Leftward ho!

GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

And so it goes

Posted on June 29, 2024June 29, 2024 by Mike

First off, before we get to clearing yet another too-long-open browser tab, I just can’t resist running this highly apposite meme.

Gee, thanks so much, Jaux! Why, whatever would we do without you looking out for us poor Serf Class schlubs, anyway? And what do we have to do so’s we can find out quicker?

Okay, speaking of oddly-behaving gas tanks…

Would you buy a car with a shrinking fuel tank?
HAVING the technical knowledge of an amoeba, I’m not in any position to list the huge number of problems linked to electric vehicles (EVs) such as their eye-watering cost and their road- and car park-wrecking weight. There’s also their rare but potentially fatal tendency to turn into 2,000 degrees infernos due to a chain reaction known as ‘thermal runaway’. But I thought I’d ruminate for a moment on the differences between the power sources of EVs compared with petrol/diesel vehicles: an EV battery vs a petrol/diesel fuel tank.

With an EV battery:

the maximum range seems to be somewhere between 150 and 250 miles;

you’re advised to charge it only up to 80 per cent; the battery degrades every time you charge it, thus reducing the range;

when the battery needs replacing (supposedly after eight to ten years but probably earlier), you’ll need to spend over £10,000 on a new one, so you might as well scrap your EV;

even a minor accident or bumping into a kerb may mean you have to buy a new £10,000 battery as it’s impossible to know whether the potentially explosive battery has been damaged;

owing to the high replacement cost of EV batteries, insuring EVs tends to be much more expensive than a petrol/diesel car;

many public chargers don’t work because thieves find it profitable to cut the cables to sell the copper.

With a petrol or diesel vehicle:

the fuel tank gives about three times the range of an EV;

you can fill the tank to 100 per cent of its capacity;

the tank remains the same size and gives the same range however many times you fill it;

even if you keep the vehicle for ten to 15 years, you’ll probably never need to buy a new fuel tank;

small accidents or bumps are unlikely to do any damage to your fuel tank;

thieves are unlikely to cut the fuel hoses in petrol stations to sell off the rubber.

Yet our rulers plan to force us all to buy expensive but largely useless EVs supposedly to save the planet from supposed (but non-existent) catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.

Permit me to refer you to Mike’s Iron Law #149 and its accompanying Corollary A—what the hey, #213 also while you’re over there, it relates—if you wish to understand why this bizarre, seemingly nonsensical state of affairs progressed from over-the-top, non sequitur-ish tomfoolery to Amerika v2.0’s contemporary reality. Then see Mike’s Iron Law #873 for a broad, non-specific hint as to how it might be properly dealt with.

Halp is ON THE WAY!

Posted on June 24, 2024June 24, 2024 by Mike

Per your “Commander” “in” “Chief,” Pedaux Jaux Bribem.

Biden Makes Gun Control a Focus of His Campaign
As if we ever doubted how this might play out, President Biden’s reelection campaign has moved his gun control agenda front and center of his campaign after unveiling a new advertisement last Saturday, highlighting his administration’s efforts to combat gun violence. The ad came just one day after the Supreme Court struck down a Trump-era prohibition on bump stocks.

In the 30-second spot, shared with The Hill, Biden blames former President Trump for the conservative-leaning court’s decision to overturn the ban. The Biden administration had defended the regulation, initially implemented by the Trump administration following the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.

“When Trump was president—children gunned down in classrooms, innocent people killed in church and massacred at a concert. Still, Trump did nothing,” Biden says in the ad, accusing the former president of often siding with the NRA. The ad also emphasizes Biden’s actions, including expanding background checks and establishing the Office of Gun Violence Prevention late last year.

God DAMN that Trump, out there wantonly slaughtering schoolchildren, “trans” “people,” Neegrows, Dindus, and Gibmedats—the heartless, inhuman monster. Not to worry though, Too Aulde Jaux is gonna put a stop to it, and be damned if he’s gonna let piffling irrelevancies like the US Constitution stand in his way.

“You and your family deserve to be safe and I’m going to fight like hell to see to it that you are,” Biden asserts in the advertisement. The campaign further notes that murder rates have declined under Biden’s administration, citing a 20 percent drop in over 200 cities across the U.S., based on an April analysis from the criminal justice consulting firm AH Analytics. Though those numbers are questionable, but if they are accurate, then it also possibly counters their arguments that “more guns equals more crime” as in that same time frame Biden is claiming to have made our country safer, gun sales continue on a healthy pace and more states have enacted permitless carry (also known as constitutional carry) in their states. Twenty-nine states now allow their citizens to legally carry firearms without a permit.

“If you care about the gun violence crisis in this country, there is only one candidate in this race with a proven record of successfully taking on the gun lobby and only one candidate who will ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” said Biden communications director Michael Tyler in a statement to The Hill.

WHEW, what a relief. Do you feel safer already? I know I surely do.

*spit*

Toxic fruit of the Communist tree

Posted on June 2, 2024June 4, 2024 by Mike

Never bite an apple the serpent offers you, no matter how delicious he claims it is.

Lenin everlasting
On the totalitarian’s continued relevance.

Later in this issue, Gary Saul Morson writes about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s masterwork The Gulag Archipelago. Much of that book is devoted to the details of the dehumanizing brutality of the Stalinist regime: its terrifying sadism and staggering assault on basic human dignity. The Stalinist horror show, in which terror was perfected in the forge of deliberately arbitrary deployment, had its roots in the brief but brutal reign of Vladimir Lenin. This year marks the centenary of Lenin’s death. In January 1924, the consummate communist, having blighted as many lives as he could in his two years of rule, finally shuffled off his mortal coil, aged fifty-three. “That was young,” you may say. But we reply, “Not nearly young enough.”

It is worth pausing to remember the hideous legacy of that ice-cold totalitarian. What we have in mind is not so much Lenin’s butcher’s bill as his more general modus operandi. Estimates of the number of people Lenin had tortured, maimed, and murdered vary, but are always well into the millions. But what may be just as creepy is his model of government.

We were reminded of this when, late last year, Miguel Cardona, President Biden’s secretary of education, gave a talk to explain education-department priorities. Promoting a kinder, friendlier department, he said, “I think it was President Reagan [who] said, ‘We’re from the government. We’re here to help.’”

We suppose that was intended to be reassuring. What Reagan actually said, however, as was pointed out about ten thousand times on social media, was the opposite. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

Lenin would have known exactly what Reagan meant. The difference is that Reagan’s observation was meant as a warning, an admonition about the dangers of overweening bureaucracy. Lenin, by contrast, regarded the terrifying side of unlimited government as a feature, not a bug. He liked the terror. It has always been thus with budding totalitarians. While Maximilien de Robespierre was a piker by comparison with Lenin, he nonetheless sang from the same chorus sheet, doing his best to disfigure France in the brief time allotted him. An ardent student of that supreme political narcissist Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Robespierre was always going on about “virtue,” though he conflated the emotion of virtue with what a Marxist might call “really existing” virtue. Above all, Robespierre knew that achieving the utopia of his dreams would not be easy or painless, which is why he spoke frankly about virtue and its “emanation,” terror.

At the center of the totalitarian impulse is the belief that ultimately freedom belongs only to the state, that the individual should not be treated as a free actor but rather, as Lenin put it, “ ‘a cog and a screw’ of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism.” Of course, few canny bureaucrats quote Lenin today, his association with tyranny having knocked him out of the great game of political PR.

