March 2023 – Page 7

“A woman is not a suit you put on”

Posted on March 5, 2023March 5, 2023 by Mike

You never go Full Woke Retard. Which is exactly what Hershey’s just did.

#TransWomenAreConMen goes viral after Hershey allows a man to take the place of a woman

Last Wednesday marked day one of Women’s History Month, an annual occasion described by the official website as a “national celebration” to commend the value and contributions of the female sex upon society. In the movement’s own words:

Since 1995, presidents have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as ‘Women’s History Month.’ These proclamations celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields.

\Well, welcome to a modern and Orwellian America, where a jabbering Supreme Court justice infamously couldn’t define “woman” and intact males eclipse and dominate real women in every sector, every day: competitive sports, beauty pageants, magazine covers, advertising campaigns, government posts, etc. You name it, and men in drag are there, overshadowing their female counterparts by leaps and bounds. Didn’t you ever hear that joke about when Glamour magazine bequeathed former Olympian Bruce Jenner with a “Woman of the Year” award? It went a little something like this: “Just to prove men are better at everything, it took a man to win a women’s achievement award.”

Now, Hershey is going balls (literally) to the wall, and in honor of female fortitude, the company has decided to highlight a man who goes by the name Fae Johnstone. See the clip below:

.@Hersheys is putting the face of a trans-“woman” on chocolate bar wrappers with “HerShe” highlighted in honor of international women’s day.
Hershey’s is erasing women. pic.twitter.com/JzRkAtwTdO

— Leftism (@LeftismForU)

March 1, 2023

Do be sure to watch the vid; somehow, it manages to be pathetic, appalling, and funny as hell all at the same time. But wait, it gets even better still.

Now, the erasure of women and our uniqueness isn’t funny, but in a hilarious turn of events, an anti-woke company known as Jeremy’s Razors branched out into…Jeremy’s Chocolates. (You’re going to enjoy this.)

And trust me, you surely will at that.

Heh. Jeremy’s Chocolates is an offshoot of founder Jeremy Boreing’s Jeremy’s Razors, which came into being thusly:

HARRY’S AND THE DAILY WIRE HAD A DEAL.

They paid us. We advertised their razors.

But after we said that boys are boys and girls are girls, they publicly condemned our views as “inexcusable” and dropped their ads because of what they called “values misalignment.”

You’re damn right our values are misaligned. We value truth and the right to speak it.

We embrace masculinity and the courage to uphold it. And since no other razors out there did… we built our own.

Every dollar you spend here is one less dollar in the pockets of woke razor CEOs who profit from putting you down.

They make money by making you feel bad. Jeremy gets rich by making you look great. And by creating alternatives in the market that actually give you a choice. So you don’t have to cut away your values, every time you shave your face.

We can’t build this parallel economy overnight – it’s going to take time.

But with your commitment it will happen. And razors, are just the start.

Well said, sir. From Jeremy’s I Hate Hershey’s webpage:

Some chocolate companies don’t even know what a woman is. But we do.
Indulge in the chocolate binary. One with nuts, one without. You know which is which.

Indeed I do. In fact, contra the ever-heightening pile of “transwomen are REAL women” horseshit, we all do.

More fun quips ‘n quotes from Boreing.

It is nearly a year after Harry’s removed its ads, The Daily Wire has initiated its new razors alongside a humorous four-minute outstanding web ad which is the talk of the internet nowadays.

The ad starts with “god-king” Boreing setting fire to rubber to work in an electric-blue McLaren. After virtually jogging over an employee in the parking lot, he exits the car and asks, “Do you recall when there were only two genders, and only one and a half of them had to trim their mustaches?”

And that is only the warm-up.

He whips out the flame thrower and further adds, “If you have had enough of the woke bullshit,” and you are tired of paying groups like Gillette and Harry’s to hate you, then get my new razor instead.

Along with flame throwers, the ad also features sexy women, hot cars, a shirtless, carved Adonis, and that is the most homoerotic time you will ever get from a Jeremy’s Razors commercial and over-caffeinated Dennis Miller as it defines Jeremy as the razor of choice for men, firefighters, cowboys, and ‘those gentlemen who shot Osama bin Laden.’ The ad is marked as funny. However, it is not all over-the-top humor.

He whips out the flame thrower and further adds, “If you have had enough of the woke bullshit,” and you are tired of paying groups like Gillette and Harry’s to hate you, then get my new razor instead.

Along with flame throwers, the ad also features sexy women, hot cars, a shirtless, carved Adonis, and that is the most homoerotic time you will ever get from a Jeremy’s Razors commercial and over-caffeinated Dennis Miller as it defines Jeremy as the razor of choice for men, firefighters, cowboys, and ‘those gentlemen who shot Osama bin Laden.’ The ad is marked as funny. However, it is not all over-the-top humor.

“Our country is in distress,” Boreing instructs as the commercial draws to a climax. “Conservatives are being abolished by the media, Hollywood, universities, and now, Harry’s Razors. Resist lending your money to woke companies who do not believe you deserve their product. Offer it to me instead,” he concludes as a huge flag emblazoned with his picture, and the phrase “Shut Up and Shave” unfurls from the roof.

The commercial is entertaining, and the product illustration comprises “the best shave kit ever built and its preferred pronouns are Buy Now.”

Any red-blooded Real American Normal has just gotta love it…and I assuredly do. As Tennessee Ernie Ford used to say, in those old TV ads for Martha White flour: “Goodness gracious, it’s pea-pickin’ good!”

Amerika v2.0: the process is the punishment

Posted on March 5, 2023March 5, 2023 by Mike

The persecution of American hero Kyle Rittenhouse continues. Which, it will do; the poor kid is gonna be in courthouses and paying lawyers for the rest of his life. But hey, what else would one expect? He’s dead-to-rights guilty of the “crime” of successfully defending his life against a wolfpack of marauding thugs dead-set on murdering him, after all.

A wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of one of the men Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed in the Kenosha riots will proceed, a federal judge in Wisconsin ruled Wednesday.

Anthony Huber was one of the two men Rittenhouse killed in August 2020 during the riots following the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, by police.

Huber’s father, John Huber, first filed the lawsuit against Rittenhouse in 2021 and named Rittenhouse, law enforcement personnel, and officials as defendants, according to a report.

The lawsuit alleges that Rittenhouse conspired with police to harm protesters and that officers violated Anthony Huber’s constitutional rights when they allowed a dangerous situation to manifest, which resulted in his death.

