Bucharest Postcard

A miserable day spent holed up in a Romanian hotel room, jacked up on Sudafed

I didn’t expect to spend Pascha weekend like this: laid up in a hotel room in Bucharest, with a cold of world-historical severity. (Granted, to whinypants me, every cold I have is of world-historical severity, but this one truly is one for the record books.) While my son is out seeing the city, I’m resting all day so I’ll have the wherewithal to go to the long Pascha liturgy tonight. And that means you people have to listen to me rant on this here newsletter!

Jack The Dripper, Take Two

I must admit that my take on Jack Teixeira, the Pentagon leaker, is on this second day trending more in the direction Fran Macadam took yesterday in the comments. I called Teixeira guilty of treason yesterday. That was rash and inaccurate. My point, though, is that he very strongly ought not to have done what he did, and I recognize that the State has a right to expect its servants not to be disloyal in this way with its secrets. He will be punished, and should be punished.

But it is more clear to me today that the greater sin here are the lies Washington has been telling the American people about the Ukraine war.

Glenn Greenwald writes:

On a virtually daily basis, one can find authorized leaks in The New York Times, The Washington Post, on CNN and NBC News: meaning stories dressed up as leaks from anonymous sources that are, in fact, nothing more than messaging assertions that the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security and the Pentagon have instructed these subservient media corporations to disseminate. When that happens, the leaker is never found or punished: even when the leaks are designated as the most serious crimes under the U.S. criminal code, such as when The Washington Post's long-time CIA spokesman David Ignatius in early 2017 published the contents of the intercepted phone calls between Trump's incomcing National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Most of Russiagate was constructed based on authorized leaks, a generous way of describing official propaganda from the U.S. Security State launedered in the American corporate press.

But when it comes to unauthorized leaks -- which result in the disclsoure of secret evidence showing that the U.S. Security State lied, acted corruptly, or broke laws -- that is when the full weight of establishment power comes crashing down on the head of the leaker. They are found and arrested. Their character is destroyed. And now -- in a new and genuinely shocking esclation -- it is the largest media corporations themselves, such as the Times and the Post, that actually do the FBI's work by hunting down the leaker, exposing him, and ensuring his arrest. 

This playback is always used in such cases and is easily recognized. The point is to shift attention from the substance of the embarrassing and incriminating disclosures onto the personal traits of the person who exposed them, so as to make the public forget about what they learned and come to see the leaker as so unlikeable that they want nothing to do with the disclosures themselves.

Gotta be honest: when the Snowden revelations first came out, I was angry at him for his betrayals. But later, when I understood what he revealed, and I realized how the things he made public were ultimately going to be used against people who had done nothing wrong — and people like me! — I became more sympathetic to him. Still, I struggle with this stuff. I really do believe that the State has the moral right to expect that many things will be kept secret. What challenges that is the State repeatedly exercising that right to deceive the American people and cover up its own stupid or wicked behavior. It’s one thing to say that we have to keep X secret for the greater good, but it’s quite another when the State defines “the greater good” as covering its ass.

The leaks reveal that US and French special forces are on the ground in Ukraine, helping the Ukrainians. That is to say, NATO forces are involved in a shooting war against Russia. We aren’t just sending them money, weapons, and supplies. We are at war with Russia. Was Congress informed? Were the American people? Would they support a war with nuclear-armed Russia, over Ukraine?

It doesn’t matter if a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House, the American government will lie to Americans to justify war. (And note well, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy repeated in light of the leaks his view that the US should be all-in to defeat Russia.) You would have thought after the Iraq debacle, and the Afghanistan Papers revealed that the US military lied blatantly for years to cover up the truth about Afghanistan, that the American people would have had enough of their lying, warmongering government. Guess not.

I’ve had a couple of conversations here in Romania with folks who wanted their country to be part of NATO to protect them from the Russians. They did not want to risk Russian aggression against them to fight for a non-NATO country. But that’s exactly what’s happening.

I know it sounds crazy, but shouldn’t the American people be told, and their consent invited, if their government is going to war against another State — especially a nuclear power? Then again, why shouldn’t they lie? There is never any accountability for it. How many of the military brass (for example) have sat before Congress and questioned about the costly lies detailed in the Afghanistan Papers?

Why doesn’t Congress care? Where are the Republican voices demanding accountability for the lies of the Biden Administration, including the Pentagon, regarding the Ukraine war? Or are they just going to bow down like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is doing, towards the War Machine?

Watch this clip from Tucker Carlson’s show. He flat-out says that the government has been lying to us all along — and knowing that it’s lying — about the fact that Ukraine is losing the war, and about the depth of America’s involvement in fighting nuclear-armed Russia. And the media want to focus all the negative attention on the kid who, for whatever reasons, exposed the lies:

Squeaky Saint Francis Nation

Elon Musk, in his pique, still won’t allow us to embed tweets here on Substack, so you’ll just have to follow this link to hear what a creep named “Squeaky St. Francis,” seen above, had to say about the importance of protecting the “right” of kids to transition in schools without their parents knowing about it. This is from his testimony at the Chico (California) school board:

https://twitter.com/collinrugg/status/1646553872574586880?s=46

This weirdo says he is a boyfriend to two people, and a girlfriend to two others. And guess what: his argument carried the day! The school board ruled that schools have the right to hide all this from parents.

