GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Moar backstory

In an update to yesterday’s Boycott NYC post, The Real Trucker Jake mentions something the handful of us who even knew about it at all have probably forgotten about: in 2021, a trucker boycott brought the state of Colorado to heel toot damn sweet. So I looked it up.

What Happened with the Colorado Trucking Boycott?
The Colorado Trucking Boycott occurred during the last weeks of December 2021 in response to the sentencing of truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos to 110-years in prison. He had been found guilty on 27 charges including four negligent homicide charges, and multiple first-degree assault and first-degree attempted assault charges stemming from an April 25, 2019 collision on I-70 west of Denver.

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a Cuban immigrant and rookie truck driver was traveling eastbound on I-70 near Lakewood, Colorado on April 25, 2019. It was his first time traveling through Colorado on I-70, a stretch of interstate with steep mountain grades that require proper training and experience to navigate safely in a commercial vehicle. Aguilera-Mederos, only 23 years old at the time, was in over his head.

He made multiple mistakes as he came down the mountain, taking his truck out of gear, and burning his brakes out. For reasons unknown, he bypassed the lone escape ramp available to him. As his truck, fully loaded with lumber, hurtled down the highway he encountered a traffic backup caused by an earlier collision. He attempted to take the shoulder to bypass the stopped cars until he came upon another big truck parked on the shoulder. He swerved back onto the highway and into a crash.

In the fiery aftermath, four individuals were killed and several others were injured. He went to trial on September 28, 2021, and on October 25, 2021, a jury found him guilty on 27 charges.

The severity of the sentence imposed upon Aguilera-Mederos caused an immediate backlash in the Latino and trucking communities. The argument was made by millions of individuals that the punishment was excessive in relation to the crime. One case, in particular, stood out in contrast to Aguilera-Mederos; that of Ethan Couch, a teenager driving under the influence of alcohol who killed four people. Rather than cooperate with authorities as Aguilera-Mederos had, Couch fled the country.

When he returned he was sentenced to 10 years of probation. The disparity between the sentences was a significant argument used by those who supported a fairer sentence for Aguilera-Mederos.

It is interesting to note that even the judge in the Aguilera-Mederos case was opposed to the 110-year sentence, however, his hands were tied by Colorado’s mandatory sentencing guidelines. Some have also argued that the prosecuting attorney knowingly arranged the charges to game the system of the mandatory guidelines in an effort to push Aguilera-Mederos into a plea deal.

They asked questions such as, “What happens if my brakes fail and I do everything right, and I still crash and hurt someone? Will I be sentenced to 110 years also?” The sentencing, for many drivers, made Colorado seem threatening, a danger to not only their livelihood but their freedom as well. With these concerns in mind and as a show of solidarity for a member of the trucking community, thousands of drivers came forward on TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter, to express their indignation at the sentencing and by the middle of December 2021, a full-fledged boycott of the state of Colorado was underway.

Images emerged of stopped trucks, lining the shoulders of highways at the border of the state, refusing to enter. Meanwhile, a Change.org petition had been started demanding that the governor of Colorado grant Aguilera-Mederos clemency. Roughly 5 million signatures were collected in the petition.

As December came to a close, the governor of Colorado under the strain of mounting public outcry and pressure, granted Aguilera-Mederos the clemency the public had been demanding. The sentence was reduced to 10 years which brought the punishment in line with other crimes of a similar nature.

Meanwhile, the prosecuting attorney, who elected to charge Aguilera-Mederos for the incident, neglected to pursue any charges against the company Aguilera-Mederos worked for, Castellano 03 Trucking LLC. They had a recent track record of flagrantly disregarding federal safety regulations with 30 violations during the two years leading up to the incident and among those violations was a habit of employing drivers who were unable to understand road signs written in English.

The day after the crash, the owner of Castellano 03 Trucking LLC, dissolved the company and registered a new company, Volt Trucking according to a 9NEWS investigative report. This new company is already racking up a lengthy record of trucker safety violations with their brakes and brake lines.

The question of whether or not the boycotts work remains unanswered. On the one hand, the implied economic impact upon a state is a severe threat, especially during a period when COVID-related shortages continue to impact supply chains. On the other hand, trucking is a highly competitive industry, and for every truck driver or trucking company who decides to participate in a boycott, there are many more who will ignore cries for such a measure and carry on with business as usual in the targeted state.

Ahh, but is that assumption correct? That sound you hear is Sam Kinison, saying he’d like a word regarding all that.

A-HENH. The sad, sorry fact is that the ziggurat of absurd obstacles to becoming a truck driver piled up by the Überstadt  (see my comment at Aesop’s joint for further details) guarantee that there can NEVER be enough drivers to meet the demand, and that any trucking company who dares to fire even a niggling percentage of their drivers for…oh, honoring a boycott, say, will NOT remain in the trucking business for long.

Bottom line: whether they know it or not, truck drivers don’t just have a lot of power in Amerika v2.0, they have pretty much ALL of it. Curiously enough, my long-maintained axiom that liberal/Leftism carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction pops immediately to mind. Needs to be formally codified as another of Mike’s Iron Laws, I’m thinkin’, which I will make happen soon’s as I can get around to it.

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Pardon my French, y’all

HOW IT ALL STARTED: a fellow calling himself Tom Perry, which moniker was not immediately familiar to me (which means hardly anything these days, as my always-piss-poor memory gradually worsens with age), left a comment which was open to more than one possible interpretation—a comment I flippantly dismissed with a Bugs Bunny quote, not having been bothered too terribly by what I erroneously considered at first to be an attempt at a personal insult.

