The Almighty State

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.

Lavrentiy Garland, just doing his job

Posted on June 5, 2024June 5, 2024 by Mike

As always, lying under oath and just generally scuttling around covering for his Shadow State Supreme Kommissars in any fashion he can come up with.

BREAKING: Attorney General Merrick Garland has classified at the highest level the audio tapes of Biden’s embarrassingly incoherent interview with Special Counsel Hur over two days, and has locked the tapes away in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_)

June 2, 2024

Exhibit B:

I know, I know: We want to see action — some actual consequences that stand a chance of effecting positive change in the corrupt blob that our federal bureaucracy has become — particularly the weaponized Justice Department. Still, there’s a certain amount of enjoyment to be had watching Gaetz’s verbal slice-and-dice here. As much as Garland attempted to weasel out of answering the inquiry directly, Gaetz wasn’t having it.

First, Gaetz pushed back on Garland’s labeling as “dangerous conspiracy theories” assertions that there has been coordination between the DOJ and the offices of the state-level attorneys who’ve gone after former President Donald Trump either criminally or civilly. If they’re conspiracy theories, then there either won’t be any communications between the DOJ and those offices, or what communications there are will be fully above board, so there should be no qualms about producing them, right?

Gaetz didn’t leave it with calling Garland’s bluff on the purported coordination, however. He landed a well-placed jab while pivoting toward judicial demeanor and propriety.

GAETZ: Now, you were a judge — once nominated to the highest court in our country. When you were a judge, I’m just curious: Did you ever make political donations to partisan candidates?

GARLAND: No.

(I’d simply like to take a moment and commend the attorney general on what may be the most succinct, direct answer I’ve ever seen him give. Points for that, at least.)

GARLAND: You’re asking me to comment on a case currently before —

GAETZ: Well, it seems you’re connecting the dots, Mr. Attorney General. I’m just asking you as to a general principle, but you are aware that Judge Merchan’s daughter was profiting off of this prosecution. You are aware that that creates the appearance of impropriety. You know the very reason there’s a federal rule against judges giving donations is because it is the very attack on the judicial process that we’re concerned about.

GARLAND: I’m sorry, I don’t agree with anything you just said, but I’m not going to comment on an action in another —

Then Gaetz moved on to the curious career path of Matthew Colangelo.

GAETZ: Okay, so you won’t comment on it, Mr. Attorney General, but you had no problem dispatching Matthew Colangelo. Who’s Matthew Colangelo?

GARLAND: That is false. I did not dispatch Matthew Colangelo. That’s false.

GAETZ: Matthew Colangelo…became the Assistant Attorney General at the very beginning of the Biden administration. Without having been Senate-confirmed, goes and gets this senior role at the DOJ. And then after, I believe it’s Gupta, replaces Colangelo, Colangelo makes this remarkable downstream career journey from the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and then pops up in Alvin Bragg’s office to go get Trump. And you’re saying that’s just a career choice that was made. That has nothing to do with the lawfare coordinated by the —

GARLAND: I’m saying it’s false. I did not dispatch Mr. Colangelo anywhere.

GAETZ: Well, do you know how he ended up there?

GARLAND: I assume he spoke — he applied for a job there and got the job.

GAETZ: Well, you might not have had anything to do with it, but we’ve got this contemporaneous evidence in Mr. Pomerantz’s book. So Pomerantz writes this book, which I’m sure you’re aware of, where he says, “We put together the ‘legal eagles’ to get Trump. We got all these folks together, and we assembled them for that purpose.” And so, when we on the Judiciary Committee think about attacks on the judicial process, our concern is that the facts and the law aren’t being followed, a target is acquired — here, Trump — and then you assemble the legal talent from DOJ, Mr. Pomerantz, and you bring everybody in to get him —

GARLAND: I really —

GAETZ: And meanwhile, the judge is making money on it! The judge is making money on — or the judge’s family is making money on it for stuff that you yourself wouldn’t do. You know, no one’s going to buy this, no one’s going to believe it, it’s going to create great disruption. And I’m saddened by it because, like you, I’ve given my life to the law. I care deeply about the law and I think that the lawfare we’ve seen against President Trump will do great damage well beyond our time in public service.

Which, of course, is the whole fucking point, ultimately. It isn’t about Trump, nor even about Trump supporters, when you get right down to the nut-cuttin’. In the end, what it’s really about is destroying America That Was lock, stock, and barrel—burning it to the ground, scattering the ashes, and covering the earth on which it stood with salt. And yes, Lavrentiy Garland and his lying henchmen are all-in on that, same as every other cloven-hoofed D卐M☭CRAT in the country is. Admittedly, it’s possible—just barely, but theoretically possible—that there are exceptions to that rule here and there, sure. But not enough of them to matter.

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.

