How do! Welcome. Grab a coffee and a danish and have a seat. Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2025. Today is a travel day, so this may be a bit shorter than usual.
Today in History:
2020: Hundreds given life sentences for their roles in a coup against Turkish President Erdoğan.
2011: The Mars Lander Curiosity was launched.
2003: The Concorde made its last flight after 27 years of service.
1942: Casablanca premiered.
Birthdays today include: Tina Turner, “Peanuts” author Charles Shultz, and Willis Carrier, who invented the air conditioner.
Honestly, I wasn’t going to write on the topic of Sen. Mark Kelly again. I really wasn’t. I've already written an extended piece on all of that yesterday. Until that is, I stepped into my office the morning coffee in hand, and noted my feed contained a rather short piece from Matt Vespa, quoting Matt Taibbi, saying:
It's such blatant, bad, overwrought propaganda ... It reminds me again of the beginning of Russiagate when there were all these leaks about encouraging people not to share intelligence with the United States.
That made Trump look bad, but it also made the United States look weak and vulnerable and sent the signal that the country was in schism and maybe the government was not stable.
I categorized Taibbi years ago as the left’s coalmine canary. So he is, here. I hadn’t thought of that parallel, but now that Taibbi brings it up, the family resemblance is rather obvious, and I couldn't resist bringing it up to you.
In her usual overnight duties at Instapundit, Sarah Hoyt links Professor Ornery Dragon, who, in turn, brings some clarity to my thoughts on this whole mess:
Here’s the catch with those calls for disobedience and the backpedaling: just because someone doesn’t like an order, or thinks it may be illegal, doesn’t make it illegal. Feelings have no place at all in deciding whether an order is legal or not. Encouraging soldiers to disobey legal orders is walking the line of sedition. Sedition is defined as incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority (Merriam Webster). Again, please note, just because you don’t like Donald Trump as president, that does not make his actions illegal. Let me say that again for those in the back:
YOUR FEELINGS REGARDING THE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENCY, AND/OR THE USE OF THOSE POWERS BY ANY PARTICULAR PRESIDENT, ARE COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT IN DECIDING IF THE ACTIONS OF A PRESIDENT ARE LAWFUL OR NOT.
Got it? The only thing that matters here is the legality of the order and the issuing authority. And guess what? No orders issued to date have been illegal (which explains why Kelly and Slotkin can’t find anything to point to). And encouraging soldiers to look for orders they don’t like, (like say, going into a city and restoring order… 101st Airborne in Little Rock anyone?) is treading the line of sedition. And treading that line is why Senator Kelly is being investigated.
Exactly so.
The Associated Press is reporting:
The FBI is attempting to schedule interviews with the six Democratic members of Congress who made a video saying troops should not obey any illegal orders, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.
The FBI would conduct these interviews on behalf of the Justice Department, and it is unclear when the interviews would be held amid the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, the sources said.
I’d go further and follow the second-level connections beyond the Six as well. The six were carefully selected, as was the wording of the message, in an attempt to both add credibility to the message and minimize repercussions from it. If Taibbi is correct, and I do not doubt it, this operation, this setup, involved far more than just the six in the video.
The message itself was as Round Wheels in the comment section pointed up yesterday, designed to...
...inspire hesitation, doubt and fear of being second-guessed in the minds of military enlisted, military officers and civilian leaders now and future.And would definitions of "anti-democratic" and "unconstitutional" be left to military tribunals? Not if anti-America ideologues have their way.
Best I can see, the real issue for the six is the difference between "anti-democratic" and "anti-Democratic" (Big D.) And if we’re going to leave the questions of "anti-democratic" and "unconstitutional" for Leftist Pols to decide, we might as well close the doors and turn off the lights; we’re done as a country.
This move has always been little more than a weapon of mass distraction; The Democrats started down this road because the Epstein thing fell apart, as did the Schumer Shutdown. This is a desperation move — a "Hail Mary" pass.
The polling on the Schumer Shutdown is a disaster for the Democrats, where only 8% think the Democrats gained anything by it. The Russia Gate scandal comes out about the same in the minds of the voters if we take the polling seriously. Each step along the way has been a step down for the Democrats. This is simply one more step down on that staircase into the depths of insignificance. They go with it, though, simply because they've got nothing else to go with.
I’ll have some thoughts on Thanksgiving tomorrow for you. See you then.
Be safe in your travels if you’re going anywhere today.
Support and follow PJ Media’s coverage of breaking news and major events. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member