But is he completely gone? One of the most depressing recent spectacles has been the rehabilitation of people and movements that, just a few years back, seemed safely consigned to the underworld. But watching Eloi-like college students praising Hamas, chanting genocidal formulae such as “From the river to the sea,” even excusing the incontinent maunderings of Osama bin Laden, makes us wonder whether any enormity is sufficiently grave to overcome the moral anesthesia of the entitled class. Someone once described the on-again, off-again socialist Philip Rahv as a “born-again Leninist”—their number, it turns out, is legion.

Which is why we predict an effort, perhaps sotto voce at first, to rehabilitate Lenin. After all, he articulated exactly the desire of everyone, from the creepy Doyen of Davos, Klaus Schwab, on down, who tells you that he’s from the global government and he’s here to help. What socialism implies above all, said Lenin, is “keeping account of everything.” Could the covid police, the bureaucrats pushing a cashless society to gain complete control over your spending, or the climate-change fanatics who want to limit your travel and impound your gas stove have put it any better?

Mebbe so, mebbe not, but it’s a lead-pipe cinch they’ll try to put it differently, the better to disguise their true totalitarian ambitions.

There isn’t really any need to speculate on whether the Goosesteppin’ Left might attempt to “rehabilitate Lenin” someday, as the author frets, because they already did it. Pulled the hocus-pocus off quite handily too, with astonishing ease—so much so that they’ve managed to drag us to the very brink of Civil War II with it. Lenin may have departed this vale of tears a century ago in the strictly physical sense, but his monstrous spirit lives on in Amerika v2.0. Truth is, he’s running things from beyond the grave right here, right now.

As the old saw warns, those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. ADDENDUM: Those who don’t trouble themselves to learn history in the first damned place will never even know they’re repeating it, and probably wouldn’t care anyway. Unlike the dozens of failed efforts across the globe in half-assed loser-nations, they solemnly guarantee that True Communism is gonna WORK, this time for SURE, and will be implemented fully, correctly, and competently, to the enormous benefit of all. And if you don’t believe it, just ask ‘em, they’ll tell ya—at excruciating length, repeatedly, until the droning Commie mantra makes you want to retch.

In what might be the most eye-tearing example of irony ever, these asstards somehow missed completely the fact that Adolf Hitler, the abominable right-wing (!!!) dictator, said pretty much the exact same thing upon coming to power: to wit, that his Thousand Year Reich would teach the stupid Russians—who, being stupid Russians and all, had stupidly wrecked the reputation of a superlative German intellectual, one Karl NMI Marx, with their wretched, stupid-Russian rendition of the Great Man’s Sooperdoopergenius© theories—how Marxism ought really to be done, leaving the stupid Russians behind to choke on a thick, swirling cloud of History’s Own Dust, a defeat for the stupid Russians accomplished courtesy of universally-acclaimed Aryan racial superiority.

Herr Hitler, of course, wasn’t at all “right-wing,” never was (nor was he Aryan*). That specious notion just another successful Leftard rewrite of history—a deception, shorn of the most threadbare scrim of truth to cover it up. Der Feuhrer hated Christianity, capitalism, and Slavs above all else except possibly (((DemPeskyJOOOOOZ!!))), and said so explicitly times beyond number, in both his speeches and his writings. The Nazi Party’s name is an acronym for “National SOCIALIST German Workers’ Party,” after all, and was by no means intended to be taken as either a sly misdirection or some kind of in-joke at the time. It means what it says and says what it means—period, full stop, end of fucking story.

Anyhoo, “rehabilitate Lenin”? No way, man; Our Fellow Americans of the Loyal Opposition are way too honest and above-board to ever even think of trying to pull such a lowdown dirty trick. Right? RIGHT? RIIIGHT?!?

Yeah, you just keep right on telling yourself that. If you do so long enough, eventually the headache from having reality smack you upside the noggin over and over trying to wake your dumb ass up will just go away. As a mantra of a somewhat different type than the puke-inducing Commie one mentioned earlier, it’s a more effective painkiller than a fistful of Ibuprofen. Maybe Demerol, even, or so I’ve heard.

* Aryan, in Nazi Germany, was a nebulous, ever-shifting categorization, a perversion of a field of study whose definitional criteria, from its origins and continuing over many years, were centered not on race, but language. A further irony involves the concept of “race” itself, which, through continual re-definition and politically-useful modification, eventually became every bit as flexible, malleable, and impossible to nail down as “Aryan” was, both terms reduced to little more than meaningless absurdities by the close of the war, of use only to historical archivists, mid-level bureaucrats “just following orders,” and sundry other sub-species of paper-shuffling rumpswabs.

For instance, according to Hitler the French had their own separate racial category—as he said, close to the German “race” but not quite their peers, respectable but still inferior to the Germans. The Italians, southern Eyeties in particular, he felt were the second “sickest” race in Europe (the quasi-human Hungarian knuckledraggers occupied the Number One slot on Hitler’s “Inferior” race card), informing his Axis co-swine Mussolini in 1934 that all the Mediterranean “races” had been “tainted with Negro blood.”

As every student of history well knows, Adolf Hitler was a truly sick, twisted whackjob, crazy as a shithouse rat. His mental condition steadily deteriorated throughout the course of the war, getting worse in sync with Germany’s gradual collapse until he was observably delusional by the time of its defeat: hysterically barking out orders for the re-positioning and re-deployment of phantasmagorical divisions, Luftwaffe squadrons, and naval flotillas which had long since surrendered, been transported en masse to Allied POW facilities, or otherwise obliterated—orders that shocked his more-rational subordinates (most if not all of whom were fully cognizant of the bleak reality outside their Supreme Commanders cramped, noisome bunker HQ) into a state of horror, fright, and indecisive stupefaction.

Hitler’s obssessive fixation on “race” distinctions—distinctions based not on genetic science (at that time in its infancy and scantily understood) but on the vagaries of nationality alone—is just one more piece of evidence confirming his deeply-disturbed mind.

The Donald Trump of Julius Caesars

Posted on June 2, 2024June 2, 2024 by Mike

As promised/threatened earlier: the fall of the Republic, then and now.

Observations During The Late Republic
For the first time in a long time, I have turned back to Roman history. It has been something like 2 decades since I read anything to do with Rome. But, recently, as part of my fitness and general “be strong, not fat” program (on which I shall write more, as well), I am listening to Mike Duncan’s “The History of Rome” podcast. Ironically, I reached Julius Caesar in the last stages of the First Triumvirate just as the Donald Trump “hush money” trial got really interesting.

In the late Roman Republic, Patricians, wealthy Plebians, and successful Generals were often prosecuted for crimes (real and imaginary) after they left office and no longer were protected by the office they held. They were prosecuted by their political enemies, as a general rule of thumb, in order to gain power, prevent the individual from gaining further power, and so forth.

One of the key reasons that Julius Caesar broke Roman law and led his Army across the Rubicon River and into Italy was that he knew that his political enemies were going to prosecute him for crimes they believed he had committed while Consul. Once his 10 year term of Pro-Consul of Cis-Alpine Gaul was complete, they would bring charges against him and then have him exiled or executed. He attempted to negotiate with the Senate for amnesty from prosecution in return for relinquishing command of his Legions, but the Senate refused and ordered him to relinquish command and return to Rome alone.

When Julius Caesar refused, he knew (and said) that the die was cast, meaning that he would have to fight a civil war now. And he led his legions into Italy, which ultimately ended the Republic.

If you think this isn’t what we see happening right now in America, you don’t understand that history and how it is repeating itself.

