GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Chip off the old block

As I’m sure you all know, Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins passed last year, probably the victim of an OD, after years of struggling with heroin addiction. So marvel as his 16 year old son (!) shows off badass, hard-hitting chops that almost have to be coded in his family’s DNA.

Yep, a hard-hitter for sure, just like the old man. Not my favorite Foo Fighters tune, unfortunately; myself, I wish they’d done “Monkeywrench,” but what the hey. As WeirdDave says:

Not only does he absolutely nail it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a drummer play with such emotion. His anger, pain, rage and yes, love could be bagged and sold. The subtle support he’s getting from the rest of the band, “We got you buddy. You’re with family”, take the performance to another level. I’m not even a Foo Fighters fan, but this one put tears in my eyes.

I won’t go quite as far as all that, but it’s certainly something to see nonetheless.

1

Preview of coming attractions

The Farm Wars.

A few weeks ago, 42-year-old Jared Bossly ventured out into his farm to plant alfalfa.

Bossly’s farm in Brown County, South Dakota has been owned by his family for four generations. They grow corn, beans, and alfalfa in addition to raising cattle. They also plant trees all over the property as a windbreak to protect the herd.

Bossley has put his entire life into his work, and has passed those values along to his children. He and his 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son work on the farm daily to do the right things for the land.

Every spare penny the Bossly family has goes into their farm. Interviewing Bossly, I was struck by the level of care they put into their work.

On this particular day, he was nine miles away from his residence when he received a text from his wife, who works as a nurse but was home that day on leave from her job while recovering from gallbladder surgery.

She was in the shower when she heard their front door open and a voice yell “hello.” Mrs. Bossly asked her husband if he was expecting anybody, to which he said no. She then got dressed and went downstairs to see who it was.

Meanwhile, the two men who opened the front door of the house, then walked into Bossly’s shop adjacent to their home before heading back out onto their farmland.

Mrs. Bossly then called him to update him on the situation and he told her to go see who they were.

They identified themselves as surveyors from a company called Summit Carbon Solutions (SCS).

The Bossly family are just one of over 80 South Dakota landowners facing eminent domain lawsuits Summit filed in late April.

These 80+ properties fall in the path of a planned 2,000-mile carbon capture pipeline the company plans to build. The planned project traverses five states and aims to capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in Iowa and sequester it underground in North Dakota.

In South Dakota, there is no clear process laid out by which an entity is granted the power of eminent domain. Historically, once a project is approved or permitted by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), it assumes the power of eminent domain. But under the PUC’s Pipeline Sitting Guide, pipelines are designated as common carriers, which deflects the decisions to the circuit court system.

And despite the fact that the pipeline has not yet been permitted, SCS is taking advantage of South Dakota’s lack of private property protections and using it against landowners like Jared Bossly.

Read all of it—and prepare to get good and pissed off about this criminal outrage. And all in the name of “Green energy” and Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™, natch.

They’re “afraid of us?” Because “we have all the guns?” Oh, I think this incident ought to put paid to that comforting fairy tale handily enough. My God, these corporate shitweasels opened the front door of a private dwelling and came inside before proceeding to wander the property as if they owned the place, poking their noses into storage sheds and such at will, just as pretty as you please.

Sorry, but they aren’t ever going to be truly “afraid of us” until we get those guns out of the gun safe, load them, and start greeting agents of the State at the front door with them in hand, every time they dare to set foot on private property to harass us, intimidate us, and steal from us.

A nice, quiet evening at home spent having their significant other laboriously pick pellets from a properly-administered load of double-aught buckshot out of their baggy asses with a long set of surgical tweezers whilst they sweat, bleed, and groan with pain will make ‘em think long and hard about ever attempting such a foray again, I’d bet. Where I live, if I were to go waltzing around somebody else’s property without a specific invite like these shitwits did, I would expect no less.

(Via WRSA and GFZ)

Update! A minor thought: around these parts, we have a word for it: traipsin’, which was originally just Southern mumble-mouth shorthand for trespassing. I have “No trespassing” signs posted all over the property, and now that I’m permanently confined to a wheelchair and thus incapable of any brawling or rasslin’ around, it’s now shoot first and don’t ask any questions at all for me. Fuck around and find out, that’s the rule of the day around here.

The revolution is not being televised

It’s playing out on Twitter. At least, the mass-communications, Jurassic Media Vs New Media front of it is.

‘Curiosity Is The Gravest Crime’: Tucker Carlson Returns And Tears Media To Shreds For Ukraine Coverage
Former Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson brought his show to Twitter for the first time Tuesday by posting a monologue about the Ukraine war and how the media is covering it.

“This morning, it looks like somebody blew up the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine. The rushing wall of water wiped out entire villages, destroyed a critical hydropower plant, and as of tonight, puts the largest nuclear reactor in Europe in danger of melting down. So, if this was intentional, it was not a military tactic — it was an act of terrorism,” Carlson began.

The Ukrainian and Russian governments accused each other of intentionally destroying the dam as an act of sabotage, according to The Washington Post.

“Blowing up the dam may be bad for Ukraine, but it hurts Russia more. And for precisely that reason, the Ukrainian government has considered destroying it. In December, The Washington Post quoted a Ukrainian general saying his men had fired American-made rockets at the dam’s floodgate, as a test strike,” Carlson stated.

Carlson transitioned to discussing The Washington Post’s story showing the U.S. knew about Ukrainian plans to attack the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline months before it was destroyed. The Post’s story was based on an intelligence leak on social media platform Discord.

Carlson pointed to the intelligence officer who blew the whistle Monday on alleged UFOs possessed by the U.S. government as a recent example of the pressing stories the media ignores.

“So if you’re wondering why our country seems so dysfunctional, this is a big part of the reason. Nobody knows what’s happening. A small group of people control accesses to all relevant information. And the rest of us don’t know. We’re allowed to yap all we want about racism, but go ahead and talk about something that really matters and see what happens. If you keep it up, they’ll make you be quiet. Trust us. That’s how they maintain control,” he continued.

Carlson concluded his monologue with a teaser about future Twitter broadcasts if the platform maintains its commitment to free speech under owner Elon Musk.

“That’s how most of us now live here in the United States — manipulated by lies, silenced by taboos. It is unhealthy and is dehumanizing, and we’re tired of it. As of today, we’ve come to Twitter, which we hope will be the shortwave radio under the blankets. We’re told there are no gatekeepers here. If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave. But in the meantime, we are grateful to be here. We’ll be back with much more very soon.”

I know the White Supremacist, ((((JOOOOJOOOOJOOOOOOO!!!!)))-obsessed loons out there despise Tucker as what they stupidly mislabel a “Cuck,” since he’s never frittered away a minute of his on-air time to rant about the “dire need” to unite with our natural allies in Iran, Yemen, and Ethiopa to finally destroy Israel once and for all, or the “inevitable” establishment of an exclusively White Pagan nation on the continental US, but nobody cares what those idiots “think” about anything anyway.

Tucker’s inaugural Twitter ep got over a million views in twenty minutes, and last time I looked a little while ago was closing fast on 90,000,000 (90 MILLION!) of ‘em. Hearty congrats to Tucker and Elon both; they’re at the forefront of a bona-fide revolution in communications media, and I for one am happy to see it. Oh yeah, the vid itself? Rat cheer, folks.


Chutzpahcrisy update! They wouldn’t dare, would they? Oh yes, they most certainly would.