M. Perry fired back straightaway, claiming that he’d known me for quite a few years and figured he knew me pretty well, contra my resort to ol’ Bugs. As was revealed in an email exchange today, this statement was in fact perfectly true and accurate; we’ve known each other as consistently like-minded colleagues for a very long time, albeit with him working back then under a highly-familiar nom de blogge which is long since defunct, sadly.

In the course of Tom’s email to me, which included a heartfelt apology which really wan’t necessary at all in light of everything else, he also mentioned a book he’d written on l’affaire Floyd et Chauvin, including a Substack-version link. I’m reading it now myself, and heartily recommend y’all do too. Knowing Mr Perry’s past work as I do, it’s sure to be a hell of a ride: well-written; carefully thought-out; impeccably researched, and scrupulously fair. Or, in other words, one of those all-too-rare examples of real, hand-to-God journalism.

Make ’em PAY

Let’s just find out who really has the power here…and who does NOT.

Trump-supporting truckers vow their boycott could ‘shut New York City down’ after $355M fraud ruling
Truckers supporting Donald Trump are warning that their refusal to deliver to the Big Apple could paralyze New York City — as more drivers vow to join the boycott following the bombshell ruling in the former president’s civil fraud case.

“It could shut New York City down,” said Jennifer Hernandez, a trucker who has joined in the protest against Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s decision to fine Trump $355 million for inflating his net worth by billions to dupe banks and insurers.

Shut ‘em down? It could damned well starve ’em out, actually. Which would serve them right, far as I’m concerned. Let ‘em try chowing down on their own insufferable self-righteousness and sanctimony, see how much sustenance the shitlib asstards can draw from that.

Several other truckers have been posting on social media expressing their support.

One man even suggested the boycott could go on for three years.

“Keep on f—ing around, you’re going to find out, New York,” he said in a video posted to TikTok.

The boycott seemed to have been started by conservative social media influencer Chicago Ray, who posted a clip Friday saying he had spoken to some of his trucker colleagues who said they would stop making deliveries to the city starting Monday.

He claimed that 95% of truckers support the former president, and said the bosses of freight companies “ain’t gonna care if we deny the loads — we’ll just go somewhere else.”

(Fake)Newsweak, in their typically-dishonest fashion, tried mightily to portray Chicago Ray as having “backed down” and totally reconsidered his position (no link, look it up yourself if you don’t believe me), but that doesn’t appear to be the case at all.


Unexpectedly, NY’s governor seems to be fully alive to the disaster that even a small minority of truckers refusing to continue putting up with the extreme hassle, expense, and hazard both personal and professional of pulling loads into the Big Rotten Apple would result in for her state, issuing a preemptive “don’t worry, all is well” notice to justly-worried New Yorkers that she had to know wasn’t going to fool anybody.

The New York governor has told business owners in her state that there is “nothing to worry about” after Donald Trump was fined $355m and temporarily banned from engaging in commerce in the state when he lost his civil fraud trial Friday.

In an interview on the New York radio show the Cats Roundtable with the supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis, Kathy Hochul sought to quell fears in some quarters that the penalties handed to Trump for engaging in fraudulent business practices could chill the state’s commercial climate.

Asked if businesspeople should be worried that if prosecutors could “do that to the former president, they can do that to anybody”, Hochul said: “Law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are businesspeople have nothing to worry about because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior.”

She added that the fraud case against Trump resulted from “really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance”.

True, dat; in fact, it’s quite unique, no one else ever before having been persecuted, harassed, and fleeced to the tune of half a billion fucking dollars (!!!)—along with two (2) of his sons—for a so-called “crime” that’s been committed by pretty much every living soul who ever applied for a loan, in the course of which one of the putative “victims” actually testified that Trump was, in essence, the very model of a model customer.

Trump never missed a loan payment, the credit reports and the banker’s testimony showed. In almost a decade as a borrower, Trump was never even late making a payment – not before, during, or after his presidency.

“So far as I can recall, the loans were performing,” the banker, Nicholas Haigh, told the judge in the non-jury trial, at which attorney general Letitia James seeks to banish Trump Organization from her state’s borders, and to ban Trump and his eldest sons from ever running a New York company again.

“And all the obligations of the borrower were met,” Trump attorney Jesus M. Suarez asked the banker in his next question.

“As far as I know, yes,” the banker answered.

If Trump’s prompt payments were not enough to burnish his borrower bona fides, the former president’s collateral also grew, the credit reports showed. It grew by millions each year, as the projects Deutsche Bank funded with $400 million in loans – his tower in Chicago, his golf resort in Miami, his luxury hotel in Washington DC – were developed.

And all the while, the bank made “millions” in interest, the banker testified, to that extent bolstering a frequent Trump defense talking point: that the fraud trial is a political grudge in search of a victim. Trump, who last week attended the first three days of the trial, is expected to return in person next week, The Messenger and the Associated Press reported.

That’s because, as everyone in the whole damned world knows, “a political grudge in search of a victim” is EXACTLY what this horseshit is. Trump is being persecuted by TPTB for the heinous crime of having the temerity to not be one of their clique and go ahead and run for “President” anyway. Why, the unmitigated GALL of the man! Uncle Peter, my smelling salts!!

Update! Via Irish.