I think it safe to say that, in Amerika v2.0, there are a great many historical parallels that aren’t understood—or even known, for that matter—by a great many people. And should you try to explain it to them, they’ll either

Stuff their fingers into their ears and ignore you completely
Accuse you of the Hate Crime of Mansplaining, call the cops, and demand you be arrested, which the cops will assuredly do
Physically assault you for your intolerable defense of the hated Patriarchy
Call you a damned liar
Run away to the nearest officially-licensed Safe Space, having been Triggered by your Violent© act of oppression, bigotry, and Literal Genocide

Those, among other unpleasant possibilities.

Inter-cross-simu-posting

Posted on June 1, 2024June 2, 2024 by Mike

Good ol’ Meestah Luce has kindly dropped a comment over at last night’s Eyrie offering that I think is high-octane enough to merit a main-page mention here at Ye Aulde CF Muthashippe.

The US has a “double government”, one which is elected and runs a “clown car”, and a permanent – and actual – government which has existed since 1937 (see https://mises.org/mises-daily/revolution-was ) and whose ambit and powers have been codified into law since the Great Coup of 1947, the year of the establishment of the US National Security State and the final overthrow of Constitutional rule – the appearances remain so as not to upset the general public (those who aren’t in the Club) but the substance has been hollowed out and replaced by an entirely alien structure – see https://sites.tufts.edu/fletcheradmissions/files/2014/01/National-Security-and-Double-Government-by-Glennon.pdf and the following videos from 10 years ago – rest assured, nothing has changed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKsItbj49K0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYS647HTgks

What we have with Trump vs The Democrats is a big drama, where the population of the US can divide themselves into two more or less equal-sized “sides”, and get into a big fight with each other, maybe a war with lots of dead and wounded – the National Security State has played that drama in a lot of countries overseas, and now it’s coming home. It’s known as “divide and conquer” and it’s a very successful strategy and has been since Julius Caesar. The DNC *and* the RNC are equally tools of the underlying structure, the Permanent Government – and it’s the Permanent Government and its policies and utter unconstitutionality and its longstanding disrespect for the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, and the principles set forth therein, should be the true target of any rebellion. The Permanent Government is the tyrant “pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to subject [the American people] to arbitrary power…”

Words which should be kept in mind, here:

He continues in like vein from there, including a quotation from one of Jefferson’s early drafts of the Declaration, and it’s good, heady stuff indeed. Trust me when I say that you really want to click over and read the whole thing. Coinkydinkly enough, the above mention of Julius Caesar reminds me that I have an open browser tab also referencing him just sitting around waiting for me to get around to it. I’ll get on that straightaway, whilst y’all are preoccupied with hh’s comment.

The cars of Teh Future

Posted on May 27, 2024May 27, 2024 by Mike

And they always will be.

Buttigieg defends Biden’s EV strategy after question on how only 8 federal charging stations have been built
Buttigieg says Biden focused on making sure EV revolution is American-led

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg defended the Biden administration’s push to build half a million electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along U.S. highways by 2030 after being questioned about how just eight have been built since President Biden signed the legislation two years ago.

Buttigieg appeared Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” where he tried to ease doubts about reaching Biden’s goal of 500,000 chargers by the end of the decade when asked why it wasn’t happening more quickly.

“Now, in order to do a charger, it’s more than just plugging a small device into the ground,” the secretary said. “There’s utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment. But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states.”

“Seven or eight, though?” host Margaret Brennan said with a laugh.

“Again, by 2030, 500,000 chargers,” Buttigieg said. “And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built.”

See? Fret not, folks, Comrade Mr Secretary Buttplug is ON THE CASE!!! Assuming he’ll have any time, whilst also getting pregnant, giving birth, and breast chest-feeding “his” children, to deal with such trifling inanities as this charger grift, of course. Meanwhile, a commenter over at Insty’s joint notes a leeeetle problem.

My back-of-the-envelope math also indicates that building seven stations every two years will get us to Biden’s goal of 500,000 no later than the year 144,881 AD. Assuming we’re still using AD by then. 2030 doesn’t seem that far away now, does it?

Oof. Also, ouch. Hey, math is haaaaard. Who knew? Really, though, the underlying issue is going unmentioned.

Buttigieg said “the EV revolution will happen with or without us” and that Biden is focused on making sure the EV revolution is led by America, not by a competitor like China.

He said the charging stations are just one factor that will help Americans transition from gas-powered cars to electric; the other is lowering the cost of EVs for the consumer.

Bold mine, and horseshit of the purest ray serene. The “EV revolution” will assuredly NOT be “led by America,” contra whatever falsehoods the flailing, floundering Buttplug pukes forth. Fact is, this misleading Peter-puffery is a useful indicator of precisely where, how, and why we’ve gone so wrong: unlike previous world-altering, genuinely revolutionary* shifts organically driven from the bottom up thanks entirely to entrepreneurial creativity, ingenuity, and ambition (think Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, Edison’s incandescent light bulb, the internal-combustion engine, powered flight, among others), the hard-luck huckster Buttplug’s “EV revolution” is 100% Astroturf, forced on us Serf Class simps from the top down, whether we will or we nil—led by the government, not America.

Sorry, but this is not no way no how something to be celebrated, at least for any Real American not hungrily sucking at the drooping Überstadt teat. Such as, for example, Comrade Buttplug. On the bright side, though, maybe FederalGovCo will explain that mind-boggling “7 every 2 years=500k in 6” computation when the junta issues its next Five Year Plan. That ought to be a hoot.

*Hate to have to bust any bubbles here, but the very idea of a government-led “revolution” is a non sequitur, by definition an impossibility; sorry, but revolutions just don’t work that way. Call me pedantic, call me a language-Nazi, but revolutions aren’t done BY governments, they’re done TO them.

Open mouth, insert foot update! Jesus, it’s like the boob just can’t help himself.

In a surprising move, Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg didn’t blame an alleged increase in extreme turbulence impacting air travel on racism. During an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” the embattled cabinet member instead chose to blame the problem on climate change.

“The effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation,” he said. “We’ve seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn’t statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest to hurricane seasons becoming more and more extreme.”

A recent study found hurricanes and typhoons are actually decreasing, but okay, Pete.

It’s always the same old song with these people over and over and over again, the song only has one note, and nary a one of ‘em can carry a tune in a slop bucket. Yet they will NOT stop singing the stupid thing, even as the audience stomps out with their hands clapped tightly over their ears. More tiresome than one of those interminable, multi-band “Louie Louie” marathons they used to do now and then as radio-station promos, that’s what it is.

MOAR EV follies update! A joke, and not a very funny one: Electric…FIRE ENGINES?!?

Jeez Louise.

New Mexico Democratic Governor Michelle Grisham was recently excited to announce that the state’s Environment Department was awarding a nearly half-million dollar grant to Bernalillo County to partially finance the purchase of a new “all-electric” fire truck for their fire department. It was only a “partial” reimbursement because the projected cost to the county to replace its 1991 diesel fire engine with a Pierce Volterra battery electric fire engine was more than $1.8 million. The local fire chief was quoted as proudly saying, “There’s no cancer coming out of the tailpipe” of the new truck. So that’s a win for all concerned, right?

Not so fast there, chief. You have to read quite a ways down into the announcement to learn the uncomfortable truth about this purchase. The supposedly “all-electric” fire engine has a diesel engine in it. The pumps that actually deliver the water to put out fires run off of the diesel engine and the truck itself can run off of diesel when the battery inevitably runs out. So the entire description of “all-electric” is a farce.

What aspect of the “EV revolution” ISN’T a farce?

So why would these fire trucks still have diesel engines?