REPORT: Tucker Carlson Accused Of Contract Breach By Fox News Lawyers
Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson was accused by Fox News lawyers on Wednesday of violating his contract with the network by launching his new show on Twitter, Axios reports.

Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar sent Carlson’s attorneys a letter shortly after his Twitter broadcast stating that Carlson “is in breach” of his contract, according to Axios. “In connection with such breach and pursuant to the Agreement, Fox expressly reserves all rights and remedies which are available to it at law or equity,” the letter reads, per the outlet.

His video racked up nearly 90 million Twitter views in 24 hours and immediately made Carlson a trending topic on the platform. At the end of the monologue, Carlson promised future Twitter broadcasts as long as the platform maintained its commitment to free speech.

Prior to his departure, Carlson was Fox News’ highest rated host and consistently achieved the highest ratings on cable news.

Carlson is also alleging breach of contract, with his lawyer accusing a Fox News board member of “engaging in an attempted smear campaign by illegally leaking information about Tucker Carlson.”

Whatever pitiful, tattered shreds of credibility Faux “News” had left with 90 million+ Real Americans, they just flushed down the shitter for good. Brilliant move, shitlib Sooperdoopergenii.

Thrilla in Manila

Inside dope on one of the greatest, most compellingly brutal fights of all time.

Did Muhammad Ali ever give any compliments to his opponents?
Ali on Joe Frazier, the morning after their brutal third fight – the Thrilla in Manila, which brought down the curtain on a legendary trilogy

“I heard somethin’ once. When somebody asked a marathon runner what goes through his mind in the last mile or two, he said that you ask yourself, ‘Why am I doin’ this?’ You get so tired. It takes so much out of you mentally. It changes you. It makes you go a little insane. I was thinkin’ that at the end. Why am I doin’ this? What am I doin’ in here against this beast of a man? It’s so painful. I must be crazy. I always bring out the best in the men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.”

Well, good for both of ‘em, then. Next question:

Did Muhammad Ali really consider himself the greatest?
Yes…with reason. He took the title from arguably the second greatest heavyweight ever, won it a second time against an all time top ten heavyweight champion and then defend(ed) the title in the golden era of the heavyweight.

He beat Sonny Liston…twice

He beat Joe Frazier…twice

He beat Ken Norton…twice

He beat Floyd Patterson…twice

He beat George Foreman

He beat Ernie Shavers

He beat Ron Lyle

He best Jimmy Young

He beat Jimmy Ellis

He beat Jimmy Quarry

He beat Bob Foster, the best light heavyweight of his day.

He beat Cleveland Williams, Zora Folley, Henry Cooper, Buster Mathis…he beat the great, he beat the damn near great, and he beat the very, very good.

He beat five world heavyweight champions (Liston, Patterson, Frazier, Foreman, and Norton) and he beat an undisputed light heavyweight champion (Bob Foster).

It was the Golden Era of the Heavyweights and he was King of the Hill.

Damn right he thought he was the best…so did they!!!

Just about any serious boxing fan would agree that if Ali wasn’t, as he loved to boast, “the greatess of all times,” then he was certainly well in the running. His balance, agility, and footwork; his ability to take punch after punch and still keep coming at you; the awesome power behind his own punches; his ability to intelligently strategize, to get inside the head of his opponents and manipulate their emotions to their own great detriment; there’s really never been anyone quite like him, with the arguable exception of Iron Mike Tyson—who, in addition to being an absolutely vicious, relentless opponent, was also a marvelously-talented boxer in his own right.

Ali also had a near-uncanny ability to get the spotlight focused tightly on him and keep it there, a star-quality that simply would not be denied, and is nowhere to be found in professional boxing today.

From the TiM Wiki entry:

Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier lll, billed as the “Thrilla in Manila”, was the third and final boxing match between WBA and WBC heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, and Joe Frazier, for the heavyweight championship of the world. The bout was conceded after fourteen rounds on October 1, 1975, at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines, located in Metro Manila. The venue was temporarily renamed as the “Philippine Coliseum” for this match. Ali won by corner retirement (RTD) after Frazier’s chief second, Eddie Futch, asked the referee to stop the fight after the 14th round. The contest’s name is derived from Ali’s rhyming boast that the fight would be “a killa and a thrilla and a chilla, when I get that gorilla in Manila.”

The bout is almost universally regarded as one of the best and most brutal fights in boxing history, and was the culmination of a three-bout rivalry between the two fighters that Ali won, 2–1. Some sources estimate the fight was watched by 1 billion viewers, including 100 million viewers watching the fight on closed-circuit theatre television, and 500,000 pay-per-view buys on HBO home cable television.

The first bout between Frazier and Ali–– promoted as the “Fight of the Century”–– took place on March 8, 1971, in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Frazier was the undefeated champion and won by unanimous decision over the previously undefeated former champion Ali, who had been stripped of his titles for refusing to enter the draft for the Vietnam War.

Their showdown was a fast-paced, 15-round bout, with Frazier scoring the fight’s (and the trilogy’s) only knockdown, at the beginning of the final round.

When the rivals met in a January 1974 rematch, neither was champion; Frazier had suffered a stunning second-round knockout by George Foreman a year earlier,

Yeah, I just bet it was stunning at that. Anytime George Foreman landed one of those almighty bricks of his upside an opponent’s poor noggin, “stunning” would definitely have been the mot juste to describe the horrific experience. Onwards.

and Ali had two controversial split bouts with Ken Norton. In a promotional appearance before the second fight, the two had scuffled in an ABC studio during an interview segment with Howard Cosell.

There were controversial aspects to the fight. In the second round, Ali struck Frazier with a hard right hand, which backed him up. Referee Tony Perez stepped between the fighters, signifying the end of the round, even though there were about 25 seconds left. In so doing, he gave Frazier time to regain his bearings and continue fighting. Perez also failed to contain Ali’s tactic of illegally holding and pulling down his opponent’s neck in the clinches, which helped Ali to smother Frazier, and gain the 12-round decision. This became a major issue in selecting the referee for the Manila bout.

Ahh, those wonderful old verbal slugfests between Ali and Cosell—truly classic stuff, they were, and wildly entertaining, as Ali himself always was, both inside the squared circle and out of it.

When Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali were in a room together the two mega personalities produced countless magical television moments. The men constantly teased one another and often pretended to spar while wearing suits and ties, as The New York Times notes.

In one memorable moment, Ali threatened to pull off Cosell’s toupee. Another time, Ali was quoted as saying “Every time you open your mouth, you should be arrested for air pollution” to which Cosell responded “You would still be in impoverished anonymity in this country if I hadn’t made you.”

Still another time, Ali pretended to threaten Cosell. The sportscaster responded teasingly “Don’t touch me. I’ll beat your brains out,” via USA Today. The verbal sparring delighted audiences and boosted TV ratings. And, HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant described their back and forth as symbiotic. He said the boxer wasn’t threatened by Cosell and that Cosell realized how Ali was a one-of-a-kind athlete.

Howard Cosell’s daughter Jill told USA Today that her father never imagined the back and forth between the two men would become a sort of comic routine. She described Ali as funny, charming, handsome, and with a “big mouth.” She said Ali trusted her dad and that over the years their relationship developed into friendship.

While good-natured back and forth was so much of the men’s public persona, below the surface grew a deeper bond. After Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, Cosell acknowledged the change while many others resisted. Cosell also defended Ali from critics when Ali refused to be inducted into the military over religious beliefs, via USA Today.