Rittenhouse’s legal team and other defendants had filed motions to dismiss, but U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman on Wednesday rejected them and allowed the civil rights lawsuit to proceed.

The death of Anthony Huber “could plausibly be regarded as having been proximately caused by the actions of the governmental defendants,” Adelman said.

The decision to allow the lawsuit to move forward does not highlight its merits, Shane Martin, an attorney for Rittenhouse, said.

No, of course it doesn’t. How could it? There ARE no merits to highlight. It’s exactly as Bill says:

There is nothing even remotely “plausible” about the judge’s made-up bullshit theory, but the trial will go forward because the goal is not plausibility but punishment. Adelman, a card-carrying (Princeton/Columbia) member of the American Commie elite, was rewarded by the head of the Clinton Crime Family with his judicial position after serving several terms as a warrior of the Wisconsin left.

And none of them will rest until Rittenhouse is destroyed for lawfully defending himself against their fellow Commie storm troopers who were trying to murder him. As a warning to any who might be inclined to do likewise.

They do this in the faith that they will always be secure from Rittenhouse-style self defense for their own attacks on patriotic Americans who exercise their Constitutionally guaranteed rights. One has to wonder, though, how long that will actually remain true.

Hopefully, not a whole hell of a lot longer. Not just for Kyle Rittenhouse’s sake, but for ours.

“Wrongful death.” What a fucking joke, an extremely unfunny and sick one. Huber went out that fateful night in the role of a violent, destructive predator. Imagine the oxygen thief’s surprise when the intended prey turned out to have pretty sharp teeth of his own. Time to rerun one of what I think is still one of my best memes ever; although the gravely wounded thug in it isn’t Huber but his partner in crime Gage Grosskreutz, the lesson therein remains the same.

FuckedAroundFoundOut

Sic semper all of them, until every last one of such foul, verminous ratlings is eradicated, the land cleansed of them forever.

Can’t get enough of that Cocaine Bear stuff!

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

It’s highly addictive.

Sequel ‘Rehab Bear’ Green-Lit By Producers
LOS ANGELES, CA — Due to the overwhelming popularity of the film Cocaine Bear, movie studio executives and producers announced they have already green-lighted a sequel — an emotional, psychological film reportedly titled Rehab Bear.

“We thought it would be really great to see where the bear goes from here,” said producer Curt Schampers. “We’ve seen him in the throes of cocaine addiction, raging at the world. What happens when he is forced into rehab and discovers that his true enemy…is the bear within?”

The studio has reached out to Martin Scorsese to direct the project, described as part One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, part Taxi Driver, part Tommy Boy. The story reportedly features the formerly cocaine-addled grizzly bear being checked into a rehab facility by his loved ones to deal with his inner demons. “It’s much more of a low-key, psychological drama than the first film,” Schampers continued. “This is about the bear really digging down deep into his soul, finding the true source of his drug addiction, and also mauling and killing dozens and dozens of other people at the rehab facility.”

Producers were expected to use a mixture of live bears and CGI bears, despite the rumored interest of renowned actor Daniel Day-Lewis in playing the role of the bear.

At publishing time, creators of the film were already brainstorming potential future installments of the franchise, including Relapse Bear, Cocaine Bear Hits Rock Bottom, and the natural conclusion of the series — Cocaine Bear Runs for Congress.

Damn, looks like I may have to break my decades-long, indifference-induced streak of not bothering about going to the movies with all this edifying fare in the cinematic pipeline. Don’t laugh too hard, though; Hollywood being Hollywood—entirely bereft of new ideas and creative spark, struggling to put asses in theater seats, desperate to keep the money machine whirring merrily along—you know damned well they’ll do it.

Deception, intrigue, and coverup: the games they play

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

It didn’t begin with Decomposin’ Jaux, it’s a longstanding Presidential tradition.

Deception and Failure
From Wilson to Roosevelt to Biden, and beyond.

White House physician Kevin O’Connor recently proclaimed that Joe Biden “remains a healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” The Delaware Democrat quickly raised doubts by stumbling up the stairs of an aircraft, a feat he once performed three times on a single ascent.

Dr. O’Connor failed to reveal how Biden’s mental competence test had turned out, or even if he had taken one. As on the fitness side, the evidence is already out there.

Joe Biden is sometimes unaware of his own location and mounts a public search for people who recently died, such as Rep. Jackie Walorski. Biden is also famous for spouting gibberish beyond any comprehension, such as here, here, and here, to cite only a few.

For all but the willfully blind, Joe Biden is not mentally and physically fit to exercise the duties of the presidency. To be fair, the Delaware Democrat is not the only White House occupant ever to be in such a condition. Consider, for example, Woodrow Wilson.

From there, the tale of the malignancy Wilson’s rapid-fire sequence of three (3) debilitating strokes and his wife Edith’s all-but-official assumption of the throne in his stead is recounted, along with the polio-stricken FDR’s now-well-known infirmity and the meticulous concealment of same by shadowy, skulking minions in the government he eventually was too incapacitated to “lead.” This specific incident of that long, sordid history is one I hadn’t heard about before:

During the 1944 campaign in New York City, Roosevelt rode in an open car for more than four hours and was “seen by millions, looked cheerful, animated, conversing, waving, throwing his head back with that famous contagious laugh…It seemed evident to all that day in New York that he was as strong, as resilient as ever.” The press and the public had no clue what was happening behind the scenes.

“At points along the parade route the Secret Service had commandeered garage space,” Gallagher recalled. “As the presidential cavalcade passed the garage, the president’s car was turned out of the parade into the warmth of the heated building. Secret Service agents quickly lifted the president from the car and stretched him out full length on blankets laid on the floor. They removed his clothes down to the skin. He was toweled dry and given a rubdown. He was redressed in dry clothes, brandy was poured down his throat, and he was lifted back into the car. The pit stop was quickly done and the president was soon back in the cavalcade.”

WOW. Okay, that is some SERIOUS skullduggery right there. Now, back to our contemporary contretemps.

Call it the Pangloss presidency, an ongoing disaster proclaimed to be the best of all possible worlds. And for all but the willfully blind, a Pétain presidency is also going on in the United States of America.

In Conrad Black’s phrase, Joe Biden is a waxworks effigy of a president, physically and mentally unfit for duty. This deception is not splendid and the failure already evident. The aftermath will likely be much worse than anything that took place in the wake of Woodrow Wilson or FDR.