Elementary, Watson: because electric motors and batteries simply aren’t adequate to the kind of heavy-duty task required of pumper trucks, shitlib fantasies about Skittle-pooping unicorns notwithstanding.

They’re supposed to be eliminating fossil fuels to save us all from climate change, aren’t they? The answer should be fairly obvious. These are emergency response vehicles. If your neighbor’s EV can’t make it out of the driveway one morning because they couldn’t find a charging station or there was a blackout, they might miss a day of work. If the fire truck can’t do its job, buildings will burn down and people may die. It’s simply not worth the risk.

The water pumps on the fire trucks are massive. They have to be to move that much water so quickly over a sustained period of time. Also, the engine that powers the vehicle is far larger than the ones in most consumer vehicles, on par with the ones in big rigs. If there is a significantly large fire taking place, the pumps may be running for hours on end. EV batteries simply are not up to the job. If a conventional fire truck begins running low on diesel, a refueling truck can be brought over to fill up the tank in a few minutes. You can’t accelerate the battery recharging process.

Bad enough, sure, but is that all, you ask? Not hardly, I reply.

Here is another fun fact about these trucks, as pointed out by Larry Behrens, Communications Director for Power The Future. Those “all-electric” fire trucks cost 40 to 50 percent more than conventional, diesel models. The one that Bernalillo County purchased cost $1.8 million. That’s roughly $600,000 more than standard diesel truck costs and that bill was saddled on the taxpayers of the county as well as the entire state thanks to the Governor’s “generous” grant. (It’s funny how these politicians are always able to be so generous with your money, isn’t it?)

Wait, so you’re telling me you feel that Saving Mother Gaia from A) trace atmospheric gases essential for plant life; B) gas stoves, furnaces, and water heaters, and C) efficient, reliable, affordable modes of transportation for everyday Americans isn’t worth paying any price, going to any lengths imaginable? To quote Saint Greta of Thunberg: HOW DARE YOU!!! Oh, and speaking of that glowering, insufferably self-righteous nitwit, get a load of this:

Doom Goblin Greta? Bless my soul, how I do love it! Expect to see that one regularly from here on out, gang. I’ve been sitting on this mad-genius Tweet for a couple weeks now, just waiting for the right time to use it, and finally, it has come.

STILL think you’re voting your way out of this?

Posted on May 22, 2024May 22, 2024 by Mike

Because, y’know, you ain’t.

BREAKING: Somehow, Fulton County Democrats Choose Fani Willis Again

“Somehow,” no less. Note my bold in this next bit, please.

With all the information that has come to light during Fani Willis’ tenure as district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., it would be understandable to think that voters in the county would be ready for a change. Yet somehow, Democrats in Fulton County have overwhelmingly voted to send her to the general election this November.

Willis defeated her challenger, attorney and writer Christian Wise Smith, to the tune of 89.4% to 10.6%. WSB Radio reports that the Associated Press called the race within a half hour of polls closing.

Any questions? There shouldn’t be, I think the above speaks for itself quite loudly enough.

Naturally, emboldened by their clear overwhelming-majority status, under-qualified and over-incompetent persecutor Mr Darius “Sweetdick” Honeycum had the unmitigated gall to show up at his illicit lover’s victory bash, where, according to Ms Easysnizz herself, “we be gone pawty ’n’ git dronk ’n’ sheeitz. Where dat vokka be at ’n’ sheeitz, yo?“

Well consider me shook. At DA Willis’ campaign party in Buckhead and Nathan Wade just walked in. All smiles pic.twitter.com/hc7uKPn5ka

— Tamar Hallerman (@TamarHallerman)

May 21, 2024

The last stra…uhh, word.

Willis was so sure of herself and her ability to avoid accountability that she refused to debate Smith. So Smith appeared at an Atlanta Press Club debate and debated the empty podium behind which Willis was supposed to stand.

Willis will face off against Courtney Kramer, who ran unopposed in the GOP primary, in November. In other news, McAfee, the judge presiding over the Trump case, also won his election handily.

Now go ahead, tell yourself alllll about how “scared of us” these filthy scum are. If THAT doesn’t make you feel better, why, I simply don’t know what might.

*spit*

Update! Found a pic of your typical Fulton County voter celebrating the resounding Willis/Honeycum win.

Fo’ shizzle, mah nizzle!

Updated update! I should probably aver that yes, I know this is the D卐M☭CRAT primary we’re talking about here, not the general “election” itself. Do remember though, that, in Fulton County as in every other major urban area in the country, the D卐M☭CRAT primary is where the real action is; the GOPe primary counts for precisely Jack, and Shit, a total irrelevancy.

The grind

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Mike

Analysis: perfectly, inarguably, one hundred percent TRUE.

Brainwashing campus activists starts long before college
Americans shocked at the aggressive protests on our most elite campuses often imagine these kids have become brainwashed while away at school.

That indoctrination certainly does take place. Yet the process for most starts far earlier, often in the K-12 years — or even before.

What we’re seeing on our campuses is the culmination of many years of leftist activists pushing kids to the forefront to spread their propaganda.

And it’s not remotely just board books like “A is for Activist” that introduce toddlers to the idea of protest before they even set foot in school.

Teachers push their agenda; whether climate change, gun control or the war in Gaza, they’re focused far less on teaching children how to think than what to think.

The goal is to turn kids into activists, and the sooner the better.

After all, children can be valuable for shutting down debate.

Their youth implies innocence and seems to confer moral authority: How could anyone argue with an innocent child?

Ah yes, but one of these things (youthful innocence) is NOT like the other (moral authority). There is simply no equivalency there, in fact very little relation between the two at all, if any. Quite the opposite, I’d say: if one is present, the other in fact CANNOT be, by definition. It’s by way of being a categorical error—of the sub-type known amongst logicians as an informal fallacy*—a mistake which has unfortunately become commonplace thanks in part to the peculiarly American worship of youth and vigor at the expense of the peculiarly Oriental respect for the wisdom of age and experience.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: there is simply no fixing this without first unfucking the government schools. All our troubles and woe begin there; that rat-bastard Gramsci was truly a fucking diabolical genius, damn his eyes. My own kid has attended those institutions of indoctrination from Grade One, something I’m allowed no say in whatever. Thankfully, my daughter’s native intelligence and/or comprehension are off-the-charts extraordinary; her teachers so far have all been great, rewarding her smarts and eagerness to learn by going well out of their way to nurture and encourage those qualities every chance they get. Even so, I’ve been diligent right along in cautioning her that even the best of them doesn’t know everydamnedthing, and that she must therefore never assume that Teacher is always right, nor take every word she/he says as the Gospel truth.

This is not a young ‘un who has to be dragged kicking and screaming to do her homework, especially if it’s reading. I’ve told her repeatedly to think of her mind not as a sponge, passively soaking up everything thrown at it without discrimination or reflection, but rather as a sieve, sifting the totality to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Instilling and maintaining a healthy skepticism both inside the classroom and out, without lapsing into cynicism, generalized distrust, and despair is a tightrope all attentive parents must walk. So far it’s worked out well, for which felicitous result I consider myself very lucky indeed.

*I took quite a few classes as a college student in logic, philosophy, and rhetoric, for no reason other than that I found the subjects intriguing, so much so that I still have a cpl-three of my logic textbooks to this very day and have had cause to re-consult them plenty of times over lo, these many years; in fact, my poor old Logic 101 text is every bit as battered and dog-eared as any of my cherished military sci-fi paperbacks—its spine broken in several places, its binding loose and flappy, its fabric covers frayed, its yellowed pages liberally spattered with food, beverage, and greasy-fingerprint stains. Like a beat-up old La-Z-Boy recliner, she’s ugly as homemade sin now, but I do love her so anyway

Police story

Posted on April 28, 2024April 29, 2024 by Mike

The great Ken Layne tells it as only he can, a personal reminiscence that provides a bracing look back at the kind of old-time cop we all used to respect, trust implicitly, and admire—a noble breed which has become all too rare in Amerika v2.0, alas. They used to be the norm rather than the exception in America That Was, but tragically for us all, America That Was is no more.