(Not) Crime, (undue) punishment, and (in)justice in Amerika v2.0

Posted on May 31, 2024May 31, 2024 by Mike

Been looking forward to Steyn’s take on yesterday’s foul rape of “justice.” It was worth the wait, as usual.

Oh, and I see that “former federal prosecutor” William Otis has just filed a column headlined “Why a Trump Conviction Will Be Reversed”. (Also “Leader McConnell”, whom I feel we don’t talk about enough, briefly unfroze to say he “expects” the conviction to be overturned.) As to Mr Otis’s credibility in such matters, one notes he estimated the chances of guilty-on-all-counts at “about five per cent”.

Be that as it may, his legal reasoning would be fine if America were a land of laws, but unfortunately it’s a land of men: whether for the forty-fifth president or a “niche Canadian”, we’re in basic “Who? Whom?” territory, as the Leninists would say. After my own experience of both the New York and Washington appellate benches, I would rate the chances of Trump getting this reversed at the state level as way lower than Mr Otis’s five per cent. It’s the same in my own case: all involved know the DC Court of Appeals is merely an interlude in order to get it wafted up to the US Supreme Court. Likewise with Trump. So we’re betting the farm on John Roberts and that rock-ribbed six-three “conservative” majority on which Republicans have expended so much energy to the exclusion of every other societal lever. And, even were they minded to intervene, as I remarked on-air to Tucker a fortnight before the last so-called election, “A judges’ republic is a contradiction in terms.”

In theory, Trump has been convicted of a crime and could be headed to gaol. Also in theory, his term of confinement could be put on hold pending the outcome of his appeal. But they didn’t do that with Peter Navarro, did they? And it seems highly unlikely to me that they would have gone to all this trouble for a fine and a suspended sentence. They want him dead. If you don’t get that, go over to Larry Hogan’s pad and start cooing over your “respect” for “the rule of law”.

How will the people react to whatever happens on July 11th (Trump’s sentencing date, subject to change entirely at the whim of “judge” Mechan—M)? Riots in Milwaukee? One can’t help noticing that, since the brutal January 6th prosecutions to the fullest extent of the law and then bulked up with “terrorism” charges by DC judges just as bad as this New York guy, there is little appetite for what Orwell called “turbulence”.

But, either way, Democrats figure that, however Trump supporters react, they can make this work for them…and awful pathetic hollow husks such as Larry Hogan will be happy to string along.

So, right now, they’re making their plans for July 11th. Is anyone on the other side?

I will add one final thought born of my own experience. I am about to begin my thirteenth year in the foetid septic tank of the District of Columbia courts. My finances are ruined, and so is my constitution. By the latter, I mean my health, not the United States Constitution, which is already dead. By contrast, I’m just about hanging on, although I very much doubt I will live long enough to be vindicated at the Supreme Court. Which is bad news for my heirs and relicts. As one of the lawyers taunted me last year, “This doesn’t end with your death.”

I’m sad about that, and would much prefer to devote the time that remains to playing music and enjoying the sunsets. I am worn out, and bitter about the books I’ll never get to write because of the way American litigation has consumed what should have been my most productive years. I have a theological objection to suicide, but would not be averse to dying in my sleep.

And that’s just with two rinky-dink cases on the go.

Trump, on the other hand, is barraged at all turns – here, there, state, federal, civil, criminal. He has been subjected to all manner of indignities – such as, just this week, having to sit in the crappy courtroom while the jury deliberates, which Judge Irving did not force me to do in DC.

Trump is (or was) a mega-rich American and he has the habits of the mega-rich, and they are rarely attractive in close-up. Personally, I would have no desire to find myself in a room with Stormy Daniels, and I cannot imagine that whatever transpired was other than mechanical and perfunctory and instantly forgettable. On Fox, at the height of his presidency, Greg Gutfeld used to say, “Trump banged a porn star and we got world peace.” He was making explicit the trade-off that large parts of the GOP coalition had made in 2015 and 2016: yes, he’s a flawed man, but the republic is so crapped out that a house-trained Republican like Jeb Bush or Larry Hogan isn’t going to cut it.

Yet days such as yesterday have turned Trump into something that the Gutfeld formulation never could: it has made him noble and heroic.

The mega-rich guy from Mar-a-Lago and Miss Universe and Trump Tower and The Apprentice decided to dedicate his final years to doing something for all those forgotten men in towns no one knows where all the factories got shipped to China and replaced by meth labs. And in return the worthless US establishment – the guys who took America’s post-war dominance and gave it away to the Politburo in return for “ten per cent for the big guy” – set about destroying him: a half-billion appeal bond in New York, an eviction from the ballot in Maine, a lawyer forced to cop a plea and turn state’s evidence in Georgia…

Much of the United States – certainly the bits that matter – is now institutionally evil, and I am not sure that evil can be reversed, whether we’re talking about the bodily mutilation of middle-school girls or the sacrifice of a generation of a distant nation’s men in the meat-grinder of the Ukraine war. On America’s watch, the entirety of western civilisation is sliding off the cliff, and very fast – which is all anyone will remember about it.