Well, in Wilson’s case anyway, the nation was fortunate enough to have one of the very best American Presidents, Calvin Coolidge, to come along behind him and undo nearly all the damage Wilson had wrought. Alas, with national “elections” now reduced to patent farce—locked down tighter than Dick’s hatband via D卐M☭CRAT chicanery compounded by Vichy GOPe co-connivance and Praetorian Media’s unflagging efforts in support—this generation’s Coolidge would never get within shouting distance of the Oval Office.

Doesn’t much matter anyway, I’m afraid; at this late date, we’re way past all that sort of thing now. Far too much has gone on, far too much let slip for far too long. No, the die has long since been cast. If this mess ever is to be cleaned up, it can only be accomplished using means and methods a good bit more drastic, direct, and stringent than mere politics.

Whither “governable”?

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

Are America’s big cities ungovernable? And if they are, do those of us who don’t live in them give a shit? SHOULD we? If so, WHY, exactly?

In the wake of the failure of failure Lori Lightfoot to gain admission to the Chicago mayoral runoff, The Atlantic, a left-inclined publication, has decided to salve her wound, though not the wound her mayoralty has inflicted upon Chicago, with an article proclaiming that “Big Cities Are Ungovernable…”

If that thesis were put to a for / against debate among scholars of urban history and dynamics, how do you think the discussion would go? Myself, I expect the participants would squabble endlessly over the definitions of “big,” “cities,” and “ungovernable.” (That would consume them so completely that they’d have nothing left for “are.”) Thus they could evade all discussion of the actual proposition until the last of the audience had drifted away.

Robert A. Heinlein was no fan of the big city:

“As a thumb rule, one can say that any time a planet starts developing cities of more than one million people, it is approaching critical mass. In a century or two it won’t be fit to live on.”

And so my own preference is clear, though it might have a Mae West feel, I shall add this: I’ve been a country dweller and I’ve been a city dweller, and honey, the country is better. But that’s all to the side.

It’s hardly a state secret that America’s largest cities are in bad shape today. They’re overrun with social pathologies, consistently underperform at “public services,” and cost a fortune to live in. Yet that was not always the case. Indeed, during the mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani, New York City returned from an abyss of squalor to a quality and livability it hadn’t known since Fiorello La Guardia. The Di Blasio and Adams mayoralties have dissipated that. Los Angeles during Ronald Reagan’s governorship over California was equally a beautiful, highly livable place. It’s not enough to say sic transit gloria mundi and pass on. We must discover the reasons for the changes and what “governability” or the lack thereof has to do with them.

Large numbers of people cannot be “governed,” in the original sense of the word, by a discrete “government.” (If that statement mystifies you, look up the function and operation of a steam engine’s governor.) They must ultimately “govern” themselves, which destroys the usual interpretation of governable and governability. Moreover, the “large number” doesn’t need to be in the millions, as The Atlantic would have it.

Today, sufficient fractions of the populaces of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and other major cities simply refuse to be governed. They do as they please, aware of the potential consequences but willing to risk them. That has rendered those cities ungovernable, in the sense generally understood by private citizens. But clearly it was not always thus.

The residents of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Chicago, and other homeless capitals have elected to tolerate the public degradation that their homeless populations impose upon them. Conditions there have made them resemble “closed systems” de facto where homelessness is concerned. They would rather tolerate huge homeless camps and what comes with them than strict code enforcement. The homeless find the results congenial to their filthy and dissolute preferences. What the city governments could do, they will not, for fear of electoral backlash.

And day by day, their entropy increases.

Is this a verdict on whether “Big Cities Are Ungovernable?” I don’t think so. History speaks to the opposite effect. But it does cast an interesting light on whether large groups of left-liberals are governable.

Well, I think the answer to that ever-more-pressing question has been made plain enough by recent history; anyone still in doubt is encouraged to take themselves a nice, long stroll around downtown Detroit late at night for further education, if they dare. Wear full Class-III body armor with ceramic plates, that’s my advice.

Governable or not, the libtards can damned sure be suppressed. Nobody seems much interested in talking about that option right now, even sotto voce. Nevertheless, it’s a conversation we’re going to need to get started on sooner rather than later.

No justice, no peace

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

Waitwaitwait, boogs are equestrians now too? My late wife was a professional Hunter-Jumper rider and a trainer as well, and I can’t recollect seeing any of our darker-complected brethren (or, y’know, sistren) at the many events she dragged me off to over the course of our tragically-foreshortened union. I mean, really now: who knew?

New York Times Discovers a New Source of Racism, and This One Could Be the Most Ridiculous Yet

The New York Times, that intrepid warrior for anything and everything that the Left is hysterical about, on Friday published a lengthy piece about a source of systemic racism that no one has ever noticed before: It seems that equestrian helmets are racist because they don’t accommodate the dreadlocks that some black horse riders wear. One black rider’s mother lamented: “Mostly everything in this sport isn’t designed for us.” Well, that’s got to change, and these Jackie Robinsons of the Coiffure, with the Times’ generous help, are leading the way to the Equestrian Helmet Justice that our society so desperately needs.

Chanel Robbins, the Times tells us solemnly, “has been riding horses most of her life, ever since her grandmother traded a cow from their family’s farm in Ontario for a pony when she was 7.” Horse riding “offered an escape from thoughts that weighed on her,” which included the fact that “she was the only Black girl in the neighborhood.” But when she grew dreadlocks, her helmet didn’t fit anymore, and that, as you must know by now, is racist.

Fighting back tears (really, the Times actually said she was), Robbins said: “I finally freaking feel like myself, and now society is asking me to change. I just want to be able to ride.” How dare Whitey do this! Is there nothing to which he will not stoop? Poor Chanel Robbins can only find relief on the back of a horse from the systemic racism that confronts her every hour in Amerikkka, but now Whitey has taken even that away!

The Times generously ascribes this not to malice, but to callous indifference: “Black equestrians have long felt virtually invisible in a sport that remains overwhelmingly white. For those with natural hair, which for many is a declaration of pride and Black identity, finding a helmet that fits properly can be nearly impossible, creating yet another barrier to full inclusion.” Big Helmet (ah, but not big enough) is just as indifferent to their plight as Whitey in general: “Some are now lobbying for change, mindful that horseback riding is among the leading causes of sports-related traumatic brain injury. The helmet companies say there isn’t a simple fix.”

The second most-dangerous sport in the world, actually, or used to be anyway. Snow-skiing being the first, back when my wife told me about it. Spencer’s next bit is truly sidesplitting, so swallow that mouthful of whatever you’re drinking or eating before reading on.