Ripley
Ripley was a Riverbank cop for a good long while until he went to work for the Sheriff’s Department around 1985 or so. He was one of those old skool small town cops, Officer Friendly if you will. Him being called out for something did not mean automatic arrests of everybody involved would be made “to let the courts sort it out”.

He was one of those cops that actually took the time to listen to both sides of a dispute, would pull over to help a motorist make minor repairs rather than just calling a tow truck, and would even give you a ride home instead of automatically arresting you if you had a little too much to drink provided you weren’t so fucked up you were driving on the sidewalk and giving whiney-ass sober citizens a reason to complain. On top of all that, he had a great sense of humor.

That’s not to say he took shit off of anybody. He treated people the way they treated him.

Real Pancho was drinking at Sanchez’s Cantina one night and shooting the shit with Tony, the owner. Things got a little spirited between a couple of the customers, and the shit spilled out into the street. Rip was either called or was just driving by and stopped to break it up. After he got everything settled and turned to walk back to his patrol car, one of the drunks slapped at the back of his head. Rip spun around and dropped him with a hard right. Real Pancho told us later, “That motherfucker went from Andy Taylor to Buford Pusser in 1.5 seconds flat, homie.”

A bunch of us were sitting around drinking beer one Friday evening and his name came up, then everybody started throwing out theories on why he was so damned lenient, everything from compassion and understanding to being a local boy to whatever. George burped and said, “Y’all are overthinking this. Rip just hates paperwork with a passion, is all. He’d rather drive around in his patrol car than sitting in the station filling out arrest reports.”

Rip had a soft spot for anybody that worked out at the ammo plant, having worked there himself during the Vietnam war before enlisting in the Marines to go kill commies. As a matter of fact, on my very first day at work, the line boss I was working for told me to keep my work badge in my wallet with my driver’s license and if Officer Ripley pulled me over, hand him both and I’d probably get off with just a warning.

He wasn’t lying, either. A couple weeks after I started there, I rolled through a stop sign at about 10 mph and was pulled over by Rip, the first time I had ever laid eyes on him. As I was digging my license out of my wallet, he saw my work badge and forgot all about my traffic infraction. We spent the next 15-20 minutes talking about the plant and the mutual friends and acquaintances we had.

That’s not to say he didn’t write us tickets if we pushed it. We got a couple warnings but if we continued to misbehave, we got a ticket with him bitching about it so much we almost felt bad for putting him on the spot. “Now here I am trying to do my damnedest to be a decent human being by not holding y’all to the literal letter of the law, but do you appreciate my kindness and good will? Oh nooooo, you test my patience time and time again. I gave you a warning for speeding, then not a week later I see you blasting through town endangering law-abiding citizens and Mexicans. I’m gonna introduce you to my Maglight if you keep this shit up. Sign here.” It was hard to hold a straight face while he was ranting.

He was welcome out at my place and showed up quite a few times with his wife Jeri and sons. They fit in well anyway with about half my friends knowing him their entire lives. He wasn’t Rip the cop when he was there, he was just Rip the local guy. He left his job at work.

People smoking weed wasn’t an issue because he was usually gone by dusk along with others that brought their kids, and back then we didn’t smoke dope around kids. I doubt anybody would’ve put him on the spot by firing up a doobie anyway even if there were no kids around.

His youngest son pulled a trigger on a real gun for the first time out at my place, and him and his boys came out fairly regularly to hunt pheasant or dove when the seasons were open.

Rip’s story is a long ‘un, and also one of the best damned reads you’re ever going to see. It pains me no end to see my daughter’s terror and dread at every interaction I’ve had with po-lice in her presence—there’s been a fair few, none of them at all adversarial and/or confrontational, all of them relaxed, casual, even cordial.

True story: once, when we were pulled over for some piffling infraction or other (a busted taillight bulb, I believe it was), the poor kid actually burst into tears as I was talking with the cop—gasping for breath, shoulders heaving, great sobs racking her little body. The cop was horrified, and tried his dead-level best to calm her down, speaking directly to her in soothing Daddy-voice tones to assure her she didn’t need to be afraid, that he’d never dream of harming a beautiful little girl like her in any way, that his job was to help people like us, not to hurt them. Finally, he gave the effort up as a lost cause, apologized profusely to me, and we all went our separate ways. I felt sooo bad for the poor guy, I really did; it was perfectly obvious to me that he was a loving parent himself, the thought of any child actually being terrified of him just absolutely wrecked the man.

A few days later, I went so far as to go to the Belmont PD HQ and ask to see Officer Whateverhisnamewas (I had caught his name from his shield and jotted it down afterwards so’s I wouldn’t forget), whereupon the SGT on front-desk duty that day brought him out and I offered my thanks for his going so far above and beyond the call etc to be such a sweet, caring guy with my distraught daughter. He blushed to his roots at that, saying t’was nothing, he meant what he said about helping people like us being part of his job, the part he himself found most satisfying of all.

I then told him I honestly had no earthly inkling as to where her reflexive fear of cops might’ve come from, that I was working diligently to teach her otherwise. In my considered opinion, the blame for Madeleine’s mystifying breakdown couldn’t fairly be laid at his doorstep, I said, reassuring him that I bore him no ill will whatsoever over the episode.

After that, we chit-chatted idly about this, that, and the other for a few more minutes—turns out he was a drawling, born-and-bred scion of good ol’ Gaston County like I was, a natural kinship which gave us plenty to discuss—then shook hands warmly and again went our separate ways with a smile on our faces, a skip in our steps, and a song in our hearts.

I have this longtime habit, see, of going out of my way to talk to cops I cross paths with in my daily round, having had many friends, neighbors, and family members who served on one force or another since I was but a wee bairn. I’ve tried to instill in her from early on the idea that cops are not too terribly different from the rest of us workaday schlubs: some of them fine folks, some of them obnoxious pricks, but in the main just regular people who have a difficult job to do, about like anybody else is/does.

I want Madeleine not to shy from the police quaking with fright as if they were the Loch Ness Monster, Nosferatu, or the Wolfman with a badge and a gun, but to treat them just as she would anyone else, taking them as they come, reserving judgment unless and until they give cause to dislike and shun them as toxic assholes. In my extensive experience with them, act as if cops are actually, y’know, human beings and they’ll usually respond positively, granting you the same small courtesy in return.

This is just another of many thorny parental dilemmas every caring Mom and Dad worthy of the name must carefully consider, then choose the course of action that seems best for their child based on the information at hand, which is usually incomplete. As such, it greatly disturbs me to think that—what with today’s militarized police kitted out as soldiers in full combat gear including Level IV body armor, automatic battle rifles, and even tanks (!!!), faces concealed robot-like behind Next Generation Integrated Head Protection System helmets, NOD goggles, and opaque face shields, champing at the bit to engage their Enemy (to wit, US) and vanquish him utterly—by urging my kid not to fear, distrust, or abhor cops I might be doing her a serious disservice at best, possibly putting her in real danger at worst.