Even with the above extended excerpt, there’s still plenty rich, buttery Steyn goodness left, of which you should read the all.

The Verdict, Part the Second

Posted on May 31, 2024May 31, 2024 by Mike

What the hell, there’s plenty left to say yet about today’s traveshamockery, so let’s go ahead and start a new post for all that. First off, Sean Davis says he ain’t playing no more.

If you’re a Republican running for office, you can just go ahead and throw away all of your elegant little policy proposals for this or that corporate exclusion or tax subsidy. Give me a list of which Democrat officials you’re going to put in prison, or get lost.

There’s only…

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav)

May 30, 2024

The part below the “Read more” PITA is worth including, I think.

There’s only one way to deal with nuclear war, which is what Democrats have unleashed, and that is mutually assured destruction. Democrats declared war on our entire system of justice and the rule of law, and our only options are victory or defeat. I intend to win. Do you?

We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. Sean followed up with a most excellent idear.

Biden and Garland should be indicted in Texas tomorrow for their ongoing criminal human trafficking conspiracy across the border and into the state of Texas, in direct contravention of state law.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav)

May 31, 2024

Oh HELL yeah! This needs to happen so bad I just…can’t…EVEN. So howzabout it then, Gov Abbott? Wanna kneecap your home-state (and elsewhere) detractors who insist that you’re a fake, phony fraud, a squish who only pretends to be a solid defend-the-borders man for the TeeWee cameras? Sic AG Paxton, who in fact IS a real-deal Texas pit bull, on Bribem and Lavrenti Garland and just watch your poll numbers soar. Oh, and speaking of Paxton…

‘He’s Very Talented’: Trump Floats Texas AG Ken Paxton As US Attorney General
Donald Trump has floated the possibility of nominating Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to be U.S. Attorney General if he wins the presidency in November.

Speaking with a local television station at the NRA conference in Dallas over the weekend, Trump was asked whether he would consider Paxton for the role.

“I would, actually,” Trump responded. “He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.”

“I fought for him when he had the difficulty and we won,” he continued. “He had some people really after him, and I thought it was really unfair.”

Paxton has long been a steadfast ally of Trump, having previously launched legal challenges against the 2020 presidential election results in four key states. He was also present at the “Stop The Steal” rally that took place before the January 6th Capitol protests.

Trump, meanwhile, endorsed Paxton’s reelection campaign in 2022, describing him as someone who “advances America First policies in order to Make America Great Again.”

Huh. Somehow this story escaped my notice when it first went up a week ago, even though Red State is one of my regular blogfodder-trolling spots. But I have to say, I definitely dig the idea. Not that “convicted felon” Donald Trump (get used to it, there’ll be no escaping the lurid canard from now on) has a snowball’s chance of regaining the forever-tainted “pResidency,” natch. However, a threatened Paxton appointment sounds great just the same, if only as a ruse to make the wee shitlib tykes cwy their widdle eyes out fwom fwight.

From another “What’s next…?” article, I find this extremely amusing.

If you thought this country was divided before, we could likely see upheaval like never before. With many seeing this trial as politically motivated by the left to take him off the ballot, what happens next?

First off, he can still run for president.

The Constitution states a candidate must be at least 35 years old, a natural-born U.S. citizen, and a resident in the country for at least 14 years. There is nothing noted about criminal charges.

Can he pardon himself?

No. Because it is a state conviction, he will not be able to pardon himself as president. Presidents only have jurisdiction over federal convictions.

Can any state take him off the ballot?

They did try, but no. The 14th Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War, states that no one who has participated in an insurrection may run for the presidency. While some states have tried to claim this against Trump regarding Jan. 6th, they have been unsuccessful in proving it. He will still be on the ballot, as long as he is the Republican nominee.

How can he serve as president if he is also serving a criminal sentence?

It is expected that due to his age and this being his first conviction, he will not serve prison time. He may be given probation, which would mean he would have to ask permission every time he leaves the state of New York. If sentenced to time in prison, which would undoubtedly be frowned upon as a politically motivated move, he could still actually legally serve as president from behind bars. (Can you believe I just said those words?)

Hey, Marg, in Amerika v2.0 that’s just another example of the sort of thing we’re ALL gonna have to get used to, alas. At least, unless/until Real Americans finally r’are up on their hind legs and smite the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed SHIT out of these scrofulous shitweasels, at any rate—so punishingly that it leaves ‘em too damned scared to open their mouths in public ever again, not even to breathe.