In the State of Washington, the legislature will soon be sending to the governor’s desk for signing into law the right for minors go into state custody if their parents won’t consent to their gender transition. Under the new law, the state would not have to tell the parents where their minor child is. The state has already granted to minors as young as 13 the right to transition without parental consent. In other words, the State of Washington will kidnap your child and jab him or her full of cross-sex hormones, whether you like it or not.

Washington is one of six sanctuary states for trans minors. If a trans child runs away and makes it to one of those states, the state is mandated now to refuse extradition.

Do you understand what’s happening? Do you honestly? These totalitarians will steal your children and mutilate them permanently. This is what America has become.

Well, not all of America. Many red states are passing sensible bans on trans therapy for minors. This is all going to end up at the Supreme Court one day. Here’s what needs to start happening now: churches need to begin putting into place an Underground Railroad for families escaping states like Washington ahead of state agents. If a family fears that their child, who claims to be trans, will tell a school counselor that he or she wants to go into custody to transition, they should be able to leave at once, before the kid pulls the trigger. They should have some red-state place to go, and be able to rely on immediate support when they get there, to tide them over until they can establish themselves.

Conservative families need to flee blue states now. The schools and popular culture are heavily pushing transgender identity on kids. In these progressive states, you may have your child taken from you and never see it coming, if a school counselor or someone gets into the kid’s head, and convinces them that you are the enemy. You will not get a second chance. This is the totalitarianism I’ve been telling you about in Live Not By Lies. It’s here, and it’s spreading.

I don’t know about you, but I am unwilling to live bound to states that treat families and children like this. A national divorce has always seemed like crazy talk to me, totally unfeasible. But now I’m coming around to the idea that there is no other non-violent way out. There is nothing more primal that a father and mother’s relationship with their child. You only sever that bond for extreme reasons, such as abuse. In Washington state, and other states, the state will sever the bonds to sexually and psychologically mutilate fragile youths. It is monstrous. It is beyond monstrous.

If you sent people from today back to 2003, and showed the newspaper stories revealing where the LGBT movement was going to lead us, they would have denounced you as some kind of fundamentalist fraud. It will never happen here, they would say. Not in America. Because we are good.

Now look at us. The rest of the world sure is. The US media will never, ever tell you this, but in the eyes of many, Uncle Sam has become Squeaky Saint Francis. I’m in Romania this weekend, and though my evidence is merely anecdotal, people are afraid of what the United States — both its government and its culture — is doing to their families and their children. They are right to be afraid. What starts in America doesn’t stay in America.

‘No Enemies To The Right’

Late last year, I got into it with a right-wing guy named Charles Haywood, who went nuclear on me for criticizing Thomas Achord, the (now ex-) headmaster of my kids’ classical Christian school, who was moonlighting secretly as an online white supremacist. Haywood denounced me viciously, and proclaimed a policy of “no enemies to the Right.”

Here is why I insist that yes, we do have enemies to the Right. Zero HP Lovecraft is a popular alt-right account. Evangelical writer Neil Shenvi is right: racism must have no place among us:

How To Say Nothing In Business While Really Trying

Here’s the statement put out in an ad signed by Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth, who is trying to move past the Dylan Mulvaney PR disaster that has cost the Bud Light parent company $6 billion:

What a crock! What does that even say? It certainly doesn’t say, “I’m sorry, we screwed up.” If he did that, he would have the trans community, and other progressive activists, all over him. But if he doubles down supporting Gidget, America’s Tranny Sweetheart™, they’ll likely lose even more money.

Gidget, America’s Tranny Sweetheart

So Whitworth tried to split the middle, saying that he loves America, and only wanted everybody to be happy and drink more beer. Absolve us, he says, because we didn’t mean to make people mad.

I bet nobody buys this line. They shouldn’t. Time magazine’s report takes the line that Anheuser-Busch has failed the trans community. Stupid Woke Capitalists want to have it both ways, always.

Meanwhile, Trump’s idiot son is calling on people to stop boycotting Bud Light, on account of Anheuser-Busch donates to Republicans. So that’s all it takes, eh? Cut a check to the Republican Party and you can do anything you want, Young Don won’t care.

How The Pope Saved An Orthodox Monastery

I don’t want to leave you on a grumpy note, not just hours before Pascha. Here is the inside arch of the 18th century Antim monastery in central Bucharest. How on earth did Ceausescu not demolish it in his insane quest to build the hideous Palace Of The People nearby? A monk there told me that Pope John Paul II phoned the Romanian communist dictator and begged him to leave the historic Orthodox monastery alone. He did. Thank you, St. John Paul! As Russell Kirk said, “The world remains sunlit, despite its vices.”