As I’ve said so many times, when we passively allowed marauding Lefty wreckers to take our country from us, many fine things were lost in the suicidal shuffle that were very much worth holding onto. Compassionate, dedicated cops of Ripley’s stripe who deem personal integrity, selflessness, and strict attentiveness to duty to be sacrosanct would definitely be one of those things. LESSON TO BE LEARNED: In the next iteration (if any) of the Former USA, after the grassroots uprising I call the Coming Unpleasantness© has concluded and the dust has settled, perhaps We The People will be more willing—better prepared mentally, physically, and materially—to fight, truly fight, to keep them.

Yes, that of necessity means violence, bloodshed, and war, and what of it? Real Americans realize that our freedom, our heritage, our traditions, our very society itself are all worth paying any price to maintain them. The simpering, pusillanimous wretches who preemptively foreswear violent action in defense of our unique American birthright have in effect surrendered already, mewling shamefully in favor of lawsuits, Congressional investigations, higher court decisions, and “elections” as if there was any credible hope in all that endless, proven-futile meat-beatery. So to hell with them then, sayeth I.

No, this is definitely NOT Roman Gabriel’s NFL

Posted on April 23, 2024April 23, 2024 by Mike

Nor Johnny Unitas’s, nor Ollie Matson’s, nor Bart Starr’s, nor Jim Brown’s, nor Mike Ditka’s. Nor mine, nor yours. The people running the show now don’t want it to be, see. And as far as I‘m concerned, may they have joy of their choice, they can fucking well have it.

NFL Funded Left-Wing Group Bailing Out Anti-Israel Bridge Blockers
Community Justice Exchange received grants from NFL’s ‘Inspire Change’ program as recently as 2022

The left-wing nonprofit that bailed out anti-Israel protesters who blocked bridges and highways across the country last week was a multi-year partner of the NFL’s “Inspire Change program” whose work is still promoted on the NFL’s website.

Community Justice Exchange set up a “bail and legal defense fund” for those arrested during last week’s A15 protests. The protests targeted major airports, highways, and bridges in dozens of U.S. cities including San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia. Their explicit goal was to disrupt economic “choke points” to maximize financial disruption, as explained on their website.

The online fundraiser, hosted by ActBlue and organized in conjunction with A15 Action, told donors that the funds will “support community members who are criminalized in the U.S. for their solidarity with Palestine.”

As an official “Inspire Change” partner, the Community Justice Exchange received grants and publicity in its work “to end money bail and pre-trial detention at the local level and immigration detention at the national level.” The NFL’s partnership with the Community Justice Exchange was last extended in June 2022, according to an announcement from the league. The league touted the left-wing group’s “work with organizers, advocates, and legal providers across the country that are using community bail funds as part of efforts to radically change local bail systems and reduce incarceration.” The grants went toward “coordinating and supporting the 100+ local protest to bail funds and a centralized rapid response fund to support those protesting for racial justice.”

The partnership appears to have since lapsed—the nonprofit wasn’t on the list of grantees announced in May 2023. The NFL’s “Inspire Change” website lists Community Justice Exchange under “Previous Grant Recipients” and still includes a link to the group’s website.

Proud of their little Left-wing fascist goon squads, aren’t they? Like I said, they can have it, all they want and then some. Myself, after being the most rabid Cowboys fan imaginable from my childhood well into my “adult” (a-HENH!) years, I haven’t watched any NFL game—regular season, playoffs, Stupid Bowl, whatever—in several decades now, haven’t missed it even slightly, and almost certainly will never watch another.

Enjoy your “partnership” with the selfsame Leftard pussyfarts who have been trying to get football banned altogether for being “too violent,” “too dangerous” for, oh, ’round about twenty-thirty years or so, while it lasts. You can all go straight to Hell together for all me, and good fucking riddance to the whole sorry lot of you.

Via Sefton—welcome back, JJ!

Update! How we know for sure and certain that there’s really no such thing as zombies, the living dead, angry ghosts who walk among us seeking vengeance against the hated living, &c: Because the shades of Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, John D Rockefeller, Tom Landry, and many others—all of whom were hardcore capitalist Reich-wingers, if not straight-up Fascists, in life—haven’t risen from the grave en masse to tear out Wokester throats in righteous rage over their wanton despoliation of all they once held dear on this tormented Earth. That’s a by-God “tell” if ever I saw one.

Well, excepting the ((((JooJooJooJOOOOOO!!!))))-hate, of course. That would been totally jake with at least a couple of the aforementioned.

Yeah, NO

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Mike

Oh, I freely concede there’s some killing needs to be done right enough. Plenty and to spare of it, in fact. But not the kind that’s done with any silly switch, by God.

The Kill Switch
Soon the government might shut down your car.

President Joe Biden’s new infrastructure gives bureaucrats that power.

You probably didn’t hear about that because when media covered it, few mentioned the requirement that by 2026, every American car must “monitor” the driver, determine if he is impaired and, if so, “limit vehicle operation.”

Rep. Thomas Massie objected, complaining that the law makes government “judge, jury and executioner on such a fundamental right!”

Congress approved the law anyway.

A USA Today “fact check” told readers, don’t worry, “There’s no kill switch in Biden’s bill.”

“They didn’t read it, because it’s there!” says automotive engineer and former vintage race car driver Lauren Fix in my new video. The clause is buried under Section 24220 of the law.

USA Today’s “fact” check didn’t lie, exactly. It acknowledged that the law requires “new cars to have technology that identifies if a driver is impaired and prevents operation.” Apparently, they just didn’t like the term “kill switch.”

No, they wouldn’t, would they? But a kill switch by any other name is still a kill switch, and I say it’s the bunk.

The kill switch is just one of several ways the government proposes to control how we drive.

California lawmakers want new cars to have a speed governor that prevents you from going more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit.

That would reduce speeding. But not being able to speed is dangerous, too, says Fix. If “something’s coming at you, you have to make an adjustment.”

New cars will have a special button on the dash. If you suddenly need to speed and manage to find the button when trying to drive out of some bad situation, and it lets you speed for 15 seconds.

For all these new safety devices to work, cars need to spy on drivers. Before I researched this, I didn’t realize that they already do.

The Mozilla Foundation reports that car makers “Collect things like your age, gender, ethnicity, driver’s license number, your purchase history and tendencies.” Nissan and Kia “collect information about your sex life.”

How? Cars aim video cameras at passengers. Other devices listen to conversations and intercept text messages.

Then, says Mozilla, 76% of the car companies “sell your data.”

Finally, Biden’s infrastructure bill also includes a pilot program to tax you based on how far we drive.

“A mileage charge seems fair,” I say to Fix. “You pay for your damage to the road.”

Oh sure, “fair”—as long as you leave the road-use taxes FederalGovCo (and states as well) rakes in on every gallon of gasoline you buy out of your calculations. Jackass.

One thing you can be sure of: if our Masters are letting the word get around about these supposedly “new” spy-snitch-and-control devices get around, then they’re already in place and functioning, likely have been for a good-ish while now.

Speaking strictly for myself, I’d never even dream of buying, owning, or operating a new(er) car. Not that I could afford to anyhow, natch. But still. At present, the Hendrix automotive stable consists of

1) An extremely rare 2012 Focus SE hatchback skinned in Blaze Yellow Metallic* with some minor performance mods to the peppy little 2.0L i4 under the hood, which mill I’ve personally clocked at an honest 39 mpg. Low-slung, stable, almost shockingly responsive and nimble, the Focus corners like it was on rails, betraying its race-car design heritage at every least twitch of the leather-wrapped steering wheel. The schweet little Focus has never failed to leave a huge grin on my face every time I’ve driven her, she’s hands-down the most just plain fun automobile I’ve ever owned; and

2) A battered, raggedy but dead-reliable old 1994 Burick Century and a Half** Grampamobile for backup

Both of which cars, to the best of my knowledge, predate all that goobermint jiggery-pokery. I’ll stick with my two strugglebuggies until I find out otherwise, thanks, at which juncture I’ma have to either get cracking on some serious uninstalling, or unload ‘em for something older and less personally intrusive.