Cosell died in 1995 at the age of 77. His daughter Jill says Ali sat next to her at her father’s service with tears streaming down his face during the eulogy. And then, in June of 2016, Muhammad Ali died. The three-time heavyweight champion is considered by many to be one of the greatest boxers to ever enter the ring.

Another magical Ali moment came in 1996, when The Greatest sat down with Ed Bradley to be interviewed for 60 Minutes, a moment I well remember seeing when it originally aired.

Muhammad Ali’s tragic decline was already well underway by the time of the Bradley interview, as was heartbreakingly obvious in the unexpurgated broadcast version I watched back in ’96. When I found this the other day, it was the first time I’d seen it since then, but over lo, these many, many years I never have forgotten it. If you’ve never before seen the Thrilla in Manilla, the entire 14-round fight (an hour and twelve minutes) is available on YouTube. For any fan of the Sweet Science, it’s a must-see.

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Why we can’t have nice things anymore

Enviro-nuts, that’s why.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE WHY WE CAN’T HAVE INFRASTRUCTURE
California’s high-speed electric train has burned through nearly $10 billion, far more than its original $9 billion bond, without building a single mile of track.

Where did that money go?

$1.3 billion was spent on environmental impact clearances.

After over a decade, Brian Kelly, the CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, cheerfully announced that, “we’re making true progress on nearing full environmental clearance for the entire Phase 1 high-speed rail project.” By the summer, the high-speed rail which hasn’t even begun construction might finally get its full environmental impact clearance. Perhaps.

California’s infamous high-speed train to nowhere, which began in 2009 and whose budget already tops $100 billion, financed by corrupt environmental cap-and-trade robbery that makes cryptocurrency seem legitimate by comparison, may seem like an outlier, but it’s not.

Every time presidents make a pitch for an infrastructure bill, they visit the Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River for a photo op.

“Mr. McConnell, help us rebuild this bridge,” Obama declared with his back to the bridge. “Help us rebuild America.

After Obama, Trump came to the bridge, and more recently Biden claimed that his infrastructure bill, which spent nearly three quarters of a billion on electric cars, and little on infrastructure, would finally fix the bridge. Over $10 million has been spent on environmental impact studies going back 18 years to explain why nothing much was being done about the bridge.

But why spend money on bridges when you can instead spend it on environmental reviews of hypothetical bridges? People can cross the former, but the politically connected get rich off the latter.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, $5 million was needed to fund an environmental impact study to build a new bridge, another $5 million to consider building a bridge in Mission, Texas. The current status of that bridge is unclear. After wasting millions and years on environmental impact studies, projects often never move forward due to changing finances or circumstances.

The endless environmental studies drain massive amounts of taxpayer money. For example, the Yeager Airport in Central West Virginia needed a $5.6 million grant for its environmental impact study. And the sheer scale of taxpayer money stolen by the green industry is not being tracked.

Why, it’s almost as if the whole Green Weenie, EnviroTard, Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ thing was nothing but a scam right from the start or something. But no, that can’t be right, the very idea is just completely absurd.

Isn’t it?

(Via Brother Bob)

5

TRUE culprit found

Well, this would certainly explain a few things, wouldn’t it?

Report: Sandbag That Tripped Biden On Stage Also Participated In Jan 6 Capitol Riot
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — The motive behind a sandbag’s sudden attack on President Joe Biden became more clear today, as sources within the federal government have produced photos showing the sandbag also participated in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

“This sandbag has been a dangerous entity for some time,” said one source under the condition of anonymity. “After reviewing video footage from the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, we discovered the sandbag among the other Trump-supporting domestic terrorists. The sandbag has evaded justice since that day, giving it the opportunity to trip President Biden at the Air Force commencement ceremony.”

As officials continued to dig into the sandbag’s past, further red flags were raised. “We have also found a lengthy manifesto written by the sandbag,” the source said. “We will not be releasing the manifesto to the public due to the potential damage it could cause to our democracy, but it’s really bad. Just trust us, we’re the government.”

Though unharmed in the tripping incident, President Biden has privately vowed to bring the full weight of the federal government behind his crusade to hunt down other sandbags. Additional reports seem to have indicated the sand inside the bag was white, raising concerns about ties to white supremacist organizations.

There’s hard photographic proof included with the linked article, which plainly has not been Photoshopped or otherwise altered in any way, shape, or form. Unsurprisingly, the sandbag also had close ties with Putin and RUSSIARUSSIARUSSIA. Can exposure of even deeper links to Trump and the demonic MAGA agenda be long in coming?

2

Nuke up before it’s too late!

Finland figures it out.

How Finland Ended Up with Too Much Electricity
As the Western World drives mindlessly into the fantasy of a false green energy future, shortages are a common topic of discussion—blackouts in the frigid winter, brownouts in the heat of summer. You’d be right to ask.

What “leader” pushes a plan that puts demand before supply?

Finland, not known for its politically conservative nature (quite the opposite), was struggling with that problem. After Russia invaded Ukraine, available energy became a priority. You can’t run anything these days without it, and we’ll only need more.

But it is a problem Finland has solved, at least for now, with Nuclear.

Then we get a link to a Daily Wire article which says this:

Electricity prices in Finland plummeted into negative territory this week after the launch of a new nuclear power plant last month.

The development comes months after officials in the Nordic nation were raising the alarm over widespread energy shortages, a reality induced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Energy producers are now discussing mechanisms to reduce production as power becomes so abundant that prices venture into negative territory.

“Production is high, consumption is low, and now we are in a situation where it is not easy to adjust production,” Fingrid CEO Jukka Ruusunen said in an interview with Yle News. “Last winter, the only thing people could talk about was where to get more electricity. Now we are thinking hard about how to limit production. We have gone from one extreme to another.”

Average spot electricity prices in Finland declined from $264 in December to $65 in April, according to a report from the National News. Utility companies are unable to decrease energy output through hydropower, the typical domain in which electricity production can be reduced, because of excess snowmelts.

Back to the first excerpted article for the moral of the story.

I’m not sure why Finland can’t sell the excess to someone who needs it, but I’m not familiar enough with their grid arrangements or EU policy. But, they built a nuclear plan which seems out-of-character.

European thinking on Nuclear energy is bipolar at best. They are all dancing to the broken tune of the ridiculously flawed Paris Climate Accords and other EU green deals. The Daily Wire reminds us that Germany ended its relationship with Nuclear (so it could burn coal to keep warm) while Finland and Poland are adding capacity.

Lesson learned? Probably not quite yet, or not in solid-Green Churmany at least. But one way or another, cold, implacable reality will see to it that eventually, it will be. Yes, even here in the US.

I live in New Hampshire. We are at the mercy of the New England Grid as all the states around us announce green power plans, EV mandates, and race to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar. We can’t get new pipelines built to carry fracked Gas from Pennsylvania because States like New York and Massachusetts say none shall pass.

Federal Law prohibits domestic port-to-domestic port transport of domestic energy, so when we find ourselves chilled in January or February, we have to look off the continent in Africa or Asia for natural gas – while Joe Biden promises mountains of US NG to the EU as a favor for supporting his proxy war with Russia.

The whole business is FUBAR, even in Finland.