Well, yeah. What are the helmet companies going to do, make the helmets three feet wide? This most first-world of all first-world problems brings Oscar Gamble to mind. Baseball fans of a certain age will remember Mr. Gamble, who played major league baseball in the 1970s while sporting an Afro of truly awe-inspiring proportions. In my neighborhood, baseball cards featuring Oscar Gamble with his baseball cap stuck on the massive thing, making his head and hair look like three planets of roughly similar size orbiting in close proximity to one another, were a coveted commodity. Many marveled at his hair, some dared to laugh, but Gamble himself took it all in stride. Never once did he demand that the people who manufactured baseball caps fashion one large enough to go around his huge hair. The white kids who played baseball in the 1970s often had long hair also, and got used to having it mashed uncomfortably under the cap. In life, sometimes one must put up with a bit of discomfort, or sacrifice one desired item in order to obtain another. But that was before everything, and I do mean everything, became racist.

A pic of Gamble—who racked up good enough stats over his long and storied career as a power-hitting Major League DH to be able to wear his hair any damned way he liked—and his ludicrous, totally off-the-chain ‘Fro.

OscarGambleFro

Couldn’t say why, exactly, but for some strange reason that photo puts me in mind of the classic Mad magazine parody of Starsky & Hutch—renamed Harsky & Stutch, natch—wherein the Huggy Bear character was rejiggered (ahem) into “Buggy Hair.” Gamble is also remembered among baseball mavens for his brilliant Jive-speak quote referencing the general organizational chaos that plagued the Yankees at the time he was playing for them: “They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.”

Heh. Anyways, onwards.

And so now the Times tells us that Caitlin Gooch, “who wears her hair in locs that fall to her mid-back,” takes her riding helmet along when she gets her hair done, “to ensure it will still fit.” That’s perfectly reasonable and sensible. If someone wants some extravagant hairstyle, it might cause difficulties in other areas. Sometimes one must choose between the two. But Gooch “started teaching riding lessons” and “found herself having to tell children they couldn’t ride if there was no helmet that properly fit them.” This was, once again, perfectly reasonable, but apparently it’s a new and heinously racist offense in the Times’ dizzy and ugly world.

Yeah, well, what ain’t nowadays, according to these determinedly miserable shitlib gimps.

Dr (The) Science gets told

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

GOD, how I love this.

I met this fun lady at CPAC today. Her name is Melissa Rein Lively. Tonight she met Fauci in Washington DC and took this incredible picture with him.

Everyone is jealous that they didn’t get to do it! 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/1Hf0LxDwpY

— Ada Lluch 🇪🇸 (@ada_lluch)

March 4, 2023

More at GP.

Last night Arizona activist Melissa Lively and filmmaker Eric Strause were dining in Washington DC when Dr. Tony Fauci entered the restaurant with two bodyguards. It is not clear at this point if these were government-funded bodyguards but they reportedly did have badges.

Melissa posed for a photo with Dr. Fauci and gave him some much-needed feedback. She flipped him the bird.

On Saturday The Gateway Pundit contacted Eric and Melissa. Eric told us they were at the restaurant when Dr. Fauci walked in. No doubt, Fauci was expecting a standing ovation, instead he received the much-deserved feedback. According to Eric, Fauci’s bodyguards told him this was not the place for showing their objection to Fauci’s policies. Eric told the bodyguard, “I was not able to attend my father’s funeral because of this man!” Eric told security, “My father could not take Ivermectin because of this guy!”

Three years after the start of the pandemic we now see that the COVID-19 virus was made in a Wuhan lab funded by Dr. Fauci. Then he bribed scientists to not rat him out.

Today we also understand that Fauci’s policies ruined the economy, ruined business owners, ruined child development, destroyed our personal liberties, and ruined millions of lives.

It’s about time Fauci got a little feedback.

To say the absolute least, yeah; if you ask me, it’s about time the poisonous little homunculus got a damned sight more than just a little momentary discomfort in a public place. He of right ought to be looking at a long stretch in Marion or Joliet, and in a better, more just world he would be. Personally, I prefer he be either drawn and quartered or hung by the neck until dead, dead, DEAD for his heinous crimes. But what the hell, noncorporeal humiliation isn’t a bad first step down the winding, interminable road to justice—particularly since it’s all we’re ever going to get from TPTB, and we all know it is.

Until such time, at any rate, as We The People take matters into our own hands and begin dealing out some true justice at long, long last, not just to Fraudci but to all of his fellow Deep State malefactors as well. Meanwhile, the Hawaiian Good Luck Sign is just going to have to suffice.

Tyranny, straight up

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

As Limbaugh frequently did, one can only ask: WHO THE HELL DO YOU ROTTEN FUCKING BASTARDS THINK YOU ARE, ANYWAY?!?

Okay, maybe Rush never put it quite that way.

The U.K. Briefly Considered Killing All Pet Cats Early in the Pandemic

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when little was known about the virus, the U.K. government briefly considered asking the public to exterminate every cat amid fears that the pets could spread the disease.

Lord Bethell, a former deputy Health Minister from 2020 to 2021, revealed the news Wednesday during an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News.

“Can you imagine what would have happened if we had wanted to do that?” he added.

Well, I can certainly tell you what I HOPE would have happened, what SHOULD have happened. But the UK being the endarkened, blighted shitrapy it’s become, I seriously doubt anything much at all would have, sad to say.

The bombshell revelations have sparked astonishment from some on social media, with users sharing images of their own cats and vowing they would have put up a fight. 10 Downing Street’s own feline friend Larry’s unofficial Twitter parody account wrote: “hard not to take this personally.”

One would like to think so, surely. But then you groveling serfs didn’t raise much of a squawk about all the other things your tyrannical goobermint has taken from you over the years, now did ya?

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, animals do not appear to play a significant role in spreading COVID-19 to humans, but cases of animals have been documented and most of them were “infected after contact with people with COVID-19.”

So, it’s us hoomans who pose a threat to the animals, not the other way ‘round, eh? Of course, that’s never been any obstacle to any government taking STRONG, VIGOROUS ACTION™ to save us all from something or other, now has it?

Despite this, some countries have pursued the mass culling of animals or pets in a bid to contain the virus. Hong Kong tested and euthanized some 2,000 hamsters in January 2022, after several tested positive for the virus in the weeks prior. Earlier on in the pandemic, in November 2020, Denmark culled 17 million minks over fears that a mutation could be transferred from minks to humans.