From my cold, dead hands, you perfidious bastards.

* Factory paint color, 2012 model year only, obtainable exclusively via custom-order through a duly-licensed Ford dealership. I have it from an impeccable authority that there were just over 400 Focus hatchbacks in that color with the also custom-order-only 17 inch alloy wheels delivered across the entire Southeastern US that year. Who knows how many are still on the road or in driveable condition today; a great many Focii get converted into race cars and run on the flourishing, popular Compact-class circuit. So yeah, rare as hen’s teeth. Unfortunately, it’s still only a Ford Focus, of which type there’s a blue million out there, so not all that valuable or collectible, then

** Equipped with the rock-solid Burick L82 3.1L v6 renowned among mechanics as “the Indestructible Six,” and for very good reason; a smidge over 155k on the odometer, which is damned low for a car that age. The two previous owners are close, close friends and/or family, so the Burick’s entire history is known to me, which is always nice. That said, though, the piss-poor 17-18 mpg the big battlewagon clocks in at is a bona fide lifestyle-changer, sadly enough, especially at these vampiric Bidenflated petrol prices…which, cushy, plush, and mechanically solid though the car is, fortunate as I’ve been to have the use of it while the Focus has been down for extensive repair/refurbishment, nonetheless explains why I’ll always think of it as the backup ride

Another war in which there are no rules

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Mike

As we have seen, and are continuing to see. As with all other wars, there is but one way it will end: with one side victorious, the other…not.

The Elite War on the American Middle Class—and How to End It
Being middle class in America used to mean something—something socially transformative, something even revolutionary. The American middle class represented a form of national social order never before seen on this earth—cultural domination not by the very rich and very educated, or the political domination either by tyrants or the mob, but by a mass of people, relatively well-to-do, who felt themselves fortunate in their circumstances. That was what made the American middle class different from the French or English bourgeoisie. Its members believed, and the country believed, that they were the nation’s backbone, its true governing class, and its moral compass.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the term “middle class” signaled membership in an optimistic and growing group, most of whom had risen within memory from physically laborious jobs in farming or on factory floors to offices and small businesses they ran themselves. The middle class had enjoyed long periods of prosperity and stability, and each generation of politicians, on the left and the right, had enthusiastically pandered to it because they were the American majority, and it was from the American majority you could build a political consensus and a political coalition.

What were the core convictions of the American middle class? It valued its freedom and autonomy, was proudly patriotic, involved itself in its local communities, and was churchgoing without being fanatical about it. Its position at the dead center of American life was reflected in mass culture in ways that were both positively reinforcing and widespread. If you turned on any radio program in the 1930s and 1940s or any network television show before the advent of the cable era, you would likely find some benign portrait of the middle-class American nuclear family staring back at you. Providing that kind of mirroring comfort made cultural and financial sense in a country where approximately 61 percent of adults lived in middle-class households.

As Max Weber said, “A class itself is not a community.” The middle class in the U.S. has always been as much an idea as it is a definable socioeconomic category. It has also served as an ideal, a goal to achieve for the working class, which sees in the rung above them on the social ladder wonderful and achievable things like home ownership, a safe neighborhood, and retirement comfortable enough to soothe an aching back garnered from decades of physical labor.

But both the idea and the ideal are under significant threat today, and not only from economic challenges such as inflation, stagnant wages, and higher housing costs. The common understanding of the middle class as the key moderating force in our culture and politics is also disappearing. We know this from the evolution of American mass entertainment. Popular culture has moved away from the values and interests of the middle as well. In Status and Culture, the critic W. David Marx describes how, in the mid-20th century, the middle class “enjoyed its own respectable taste world of Reader’s Digest, bowling clubs, and Lawrence Welk.” Those middle-class tastes and choices were mocked by the elitists of the time; the middle class was said to be living soulless conformist existences in “little boxes made of ticky-tacky,” as the folksinger Malvina Reynolds sang contemptuously in 1962. Efforts to shock the middle class out of its complacency came in the form of supposedly scandalous works like Peyton Place that presumed to show the dark truth behind the manicured lawns of Main Street USA.

Then came the 1960s and the elevation of transgressive behavior and mores. By now, there is almost no middle-class culture to mock. Today, Marx writes, “the twenty-first century economy has skewed media and consumption so decisively toward coastal elites as to be perceived among the lower middle class as a demeaning erasure.”

This erasure is significant because it speaks to thorny issues of status and dignity in a country with long-standing anxieties about class. The middle class found it could no longer rely upon or take pleasure in its creature comforts quite so readily, or find satisfaction in achieving a certain level of social standing. As Paul Fussell observed in his 1983 book, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, “The special hazards attending the class situation in America, where movement appears so fluid and where the prizes seem available to anyone who’s lucky, are disappointment, and, following close on that, envy….The myth conveys the impression that you can readily earn your way upward, [so] disillusionment and bitterness are particularly strong when you find yourself trapped in a class system you’ve been half persuaded isn’t important.”

Rather than be catered to by the elites who seek to make their living off their tastes and wants, the middle class is more likely to hear the elite talk about it as a problem: Middle-class Americans are racist, they complain too much about how expensive everything has become, and they won’t get on board either with the left’s social-engineering schemes or the populist right’s rage-driven apocalypticism.

They are told that “no human is illegal” and that their concerns about an open border are evidence of their own bigotry. They see the poor and other designated “oppressed” receive sympathetic elite attention and government subsidies and programs, and services aimed at helping them. The elite champion the rights of criminals, illegal immigrants, and destructive Black Lives Matter activists who want to dismantle the police. They tell the rest of the country that they must call the homeless the “unhoused” and ignore any quality-of-life effects from that population’s drug use or instability. When the middle class complains, the elite often chide it for having fallen prey to “misinformation” or excessive “right-wing” media consumption.

The middle class is also frequently reminded that shoplifting is a victimless crime even as they see prices rise and goods placed behind locked cabinets—or, in many cases, entire stores shuttered after being scavenged for too long by thieves who go unpunished. In January, after coordinated groups of pro-Palestinian protesters shut down traffic to tunnels and bridges in Manhattan, disrupting the lives of millions of New Yorkers, the New York Post noted how many of the protesters were students at elite colleges such as Yale and Brown, whose activities were being lavishly funded by “the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation” as well as “a Rockefeller family foundation.”

By contrast, it is the middle class that sends its children off to the military to fight wars. The middle class is overrepresented in the ranks of the enlisted compared with upper- and lower-income groups. According to a study by the Council on Foreign Relations, “Most members of the military come from middle-class neighborhoods. The middle three quintiles for household income were overrepresented among enlisted recruits, and the top and bottom quintiles were underrepresented.” They are effectively serving a country that lately has shown little tolerance for their way of life or their values.

Meanwhile, they watch politicians like President Biden transfer the student loan debt of higher-earning Americans to those in the working- and lower-middle class. A 2020 report from the Brookings Institution, using data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance “confirm[s] that upper-income households account for a disproportionate share of student-loan debt—and an even larger share of monthly out-of-pocket student debt payments.”

No wonder they feel like suckers, betrayed and frustrated because things no longer seem to work the way they should. They are being played for suckers.