“Operators in Finland and the surrounding areas are now monitoring the situation. If hydropower can’t be regulated, then it will probably be nuclear power next. Production that is not profitable at these prices is usually removed from the market,” Ruusunen continued. “Now there is enough electricity, and it is almost emission-free. So you can feel good about using electricity.”

Feel good? Did you miss the memo? That’s not the plan. You’re doing it wrong. The idea is to starve people of modernity as punishment for whatever the progressive narrative mills can imagine will scare you enough to go along. Not them, just you. But for a few heartbeats, Finland has a good problem that has exposed another problem. What to do with the idea of abundant, affordable electricity in a world committed to hating both?

Well, I can think of at least one option—which involves pitchforks, torches, stout ropes, and lampposts for the evil ProPol bastiches who are doing this to us.

Coming unglued

Is Trump losing his grip?

What Is He Thinking? Trump Attacks His Former Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
On Tuesday evening, former President Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social and launched an assault on his former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. He leveled accusations against her, claiming that she distorted poll figures during her appearance on Fox News.

“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ [sic] McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on Fox News. I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34. She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll,” Trump wrote.“The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!”

Trump decided to attack McEnany, who is now a co-host of Fox News’ Outnumbered, where she reported on polling data from Iowa indicating that Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is “closing the gap” with Donald Trump since officially announcing his candidacy last week.

Trump’s use of “milktoast” is an apparent misspelling of the term “milquetoast,” which refers to a timid or weak person. How exactly can Trump justify using such a term to describe McEnany, given how she effectively and aggressively handled the media during her time as White House Press Secretary?

Indeed, Trump’s attack on McEnany is unacceptable. She demonstrated unwavering loyalty to the former president, even enduring personal attacks on his behalf. And for what reason did he turn on her — reporting on a poll? Trump has attacked many people who served him loyally, but it’s still hard to believe that McEnany is now on that list.

President Trump did great things for this country, but his attack on McEnany — and frankly, most of his attacks on people who chose to serve in (his) administration — have been unhinged and childish. I suspect they will drive more people away from supporting him in 2024.

Not that post-Ailes Faux News is exactly a paragon of journalistic virtue or anything, mind, but I remember liking McEnany a lot myself when she was in Trump’s employ as press secretary. She was aggressive, well-prepared, and never took a single ounce of the horseshit lobbed by shitlib propagandists during their ceaseless attacks on her and her boss lying down. “Milktoast”? Oh, puh-LEEZE. She was never anything of the sort, and Trump ought to know that better than just about anybody.

Frankly, it bears careful thinking over; like pRetend “president” Biden, Trump is no spring chicken himself, and we’re all susceptible to gradual loss of mental acuity and emotional outbursts as we age. Unlike Biden, Trump has held up remarkably well, both physically and mentally, but that doesn’t mean that this will remain so forever. I’ll hold off for the nonce on offering a firm opinion on what the real deal here might be, but this overwrought, ugly, and wholly pointless blue-on-blue diatribe against McEnerny over a completely trivial non-issue is somewhat worrisome.

This inexplicable fusillade against one of the best of his very few good hiring decisions having been provoked by what at this early stage amounts to no more than a rounding error, it’s all too clear that Ron DeSantis is now living in Trump’s head rent-free and full-time. If Trump hopes to regain the Presidency, he needs to tighten up and get back on track again—to focus more tightly on America’s enemies, not his own.

Update! In light of my choice for post title, looks like this might be the perfect opportunity to run my favorite STP tune, I think.

But DAMN, ain’t that wine-red-finish, single-bound Les Paul a beauty!

Updated update! Stripping all the gears.

The thing is, I’m likely to vote for Trump, and it wouldn’t be the first time. I know what I’m getting. I like his foreign policy, as far as his anti-war stance, and impressive diplomacy, given his personality quirks. It’s DeSantis who has something to prove to me. There are things I’m waiting to hear that would help me view him on a national and global stage, instead of my current perspective which is “America’s Governor.” Everyone calm down! Yes, I’m an undecided voter, heaven forbid.

But, I keep saying to myself, and even posting on social media: “I swear Trump wants me to vote for DeSantis.” I also keep saying that it doesn’t seem like anyone is competing for my vote, because it’s just a bunch of internet shaming on one side or the other. Am I required to vote for who has the best internet trolls, or am I supposed to cast a ballot based on which meme is the most disparaging? Pray tell.

And, perhaps Trump is running his worst campaign, ever. This seems hard to do, next to DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces kickoff where I was given a migraine but gathered no new information. True story.

On Tuesday, Team Trump posted their latest criticism of DeSantis, claiming that he voted in 2017 to confirm Christopher Wray as the Director of the FBI. Sick burn, except…DeSantis was a member of the House, and it’s the Senate that confirms appointments. There is no way that I just started my day by correcting a multi-hundred-million-dollar campaign about how Congress works, right? IS THIS REAL LIFE?

Not only this, but Wray was Trump’s appointment…that was the quality work that can be ascribed to Trump. Had Wray not been selected by the President, no member of the Senate could have cast a vote to confirm him. So, Team Trump, this isn’t the “own” you think it is, and you should probably not taunt people for voting for Trump’s nominations in the future. It wasn’t DeSantis’ job to pick an FBI Director, it was Trump’s.

Ummmm…OOF.

Update to the updated update! There’s a simple, obvious solution to the underlying problem here, which we will almost certainly never avail ourselves of. Since the Constitution sets a firm floor for a President’s age (35), should we not consider establishing a formal, black-letter age ceiling as well? Or must we forever resign ourselves to being ruled by a neverending procession of addled, decrepit old fossils?

“Ageist discrimination,” you complain? Meh—so what, who cares? For many years now, I’ve wished in vain to see our ruling gerontocracy at last broken up, at the very least via a tacit mass refusal to support any nominee in his 70s. Maybe the issue could be addressed as part of that sweeping, comprehensive election-reform package we’re never going to get around to actually, y’know, doing.

2

In praise of Tommy Robinson

Life in a time of monsters ascendant.

Three Cheers for Tommy Robinson
The backbone of Britain.

The last time we heard from Tommy Robinson was early last year. In a revealing documentary called The Rape of Britain, he took us to the town of Telford, England (population 142,000), where Muslim gang members had raped innumerable white girls while local police had refused not only to arrest the perpetrators but also to protect the victims. Now he’s back with an equally illuminating documentary entitled Silenced.

It begins with a minor incident that took place in 2018 on the playground of the Almondbury School in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. According to the mainstream media version, Bailey McLaren, a racist white boy in his early teens, had “waterboarded” Jamal Hijazi, an innocent refugee from Syria of about the same age, and had acted utterly without provocation.

The story spread quickly around the globe. There was just one problem: it wasn’t remotely true. Bailey hadn’t waterboarded Jamal. He’d thrown a cup of water at him. It was on video. It wasn’t about race, and it certainly wasn’t unprovoked. In fact, Jamal had threatened to rape Bailey’s sisters. And, as Tommy discovered by doing the kind of footwork on the case that no other reporter bothered to do, Jamal had done much else besides. He’d knocked one classmate unconscious. He’d caused a boy to bleed by sticking him in the leg with a compass (presumably the kind used in math classes, not in navigation).

He’d threatened to stab a boy. He’d beaten up girls. He hit one girl with a hockey stick and bit another one so viciously that it caused a horrible wound. He routinely called female teachers “bitches.” He’d been caught carrying a knife and screwdriver at school. Adults who’d worked there described him as rude, nasty, a “little bastard,” a “horrible boy” with “no respect for women at all.” “He started on everyone,” recalled one school worker.