Brings to mind a memorable Gandalf quote from Tolkien’s The Two Towers.

Gandalf:
It was more than mere chance that brought Merry and Pippin to Fangorn. A great power has been sleeping here for many long years. The coming of Merry and Pippin will be like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains.

Aragorn:
And one thing you have not changed, my friend.

Gandalf:
Hmm?

Aragorn:
You still speak in riddles.

Gandalf:
A thing is about to happen that has not happened since the elder days. The Ents are going to wake up…and find that they are strong.

And so they did—did they ever! God help “blue” America if ever the majority of truckers wake up one day and, like the Shepherds of the Trees of Fangorn Forest, realize just how strong they truly are.

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How to build a border wall

The President of Mexico—or Egypt, or some other place, who can really say for sure—shows us the way.

What is the Israeli Defense Force supposed to do with a million or so Palestinian refugees as their operations to kill every last Hamas wipes the Gaza Strip from north to south like a giant, well-armed squeegee?

The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is sometimes mistaken for the President of Mexico, has an answer to that vexing question — and it’s something of a completely routine miracle how the mainstream media and the Global Professional Outrage Machine have both ignored it.

The essence of el-Sisi’s answer is: “Do what you will to the Palestinians, Israel, but they aren’t coming here to Egpyt (or maybe Mexico).”

In practice, it’s much easier just to show you how Egypt protects its border with the Gaza Strip.

Follows, a Twatter/X/whatevs vid, which I won’t bother embedding here. Then:

That’s what Egypt’s border wall looks like from the Gaza side near the city of Rafah. There are concrete barriers in front of what appears to be a steel wall — 30 feet tall is my guesstimate — featuring three layers of concertina wire. It looks a little like somebody took a World War I obstacle and turned it up on one end. 

As Aviva Klompas, who posted the video clip noted, “Egypt REALLLLLY doesn’t want any Palestinian refugees.”

That might seem strange on the face of it since, for 20 years, Gaza was part of Egypt. It gets more curious still when you realize that if Egypt had wanted Gaza back, it could have gotten it (along with the entire Sinai peninsula) in its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Instead, then-Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat told Israeli PM Menachem Begin, “Nah, we’re good. You keep Gaza.” Sadat left a few hundred thousand fellow Arabs to the tender mercies of those hated Zionist colonial occupiers because it was the least bad option for Egypt.

Before the refounding of Israel in 1947, Jewish settlers to the British Palestine Mandate (and pre-WWI, to Ottoman Turkey’s South Syira province) often called themselves Palestinians. The local Arabs were a collection of mostly Syrians, plus some Egyptians, Lebanese, and others. “Palestinian” didn’t come into vogue for the Arab refugees of the Israeli War for Independence until the 1960s — and that was at the Soviet-funded behest of Yassar Arafat and his Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Some folks, who I’m otherwise inclined to agree with on Middle East issues, insist that there still isn’t any such thing as a Palestinian. But I must respectfully disagree.

Generations spent unprecedented as refugees, mixed up with the awfulness typical of occupation and lavish funding for terrorist leaders, have resulted in a uniquely Palestinian national identity.

It is also uniquely toxic.

It is at that. So, since they have again and again demonstrated their unwillingness to rethink their position and prefer to double, triple, and quadruple down on A) the destruction of Israel; B) the unquestioned supremacy of Pisslam, established by global jihad; and C) the extermination of every last Jew on Earth, let them perish from said toxicity, then.

While we’re all waiting for that suicide-by-Netanyahu to transpire, Bayou Peter has a question for Amerika v2.0’s “pResident”-ish*** Tyrantosaurus Wrex.

The new border wall was started immediately after the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel, and it’s already been completed – very fast work. Egypt clearly had a pretty good idea what was coming, and wanted to shut down its border with Gaza ahead of the streams of refugees who would doubtless have attempted to cross. It looks like it succeeded.

Let’s see, now…If President Biden wants to improve US relations with both Egypt and Israel, why doesn’t he hire the Egyptian firms who built that wall so well and so quickly to protect the USA’s border with Mexico in the same way? I’m sure their prices would be a lot lower than local companies, and they’ve got the experience to work fast and well. They could even please the migrants by hiring them as itinerant laborers to build the wall – provided they ended up on the Mexican side of the wall when it was complete.

The only thing missing are lethal defenses to back up the passive ones. Egypt’s taken care of that by sending tanks and armored personnel carriers to patrol the wall. We could do likewise. Employment for the National Guard, perhaps?

Excellent questions, both of them, the answers to which we already know, unfortunately. Which foreknowledge suggests another regrettably familiar question, namely: what is to be done about it?

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“Baseless”

Well, well, well, well, well, well, WELL.

Mail-In Ballot Fraud Study Finds Trump ‘Almost Certainly’ Won In 2020
A new study examining the likely impact that fraudulent mail-in ballots had in the 2020 election concludes that the outcome would “almost certainly” have been different without the massive expansion of voting by mail.

The Heartland Institute study tried to gauge the probable impact that fraudulent mail-in ballots cast for both then-candidate Joe Biden and his opponent, President Donald Trump, would have had on the overall 2020 election results.

The study was based on data obtained from a Heartland/Rasmussen survey in December that revealed that roughly one in five mail-in voters admitted to potentially fraudulent actions in the presidential election.

After the researchers carried out additional analyses of the data, they concluded that mail-in ballot fraud “significantly” impacted the 2020 presidential election.