As are we all—everyone, that is, foolish and/or naive enough to still believe, as patriotic dupes, in the essential righteousness of a nation which in actuality bears little if any resemblance at all to the nation its Founding Fathers—whom its middle-class posterity still nonetheless justly admire and take great pride in—brought forth originally.

None of this has happened by accident, mind. The assault on and dismantling of the American middle-class and the nuclear family which is its backbone and practical foundation is Item One in the Marxist playbook, the crucial first step without which all else is pointless and futile. The author of this extended essay knows this, natch, albeit mentioning it in no more than cursory fashion. Which, actually, is understandable; she’s hunting much bigger quarry here, and makes a pretty thoroughgoing job of its pursuit.

Posted on April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 by Mike

Our ol’ buddy Stephen illustrates how it works with a, err, distasteful anecdote.

BIDENFLATION: Now Is When We Sit in the Dark and Eat the Canned Meats
So how bad are things, really, here in the real world?

Let me tell you another patented VodkaPundit True Story™.

The details are all correct and I haven’t even bothered to change the names because none of us were all that innocent.

Thirty-mumble years ago, I might have made a drunken 2 a.m. munchies run to the Safeway in Arcata, Calif., with my best friend, RJ, and the college girl roommates we were dating. RJ, for reasons best left unexplored, picked up a can of Libby’s Potted Meat Food Product — and then dared me to read the label.

I can never resist a dare but, this once, I wish I had because “Partially defatted beef fatty tissue” are words seared into my brain to this day.

No, we did not buy or eat any of Libby’s Potted Meat Food Product. We weren’t that drunk. At 22 and working only part-time, we weren’t even that broke.

But in Presidentish Joe Biden’s America, canned meats are flying off the shelves like rarely before.

While the New York Post didn’t mention Libby’s Potted Meat Food Product by name, the paper did report on Tuesday that “demand for cheap canned meats like Spam and Vienna Sausages is surging,” according to grocery chain execs.

“Spam is a regular item again,” Bronx grocery store owner Miguel Garcia told The Post. “I’m selling them at a discount now because I’m buying more.” He’s even set up showcases at his Foodtown, Keyfood, and Met Foodmarket locations for inexpensive items like Spam, Libby’s Corned Beef, and Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs because demand is up 10%.

Garcia said his average sale is now $15, down from $20 at the end of last year because customers are choosing cheaper items.

These are the expectations baked into the shopping habits of everyday Americans after three years of Bidenomics.

And Zee Bugz, too, Steve, don’t forget Zee Deeelishious Bugz!

What a world we’ve let them make for us, eh?

Damn fools about it

Posted on April 10, 2024April 10, 2024 by Mike

As Wellington said after Waterloo: “They came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way.” Or, as WC Fields said: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Then quit. There’s no use in being a damn fool about it.”

S’truth. And yet.

Woke Extremist Minneapolis City Council Demands $30.60/Hour Minimum Wage for Uber and Lyft Drivers; Uber and Lyft Both Announce They Will Abandon Minneapolis
Faced with public anger about driving out the popular ride-share services, the woke extremists of the city council say they may delay when the order goes into effect.

But they’re only doing that to allow other ride-share companies — are there any? — to enter the Minneapolis market.

By the way, I base the headline claim of a $30.60 per hour minimum wage on the city council’s demand that drivers be paid a minimum 51 cents per minute when ferrying passengers.

California recently imposed a $20/hour minimum wage for fast food workers. There’s now a $16/hour minimum wage for all other jobs.

Companies immediately began firing workers and closing down stores.

A pizza chain announced the closure of five stores in California.

Analysts forecast that this law will gift California with increased unemployment for years.

That’s putting it in the best possible light.

And there you have it. As Billy Pilgrim said: “All this happened, more or less.” And so it goes.

If at first they don’t succeed…

Posted on April 7, 2024April 7, 2024 by Mike

If you thought there was any end to shitlib stupidity, that there simply had to be some point at which the perfidious chowderheads would smack their foreheads and mutter to themselves, “DAYUMM, this isn’t working! Could it be that we’re at fault here—that, instead of doubling down again and again on each successive failure, it might be time for us to rethink our basic premises?” PRO TIP: There isn’t, and they won’t.

San Francisco Bill Would Let People Sue Grocery Stores for Closing Too Quickly
A proposed ordinance would empower people to sue supermarkets that close without giving the city six months’ advance notice.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a remarkable policy that would allow people to sue grocery stores that close too quickly.

Earlier this week, Supervisors Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin introduced an ordinance that, if passed, would require grocery stores to provide six months’ written notice to the city before closing down.

Supermarket operators would also have to make “good faith” efforts to ensure the continued availability of groceries at their shuttered location, either through finding a successor store, helping residents form a grocery co-op, or any other plan they might work out by meeting with city and neighborhood residents.

Lest one thinks this is some heavy-handed City Hall intervention, the ordinance makes clear that owners still retain the ultimate power to close their store. It also creates a number of exemptions to the six-month notice requirement. If a store is closing because of a natural disaster or business circumstances that aren’t “reasonably foreseeable,” it doesn’t have to provide the full six months’ notice.

Still, should stores close without providing the proper notice, persons affected by the closure would be entitled to sue the closed store for damages.

Preston has been floating this ordinance since January when a Safeway in the city’s Fillmore neighborhood announced it was closing before city officials intervened to keep it open a little longer. The policy itself is decades old.

In 1984, the board of supervisors passed an identical policy to what Preston and Peskin are proposing now, but it was vetoed by then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein. At the time, Feinstein described the policy as “an unnecessary intrusion of governmental regulatory authority.”

Ahhh, 1984—as in, the title of Orwell’s how-to manual for contemporary “liberals,” now superceded and kinda quaint. How perfectly apropos.

Preston is more comfortable with the intrusion.

Of course he is. Gee, color me shocked—SHOCKED!

“It was a good idea then, and it’s an even better idea now,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in January.

Obviously so. I mean, any fool can see that it’s been working out so nicely for all concerned up to this point; it’s just that the original scheme didn’t go far enough, that’s all. I blame Trump, myself. Even way back when, the Orange Man was nothing but a garden-variety shitstirrer.

“We need notice, we need transparency, community input, and a transition plan when major neighborhood grocery stores plan to shut their doors.”

Know what you really need? To get government’s meddlesome mitts out of affairs not properly its own, and let private citizens engage in commerce with honest vendors as, when, and how they prefer, in accordance with A) their own free choice, and B) the laws of supply and demand.

Yeah, I know, in SF (symbolic capital of Amerika v2.0) that’s just crazy talk.

“Transparency, community input, and a transition plan.” Anybody besides me wondering just where the owner’s and/or shareholders’ needs might come into play here? Or, for the matter of it, be taken into consideration at all?

Whatever the impact of this proposed policy, it does provide a telling insight into just how much micromanagement San Francisco politicians think their city needs.

HATE SPEECH! HAAATE SPEEEEECH!! QUICK, SOMEONE ARREST THAT MAN AND LOCK HIM UP FOR TREASON, INSURRECTION, THREATENING OUR SACRED DEMOCRACY, SOMETHING!!!

(Via Ed Driscoll)

Category: Leftward ho!

And so it goes

Halp is ON THE WAY!

Toxic fruit of the Communist tree

The Donald Trump of Julius Caesars

Inter-cross-simu-posting

The cars of Teh Future

STILL think you’re voting your way out of this?

The grind

Police story

No, this is definitely NOT Roman Gabriel’s NFL

Yeah, NO

Another war in which there are no rules

The Biden Economic MIRACLE!© continues apace

Damn fools about it

If at first they don’t succeed…

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