And they denied that Jamal was the victim of racism on anybody’s part. There’d been several other Syrian kids in the school at the same time, and none of them had experienced – or caused – any problems. Much was made by the media of a photo of Jamal with his arm in a cast; though the injury was blamed on Bailey, it turned out to be the result of another incident in which Jamal attacked a much younger boy only to be pulled forcefully off the child by a kid his own age.

As for Bailey, school staff agreed he was no bully. And no racist, either. “He had two half-caste sisters,” one of them pointed out. The man who’d been head teacher at the time of the incident said that Bailey was a “very articulate lad” who, if he hadn’t ended up at the center of this international firestorm, would likely have been looking forward to a “great future…I could see him being a lawyer or something.” He was also a decent kid who “would stand up for his peers.” Another school staffer agreed: “The way they treated poor Bailey was disgusting.” The audio of the playground incident makes it clear that when Bailey threw water at Jamal, he didn’t say anything racist; he said something like: “What are you going to say now?” In short, he was responding to something Jamal had said – namely, Jamal’s threat to rape Bailey’s sisters.

But nobody in the mainstream media reported any of this. Commentators around the world spoke about Bailey as if he was a monster and about Jamal – well, they spoke about Jamal in pretty much the same way that millions of ideologues spoke about George Floyd in the summer of 2020, or, if you prefer, in the way they’re now speaking about New York subway criminal-turned-martyr Jordan Neely. The execrable Piers Morgan, who likes to posture from time to time as a brave opponent of political correctness but who’s always prepared to virtue-signal about Islam, was quick to refer to Bailey as a “thug,” as a “lowlife,” and as “vermin,” and even to call for “severe retribution” against the child. (“Never,” notes Tommy in Silencing, “have I labeled Muslim children as vermin or called for violence against them.”)

Piers must’ve been pleased by what happened next. Bailey received thousands of online messages – threats to kill him, to firebomb his family’s home, to shoot his mother, to rape his sisters. Gangs prowled the streets of Huddersfield looking for him. Savages wandered the corridors of his school with machetes, ready to slice him up. Police drove Bailey and his family to what was supposedly meant as a safe place – a shabby little pay-by-the-hour fleabag hotel owned by Muslims and within spitting distance of three mosques. Rejecting this insulting offer, Bailey’s mother took matters into her own hands and quickly found a better hiding place for herself and her kids.

Utterly disgusting. I think it safe to say that the Second Battle of Britain hasn’t worked out nearly as salutarily as the first, probably owing at least in part to the absence of anything like a contemporary Winston Churchill on the current scene. Mucho kudos to Robinson for giving it the old college try anyhow, though. Read on for the ugly, ugly denouement, which is…well, ugly. This isn’t going to end well, not for Muzzrat “Great” Britain, not for Bailey or Robinson (who, disappointingly, even Elon Musk fucked over for no good reason), not for anybody.

We wuz KANGS ‘n’ sheeit!

Does this count as “cultural appropriation,” or nah? Asking for a friend.

KangAragorn

Proving once again that no, there really is nothing they’re willing to just leave alone and let us have to ourselves—absolutely, positively NOTHING. Remember it, people; this material may or may not be on the final exam, which is coming up real soon. Sooner than you think, probably.

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Empire Of Lies

The FUSA indubitably is such now, but was it always? Could be, could be. Y’all are doubtless familiar with the Bixby Letter of great renown, as so unforgettably quoted by the actor portraying Ike’s CoS, US GEN George C Marshall, in Saving Private Ryan:

Some damned fine acting there, folks—particularly the part where Marshall sits to finish quoting the letter from memory, with wonderfully understated passion and intensity. Those are the kind of actor’s choices which can make or break a movie, which elevate a merely good flick to a truly great one. One thing I know: when I first saw that early Ryan scene in the local cineplexafter the harrowing, almost unbearable D-Day scene at the beginning—there couldn’t be the least doubt that I was in for one hell of a good ride. And so I was at that. There’s a reason Spielberg’s masterpiece went on to be thought of as one of the greatest movies ever made, and it’s a good one too.

Ahh, but was Lincoln’s letter to the bereaved Mrs Bixby all that IT was cracked up to be? Apparently, it wasn’t; in fact, it may well not have been authored by President Lincoln at all, but by his secretary John Hay.

The Bixby letter is a brief, consoling message sent by President Abraham Lincoln in November 1864 to Lydia Parker Bixby, a widow living in Boston, Massachusetts, who was thought to have lost five sons in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Along with the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address, the letter has been praised as one of Lincoln’s finest written works and is often reproduced in memorials, media, and print.

Controversy surrounds the recipient, the fate of her sons, and the authorship of the letter. Bixby’s character has been questioned (including rumored Confederate sympathies), at least two of her sons survived the war, and the letter was possibly written by Lincoln’s assistant private secretary, John Hay.

On September 24, 1864, Massachusetts Adjutant General William Schouler wrote to Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew about a discharge request sent to the governor by Otis Newhall, the father of five Union soldiers. In the letter, Schouler recalled how, two years prior, they had helped a poor widow named Lydia Bixby to visit a son who was a patient at an Army hospital. About ten days earlier, Bixby had come to Schouler’s office claiming that five of her sons had died fighting for the Union. Governor Andrew forwarded Newhall’s request to the U.S. War Department with a note requesting that the president honor Bixby with a letter.

In response to a War Department request of October 1, Schouler sent a messenger to Bixby’s home six days later, asking for the names and units of her sons. He sent a report to the War Department on October 12, which was delivered to President Lincoln by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sometime after October 28.

On November 21, both the Boston Evening Traveller and the Boston Evening Transcript published an appeal by Schouler for contributions to assist soldiers’ families at Thanksgiving which mentioned a widow who had lost five sons in the war. Schouler had some of the donations given to Bixby and then visited her home on Thanksgiving, November 24. The letter from the President arrived at Schouler’s office the next morning.

Nevertheless, at least two of Lydia Bixby’s sons survived the war.

Lydia Bixby died in Boston on October 27, 1878, while a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital. In his initial letter to Governor Andrew, Schouler called Bixby “the best specimen of a true-hearted Union woman I have yet seen,” but in the years following her death both her character and loyalty were questioned.

Writing to her daughter in 1904, Boston socialite Sarah Cabot Wheelwright claimed she had met and had given charitable aid to Lydia Bixby during the war, hoping that one of her sons, in Boston on leave, might help deliver packages to Union prisoners of war; but she later heard gossip that Bixby “kept a house of ill-fame, was perfectly untrustworthy and as bad as she could be”.

In the 1920s, Lincoln scholar William E Barton interviewed the oldest residents of Hopkinton, Massachusetts for their memories of Bixby’s family before she moved to Boston. They recalled her sons as being “tough” with “some of them too fond of drink”. One son may have “served a jail sentence for some misdemeanor”.

On August 12, 1925, Elizabeth Towers, a daughter of Oliver Bixby, told the Boston Herald that her grandmother had “great sympathy for the South” and that her mother recalled that Bixby had been “highly indignant” about the letter with “little good to say of President Lincoln”. In 1949, Towers’ nephew, Arthur March Bixby, claimed that Lydia Bixby had moved to Massachusetts from Richmond, Virginia; though this assertion is contradicted by contemporary records which list her birthplace as Rhode Island.