Meanwhile, another of the repulsive nuggets of wormy, slime-encrusted squirrel dung behind the lawless persecution of Trump seems mighty proud of his despicable self.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg spoke to reporters Thursday evening after guilty verdicts were handed down against former president Donald Trump, attempting to cast himself as a statesman who went after a corrupt, seemingly untouchable politician and, despite all temptations to act in a biased manner, worked with the people in his office to honorably carry out their duty. “I was just doing my job,” he says.

I want to thank this phenomenal prosecution team, embodying the finest traditions of this office: professionalism, integrity, dedication, and service. They are model public servants, and I am proud and humbled to serve side-by-side with them.

An even more insulting and provocative assertion from Bragg in his short press conference was this:

And while this defendant may be unlike any other in American history…we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors: by following the facts and the law and by doing so without fear or favor.

That’s just simply not the case. This prosecution was planned for years, and if Alvin Bragg was prosecuting all cases in which a political candidate or their attorney entered into a paid non-disclosure agreement with someone who had negative information about them, well, there would be lots of Democrats under indictment right now. Perhaps Bragg can next look into the 51 people who signed the letter declaring the laptop the U.S. Department of Justice has now confirmed as belonging to Hunter Biden as “Russian disinformation” in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election – and those who orchestrated its composition – and see what positions they were promised in a potential Biden administration or other monetary or professional benefits they were promised/given in exchange for their advocacy?

PRO TIP: Don’t let’s anybody be holding their breath, ‘kay? Get him: “without fear or favor,” yet. Be sure to add the scoundrel Bragg to the list—with berobed blaggard “Judge” Mechan—of Korrupt Kourtroom Demo-Klowns who, in a better, more just world, would’ve been hanged by the neck until dead, dead, DEAD months ago.

The Verdict

Posted on May 30, 2024May 31, 2024 by Mike

Surprising exactly no one with half a lick of sense, Trump got got earlier today, on all 34 spurious, wholly-contrived counts.

President Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of…something, a bookkeeping issue turned into a felony, with whatever the underlying crimes the jury picked (Trump wasn’t told) for a conviction, quite contrary to the Supreme Court’s 1999 Richardson ruling, that the jury must be unanimous as to the underlying crime. Justice Juan Merchan said otherwise and that was what the jury was told.

So now the left is happy, dancing, Joe Biden trying to make money off it, and Merchan, who presided over this kangaroo court in New York, setting the sentencing for Trump to July 11, just before the GOP convention. Maybe his Democrat political operative daughter recommended that one.

The justice, who bitterly complained about not being able to send one of President Trump’s executives to prison for a longer sentence than he did, again, over a bookkeeping issue, is sure to send President Trump to Riker’s Island, making himself a hero to the left, which will no doubt ensure that he gets richer.

Which seems about par, given the dishonesty of this entire case, one that makes the U.S. a global laughingstock on the world stage and will undoubtedly empower dictators to do the same to their political opponents.

So much was utterly wrong with this case.

All it does is show us how vile and evil the left is, with absolutely no scruples of any kind as they seek to re-elect floundering Joe Biden and better still, knock Trump from the race by any means necessary.

Oh, it does a great deal more than just that, I’m afraid; let us count the ways, as ol’ Will S. once said. For one thing: it condemns Trump to spend the rest of his life, and a YUUUGE chunk of his fortune, in appeals court. For another: it also ensures that, from this day forward, you will never again see the words “Donald J Trump” mentioned in any Enemedia outlet without the words “convicted felon” appended as prefix. For yet another: this transparently farcical decision put-up job amounts to the biggest pie ever hurled into the faces of Real Americans, as well as America That Was overall.

Everyone associated in any way with this vile molestation of the very concept of impartial justice and the rule of law should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves. If any of them possessed even one iota of simple decency, they surely would be. Our old friend and certified CF Lifer hhluce asks the pertinent question in a concise post over at his reliably top-notch streamfortyseven Substack hang—then answers it, I believe all too accurately.

Trump Convicted On 34 Felony Counts … What Happens Next?
My bet is that he is remanded to the maximum security wing at Rikers Island, then to whatever New York state prison the New York Department of Corrections deems appropriate. I also bet that the judge will revoke the bail, and set a fine equal to the bail amount – $175 million. I could see the judge sentencing Trump to ten years for each of the felony counts and run the sentences consecutively – that’s 340 years. Trump will be off the campaign trail for good, now, and will be free only after an appeals court hears his case and overturns the verdict, or the US Supreme Court does so – and that could take years. He might very well die in jail given his age. No more Trump rallies, no more huge crowds, none of that. Today, Joe Biden won another term as President, the election will be a pro forma exercise. This sets an ominous precedent, because the population of the country has to believe in the concept of free and fair elections, and this action drives a wooden stake right through the heart of that concept. I don’t know the downstream consequences of this, but I doubt that they will be either pleasant or peaceful.

