic Johnson’s junior, junior skyhook was a game four affair (1987); his 42-point outburst as center (replacing an injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) to beat Dr. J’s 76ers was in game six in 1980. John Paxson’s and Steve Kerr’s game-winners both came in game sixes, as did Ray Allen’s game-tying corner three in 2013. Jerry West’s 60-foot buzzer-beater to tie the Celtics occurred in a game three. Arguably, the first great finals game seven came in 1957, when the Boston Celtics, with new center Bill Russell, outlasted a Bob Pettit–led St. Louis Hawks, 125–123, in two overtimes, to win the first of Russell’s amazing 11 NBA titles. Victimized for many of those titles were the Los Angeles Lakers, who faced the Celtics in the NBA finals throughout the 1960s, losing to them in game sevens three times. The heartbreaker was in 1962, when Laker Frank Selvy, with the score tied, missed an open 12-footer from the baseline with five seconds to go (the Lakers lost in overtime). All told, the Celts bested the Lakers in the finals in 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, and 1969 (no wonder Jerry West is so cranky in Winning Time). The 1969 affair went seven and garnered the last of Russell’s 11 rings. Played in Los Angeles, it featured a lucky bounce by a Don Nelson shot that, late in the game, hit the back of the rim and then the ceiling of the arena (I exaggerate only slightly) before dropping through the net. Other memorable game sevens include the Willis Reed game in the 1970 finals, when the big center, hobbled with injury, raised the roof of Madison Square Garden by merely limping out of the tunnel prior to tipoff, then trundling up and down the court to hit two early jumpers and set the tone for a Knick triumph over the Lakers. LeBron James’s fourth-quarter chase-down block and Kyrie Irving’s long jumper with 53 seconds left in the 2016 game seven gave Cleveland its only basketball triumph ever, and the first championship of any kind for the city since the 1964 Browns. The hockey game Monday night packs added juice, for it provides an opportunity for the rarest of rare feats — a comeback from a 3–0 deficit to win a finals series. While any number of teams have successfully fought back from a 3–0 deficit to win early playoff series in all three sports, no baseball or basketball teams have ever done so in a World Series or NBA Finals. Hockey boasts the only such successful comeback — the Toronto Maple Leafs fought back to defeat the Detroit Red Wings after being down 3–0 in the 1942 Stanley Cup Final. This year’s Edmonton Oilers have a chance to duplicate that feat on Monday night. The post The Reverie of Game Seven appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from X22 Report: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Mike LaChance, The Gateway Pundit: There is no denying that conservative scholar and historian Victor Davis Hanson is one of the smartest men in America. He understands not only the politics of the right, but also the progressive left. As Trump is rising in polls where Republicans are not even supposed to be competitive, […]