It pains me when I have to blow the whistle on Republicans, but some of them have it coming, and I’m not just talking about phonies like Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.

It was only a few weeks ago that I was ruing the fact that even a last minute rally by President Trump in Kentucky fell just short of helping Governor Matt Bevins win re-election.

Now my ruing is officially over and I’m wondering if there’s a way to bring Bevins up on charges.

It seems that as a farewell gift to the people of the commonwealth, Bevins has pardoned or commuted the sentences of 428 felons. One can only interpret it as a bitter political hack giving the finger to the folks who were wise enough not to let him have another four years in the governor’s mansion.

Just some of the beneficiaries were a murderer whose family had ponied up $20,000 to help Bevins pay off his campaign debt; a child rapist; a creep who hired a hitman to kill his business partner; and another who had murdered his parents.

Even Bill Clinton didn’t have this sordid a list of despicables when he granted executive pardons on his way out of the White House.

I can only hope that the new Democratic governor can prove that Bevins actually accepted direct bribes in exchange for his new-found leniency, so that he can take the place of some creep he released from prison.

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In case you missed the news, Boris Johnson won a resounding victory in the recent parliamentary elections in Great Britain. Johnson, a Conservative that many people take for a Mini-Me version of Donald Trump won so decisively that his Labor Party rival has resigned and will now be able to join Teresa May wherever it is that failed British politicians go to lick their wounds.

It finally appears that after nearly four years of dithering, Great Britain will finally be able to exit the European Union. An English friend of mine, a Conservative, predicts that Italy and possibly Greece will soon follow. And the hope of many is that once the wall begins to crack, other nations will join them and that the stranglehold that the bureaucrats in Brussels have had on the continent will be broken and national sovereignty will return to the defectors.

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As a subscriber to The New American, I am accustomed to reading its regular “Exercising the Right” page in which news stories from around the U.S. recount incidents in which people have protected their homes, themselves and their loved ones, all thanks to the Second Amendment.

I have long wondered why the NRA has never made a series of commercials in which these men, women and even teenagers, would relate the harrowing situations in which they found themselves and how having a loaded gun made all the difference between whether they lived or died.

It now occurs to me that as much as that would shine a spotlight on the necessity of protecting the Second Amendment from the encroachment of the anti-gun zealots, the NRA is playing a different game. I now suspect that rather than ever go on the offensive, the organization prefers playing defense so that every time some schmuck like Michael Bloomberg or Dianne Feinstein condemns the NRA, the NRA can use the attack to raise more money.

Cynical? Perhaps. But what other reason do they have not to tell the personal stories of would-be victims and instead constantly pretend that they are the real victims?

When I ran this past a very bright friend of mine, he suggested that perhaps the NRA didn’t have enough money. I countered that with five million dues-paying members, they should be pretty flush. Besides, the emotional impact of these feel-good stories would move a lot of fence-sitters to start supporting the Second Amendment.

Also, the commercials would no doubt increase the group’s membership rolls and the NRA’s ability to receive charitable contributions. The spots wouldn’t have to run as often as Mike Lindell’s MyPillow commercials, perhaps just once a month. It is even possible that Mr. Lindell would help under-write the costs, especially if the commercials included the suggestion that the only thing that guarantees you a better night’s sleep than one of his terrific pillows is one with a loaded gun underneath it.

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Every Conservative is aware of the fact that our Founding Fathers were divinely-inspired when it came to creating this Republic. What sometimes escapes our attention is that they were a bunch of revolutionaries. Those guys fought a war. They didn’t just stand around wearing wigs and making memorable speeches. They bled and died and made their enemies bleed and die.

Something else that often escapes our attention is that ours was and remains the one revolution in which those who were overthrown weren’t replaced by people who were even more contemptible.

Whether those who were ousted were kings, czars or run-of-the mill dictators, life only became worse once they were exiled or, more often, killed.

For some reason, the French Revolution is often held up as an ideal. But you would have to be someone like Jeffrey Dahmer to regard Robespierre to be the moral superior of King Louis XVI. Robespierre introduced the guillotine to the world and used it indiscriminately to behead royals, priests and everyone else who voiced an objection to his butchery.

It’s fortunate that he was so enamored of the invention because it wasn’t long before his political rivals used it on him.

In the aftermath of what came to be known as the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, a Corsican, swooped in, took control over the ensuing chaos and set out to conquer Europe.

Not every revolution is quite as bloody as France’s, but when you consider what the Communists have done in gaining control of Russia, China, Iran and Cuba, it’s hard not to long for the good old days before Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin replaced Nicholas II; Mao Tse-tung replaced Chiang Kai-shek; the Ayatollah Khomeini replaced Shah Reza Pahlavi; and Fidel Castro replaced Fulgencio Batista.

This isn’t to argue that the despots who were deposed were good guys, but the sheer numbers of those murdered by the revolutionists dwarfs those who suffered at the hands of the earlier brutes.

But what we are currently seeing taking place in America is something new, frightening and inexplicable. For the first time, we are seeing millions of people engaged in a revolt in which the target is not an oppressor but is, instead, a president who won a free and fair election and has not assumed dictatorial powers, although his enemies have insisted without a shred of evidence that he has.

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After complaining to a subscriber in Germany about Thanksgiving, I learned that over there, the occasion is actually celebrated in early October. It’s not like me to say anything good about Germany, but that makes a lot more sense.

For one thing, the holiday is intended to celebrate a new harvest. Early October is autumnal, late November is wintery. For another, what is the point of arbitrarily setting a date so close to Christmas? For people who have family in other states, it forces them to make back-to-back trips, barely leaving them time to unpack before it’s time to get back to the airport.

For another thing, December 25th marks an event, the birth of Jesus Christ. That date is set in stone. It’s not as if history records that the first turkey was born on the last Thursday of November.

Just in case you’re wondering whom to blame for this sad state of affairs, it was President Lincoln in 1863 who made it a federal holiday. The turkeys never forgave him and neither have I.

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Bob Hunt let me know that even though the Democrats don’t seem terribly upset about the Inspector General’s report, listing the 17 violations of the law committed by the FBI, it has had at least one real life result.

His grandson enrolled in California State University Sonoma in 2016, intending to major in criminal justice, eventually hoping to become an FBI agent. He has been so disillusioned by the efforts of the Deep Staters to effect a coup against the President that he no longer wishes to join the FBI or even devote his life to law enforcement.

He is now considering becoming a first responder, perhaps a fireman. An honorable career for an honorable young man, but it wasn’t his first choice.

Political coups, like elections, have consequences. This, I’d say, constitutes an American tragedy.