Denmark was the world’s largest mink producer and the decision was found to have no legal justification. The fallout prompted Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen to call a snap election in October last year after a member of her ruling coalition government threatened to withdraw their support amid the controversy.

Bold mine, because…well, y’know.

Never, ever fool yourself for a moment that there is ANYTHING AT ALL that ANY government, ANYWHERE, wouldn’t DARE to do with or to you, anytime it feels like it, for no reason whatsoever beyond that they just want to. “Legal justification”? “Moral/ethical propriety“? Scientific/medical/public-health emergency”? “Economic/military/cultural/climate ‘crisis’”? Stop it already, you’re killing me over here. Sorry and all, but that ain’t the way this works. Your pets; your charcoal grills; your gas stoves; your cars; your guns; your money; your home; your very lives—all those and plenty more are fair game, just grist for the mill.

Once the Superstate beast has been allowed to establish itself and begun to spread its leathery wings in triumph, there’s no longer a single thing that’s out of bounds. We don’t have to like it. We DO have to live with it. And as the Founders well knew, that’s never a good or pleasant thing.

Eyrie upcoming

Posted on March 3, 2023March 3, 2023 by Mike

Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT. Had it in my head all day, until just now, that it’s Saturday, not Friday. Haven’t even started today’s Substack thang, I need to get right on that. Back in a short, y’all.

Update! Aiight, done and done.

Chin up

Posted on March 3, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

I been rasslin’ ‘round in my head all day with how I might present this next without confusing the hell out of everybody, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything. So steel yourselves; gonna be a lot of jumping back and forth betwixt posts on this one. Instead of just providing one link for each excerpt as and when it’s first referenced, as is my usual wont, each time I shift to a different post I’ll re-link where it comes from. That’s the best expedient I can think of.

The Democrats Have Already Won the 2024 Election, Regardless of Who Either Party Runs

We don’t need to recap what happened in 2020, when Sundown Joe* campaigned from his basement and drove enough enthusiasm to have 81 million votes counted for him. The Democrats did a spectacular job of making their stolen votes completely unverifiable. “OK”, I thought. “The GOP has learned their lesson and won’t let this happen again, right?” Wrong.

Jump to 2022. We were ready for the Red Tsunami, which turned out to be a red trickle. Yes, there were factors. I pointed out that the Roe V. Wade victory was worth any temporary losses. Could we have had stronger candidates? Sure, Hershel Walker & Dr. Oz were far from perfect, but spare me that talk as an excuse. The Dems “won” with Raphael “Slum Lord Preacher Millionaire” Warnock in GA, Katie “Abortion Mouse” Hobbs didn’t even make any freakin’ effort to hide the election fraud that she committed! And don’t get me started on Uncle Festerman in PA. The dude got elected despite that fact that he is so clearly brain damaged that he couldn’t utter a single coherent thought! Even more so than the dementia patient who was installed as President after the 2020 election! No, a bigger problem is that the GOP Establishment didn’t want solid majorities in the House & Senate. Cocaine Mitch witheld funding for any candidates who would not kneel and kiss his ring, while barely veiled double agent Lindsey Graham decided to offer the Dems some great Get Out the Vote fodder by introducing a bill (that had ZERO chance of passing) to completely ban abortions immediately after the Roe ruling.

Then in the aftermath, the GOPe decided to spit in the faces of the Normals who they pretend to represent, with Cocaine Mitch proclaiming that sending billions of dollars with no accountability to Ukraine was the top priority of the GOP base. And in a head scratcher, the party decided to reward Mitt Romney’s niece, Ronna McDaniel as GOP Chair. I can see her appeal to the GOPe, as she is great at raising a lot of money from big donors while carefully avoiding producing results with that money (And no, I have no idea why Trump’s people whipped votes for McDaniel on election day).

So what can we expect in 2024? At the top of my post Iinked to my anti-Trump take. There was a lot of disagreement, both in the comments and on various boards where I posted, and most of the disagreement was well articulated. But on top of everything I had to say, it looks like Biden* is trying to use Merrick Garland’s corrupt Department of Justice to go after Trump to keep him from being able to run. This wouldn’t be unprecedented – Tuca recently made a strong case that the Justice Dept. railroaded Nixon out of office. So let’s say that we end up having a bruising GOP primary that toughens the eventual winner, and whoever loses decides to put the country ahead of any personal disputes and endorses the winner. And in this scenario DeSantis is the winner, and we have a simple case of what too many pundits have called, “Trump without the baggage” and the GOP cruises to victory, right?

Well, no, not necessarily.

The first and most important angle to consider when analyzing this stance is the present reality of American elections. President Trump’s seemingly insurmountable election night leads in 2020, which were significantly larger than his leads throughout the night in 2016, somehow vanished into slim Biden victories. In other words: Without our corrupt election systems being corrected, it doesn’t matter who runs since the winner is predetermined. Trump didn’t cost us; the election was stolen. But for the sake of this discussion, we’ll say that our elections are free and fair.

Despite his alleged loss, Trump gained more than 12 million votes from 2016 (and likely more,) the largest increase in vote total for any sitting president in American history and the highest vote total by any presidential candidate ever, aside from Biden’s highly suspicious 81 million votes that same year. So, the media-manufactured Trump baggage has not had any negative impact on voter enthusiasm for Trump. Based on his vote increasing by millions, you could make the argument the baggage led to more people rallying to support him.

Prior to 2016, Conservative voter enthusiasm in the previous two presidential elections was abysmal. John McCain and Mitt Romney both lost convincingly to Barack Obama due in large part to their politically correct, low energy approach to politics when conservatives were looking for the exact opposite.

The “Trump baggage” can be summarized as a combination of his brash style of politics and the never-ending war waged on him by the media. Ironically, Trump’s style was the change America sought, and his exposure of the corrupt media is what has kept him so popular. In essence, Trump is a product of the corrupt environment the media has created, and their hatred towards him makes him more popular. The “Trump baggage” is what was needed to move the needle enough for Trump to win states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that Republicans had not won since the 1980s.

Most of the baggage from the Trump presidency was completely manufactured by media with the purpose of doing exactly what it is accomplishing to an extent now: Diminish enthusiasm for Trump at any cost, no facts needed. The goal was never to prove any of the false accusations against Trump. They knew this was impossible; they created them.