They also found that, absent the huge expansion of mail-in ballots during the pandemic, which was often done without legislative approval, President Trump would most likely have won.

“Had the 2020 election been conducted like every national election has been over the past two centuries, wherein the vast majority of voters cast ballots in-person rather than by mail, Donald Trump would have almost certainly been re-elected,” the report’s authors wrote.

Over 43 percent of 2020 votes were cast by mail, the highest percentage in U.S. history.

The new study examined raw data from the December survey carried out jointly between Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports, which tried to assess the level of fraudulent voting that took place in 2020.

The December survey, which President Trump called “the biggest story of the year,” suggested that roughly 20 percent of mail-in voters engaged in at least one potentially fraudulent action in the 2020 election, such as voting in a state where they’re no longer permanent residents.

In the new study, Heartland analysts say that, after reviewing the raw survey data, subjecting it to additional statistical treatment and more thorough analysis, they now believe they can conclude that 28.2 percent of respondents who voted by mail committed at least one type of behavior that is “under most circumstances, illegal” and so potentially amounts to voter fraud.

“This means that more than one-in-four ballots cast by mail in 2020 were likely cast fraudulently, and thus should not have been counted,” the researchers wrote.

Color me shocked—SHOCKED! Quelle surprise, non? Calls for one of them funny-pitchers-with-words I’ve been saving up for other purposes, I do believe.

S’truth. Ahh, but seeing as how it worked out so perfectly for them last time around—they got away 110% scot-free, without suffering one (1) solitary thing by way of repercussion, recrimination, or even minor inconvenience afterwards, and almost certainly never will—there’s just NO FRIGGIN’ WAY they’ll try the same thing again this year, right? I mean, they wouldn’t DARE, right?

RIGHT?!?

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Another day…

…another deranged “transgender” Manwoman© shooting up the place.

Here’s Everything We Know About the Megachurch Shooter
The now-deceased gunman who opened fire inside a famous Texas megachurch run by Joel Osteen Sunday afternoon has been identified as an identity-switching Hispanic woman with pro-Palestine, antisemitic beliefs.

36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno, a biological female who used multiple male aliases, was wearing a trench coat when she entered the Houston-based Lakewood Church with two rifles, a backpack, and a young child by her side around 2 p.m. Sunday.

According to Commander Christopher Hassig of HPD’s homicide division during Monday’s press conference, the sticker simply stated “Palestine” on the long gun’s buttstock. In addition to the Anderson-manufacturing AR-15, which she used to carry out the church shooting, Moreno possessed a .22 caliber rifle by Blue Line Solutions on her person, but it was not fired at the time.

Authorities have also uncovered “antisemitic writings” in Moreno’s possession.

Hassig said police believe there was “a familiar dispute” that took place between her ex-husband and her ex-husband’s family. “Some of those individuals are Jewish. So, we believe that might possibly be where all of this stems from,” Hassig stated.

Dayumm, a possible self-gassing Jew for the Nutjob Trifecta too? I admit, I did NOT see that coming.

There were two victims injured: The seven-year-old boy, allegedly used as a human shield, was hit during the exchange of gunfire and taken to Texas Children’s Hospital in critical condition; a 57-year-old man, an innocent bystander, was shot in the leg.

The child caught in the crossfire suffered a gunshot to the head and remains hospitalized.

Moreno is the child’s biological mother. She’s posted “#momlife” and “#motherandson” content with pictures of a boy in her care.

In the past, Moreno assumed the altar-ego Jeffery Escalante as well as other male-presenting personas.

Moreno’s Facebook page—which expressed leftist, anti-police views—has since been scrubbed. Moreno’s since-deleted Instagram account featured posts of her cleaning an AR-15 and donating money to Lakewood Church. There, she uploaded a screenshot of the contribution’s confirmation. “[A]s for me and my household…I will honor and bless my church,” Moreno wrote on Instagram.

In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, Moreno supported socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). “I WANT HIM IN THE OFFICE AS THE US PRESIDENT,” she wrote in an Instagram post, uploading a photograph of Sanders on the campaign trail.

Arrest records show she was an El Salvadoran immigrant.

Jesus tapdancin’ Christ, is there any present-day socio/political/personal pathology this pluperfect looney-tooney doesn’t represent? Of course you know what this means, right? To wit: all normal, sane Real Americans who never shot anybody and never will must yield up their 2A rights immediately so something like this can never, ever happen again. Best-case scenario: the whole sad, sorry story will be alacritously hurled down the memory hole in 3…2…1…

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Predator popped

Admittedly, I am of two minds on this one. Two at least, maybe more.

Minnesota mom arrested for alleged sexual romp with two boys, 15, after spat with hubby
From hot tub to hotel room, a Minnesota mom was arrested for alleged criminal sexual conduct with two boys she claimed “she wasn’t going to go through with.”

Marital issues were reportedly blamed for 39-year-old Allison Leigh Schardin’s alleged felonies in mid-January when her family found themselves staying at the same hotel as a visiting hockey team. According to a report from the Star Tribune, after being arrested Thursday the mother of two young sons admitted to sexual contact with two 15-year-old boys she’d engaged with in a poolside chat.

Faced with third- and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, Schardin was said to have been discussing her marital problems with team players visiting from Colorado while she, her husband and their children were having a staycation in Roseville on Jan. 14.

When the players had returned to their rooms, the Blaine, Minnesota mom was said to have sent a Snapchat asking if she could join them.