Scholars have debated whether the Bixby letter was written by Lincoln himself or by his assistant private secretary, John Hay. November 1864 was a busy month for Lincoln, possibly forcing him to delegate the task to Hay.

In 1988, at the request of investigator Joe Nickell, University of Kentucky professor of English Jean G. Pival studied the vocabulary, syntax, and other stylistic characteristics of the letter and concluded that it more closely resembled Lincoln’s style of writing than Hay’s.

A computer analysis method, developed to address the difficulty in attribution of shorter texts, used in a 2018 study by researchers at Aston University’s Centre for Forensic Linguistics identified Hay as the letter’s author.

Good grief, it’s enough to make a fella call into question the entire history of this country, ain’t it? Be all that as it may, though, and whatever the provenance of the Bixby letter might actually have been, the letter will nonetheless forever shine as the diamond of English-language textual expression it is. And rightly so, too; the sentiments, concepts, and ideals so beautifully conveyed therein are nothing less than the most noble of which we lowly, fallen humans are capable as a species. How deeply, painfully ironic, then, that its true origins might have been so tangled and tawdry.

We’ve come a long way from all that sort of thing, alas, and in precisely the wrong direction too. There’s also a lot of intriguing stuff covering the life, times, and career of GEN Marshall at the Wikipedia link I included above, making it well worth taking the time to read as well.

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Seeing through the flim-flammery

Vote in your local and state elections? Sure, why not, they can’t possibly rig ALL of ‘em in a country the size of this one. National “elections”? Sorry, but I’m SURE I have to wash my three remaining hairs, or trim my toenails, or something.

Trump National Security Adviser: Deep State Will ‘for Sure’ Rig 2024 Election

And why the heck wouldn’t they, prithee tell? After all, there’s been no consequences or repercussions whatsoever from doing it in ’20 and ’22, and ain’t gonna be either.

Former deputy national security adviser K. T. McFarland appeared on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo about a week ago. In it, she warned of efforts by the Deep State to tip the scales for the Democrat nominee in 2024 (unless it’s RFK Jr., she might have added).

Here’s the transcript:

Well, I knew because I was a victim of it. When the Mueller investigation and the FBI came after me in the early days of the Trump administration, they knew I hadn’t committed any crime but that didn’t matter. They just wanted to go after anybody associated with President Trump in hopes they could break them or get them to lie, or at a minimum bankrupt them.

But I think, as I take a step back, and it’s not just about me, it’s not just about President Trump, what is it about?

We now have black-and-white evidence that the FBI interfered in the 2016 election. And then when they failed to get their candidate elected, Hillary Clinton, they set out to destroy the Trump administration.

So then go back up to 2020. This time, it was the CIA that got involved in the 2020 election with those 51 former intel agents who talked about the Hunter Biden laptop as “total Russian disinformation.”

So they’ve gotten away with it for two elections. They will for sure get away with it — try and get away with it in 2024, right? Because there are no consequences. The difference is in 2024, the evidence is there. We now have the Durham investigation and all the Congressional investigations.

Frankly, it’s surprising that Fox News hasn’t purged Maria Bartiromo yet the same way they did Tucker Carlson. I predict that she’ll be the next domino that Murdoch knocks off to de-Trumpify the network.

Regarding the substance of McFarland’s claims, there is ample evidence to back up her assertion. We’re still a year and a half out from the election, and it’s not clear at all who the eventual GOP nominee will be, but the Deep State is already hard at work rigging the election again.

As reported previously at PJ Media, Exhibit A is the recent intrigue-laden meeting of a technocratic cabal called the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) at, of all places, a D.C. spy museum.

Via CEIR:

The Summit on American Democracy, presented by the Center for Election Innovation & Research, will take place on May 8-9, 2023 at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Featuring panel sessions and discussions, the summit will be a forum for citizens across the political spectrum – election officials, experts, and members of the media – to discuss pressing issues, and share actionable ideas to further strengthen our democracy in a bipartisan and nonpartisan way.

“Election Innovation,” is it? Gotta love that display of sleight-of-hand word-rejigging; it gives the whole game away, if only in a sly, indirect sort of way. Innovation, no less. Good Lord, it’s as if they no longer care whether we’re aware of what they’re doing or not. They’re just out-and-out laughing at us at this point.

The soldier’s faith

Excerpts from a Memorial Day, 1895 speech given to that year’s Harvard graduating class by Massachusetts SC justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The society for which many philanthropists, labor reformers, and men of fashion unite in longing is one in which they may be comfortable and may shine without much trouble or any danger. The unfortunately growing hatred of the poor for the rich seems to me to rest on the belief that money is the main thing (a belief in which the poor have been encouraged by the rich), more than on any other grievance. Most of my hearers would rather that their daughters or their sisters should marry a son of one of the great rich families than a regular army officer, were he as beautiful, brave, and gifted as Sir William Napier. I have heard the question asked whether our war was worth fighting, after all. There are many, poor and rich, who think that love of country is an old wife’s tale, to be replaced by interest in a labor union, or, under the name of cosmopolitanism, by a rootless self-seeking search for a place where the most enjoyment may be had at the least cost.

Meantime we have learned the doctrine that evil means pain, and the revolt aginst pain in all its forms has grown more and more marked. From societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals up to socialism, we express in numberless ways the notion that suffering is a wrong which can be and ought to be prevented, and a whole literature of sympathy has sprung into being which points out in story and in verse how hard it is to be wounded in the battle of life, how terrible, how unjust it is that any one should fail.

Even science has had its part in the tendencies which we observe. It has shaken established religion in the minds of very many. It has pursued analysis until at last this thrilling world of colors and passions and sounds has seemed fatally to resolve itself into one vast network of vibrations endlessly weaving an aimless web, and the rainbow flush of cathedral windows, which once to enraptured eyes appeared the very smile of God, fades slowly out into the pale irony of the void.

And yet from vast orchestras still comes the music of mighty symphonies. Our painters even now are spreading along the walls of our Library glowing symbols of mysteries still real, and the hardly silenced cannon of the East proclaim once more that combat and pain still are the portion of man. For my own part, I believe that the struggle for life is the order of the world, at which it is vain to repine. I can imagine the burden changed in the way it is to be borne, but I cannot imagine that it ever will be lifted from men’s backs. I can imagine a future in which science shall have passed from the combative to the dogmatic stage, and shall have gained such catholic acceptance that it shall take control of life, and condemn at once with instant execution what now is left for nature to destroy. But we are far from such a future, and we cannot stop to amuse or to terrify ourselves with dreams. Now, at least, and perhaps as long as man dwells upon the globe, his destiny is battle, and he has to take the chances of war. If it is our business to fight, the book for the army is a war-song, not a hospital-sketch. It is not well for soldiers to think much about wounds. Sooner or later we shall fall; but meantime it is for us to fix our eyes upon the point to be stormed, and to get there if we can.

Behind every scheme to make the world over, lies the question, What kind of world do you want? The ideals of the past for men have been drawn from war, as those for women have been drawn from motherhood. For all our prophecies, I doubt if we are ready to give up our inheritance. Who is there who would not like to be thought a gentleman? Yet what has that name been built on but the soldier’s choice of honor rather than life? To be a soldier or descended from soldiers, in time of peace to be ready to give one’s life rather than suffer disgrace, that is what the word has meant; and if we try to claim it at less cost than a splendid carelessness for life, we are trying to steal the good will without the responsibilities of the place. We will not dispute about tastes. The man of the future may want something different. But who of us could endure a world, although cut up into five-acre lots, and having no man upon it who was not well fed and well housed, without the divine folly of honor, without the senseless passion for knowledge outreaching the flaming bounds of the possible, without ideals the essence of which is that they can never be achieved? I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.