A-yup. As y’all know, I’ve been fretting hereabouts for years now about the likelihood of Trump being hauled off to durance vile, then conveniently Epsteined once in lockdown and entirely at the mercy of his—and ours, and America’s—implacable enemies. With this revoltin’ development, unsurprising as it was, I see no reason to revise that estimation.

As for “peaceful,” we must hope like hell not. Not that I’m advocating strife and bloodshed, mind; I dread the awful prospect to the very marrow of my bones. That said, though, if, as I expect will be the case, MAGA Americans just sit on their hands and quietly do nothing as has been their wont for many decades in the face of endless, relentless Leftist depredation and escalation, the last feeble spark of hope for any sort of meaningful American renaissance will gutter out and die. To coin a bitter phrase: When war becomes necessary, peace is the least desirable option. Or, in other, more florid terms, “peace at any price” isn’t really peace at all; in truth, it’s surrender.

If America was still the nation it once was—if Americans were still the proud, independent, upright people they once were—the corrupt, dishonorable, and iniquitous “Judge” Merchan would have been swinging by his neck from a lamppost months ago.

Update! Matt Margolis—and, to my own personal glee, Ron DeSantis—weighs in on the side of decency, propriety, and plain common sense.

I knew it was coming. We all knew. Yet, the verdict delivered on Thursday in the case against Donald Trump still shocked me.

We knew Democrats had long planned to impeach Trump before even taking office, yet when they finally succeeded, it was hard to process.

“Today’s verdict represents the culmination of a legal process that has been bent to the political will of the actors involved: a leftist prosecutor, a partisan judge and a jury reflective of one of the most liberal enclaves in America—all in an effort to ‘get’ Donald Trump,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement. “That this case—involving alleged misdemeanor business records violations from nearly a decade ago—was even brought is a testament to the political debasement of the justice system in places like New York City. This is especially true considering this same district attorney routinely excuses criminal conduct in a way that has endangered law-abiding citizens in his jurisdiction.”

DeSantis continued, “It is often said that no one is above the law, but it is also true that no one is below the law. If the defendant were not Donald Trump, this case would never have been brought, the judge would have never issued similar rulings, and the jury would have never returned a guilty verdict. In America, the rule of law should be applied in a dispassionate, even-handed manner, not become captive to the political agenda of some kangaroo court.”

Well said, Gov, and good on ya for coming out swinging in defense of Trump at long, long last. Better late than never, I reckon. Matt closes his piece skillfully, passionately, and with nary a flinch or blink.

This verdict was a warning shot, signaling that the Democrats’ quest for unchallenged power has no boundaries and that it can succeed if we don’t take back our country. Their willingness to bend, break, and shred the rule of law in their pursuit of supremacy is unprecedented. It’s a chilling reminder that the republic they claim to champion is on life support, and what they really want is to pull the plug.

Exactly, precisely so. If this doesn’t open the last averted eyes out there—up to and including Trump’s own—to the harsh reality that political business-as-usual; our governmental, legal, and criminal-justice systems; and the entire politico-societal order as we once knew it are all dead and gone, I really don’t know what might do the trick.

It’s gotten downright infuriating for me to read or hear some otherwise astute pundit acknowledge in the first ‘graph that 1) yes, the Old Order has ceased to exist, that there is neither refuge, recompense, nor redress to be had there any longer. Then, by the last one, he/she/they/zhimm/it/whatevs starts in working the same lame, tiresome “we must file lawsuits/Vote Harderer/work within the system/protest peacefully etc etc etc” wheeze, despite having tacitly admitted the worthlessness of those stratagems only moments before.

Look, guys, I get it, I really, really do. You, me, Trump, all of us deeply, sincerely loved America That Was—its traditions, its core values, its rich history, its strength, its open-hearted generosity, its unprecedented success. It was a wonderful place in which to live, work, raise children, and grow up: warm, welcoming, safe, comfortable. That America was unique in its brash, confident exuberance. Though we could sometimes be immodest about it—obnoxious, even—when we laid claim to American Exceptionalism, it wasn’t merely empty braggadocio. The rest of the world knew it, and if they resented us for it here and there, they also very much admired us.

Hell, I’ve been across the pond quite a few times and can report truthfully that, with vanishingly few exceptions, they like us Americans over there. Loud, inane chatter; vulgar, uncouth deportment; unfashionable clothing and/or hairstyles; crappy, piss-water beer served cold (!!); disgusting “cuisine” and all, they really, really LIKE us clumsy, foolish Yanks.*

Much as it hurts to have to say it, though, America That Was is no more. To our immeasurable loss, that noble Republic is dust in the wind, a fond memory and nothing more. We live in Amerika v2.0 now: a squalid, intolerant, crumbling, improvident DC-centric shitrapy (mis)ruled by cheap con-men, oafs, sadistic thugs, and plunderers so far gone in degeneracy and grubby self-indulgence they’d make Caligula himself blush to his roots at the mere sight of them.