Once there, she was said to have started talking with the boys about “sex and stuff,” got into bed with two of the boys and questioned them about their sexual activity. It was then that she allegedly performed sexual acts on them and asked them to perform sexual acts on her while a third boy was said to have watched, according to the Tribune.

If convicted, the maximum sentence for the third-degree criminal sexual conduct included up to 15 years imprisonment and/or a fine up $30,000 while the penalty for fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct maxed out at ten years imprisonment and/or a fine up to $20,000.

Her first court appearance was scheduled for Monday.

Okay, okay, I realize it was wrong of this dame to betray the trust bestowed on her by the Minneapolitans who put her in a position of responsibility she was patently unsuited for. I get all that, honestly I do. Nonetheless, I also remember what I was like when I was a fifteen-year-old boy; after seeing Schardin’s pic, I also know how delighted I would’ve been to…well, just take a look yourself.

See what I mean? At fifteen, if I’d had a romp with a hottie like that I woulda been fairly busting with pride, eager to dash right out and brag about the experience to any and every one of my peers who was willing to hear me out, right down to the last sweaty detail. I’m sure my mom and dad would’ve felt otherwise about it, of course, and would certainly have made their displeasure known to every authority figure within reach. But still.

The boys will have a ready-made audience at their high school, waiting for them with bated breath. They’ll be at the center of a sizable crowd whenever the grown-ups aren’t around, all a-twitter and expectant, primed to hear the thrilling tale told again and again. Hell, all the other boys will treat them like heroes, I don’t doubt. A solid percentage of the girls will probably despise them, sincerely and heatedly. Many will act as if they do for appearance’s sake, but will secretly find the taboo tryst darkly exciting, even compelling, ample cause not to shun them but to quietly seek them out.

As the old-school bikers liked to say, the ladies do love an outlaw, like a little boy loves a stray dog. From my own life-experience, I can confirm that this assessment is essentially true and accurate, if perhaps not universally so. As y’all CF Lifers© may recall, I effusively sung a jubilee of praise for such ladies many years back, in the post that first brought this humble, hitherto-unknown little websty to prominence when my friend and fellow OG-blogger Stephen Green linked to it at his pre-PJM Vodkapundit hang.

15 years and/or 30k? A felony, ferchrissake? All this for taking advantage—however unrighteous—of teenage horndogs who I guaran-damn-tee you do NOT see themselves as “victims” in any way, shape, or form, and probably never will? Who will more likely cherish fond memories of their youthful illicit adventure for the rest of their days; won’t be haunted by a moment’s remorse or regret; and will smile softly and slyly to themselves every time the memory pops into mind?

I dunno. As wrong as this MILF’s actions were; as psychologically/emotionally askew as she appears to be; as surpassingly unwise, injudicious, and just plain reckless as she inarguably is, that seems to me a mite harsh. If the punishment is supposed to fit the crime, I’m thinking the scales are way out of balance in this particular instance. Could be that’s just me though, I do admit it. But still.

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Border problem: SOLVED

Kim Dotcom has a good idea, Bracken comes up with an even better one.


Endorsed, with mucho enthusiasm.

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“Are we on the doorstep of another civil war?”

A: Probably so, yeah. A better question: Ought we to be? Do our current circumstances require such a terrible, desperate endeavor of us? A: Well, according to the Founders at any rate, indubitably so.

Before I get into my analysis, I want to make it clear I believe that anyone who wants a civil war to happen in the U.S. is dangerously naïve, insane, or working for one of America’s enemies. Imagine a Russia-Ukraine-type conflict in the U.S.

Thanks to Hollywood, most Americans believe that rebellions can be started and won by small ragtag groups of patriots, freedom fighters, insurrectionists, or everyday common folk. All you need are pistols, assault weapons, bows and arrows, and maybe a few Molotov cocktails. Blow up the Death Star, and the problem is solved.

But that is not how it usually works. Revolutions require armaments, soldiers, money, something worth fighting for, and popular support. Unless lives are at stake, few people are angry or committed enough to leave jobs or families to risk going to jail or dying needlessly.

The most daunting task is overcoming the opposition. The weaponry and manpower available to peacekeepers in our country is formidable. This includes the local sheriff’s departments, city police, state police, National Guard, and various federal agencies, most notably the FBI. Plus, in a crisis, these organizations will usually work together. An uprising of twenty, fifty, or even a hundred-plus armed citizens would quickly fail.

Follows, a capsule review of American history, from the Revolution to the Whiskey Rebellion to CW1, even the Weather Undeground, of all things. Then:

You might notice a pattern here. First, important issues divide our country, like independence versus obedience to the king or slavery versus freedom. Then, either a military skirmish occurs before sides get chosen or sides get chosen before the military gets involved. Both the Revolution and the Civil War were started by state military organizations, not by groups of armed radicals.

We are at a similar junction in history right now. Politics has divided the country, and the pivotal issue is unlimited illegal immigration. Few wanted it. No one expected it when he voted for Biden. And now almost no one is willing to pay the price socially or financially to support it.

The White House may have believed that its open border policy would get someone, anyone, to pick up a gun to stop the madness. It would give Biden an excuse to impose martial law, ban assault weapons or handguns, or both. But the horde of right-wing extremists the far-left fantasizes about does not exist.

It seems the administration may have gone too far too fast. The whole country is aware of this issue, and opposition is rising, leading the states to get directly involved. 