Most men who know battle know the cynic force with which the thoughts of common sense will assail them in times of stress; but they know that in their greatest moments faith has trampled those thoughts under foot. If you wait in line, suppose on Tremont Street Mall, ordered simply to wait and do nothing, and have watched the enemy bring their guns to bear upon you down a gentle slope like that of Beacon Street, have seen the puff of the firing, have felt the burst of the spherical case-shot as it came toward you, have heard and seen the shrieking fragments go tearing through your company, and have known that the next or the next shot carries your fate; if you have advanced in line and have seen ahead of you the spot you must pass where the rifle bullets are striking; if you have ridden at night at a walk toward the blue line of fire at the dead angle of Spotsylvania, where for twenty-four hours the soldiers were fighting on the two sides of an earthwork, and in the morning the dead and dying lay piled in a row six deep, and as you rode you heard the bullets splashing in the mud and earth about you; if you have been in the picket-line at night in a black and unknown wood, have heard the splat of the bullets upon the trees, and as you moved have felt your foot slip upon a dead man’s body; if you have had a blind fierce gallop against the enemy, with your blood up and a pace that left no time for fear –if, in short, as some, I hope many, who hear me, have known, you have known the vicissitudes of terror and triumph in war; you know that there is such a thing as the faith I spoke of. You know your own weakness and are modest; but you know that man has in him that unspeakable somewhat which makes him capable of miracle, able to lift himself by the might of his own soul, unaided, able to face anniliation for a blind belief.

War, when you are at it, is horrible and dull. It is only when time has passed that you see that its message was divine. I hope it may be long before we are called again to sit at that master’s feet. But some teacher of the kind we all need. In this snug, over-safe corner of the world we need it, that we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of the world, and in order that we may be ready for danger. We need it in this time of individualist negations, with its literature of French and American humor, revolting at discipline, loving flesh-pots, and denying that anything is worthy of reverence–in order that we may remember all that buffoons forget. We need it everywhere and at all times. For high and dangerous action teaches us to believe as right beyond dispute things for which our doubting minds are slow to find words of proof. Out of heroism grows faith in the worth of heroism. The proof comes later, and even may never come. Therefore I rejoice at every dangerous sport which I see pursued. The students at Heidelberg, with their sword-slashed faces, inspire me with sincere respect. I gaze with delight upon our polo players. If once in a while in our rough riding a neck is broken, I regard it, not as a waste, but as a price well paid for the breeding of a race fit for headship and command.

We do not save our traditions, in our country. The regiments whose battle-flags were not large enough to hold the names of the battles they had fought vanished with the surrender of Lee, although their memories inherited would have made heroes for a century. It is the more necessary to learn the lesson afresh from perils newly sought, and perhaps it is not vain for us to tell the new generation what we learned in our day, and what we still believe. That the joy of life is living, is to put out all one’s powers as far as they will go; that the measure of power is obstacles overcome; to ride boldly at what is in front of you, be it fence or enemy; to pray, not for comfort, but for combat; to keep the soldier’s faith against the doubts of civil life, more besetting and harder to overcome than all the misgivings of the battlefield, and to remember that duty is not to be proved in the evil day, but then to be obeyed unquestioning; to love glory more than the temptations of wallowing ease, but to know that one’s final judge and only rival is oneself: with all our failures in act and thought, these things we learned from noble enemies in Virginia or Georgia or on the Mississippi, thirty years ago; these things we believe to be true.

As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top.

Three years ago died the old colonel of my regiment, the Twentieth Massachusetts. [Web note: Col. William Raymond Lee] He gave the regiment its soul. No man could falter who heard his “Forward, Twentieth!” I went to his funeral. From a side door of the church a body of little choir-boys came in alike a flight of careless doves. At the same time the doors opened at the front, and up the main aisle advanced his coffin, followed by the few grey heads who stood for the men of the Twentieth, the rank and file whom he had loved, and whom he led for the last time. The church was empty. No one remembered the old man whom we were burying, no one save those next to him, and us. And I said to myself, The Twentieth has shrunk to a skeleton, a ghost, a memory, a forgotten name which we other old men alone keep in our hearts. And then I thought: It is right. It is as the colonel would have it. This also is part of the soldier’s faith: Having known great things, to be content with silence. Just then there fell into my hands a little song sung by a warlike people on the Danube, which seemed to me fit for a soldier’s last word, another song of the sword, but a song of the sword in its scabbard, a song of oblivion and peace.

A soldier has been buried on the battlefield.
And when the wind in the tree-tops roared,
The soldier asked from the deep dark grave:
“Did the banner flutter then?”
“Not so, my hero,” the wind replied.
“The fight is done, but the banner won,
Thy comrades of old have borne it hence,
Have borne it in triumph hence.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

Then he heareth the lovers laughing pass,
and the soldier asks once more:
“Are these not the voices of them that love,
That love—and remember me?”
“Not so, my hero,” the lovers say,
“We are those that remember not;
For the spring has come and the earth has smiled,
And the dead must be forgot.”
Then the soldier spake from the deep dark grave:
“I am content.”

Stirring, powerful stuff, no? So powerful, in fact, that after Teddy Roosevelt read it seven years later, he was moved enough to decide to appoint Holmes to the US Supreme Court. The wisdom expressed in these words is profound, the fundamental truth timeless, eternal. We fail to pay heed to them at our direst peril.

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The Amerikan Gulag claims another innocent victim

And the (in)justice system collects itself another scalp.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was sentenced on Thursday to 18 years in prison.

Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years by far-left Obama-appointed US District Judge Amit Mehta on Thursday morning who then lectured him on what a danger he was to society.

Mehta sentenced Stewart Rhodes to 18 years. Rhodes is currently 57. If the this unconstitutional conviction stands, Rhodes will be 75 when he is released.

In late November 2022, Washington DC jurors reached a guilty verdict of garbage “seditious conspiracy” charges against Stewart Rhodes in the Oath Keepers Trial.

The DC jury found EVERY SINGLE Trump supporter guilty in their disgusting and unconstitutional criminal proceedings against honest Americans who were caught up in the violence on January 6.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes NEVER went inside the US Capitol. He never instructed anyone to go inside the US Capitol. He was unarmed as were all of his Oath Keepers associates that day. There was no plan to enter the US Capitol. There was no scheme to take over the government with their bare hands. The prosecution was a sham. The jury was a pool of DC Communists and unhinged left-wing activists who see themselves as victims.

The Oath Keepers were in DC in January 2021 to offer security for the several rallies planned by Trump supporters on January 5th and 6th. The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have worked security at dozens of events by conservatives, patriots, Christian groups, and Trump supporters, to protect them from organized Antifa violence. Democrats hated them for this.

To my (slight; I had held out some hope for the guy until now) disappointment, Matt Gaetz didn’t exactly cover himself in glory after this grotesque buggering of Lady Justice.

As reported earlier, conservatives were taken back on Thursday night after Rep. Matt Gaetz told a Twitter Space gathering that he was not “particularly aggrieved” after Oath Keepers founder and President Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for alleged seditious conspiracy and “terrorism” on January 6, 2021.