Today’s juridical obscenity “surprising,” “shocking,” “unexpected”? With a cast of characters as loathsome as this, it was inevitable—a foregone conclusion, sad as that is.

* Particularly European (and Scandinavian) women, who are without exception beautiful, lissome, and totally charming. Walk down any street in Amsterdam or Helsinki and you’ll fall hopelessly in love every other block; open your gob and let ‘em hear that flat American twaaannnng and all of a sudden you’ll have a very pleasant, utterly beguiling tour-guide for the rest of your evening stroll at least, longer if you play your cards right and aren’t an irredeemable douchenozzle

Yet ANOTHER “Ask a silly question” entry

Posted on April 25, 2024April 25, 2024 by Mike

“Is Biden About To Declare Himself Climate Dictator?” Waitwaitwait, I thought he DID that already.

Democrats have already made it clear that they will stop at nothing – nothing – to prevent Donald Trump from winning in November. So, we aren’t surprised to read reports that President Joe Biden might declare a “climate emergency” this year in hopes that it gooses his reelection odds. Never mind that such a declaration would put the U.S. right on the path to a Venezuela-style future.

Late last week, Bloomberg reported that “White House officials are weighing whether to declare a national climate emergency several months out from the 2024 election.”

Let’s leave aside the entirely fatuous notion that there is anything even remotely constituting a climate “emergency.” What would be the basis for such a declaration? The number of hurricanes, fires, floods? None of these has been trending upward. Death rates from natural disasters are a tiny fraction of what they were 60 years ago, and lower than they were 20 years ago. Food production is way up.

But Biden has already used the “climate crisis” as an excuse to impose a draconian electric vehicle mandate on the country, attack a host of household appliances, pour billions into “clean energy” scams, and more.

As Bloomberg notes, declaring a climate emergency “could enable the president to halt or limit crude exports for at least a year at a time, suspend offshore drilling, and throttle the movement of oil and gas on pipelines, ships, and trains.”

Apparently all that is not enough “newfound authority” for Biden’s minions.

Whatever you think of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he is one of the few who has been outspoken about the dangers the COVID precedent set.

“We’ve now established a precedent in this country – they suspended the First Amendment: religion; freedom of association when they did the lockdowns,” he told Fox News.

“[They restricted] freedom of speech. They banned jury trials against vaccine companies – that’s [a violation of] the Seventh Amendment. They abolished property rights [which violates the] Fifth Amendment [when] they closed 3.3 million businesses with no due process, no just compensation, although there was no pandemic exception in the United States Constitution.”

Not that I hold any truck with a great many of his views, but hey: when the man’s right, he is damned well right, clear down to the friggin’ bone and with big ol’ bells on.

Declaring a climate emergency would give Biden the ability to control anything that uses energy – which means literally all human activity – in the name of fighting this emergency.

If Biden were to declare a “climate emergency” and if – God forbid – it helps him win reelection, there will be little hope for the future of this nation.

What, you mean there still IS some? I musta missed a meeting, or something.

I repeat: this isn’t about the climate, nor about humanity being good stewards of our natural enviroment, nor about saving Mother Gaia. It’s not about animal/plant/insect species going extinct, nor about reducing pollution, CO₂, and/or industrial emissions. Nor is it about polar ice caps shriveling away before our very eyes. It will assuredly NOT create good jobs, save boucoup money, revitalize the economy, or enrich/empower a living soul aside from the ProPol-class and proven-failure “green energy” concerns they choose to shower FederalGovCo cash upon as the gentle rain—companies, mind, which have no hope of surviving absent government largesse.

No, the Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ bunco is really about the same old-same old: POWER, and CONTROL. Always was, always will be. Period fucking dot.

Update! Tell me the one again about how Biden hasn’t declared himself Climate Dictator, Daddy. That one’s my favorite.

President Joe Biden and his administration have taken over 200 actions against the U.S. oil and natural gas industry as energy prices have gone up, according to a new report.

“President Biden and Democrats have a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase,” the Institute for Energy Research states in a new report. “Since Mr. Biden took office, his administration and its allies have taken over 200 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce energy here in America.”

The analysis highlights actions Biden took on his first day in office, listing them chronologically through March of this year. The first act was canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, issuing a moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and revoking Trump administration executive orders that decreased regulations in order to expand domestic production.

Within a week of being in office, Biden issued additional moratoriums on new oil and gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters and imposed new regulations related to permitting and leasing practices, which were tied up in the courts for years. It was not until last month that a federal court upheld the first oil and natural gas lease sale on federal lands. Last December, the Fifth Circuit also ruled that Gulf lease sales must go forward.

Other actions ahead of the midterm elections include threatening to tax the oil and natural gas industry, blaming them for profiteering. Roughly six months before the general election, his administration has proposed $110 billion tax hikes on oil, natural gas and coal. In response, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., led a coalition of 24 senators expressing “grave concern” about his “continued hostility towards American energy production.”