The Texas National Guard has been sent to the border to stop the flow of migrants. Roughly half of the states have declared their support for Texas.

If Democrats want to continue unlimited illegal immigration, Biden could nationalize the Texas National Guard, take control, and send it home. But what happens if Texas says no? Would Biden order the armed forces to disarm or attack the Texas Guard? Would the use of the armed forces be legal? Do Democrats care?

History tells us that civil wars happen when our country is divided and the states believe they must get involved. That time may be at hand.

Pray that sanity prevails.

Fair enough. On the other hand, though, it suggests another important Q: If “sanity” necessarily means acceptance of the Superstate status quo, should Real Americans who are seriously dedicated to the Founding principles of ordered liberty, self-determination, and limited government really be praying for it? Viewed in that light, can praying for such a thing even be considered truly sane at all? Or ought it to be thought of instead as what it truly amounts to: surrender?

As I’ve said all too many times over the past cpl-three years, I have no good answers. In fact, I strongly suspect there aren’t any, quite frankly. At this late date, things have gone much too far for any practical, effective answer that any sane soul would think of as “good.” Seems to me that no matter which route we choose, we’re in for some serious trouble, turmoil, tragedy, and loss. Best-case scenario is that I’m so full of shit my eyes are brown, which I do admit is eminently possible. Last I checked, they were still hazel, alas.

Update! The more I think about this sad, sorry situation, the more thoroughly I understand what the old phrase “between a rock and a hard place” means. Verily, it’s a real Hobson’s Choice we’re up against here.

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Just a guy in a lawnchair with a pen and a notebook

Is the evolution of the Surveillance State more or less a naturally-occurring phenomenon, or is it an insidious encroachment being intentionally foisted on us as part of a long-range plan hatched by shadowy FederalGovCo malefactors? Is there any realistic way to slow, halt, or reverse its growth, or to do away with it altogether once it’s fully implemented? Interesting questions, and with every passing day, more urgent ones.

When you think about what our emerging surveillance state will look like, you think 1984. You imagine East Germany powered by Google and Amazon. You recall your favorite dystopian sci-fi film – or maybe horror stories of China’s social credit system. Thoughts of a frustrated middle-aged police chief from a mid-sized Midwestern town attempting to procure security cameras with innovative new features probably don’t come to mind. You definitely don’t think of a guy in a lawn chair jotting down the license plate numbers of passing vehicles in a notebook. And that’s partly how the surveillance state is going to emerge as it creeps its way into one small town at a time.

Whether a surveillance state is the end goal is hard to say. The police chief of Pawnee, Indiana probably isn’t plotting the development of his own mini-Oceania. But, 18,000-plus mini-Oceanias operating across multiple platforms with varying degrees of integration, both locally and nationally, is undoubtedly the direction in which we are heading as salespeople peddle shiny new surveillance gadgets to cities big and small, making often unverified but intuitively appealing claims of how their devices will decrease crime or prove to be useful investigative tools.

Automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs, can be used to log a person’s movements through the license plates of their vehicles. Given the exponential increase in their use over the past few years and the ease with which data from the cameras of some vendors are integrated, they also pose a threat to privacy on par with facial recognition and cell site simulators.

Often positioned on street lights, traffic lights, independent structures, or police vehicles, ALPRs are a type of camera that captures the license plate and other identifying information of passing vehicles before comparing the information in real time to “hot lists” of vehicles actively being sought by law enforcement and transmitting the information to a searchable database. ALPRs sold by some companies are even said to be able to assess a car’s driving patterns to determine whether the person behind the wheel is “driving like a criminal.” 

You have nothing to worry about, you’re told. The town down the road brought them in six months back. Chief Jones over there said they helped solve that murder from the news. And, by the way, they’re not really that much different from a concerned citizen just keeping an eye on things. 

At the town hall in Urbana, for example, then-police chief, Bryant Seraphin, worked to dismiss the notion that ALPRs actually pose a threat to privacy or even constitute a surveillance tool. 

Repeatedly, he emphasized that ALPRs do not capture any information about the person driving a car or automatically link to information about the person to whom a vehicle is registered. Their ubiquity in the area was accentuated. Supposed success stories were shared.

To allay any remaining notion that there might be something scary about ALPRs, Seraphin described them with a folksy metaphor: “One of the things that I’ve talked about with these things is that if you pictured somebody sitting in a lawn chair writing down every plate that went by, the date, and the time when they wrote ‘red Toyota ABC123’, and then they would make a phone call and check the databases and then hang up and then go on to the next one – that’s what [an ALPR] does automatically and it can do it over and over again…with incredible speed.”

Yet, when Anita Chan, the director of the University of Illinois Community Data Clinic, proceeded to raise concerns regarding “the potential violation of civil liberties” and how a license plate alone is sufficient for the police to not just find out “where you live and where you work but also…who potentially your friends are, what religious affiliation you might have, essentially where you get medical services…[and] suss out essentially who’s traveling and where,” Seraphin acknowledged all this is possible. However, he assured her with a frustrated chuckle, ALPRs simply provide a notebook that would only be referenced when investigating serious crimes.

By the same logic, facial recognition simply provides a notebook as well. As do cell site simulators. As do any surveillance device. Yet, there is a fundamental question of whether such a notebook should exist. Does the chief of police in Urbana or the sheriff in Pawnee need a notebook containing your approximate location three Thursdays ago at 8:15pm, as well as a record of who attended last week’s political rally, in order to solve a murder? Should he be allowed to keep such a notebook if it might help solve an extra murder in his town each year? If the answer is yes, then what are the limits to the tools he and his department should be afforded?