Rep. Matt Gaetz said, “He stood before a jury. They had every Constitutional privilege afforded defendants. They were found guilty of seditious conspiracy and if they were trying seriously to overthrow the government, 1.) they’re idiots. 2.) They had no chance, and 3.) they probably deserve some punishment. I thought that the sentences would be less than they were, so I was a bit surprised by the duration but I wasn’t particularly aggrieved by them.”

Which cruel indifference to seeing a blameless man’s life upended and destroyed makes you either despicably complicit or a goddamned fool then, Mr Gaetz. Sorry, but try as I might I can descry no third option here. On the up-side, though, Gaetz has just revealed precisely who and what he really is with his statement, for all who have eyes to see.

“Every Constitutional privilege afforded defendants”? To quote an especially repulsive DC termagant, are you serious? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!? My God, it would be laughable if it were in any way funny. Stewart fires back at the loathsome Swamp creature:

Stewart’s first reaction was to bring up a prior comment by Gaetz, who was curious as to why Stewart had not yet been indicted following the Jan. 6 protests. Stewart was indicted on January 12, 2022, over a year after the January 6 protests.

“I think he’s probably got egg on his face now [Matt Gaetz] because obviously, turns out I was not a Fed,” said Stewart.

“It took them a year to cook up their fake evidence against me, coerced confessions and threatened people. A year in prison to coerce your plea bargains. It took them a long time to finally get around to indicting me because I didn’t go inside.”

That’s because you’ve just been railroaded, rogered, and boned up the ass by the Deep State megalith, without even the benefit of a courtesy reacharound.

“So now I think he has egg on his face. Now he wants to minimize that by saying, well, these people probably weren’t guilty. We are innocent. We are only guilty like I said in my sentencing statement, I’m only guilty, like President Trump, of opposing those who are destroying our country.”

“And I have been opposing them by free speech for 15 years now since our Oath Keepers. That’s what I’ve done. And everything I’ve done has been honorable. And everything that the Oath Keepers has done has been honorable.”

Stewart added, “I’m not sure why he said that, but he needs to take a good hard look at where we are and what has been done to, not just us, but other people. What’s going to be done – to stop the insurrection against the entire MAGA movement? To call us all insurrectionists, all racists, all fascists, all of us anti-democratic. When they say democracy, we are not a democracy, we’re a constitutional (re)public. But what they really mean is our power. So when Biden says they are a threat to democracy, what it really means is they are a threat to our power.

He added, “Matt (Gaetz), he needs to either retract (or) fix that.”

I wouldn’t be holding my breath waiting for it if I were you, Stewart. But fuck Matt Gaetz sideways. Again: next time one of these “seditious conpiracy” groups decides to try their hand at overthrowing the manifestly illegitimate Amerika v2.0 tyranny, they need to remember to bring the guns along with ‘em.

All bold above Hoft’s, not mine, aporopos of little if anything. Dave Renegade adds:

A black man who was ineligible to run for the office of the United States Presidency is “elected”. He was “selected” in his reelection. His appointed judge in Washington, D.C. who was born in India sentences a patriot to 18 years in prison for trying to restore the Republic. Stewart Rhodes was correct: he should have brought firearms. He will be paying a high price for yet another FBI setup.

If the judge had any knowledge of the founding of our Republic, he would know that Democracy is the antithesis of the foundation of our nation. What he actually stated is that the founding fathers were a threat to the United States since the overthrow of the Republic in the 2020 election usurpation.

As more of the government’s malfaisance is uncovered, the more desperate they will become. I believe that they will physically come for people who spoke out against tyranny and supported our founding principles. Come to terms with what that means because you will not have much time to decide when they come to your door.

“They will physically come for people…” Not to pile on, heckle, or slam ya in any way, Dave, but that’s exactly what they’ve done to the J6 Gulagees, is it not? Not will, not at all—HAVE, more like.

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How?

It’s an excellent question, for which there is an easy-peasy, direct, one-word answer staring us right in the face.

Trial By Ordeal
I’m sure you’re asking yourself: what’s up with the company CEOs like Anheuser-Busch’s Brendan Whitworth, Target’s Brian Cornell, and North Face’s Todd Spaletto? Did they green-light the disastrous Pride Month marketing campaigns based on transgender activism that are suddenly wrecking their businesses? Or do these things just happen down the chain-of-command while the top dogs are otherwise occupied, knocking golf balls around or reviewing their stock options’ strike prices?

I’ll tell you what you’re not seeing and hearing: the red-faced shrieking in the board rooms as boycotts kill sales and directors face the wrath of the share-holders. It was one thing when Bud Light hitched trans “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney to the beer wagon in place of the traditional Clydesdale horses. After all, every state has a drinking age, though it’s pretty astounding that anyone at Anheuser-Busch thought “Ms.” Mulvaney’s cringy Instagram antics would sell beer to grown men moving appliances and fixing pot-holes.

It’s another thing, in the case of Target, to aim sexually-loaded gear to little children, for instance a line of T-shirts that proclaim “Satan Respects Pronouns” made by one Erik Carnell’s Abprellen company out of London.

Would it surprise you to learn that children well beneath the age of puberty are not inclined to think about sex at all? In a well-ordered society that recognizes children as different from adults, they don’t. And if something sexual comes to their attention, they are generally perplexed by it. Unless they’re born into an era when adults are busy erasing boundaries, guard-rails, and cultural inhibitions, in which case I must imagine that young children exposed to, say, pornography in a chaotic household find it traumatically sinister. So, why the gleeful celebration about sexualizing children now?

I’ll tell you why: because we are living in a very badly-ordered society these days, a society in which anything goes and nothing matters, which is a poor principle for civilization. It’s the same principle that has people shitting all over the sidewalks of San Francisco, looting Walgreens stores in broad daylight, pushing ineffective and unsafe vaccines (and lying about it), and arresting people for thought crimes. It’s a degenerate society. Morally bankrupt. Wicked.

You might ask, how did it get that way? The concise answer is that a broken business model for daily life and a collapsing economy have so disordered millions of minds that values are seen as having no value. The scaffold for truth, beauty, honor, dignity, courage, prudence, generosity, etc., folded some time ago, in slow-motion, so we didn’t notice.

True enough, I suppose, but it still skirts that direct, one-word answer I mentioned above: Leftists, that’s how. We didn’t merely get here, we have been brought here apurpose, incrementally dragged into this sorry contretemps by the malignant, evil Left. It wasn’t unavoidable nor at all desirable; it was part of a Plan, abetted by our own torpor and refusal to admit that such a thing could ever happen in America.

Then one day we wake up, and suddenly it isn’t America at all anymore. Had they an honest bone in their bodies, the Left could as well have loudly announced, “Hey, this society isn’t gonna just wreck itself, you know!” Kunstler, of course, knows all this as well as you and I do:

There’s something definitely programmatic about the way the drag queens were rolled out into the kiddie korners the past year. It doesn’t feel organic, shall we say, but rather directed, like a sinister grand opera. And the effort to enlist and initiate schoolchildren into a psychodrama of hyperbolic sexual confusion looks absolutely orchestrated.

There’s a perfectly good and valid reason for that, Jim—because it, y’know, WAS. As I keep screaming at the proverbial brick wall, the only question before us now is what, if anything, will we do about it?

3

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