If those examples are considered “too much baggage,” could you imagine the media frenzy with issues of actual substance? Enter Ron DeSantis. To this point, it is obvious why the Florida Governor does not seem to have much baggage, and it isn’t because he has a squeaky-clean past. He currently has not declared a run for the presidency which is when most baggage is exposed (or manufactured.) There already are accusations ready to be weaponized when the time comes. Important to note, as seen with Trump: truth and facts are not needed to create baggage.

It’s a crucial distinction, since the list of DeSantis “baggage” is much ado about the exact same style of deceitful, ginned-up nothing the AmThink author dismisses with Trump. But, as Brother Bob notes, that ain’t the point.

Personally, I thought that the anti-Desantis shots in the post I just linked didn’t have much substance to them, but that’s not the point. To The Radical Left, charges don’t have to have any substance or facts behind them. Lefties will happily believe any lie if it supports their beliefs, and just look at the stupidity they believed about Trump. I could write a few thousand words, but can sum it up with the most egregiously unbelievable example that they all swallowed: Pee Tape, anyone? Of course, in this scenario The Radical Left will also forget their seething hatred for Trump, as one trait they’ve always shared is that they obediently march in lockstep to whoever their leadership labels their latest Emmanuel Goldstein. Ace lays down a few of the ways thet they will delude themselves that they actually like Trump compared to DeSantis. And of course, unless voter fraud gets addressed, pretending any nominee can overcome it is a trap.

Since you brought it up, let’s talk about traps for a sec.

DeSantis 2024 Is a Trap

If voter fraud is not addressed, it doesn’t matter who the candidate is, because democracy in America won’t exist.

Stop trying to take Ron DeSantis away from Florida. Just stop it. I understand the rationale, but it’s wrong. It may be quite reasonable to be jealous of Florida for its governor—the only governor in the nation to win my coveted “competent” rating on every major issue. But before we encourage DeSantis and Donald Trump to have a falling out that splits the party (or, rather, before we let the RINO simps do it at the behest of Democrats and lots of Chinese money), let’s review a few salient points.

First, governors really matter now. The worse Washington gets—and it gets bigger and worse no matter who’s president because the bureaucrats never change—the more important states become. We need to stop thinking of the presidential election as the be-all and end-all of politics. It was never supposed to be that way. States were once so powerful that the federal government had to fight a Civil War to smack them down. States formerly regarded themselves as coequal partners in the nation, not as subservient entities bowing to federal dictates. Whatever else the Civil War achieved, it did immeasurable damage to states’ freedom of action and, by extension, our own.

States have it in their power to undo this damage by protecting their citizens from federal agents who operate outside the law. (Case in point: ATF agents showing up without warrants at peoples’ homes, attempting to entrap gun owners.) But that would require boldness and courage on a level I don’t expect from any governor. Maybe Kari Lake would have done it. But she had her election stolen. DeSantis is the only sitting governor who could conceivably have the strength of purpose to lead a great reawakening of states’ rights. As I say, I don’t expect it. But he’s the only one who could do it—and he won’t do it if he’s busy trying to get himself elected president.

And here’s the other thing about DeSantis. We can call it “the main thing”: DeSantis isn’t going to win in 2024. No Republican is, unless voter fraud is addressed first. That means voting in person, on Election Day, and with a valid picture ID, not voting by mail over the course of a month. If we don’t fix that—and we’re not fixing it—it does not matter who the candidate is: Trump, DeSantis, or any other Republican. None of them have a chance in hell. It has nothing to do with who they are.

I’m going to say this again, simply because far too many “conservative” writers are ignoring it: Trump did not lose in 2020. Republicans did not lose in 2022. If we think we can win with a broader “big-tent” message or with someone who does less mean tweeting, we, in our innocence, are actively helping to destroy this country.

Pretty much, yeah. Back over to Brother Bob for the Big Question.

So what do we do now? We’ve already heard talk about the GOP adopting ballot harvesting techniques, as has already been successfully done in California. While I get the idea of using their tactics against the Lefties, that only goes so far, as the moment it becomes truly effective for us Normals is the day we get FBI raids on the homes of every Republican participating. If you don’t see that happening, look no further than all of the BLAMtifa domestic terrorist walking free while the victims of the January 6th Reichstag Fire rot away in the Garland Archipelago. Even if that threat didn’t hang overhead, I still don’t like it. For one, it gives a huge advantage to the GOPe versus any grassroots Republicans given the monetary and organizational advantages. Second, and more importantly, why should we Normals have to surrender a huge tactical advantage to The Radical Left? And if we become over reliant on harvesting, how soon until Democrats figure out that it’s a great way for them to measure how many fraudulent votes they need to find on election night? On this tactic, I share the brief, profane opinion toward Heinecken that Dennis Hopper offered in the movie Blue Velvet. Side note, but why aren’t any of us Normals pushing how ballot harvesting takes away the right of the secret ballot?

At this point you might be wondering if I’m going to offer anything remotely constructive, assuming you haven’t already put your fist through your screen hoping it will reach my nose. Adam Mill lays out the interesting scenario of boycotting the 2024 election.

I don’t completely agree with this sentiment, either. Completely sitting out the election means an electoral bloodbath downticket and wipes out representation for us Normals at the state and local levels, as well as in the School Board fights, where our base has shown new life. What if we still voted, but all voted a write in for President, such as John Galt? I’m sure that many of you disagree with me, but if I’m right (and I sincerely hope I’m not), how many rigged elections and tyranny at the hands of the Democrats do we put up with before we realize that we’re fighting the last war, and that we lost it years ago? Are we at that stage? I don’t know. Can we avoid reaching the stage where our election process has gone full banana republic, or was 2020 our Pearl Harbor, and 2022 was our Phillippines? I’d like to say that our Midway will be 2024, but based on what I wrote here I don’t see it. Calling out the regime’s illegitamacy is only a starting point, and things will get worse before they get better. But America remains the greatest country to ever exist, warts and all. My uncle didn’t get shot up by Rommel’s Africa Corps to return and live a productive life, while my great uncle didn’t get gunned down on the beaches of Normandy for me to squander what they sacrificed.

We will win this fight, as tyrannies always fall eventually. Some take longer than others. But if Germany could overcome being ruled by literally Hitler, and most of Eastern Europe could throw off Russian tyranny, there’s no reason we can’t do the same. And while we’re not as far along the road as those nations wound up, it’s impossible to ignore the path we’re on. But I’m not giving up.

Nor should you, nor should anybody else. Whatever the answer might turn out to be—and like Bob, I don’t claim to have any good ones myself—there is in fact one out there, just waiting for us to find it. Hope is only ever lost when it’s been abandoned. And that we must not, we cannot, do.