Furthermore, there is also something a little off about the disarming metaphor of a guy who spends his days sitting around in a lawn chair jotting down the license plate numbers of passing vehicles. Something a little insidious. Something that perhaps Anita Chan was picking up on.

Although they’re not mentioned in the article, it brings to mind the strident denunciations of smartphones, social media, and even the internet itself currently prevalent among many on Our Side of the political aisle, all of which devices are apparently tools of the Devil Himself: a spy in your pocket or on your desk, devouring your liberty and eliminating your personal privacy and security whether you foolish, unwitting Sheeples realize it or not.

This is an old, old debate, going back at least to the early days of television itself if not even farther. While I am certainly not one to dismiss legitimate concerns of broad Snooperstate infringement on the citizenry’s right to privacy and essential liberty, to me it seems that what we’re witnessing is an inevitable byproduct of the ongoing march of technological advancement and innovation.

What we have here might be thought of as a clock that cannot be turned back to the semi-mythical Golden Days of yore, which exist now only in our collective cultural memory. T’was ever thus, I think; as wondrous new technologies become available and affordable—therefore ubiquitous, eventually—the convenience, assistance, and entertainment they provide are also accompanied by some less salutary and desirable secondary aspects as well. To imagine nefarious, skulking Bad Actors might not exploit those secondary aspects to the fullest possible extent is nothing but a fool’s hope. Such a fantasy ignores the very nature of government itself, even after the Founders explicitly forewarned us in their Declaration, Constitution, and Federalist Papers.

That being so, the remedy ought to be damned obvious to every right-thinking American: we do not ban the devices and technologies, thereby denying ourselves the myriad positive aspects they bring to the world. Instead, the right way to go about it is to keep the Bad Actors firmly and securely leashed, and severely punish any of them who dares to exceed his proper Constitutional remit at the very first hint he’s even considering such a thing.

Don’t like being surveilled, tracked, and/or put into a database by your smartphone? Don’t blame the smartphone, then; blame the assholes who use it not for its original intended purpose, but as a spy’s tool and a dictator’s security blanket. THEY’RE the problem, not technological progress and the near-magical, undreamed-of devices that enhance life for Normals. Blame the warped assholes and their villainous schemes, and make sure they pay a high price for their perverse authoritarian impulses—each and every time, always and forever, no exceptions. As the Founders knew, it really is the only way.

(Via WRSA)

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The Firm™

Another one I’m gonna just have to screencap rather than embed, so as to avoid the annoying “Show more” clickbait link—in three (3) parts, no less.

Apologies for the formatting weirdness, but well worth a read anyway, I think. If you’d rather take it all in in one big gulp at the original source, it’s here. I do really like Lee’s “The Firm™” formulation, and plan to make mucho use of it going forward.

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A preponderance of evidence

First our very own hhluce posted his Border Kabuki pics in the comments here, then he aggregated ‘em all into one handy-dandy Stream 47 Substack post. Nice work, hh, damned nice work. Our boy has another first-rater up as well: ingeniously conceived, immaculately researched, impeccably argued. To wit:

It’s Not Migration, It’s Colonization, By The Communist Chinese
They polluted their own country so that the soil can’t grow crops that aren’t full of cadmium, mercury, and arsenic – and so now they want our land – and possession is 99% of the law…

And the “Democratic” and “Republican” Parties both facilitate this, the latter covering for the former’s bad acts. Trump has promised to deport these people back across the border, and to seal it against incursion – while Bai-den does nothing – and his CBP helps them to come across. That’s a clear choice for anyone opposed to the colonization and eventual control of the US by the Han Chinese, the most racist people on the face of the earth, who are content to live under brutal dictators, since they have no tradition of anything approaching democracy or republicanism. And both of the Democratic and Republican Establishments are giving not only comfort, but active aid – money, food, housing, medical care, transport – to these people invading the US on behalf of a hostile foreign power. Want some evidence? See the following…

Trust me, you want to, you really, really want to. It’s an entirely different take on the manufactured “border crisis” that proceeds from a place I will guar-on-gott-damn-TEE you you haven’t seen anyplace else. I repeat: DAMNED nice work, hh, and good on ya. That second excerpted piece calls for a rerun of a Kari Lake gem I used in my most recent Screamin’ meemie Monday! post, I do believe.

Seconded, most heartily. Good on you too, Ms Lake, you good-lookin’ thang, you. Arizona really screwed the pooch by not electing you Governor when they had the chance in 22. That, and re-sending Traitor John McStain to the Senate for a hundred and fifty-sixty years—I mean, what the hell is WRONG with you people out there, anyhow?

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An idea whose time has surely come

Not a sportsball guy by any stretch, so I can’t honestly claim to care one way or the other about what pro athletes (or any athletes, actually) might or might not do, say, or think—or to even to be aware of it, most of the time. But this right here, I support one hundred and ten percent.

Black National Anthem at the Super Bowl
What happens if a white person takes a knee?

The NFL has announced that for the fourth year in a row, the so-called black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” will be performed at the Super Bowl.

It appears we’ve come full circle since the 2004 Democratic National Convention when then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama said: “Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us…there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America — there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America…We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

The national anthem is also the black/white/Asian/Hispanic national anthem. It is the national anthem of every citizen.