Even if Pedo Peter hasn’t expressly said it in the exact words, he’s definitely talking the talk and walking the walk. Which oughta be plenty enough for anybody, I should think.

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

The leopard polecat never changes his spots

Posted on February 24, 2024February 24, 2024 by Mike

Be it federal, state, or local, Government is a right bastard. You should never, ever trust it, it’s always a mistake.

Liquor Regulators Are Seeking Revenge on Bars That Broke Pandemic Rules
“The people who violated the governor’s mandates and orders should face some consequences,” a Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board member said in 2022.

During the height of the pandemic summer of 2020, the proprietors of the Burning Bridge Tavern worked with local officials in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, to host a series of outdoor gatherings for the community.

For their trouble, the bar’s owners got slapped with a series of citations by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB), the government agency that oversees and manages the sale of alcohol in the state. The citations were ticky-tack offenses, according to Burning Bridge’s chief financial officer, Mike Butler. Twice, the bar was cited for noise violations because they’d allowed a band playing at the gathering to plug into the tavern’s electricity supply. Another offense occurred when the owners and some family members were drinking inside the tavern, which was closed to the public, during a period when indoor dining was prohibited.

A frustrating situation, but not the end of the world. Burning Bridge’s owners paid the fines associated with the citations and assumed that was that. But then the bar had to renew its liquor license.

Fines, be assured, that amounted to thousands of dollars— dollars already hard to come by in the best of times given the extremely thin profit margins all bars and restaurants struggle with in normal times, orders of magnitude moreso under the draconian and entirely contra-Constitutional FauxVid rules of play.

Not the end of the world, perhaps, but having worked in a good few of them over the years I can tell you with absolute certainty that in the bar/restaurant business there simply ain’t no such thing as “extra money.” But as if all that weren’t enough:

“They denied it. They said, ‘Oh, you’re the guys that got all those citations,'” Butler says. “It was a real gut punch.”

Turns out, over the past two years the PLCB has pushed dozens of Pennsylvania establishments that racked up pandemic-related citations to sign “conditional licensing agreements” to renew their liquor permits. In some cases, those agreements have forced the sale of licenses—but in most cases, as with Burning Bridge, they’ve added additional conditions to the license that could prevent a future renewal from being approved.

While the PLCB cannot revoke existing licenses, the board is empowered to object to the renewal of a license or to demand the license can only be renewed conditionally. “In extreme cases,” PLCB Press Secretary Shawn Kelly says, the PLCB can force the sale of a liquor license, though the board only pursues that option when “there is an operational and citation history that calls for such an agreement.”

Even though Burning Bridge’s owners weren’t forced to sell their license, Butler says signing the conditional licensing agreement has come with real costs: The bar’s insurance premium tripled as a result of being viewed as a greater risk.

Assuming BBT isn’t part of a bar/restaurant chain, the owners don’t by any stretch have what you might call deep pockets. So taken altogether, the bruising punishment inflicted by the state of Pennsylvania might NOT be “the end of the world” for them, no. But it could very well be the end of their sojourn in the bar biz.

As I always say, seems like there ought to be some way we could thank the “people” responsible adequately for it. I just can’t for the life of me imagine what it might be.

Update! Can’t leave out the closing ‘graph, which sums up the whole contretemps perfectly.

“The feeling was that our government really isn’t working to try and help us,” says Butler. “At this point, it feels like they’re coming after us.”

A-yup. That’s because they, y’know, ARE. You now, and eventually all the rest of us right along with you. Unpleasant as that is to get our heads around, as difficult as it can be for Real Americans naturally inclined to patriotism and faith in their institutions to choke down and accept, that’s the ugly reality nonetheless. The harder we resist admitting it to ourselves, the rougher it’s going to be when we do come around at last.

Which, sooner or later, one way or another, we’re all gonna have to, like it or not. Think of oversized, intrusive, all-powerful government as a sickness with only one effective treatment. It’s some bad, bad medicine—sure to leave a bitter taste that will linger for a long, long time—but before we can hope to be cured, the body politic fully restored to health, a full dose is going to have to be swallowed.

The Dossier. Does President Trump Have it?

Posted on February 15, 2024February 15, 2024 by Barry

Rumors abound. Like all the other illegal and corrupt stuff the government has done, there is no doubt that the government including Clinton/Obama and their gunslinger Brennan were in it up to their necks. Is the proof in the hands of Trump?

Dossier

WHEW, what a relief!

Posted on January 23, 2024January 24, 2024 by Mike

Comic relief, that is.

The dude on the right was cool, he was just taking orders, the one on the left is the jack wagon. And the rude, remedial broad not pictured. To clarify.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch)

January 23, 2024

Um, sorry, Dana, but…”just following orders”? NOT cool, not in any way, shape, or form—not in 1943, not now, not ever.