A love for the ages

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Mike

Ace posts a truly touching correspondence between The Right Honorable Braindead Sen John “Kwato” Fetterman and his loving spouse, Gisele.

America’s foremost Pompous Documentarian Ken Burns has been collecting the correspondence of John and Gisele Fetterman. He has shared with me their most recent exchanges, which I will now share with you.

I think you will agree that this love is a fire whose embers will smolder and glow throughout eternity.

Yep, a story of love, devotion, and self-sacrifice worthy of Shakespeare himself, this one. Probably one of those that ends up with everybody bleeding out on the fucking floor at the very end.

The incredible Hatsan Blitz

Posted on March 3, 2023December 1, 2023 by Mike

So my brother had one of these little beauties delivered yesterday and walked it over to my place next door, where we went out on the back deck to chaw up various pieces of leftover wood. Results? Impressive.

As my friend Don is working this bad machine, note the chunks of wood flying off the target plywood. Said plywood is being propped up by a length of 4×4 behind, which my brother then proceeded to split in half, right down the center, with only a few well-placed rounds. Very little noise, same-same for felt recoil, pellets are el cheapo, completely street-legal and unregulated, since it’s not classified as a firearm, because…well, because it isn’t a firearm, actually—I ask you, what’s not to like here?

Yep, I envision deriving mucho backyard-shooting range enjoyment from the Blitz in the days to come. The muzzle velocity, and therefore effective range, drops slightly as the air-tank is depleted, but refilling it is a total breeze, and can be done quite easily by hand if you don’t own a compressor.

The Hatsan Blitz airgun comes in various flavors, including .22, .30, and .50 cal (!!!) versions. Full auto, natch; as I’ve long insisted, you haven’t really flown until you’ve flown an open-cockpit biplane, you haven’t really ridden until you’ve ridden a Harley, and you haven’t really shot until you’ve shot full auto. Jeff got two 16-round magazines with it, but there are also 30-rounders available. Lots of vids of fun and destruction on YewToob, too.

Has it really been that long?

Posted on March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Mike

Glenn reminds us of an important anniversary: it’s been 11 dreary years since the inimitable Andrew Breitbart, le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, left us. A fine time, I think, to rerun this inspiring clip.

They say that no man is irreplaceable, and maybe it’s true. But if so, he came as close to being one as any mere mortal ever has, or probably ever will. An indefatigable, dauntless warrior for freedom; an intellectually-nimble man no puling Leftist could ever hope to intimidate or shout down; a man who casually shrugged off every barb The Enemy could think to hurl his way with never a flinch, misstep, or stumble, we need Andrew Breitbart with us now more than we ever have before.

Sundry gleanings

Posted on March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Mike

More fun schtuff from the Quora Digest email list. Item One:

Why do most mechanics drive junk cars?

I’m 73 and I’ve driven close to 750,000 miles by now. I’ve yet to spend a 1,000 bucks to buy a car. I’ve only had a half dozen, no one else has ever worked on them, and they don’t stay stock for more than a few days. Not only are old cars cheap and easy to fix, if you spend a little cash and a little more time on performance, they can be a lot of fun and still be very cheap to drive. If they look like crap they don’t get stolen and they don’t get tickets.

The fastest I took my 62 VW bus was 115mph on a windy road on a windy day. One day on a twisty little mountain road as I came down into the hairpin, he left me half a lane and a clean shoulder and I passed a 911 Porche. We both had Porche engines, but he had a six and I had a four so he took me back on the first straightaway. Cruising speed was 80 and I lived in it for three years traveling around.

With tall tires to get the gear ratio up and a well tuned 1600, my ’61 Karman Ghia got 40mpg at 90mph. With lower tires I could race the Alphas, Lotuses, and Porches at the slolom track. My total investment in the Ghia was about $3,000. Why in the world would I want a new car.

Why indeed. Of course, not all of us are mechanics; maybe they ought to work on that, eh? So to speak. Item Two:

Swatara Samaritan

“A Swatara police officer was called to the Capital Diner this morning. An elderly man couldn’t pay for his breakfast; he tried but his card was declined. He panicked and actually called the police on himself because he didn’t know what to do. The restaurant gave him his space to figure it out and that was the best solution he could come up with. Officer Anthony Glass went to the counter, pulled out his credit card, and paid for the man’s breakfast. The man asked for his phone number so he could pay him back but the officer kindly declined. This young man deserves to be recognized.”

There was no headline with that one, so I made up my own. Item Three is a long ‘un, but the payoff is well worth the wade.

What has your child’s school done that got you so mad, you went in and read the riot act to the teacher or principal?

I was the student, but the story is so epic it has to be shared.

It was 1979, and I was in 4th grade. In the American South, land of “guns and religion”.

A little background…I learned to read at a very early age, and read basically anything I could get my hands on. I didn’t watch TV or go outside and play, I read. All the time. And way beyond my “grade level”. By the time of this story, I had read the Bible cover to cover, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, all kinds of “adult” stuff that, according to my teachers, I had no chance of comprehending.

The year before this incident, I had gotten in trouble at school because I was reading “All The President’s Men” (for those who don’t know, this book was THE definitive Watergate scandal tale; the authors were the Washington Post reporters who basically took down Nixon).

My teacher at the time refused to believe I could read and understand this book. She tried to quiz me as to who was what, and I knew all the characters. She was confused as to who had what job, and insisted that there was no Attorney General named Elliot Richardson, and said NO ONE refused Nixon’s order to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.

I knew this was false, so the next day I brought in the book and showed her the appropriate sections regarding the “Saturday Night Massacre”. She started yelling at me about how I was just a smart-ass and trying to make her look bad. I replied, in the way only an elementary school kid can, and said, “You already look bad…maybe if you read more and ate less, you’d look better”.

So I’m already on the school admin radar as a “trouble kid”. This time the book was the novel version of the movie “Kramer Vs Kramer”. There were several minister’s kids in my class, and one of them saw the word “f**k” in my book. He promptly ran to the teacher to tattle that I was reading a “dirty” book. Teacher comes storming down the aisle and snatches the book from me, telling me she is going to call my mom and I am in deep trouble. So now my book is gone (and I hadn’t finished it yet… waah), and I’m in trouble for reading a book…again.