As for the black national anthem to be sung at the Super Bowl, what’s next? How about playing the University of Michigan fight song? What happens if at least some players reject the narrative that blacks remain victims and consider the singing of the black national anthem at the Super Bowl divisive?

The first white or black player who takes a knee at the Super Bowl during the “black national anthem” will immediately have the league’s bestselling jersey. As Nike says, “Just do it!”

Yes indeedy. Hell, if this idea should take hold and become a trend—not that it will, natch, because RAYCISS!!!©—I might possibly be persuaded to tune in a game on the TeeWee once in a while again, if only for that.

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Texit facts ‘n’ figures

Also via WRSA: Could the Republic of Texas stand alone, on its own, as an independent nation? Martin Armstrong crunches the numbers.

The severity of the migrant crisis may be new to those who do not live on a bordering state. Yet Texas has been grappling with this issue for years, resulting in countless calls for a secession from the United States or “Texit.” How would Texas manage as an independent nation?

Size and Population
Texas would be the 39th largest nation by land mass. Texas encompasses 268,596 sq. miles, roughly the size of France, and is larger than many developed nations including the United Kingdom. Texas had an estimated population of 30,503,301 as of July 2023, making it the second-most populous state in the United States after California. Texas would be the 50st most populous country in the world.

Economy
Texas has the second-largest economy in the United States behind California. In 2023, the Texas economy exhibited a mix of trends. While the state’s economic growth slowed in Q4, with job growth falling sharply in October and business activity contracting slightly in November, the real GDP for Texas grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in Q2, outpacing the U.S. growth rate of 2.1%. Its real GDP stood at $2.5 trillion in Q3 of 2023. Therefore, Texas is the world’s 8th largest economy.

For context, Russia’s economy was valued at $1.862 trillion in nominal terms and $5.056 trillion in PPP. Texas has a larger economy than Australia, Spain, Italy, and Mexico, to name a few.

Pretty encouraging so far; from there, Armstrong takes a likewise-brief look at military power and infrastructure, to arrive at this conclusion.

Texas could survive as an independent nation. Naturally, the United States would fight tooth and nail to preserve its second-largest economy. Based on the data, Texas has the resources to be an independent nation if permitted to operate independently.

WELL, then. We’re all rooting for ya out here, cowboy.

Update! “Soft” secession? Not a fucking chance.

In this year’s public blog two-part extravaganza I went over my predictions for 2024 (here and here). In them I brought up the idea that ‘soft secession’ would make it’s way into the public conversation in both the US and Canada. It wasn’t really a tough call to make but it was something that needed to be discussed in the public sphere.

We saw the beginnings of this last year with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith declaring she would not be collecting carbon taxes to send to Ottawa to fund Chrystia Freeland’s dreams of destroying the country.

Smith is in the news again with her pledge to further defy Ottawa by announcing Alberta would be looking to double oil and gas production. She did so at an event with Tucker Carlson in Edmonton. I’m not sure how Smith is going to go about this, since I do not explicitly understand the legal limits she can defy Ottawa on this.

But this is a big deal. Smith isn’t the only one here. Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe is following her lead on carbon taxes. This is a classic example of why we don’t need a majority of attack dogs to take on Davos and the rest of the globalists.

Not everyone is a leader, like Smith clearly is. Some are simply followers. They only make their move when someone else sticks their neck out first to find out whether it’ll get chopped off.

Many, including myself, admire Russian President Vladimir Putin for this exact reason. Donald Trump, in many ways, owes his popularity to this effect as well. It doesn’t matter if they make mistakes, are imperfect, or even fail to achieve ‘flawless victory.’ What matters is that they go first and lead on behalf of the people they are supposed to represent.

Back in 2019 Tucker Carlson made this exact point in one of his most important opening monologues…

By doing so they inspire others to take their first steps and what starts as a disgruntled handful of people bitching about the government around a campfire turns into a mass movement against tyranny.

This is exactly how the American Revolution started, in the pubs and meeting halls. It was the businessmen turned into smugglers and the farmers turned into sharecroppers that eventually put a critical mass of them into the same room hatching a plan to overthrow an absentee landlord of a king.

We’re seeing this all across the West. And if I have to give credit where credit is more than due then that credit goes to the ‘Gilet Jaunes’ or Yellow Vests of France. Remember them?

While they left the headlines quickly, because of the embarrassment, they never really went away. France has been in a state of rolling protests against the Macron government since then.

Emphasis either Durden’s or Luongo’s, not mine—except for the italicized ‘graphs, which basically make the exact same point I was attempting to in my various posts on the Texas brouhaha these past several days, albeit worded differently.

I like the piece generally, although I still maintain that anybody thinking Amerika v2.0’s tyrannous government will just sit blithely, idly back and allow any “soft” secession to take place without immediate resort to swift and blinding violence is fucking dreaming. Didn’t happen the first time around in 1860, ain’t gonna happen today, tomorrow, next week, next year, or, y’know, ever. Not without war —and, as the greatest cavalry officer of all time told us, war means fighting, and fighting means killing.

FACT: America That Was is gone, finito, dead as coffin nails, and cannot be brought back. Dear as she surely was to those of us who were fortunate enough to have grown up here in better days, it cannot be “restored” or “repaired” or “refreshed” or “rejuvenated”; things have gone much too far for that, I’m afraid. It can only be replaced, and that’s flat. And even that is chancy at best, with no guarantees as to what it might be replaced with.

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