I was saving that one for tomorrow night, but it fits in way too perfectly here. As for the misbegotten TSA, it’s no more nor less than another greedy, grasping tentacle of the neo-Nazi Überstadt Leviathan which simply has to go—“cool” guys who are “just following orders” and all.

No more Mr Nice Guy update! Lest there be any further misunderstanding about what’s really at stake here, Michael Walsh spells it out.

THE COLUMN: To Save America, Abolish the TSA
T&he Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Nevertheless, like so much else in the Bill of Rights, those sentiments are no longer valid, especially when you’re shuffling your way, shoeless and beltless, through the sheep pens of the Transportation Security Administration, George W. Bush’s gift to the American traveling public.

In retrospect, it’s clear that Osama bin Laden emerged the victor of 9/11. He brought down the Twin Towers and took a chunk out of the Pentagon, severely wobbled the American economy, destroyed the freedom of the skies, set the American government haring after all sorts of villains but not a single enemy it would name, and made himself a martyr. Worst of all, because of the actions of 19 Muslim hijackers, most of them Saudi nationals but all of them members of the Islamic ummah, he panicked the U.S. government into presumptively criminalizing more than 300 million American citizens with the passage of the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and of the TSA, a mortal sin that will live in infamy.

What about safety? Surely you jest. To previous generations of Americans, the idea of trading liberty for safety would have been laughed out of court, but a fearful, feminized society won’t even hesitate. Curtail your freedom of movement and subject yourself to intrusive, sometimes bodily, inspection every time you wish to travel by plane? Why not? If it saves just one life…

One byproduct of Big Brotherism has been the creation of “protected classes,” against whom no voice can be raised. Their numbers include (hang on to your hat): “age, ancestry, color, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, HIV/AIDS status, military status, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status, or any other bases under the law.” Thus, in the name of equality — now redubbed “equity” — the U.S. has become a profoundly anti-egalitarian nation with a two-tiered system of justice that stands in open violation of every Constitutional principle.

Dismantling the Surveillance State and its bureaucratic accretions like Homeland Security is, alas, the work of years, decades — if it even can be done. The guiding principle of all toxic amoebas, even those as gargantuan as a federal department, is self-preservation. Once birthed, they aspire to immortality. The western Roman Empire maintained the fiction of consuls right to the end. But we have to start somewhere, and the noxious TSA is as good as place as any.

Well, it might be, if we assume it’s still possible to vote our way out of this—ie, that FederalGovCo will simply stand idly back while we go about the business of dismantling it via regular Constitutional order and process. None of which any longer, y’know, exist, either de facto or de jure.

That being so, and it is, we’re left with just the one discomfiting conundrum: to defeat them, we must become more like them. Longtime Constitutional conservative Alice Cooper long ago told us where that must necessarily start.

Ivy League = Toxic

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Barry

Anyone younger than 50 with an Ivy degree should be assumed as a liar and con, a deadly marxist, until proven otherwise. Any Ivy over 50 should be treated with extreme suspicion.

I’ll just note that this nearly 90% that supports strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity could be doing that their selves, but they don’t. They are exempt you see, not subject to the rules for you proles.

I think at the end of the coming revolution that there should be no Ivy institutions standing and no one left that admits to attending one. They are sick, twisted, and corrupt, reminding me of the mafioso.

Their international brothers wish to eliminate your coffee, among other things.

89% of Ivy League grads support ‘strict’ rationing of gas, meat, electricity to fight climate change: poll

With a Little Help from Liberty Daily

KILL Switch

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Barry

I think that yes, we are going to need a kill switch and it ain’t going to be the one the deep state marxist bureaucrats are thinking of.
Sometimes there is only one solution. Sometimes the solution is forced upon us.

Via: Liberty Daily

Category: The Almighty State

And so it goes

Lavrentiy Garland, just doing his job

Toxic fruit of the Communist tree

The Donald Trump of Julius Caesars

Inter-cross-simu-posting

(Not) Crime, (undue) punishment, and (in)justice in Amerika v2.0

The Verdict, Part the Second

The Verdict

Yet ANOTHER “Ask a silly question” entry

Yeah, NO

The leopard polecat never changes his spots

The Dossier. Does President Trump Have it?

WHEW, what a relief!

Ivy League = Toxic

KILL Switch

CF Search

Login, RSS, &c

CF Archives

Categories

Comments policy

2A/Mostly Guns

Alt-American

Big Dogs

Essayists

Mil

Nuttin’ But News

Odds Bodkins

Overseas/Non-US

Portals

Pure Bloggery

REAL Journalism

The Funny Pages

Subscribe to CF!

Shameless begging

Correspondence

Allied territory

Notable Quotes

RSS feed