Get home, and yes, the teacher called and told my mom I had PORNOGRAPHY in her classroom. Mom is all ready to give me the “birds and bees” talk, and asked what kind of magazine it was…“Was it a Playboy or Penthouse? One of those? I understand you’re curious about females, but…”

I interrupted her to tell her, no it wasn’t a girlie mag, it was a book…Kramer Vs Kramer. And it had a dirty word in it. That was it. I wasn’t looking at Playboy centerfolds, I was reading a book based on an Academy Award winning movie.

So Mom is supposed to go to the school the next day and meet with them about “my behavior”. Problem is, she’s a single mother who works 2 jobs and can’t just take off every time someone gets a hair up their tight little sphincters. A little while later she’s talking to my grandfather, her father, and telling him about this. She calls me to the phone and hands it to me. He asked me what happened, and I told him my version. He says not to worry, I am NOT in trouble, and he will pick me up in the morning and take me to school and meet with them.

Whereupon Gramps showed the slackass, ign’ernt fucks what trouble REALLY was, which leads to this most gratifying denouement:

Interestingly enough, I never got in trouble again for reading. God I miss him!!

As well you might, young feller. As well you might.

State of (perpetual un)readiness

Posted on March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Mike

PopMech takes a look at yet another disastrous multi-billion-dollar boondoggle from the once-mighty US military—a bigger one, probably, than even the F35 Turducken.

How the World’s Greatest Aircraft Carrier Became a $13 Billion Fiasco

Can the military save the USS Gerald R. Ford?

Wrong question. The real question is: should it?

The late 20th century was a time of supreme American confidence and rapid innovation. The Cold War was drawing to a close, the digital age was around the corner, and the Pentagon saw an opportunity to capitalize on peacetime and begin preparing for future conflict. With few diplomatic or military distractions, the United States ushered in a revolution in military technology.

Out of that boom period came ambitions for a new class of aircraft carrier headlined by the transformational USS Gerald R. Ford, a ship featuring an expanded flight deck, a boosted power plant, and support for almost two dozen emergent technologies. Expectations were high. The Ford’s nuclear reactor and propulsion system would triple the electrical power of the preceding Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. Its state-of-the-art weapons elevators would move 20,000 pounds of munitions at speeds of 150 feet per minute compared with the Nimitz‘s speed of 100 feet per minute. Its new launch-and-recovery system would be able to handle 270 planes in a single day. From bow to stern, the ship’s innovations—designed to save time, costs, and crew—would revolutionize the way the U.S. military built and used carriers. The Ford would be a symbol of American superiority, one that would project power to American adversaries for five decades of dependable service.

Well, they got the “transformational” bit right, anyway; the Ford definitely IS that. It’s just that it’s part of a decidedly wrong-way transformation: from a capable, powerful military—along with fighters that can’t fight; tanks that can’t tank; rifles more prone to jamming than a pimply, teenaged Stevie Vai wannabe at Sam Ash on a Saturday afternoon; and battalions of mincing, simpering dick-choppers who only signed up so they could get their bulbous naughty parts lopped off by an Army surgeon for free—into a hapless, bumbling, incompetent one.

“There was this thinking of, ‘We are so far ahead of everyone else that we can afford to take a strategic pause and take risks on our acquisition and try new and untested technology,’” says Eric Wertheim, a defense analyst and expert with the U.S. Naval Institute, of the nation’s mindset after the Cold War. “And there was this feeling that the rest of the world is at least 20 years behind us.”

But after two decades of development and delays, the audacity that conceived the Ford seemed to usher its doom. Expected to save the military $4 billion during its life span, the Ford has actually cost billions more than initial estimates. First expected to deploy in 2018, it has been projected to deploy as far out as 2024. When the ship reached the Navy after construction, it was already two years behind schedule, with work outstanding on thousands of items. In 2015, Sen. John McCain, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Navy aviator, called packing all that tech onto the Ford “the original sin” that damaged the program.

Even the Navy’s top officer acknowledged the problems that have plagued the carrier. “We had 23 new technologies on [the USS Gerald R. Ford] which, quite frankly, increased the risk of delivery on time and cost right from the get-go,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday at a virtual talk before the Navy League’s 2021 Sea Air Space exposition. “And I think industry’s in full agreement with this: We really shouldn’t introduce more than maybe one or two new technologies on any complex platform like that, in order to keep risk at a manageable level.”

Meanwhile, naval advances by U.S. adversaries have added urgency to the Ford’s troubleshooting. The ship’s critics point to its expanding budget and timetable as evidence that the U.S. military should reconsider developing massive nuclear carriers as a foundational element of its naval program. Military advisor Norman Polmar points out that America’s most recent conflicts in the Middle East didn’t even use the Nimitz class to full capacity. “Look what we did in Iraq,” he says. “We launched [just] 20 or 30 strikes a day from a carrier that has 70 airplanes.” And Rep. Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, has questioned whether the Ford’s price tag justifies its utility. During a 2021 Brookings Institution discussion, Smith asked if there are other ways “to get unmanned systems closer to the fight that don’t cost $12 billion.”

All part and parcel of the truism that generals and admirals are always preparing to fight the last war, in this case WW2. Out of the myriad mistakes, flaws, and failures of the Ford, this one remains the most jaw-dropping to me.

One standout feature of the Ford—albeit a troublesome one—is its state-of-the-art Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG). Prior to Ford, American carriers used a hydraulic arresting system to slow and stop landing aircraft, but the AAG uses an electric engine and a water twister to accommodate a broader range of aircraft—including unmanned aerial vehicles. Engineering and manufacturing of the AAG began in 2005, with 2009 the targeted end date. But a 2016 Pentagon Inspector General report noted that developmental testing for the AAG would continue through 2018; the system still hadn’t proved capable or safe enough to test on the Ford. Between 2009 and 2012, the AAG’s power conditioning system failed across multiple tests, and both its inverter system and cable shock absorber required redesigns. The setbacks ballooned the AAG’s development cost from $143 million to more than $1 billion, according to a report from Sen. McCain’s office.

(Now-retired Navy captain Talbot) Manvel says he resisted AAG on the Ford as early as 1998, wanting to push it onto the subsequent ships in the class after its design had matured. He had his way until Rumsfeld stepped in with his transformational vision. “This was transformation run amok,” Manvel says.

That it surely was, sir. Which, once the temptation of it is yielded to, is what usually tends to happen.

It all makes for a depressing read for anyone who grew up believing that the American war machine was nigh-invincible, without Earthly peer or parallel amongst its adversary nation-states. That’s simply no longer the case, if it ever really was. Which, given certain harsh realities of life on this here planet, it almost certainly wasn’t.

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