A place for the new hotness
A question from Gatito Bueno:
i am just a kitten, so please forgive me i(f) this is an obvious question to which most people know the answer and i do not but:
is this some sort of really dry sarcasm or just an astonishing lack of self-awareness?
Heh. Oh, I think we all know the answer to your question right enough, Gatito. In fact, right offhand I can think of a few others to go along with it.
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1Gotta just love this Tweet X from Gaetz.
I know who I work for.
And it’s nobody who lives in Washington DC.
— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz)
Sad, when something which ought to be entirely obvious and elementary comes off sounding quite radical.
31Aesop says something which raises a practical question.
Average Joe’s toleration of “public good” screw tightening has eroded down to the wear bars on that particular tire. Ain’t nobody having another helping of that, nor likely to anytime this century.
It is to laugh.
Somebody tries that anyways? Fed agent’s pelts – whole body mounts, mind you, not just the horns – would be nailed to every wall from Maine to Monterey, and snitches’ and collaborators’ heads would decorate every fencepost in sight, from sea to shining sea.
The WHOLE pelt, you say—would that include the tail and cloven hooves too, prithee tell? Asking for a friend, don’tchaknow.
Carlos Hathcock had 93 confirmed kills in a jungle war, mostly in a single tour of duty of under 13 months. Chuck Mawhinney’s official tally is recorded at 103, and another 216 probables in the same conflict. Simo Häyhä chalked up 542 Reds in only under a hundred days in the snow, maxxing out at 25 in one day. With a bolt-action rifle and iron sights!
Put in simple terms, if there’s as little as one Simo in 30,000 in the entire U.S., the entire problem is gone – forever – in the amount of time it takes to put one Marine through boot camp. (And the waiting line to sign up for that has gone pretty quiet of late.)
There’s no respawn button, they can’t shake-and-bake new orcs fast enough to overcome that problem, and even the hordes pouring across the border are going to be headed the other way the minute that happens.
Pepe LePew couldn’t clear out a town as fast as two-way gunfire hereabouts is going to solve the illegal alien problem. Least of all if some of it squirts in their direction.
And trying to disarm the populace triggers the exact scenario the feds are earnestly hoping to avoid.
I must say, t’is a consummation devoutly to be wished indeed. One strongly suspects we’ll have the opportunity to find out for sure soon enough; Lord knows caution, good judgment, humility, and simple common sense are conspicuous only by their total absence amongst our would-be masters nowadays.
Ron White famously said “You can’t fix stupid,” but that’s not entirely correct; there’s always been one sure-fire way, which has been observed in field trials to be one hundred percent effective. How convenient, then, that it also just happens to be the exact same therapy explicitly commended to their posterity by the Founding Fathers as a guaranteed palliative for tyranny.
131Big, LOOOONG excerpt coming up here, from an entirely brilliant article that essentially breaks down into two sections, de facto if not de jure. I’ll put the first part above the fold, then tuck the rest below so as to keep the main-page scrolling here from getting too obnoxious for y’all. Y’know, ‘cause I’m a giver like that, I am. A-HENH!
Against the Black Pill
Despite the leftist takeover of most American institutions, America is still saveable—if the right is willing to fight fire with fire.It’s pretty easy to be optimistic about America’s prospects if you believe the tales that the conservative movement tells its donors. Or the Trump mythology. Or the Reagan hagiography.
More generally than not, though, those who know what time it is—that is, who realize just how much ground has been gained by the left in the past century and how corrupt the regime has become—tend to despair. As the kids say, they’ve been “blackpilled.” And it’s easy to see why.
What was once justly known as the land of the free and the home of the brave has devolved into an oligarchic, feminizing regime that is hostile to most of the defining elements of traditional American identity. The institutional high ground is controlled by a ruling class that is either sincerely woke and anti-American or that lacks the courage to stand up to the fanatics.
At best, our elites are just greedy—or neoliberal, to use the quaint contemporary term—and thus indifferent to America. At worst, they are woke believers hellbent on further accelerating Third World immigration, turning your kids transgender, and eradicating all dissent. What they almost never are, is unabashedly committed to constitutionalism, any kind of recognizably orthodox Christianity, liberty (on issues not related to drugs or sexuality), manliness, or any other of the features that once defined this republic. The best that can be said on their behalf is that they generally support economic growth and scientific innovation, although both are undermined by the woke erosion of standards and environmentalist neo-Luddism.
If you love America, you can still find a handful of dissident institutions that align with your beliefs (I am lucky enough to work at one)—but both the elite and mainstream institutions loudly signal that they despise your beliefs and your heritage. And they are becoming more and more brazen in wielding their power to punish dissenters and bestow special privileges upon allies.
The rule of law, the foundational pillar of American republicanism, is increasingly giving way to a two-tiered system of justice. The law (along with the media, of course) mostly turns a blind eye to the machinations of the Clintons and the Bidens, to Epstein’s pedophile network, to the millions of illegal immigrants flooding our southern border, to the homeless encampments overtaking our cities, to BLM and Antifa rioters, and to the petty and not-so-petty black criminals whom Soros-funded district attorneys refrain from prosecuting because of “antiracism.” While these allies of the regime do not operate with complete impunity, parts of the law simply do not apply to them.
The law, by contrast, comes down extra hard (and the media obsessively reports) on political dissidents who “trespassed” the Capitol on Jan. 6, citizens who defied the draconian COVID policies of the regime (unless they were protesting racial injustice), and, of course, the leading Republican contender for the presidency, his inner circle, and those who supported him in unapproved ways. Douglass Mackey was recently convicted of conspiring to deprive others of their right to vote because he tweeted unapproved memes. He faces up to 10 years in prison. The average prison sentence of the 70 BLM and Antifa rioters who have so far been found guilty is 27 months. In New York, two former lawyers, Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman, were sentenced to a little over a year for setting fire to an empty police car with a Molotov cocktail.
In 1994, Chronicles columnist Sam Francis coined the term “anarcho-tyranny” in the pages of this magazine to describe the now-prevalent double standard, but subsequent events have shown that his definition needs to be expanded. The tyranny—that is, the draconian enforcement of laws—applies not just to “the innocent and the law-abiding” ordinary citizen, but also to the political enemies of the regime. And the anarchy, or the nonenforcement of laws, extends beyond “serious criminals” to politically well-connected individuals and disorderly groups whose causes are blessed by the regime.
Part The First carries on from there, amounting to a pretty comprehensive rundown of all the institutions, bureaucracies, agencies, and media/entertainment edifices now controlled completely by the America Hatin’, Goosesteppin’ Left. Now, for Part the Second, which is all about how this sorry situation might be dealt with effectively.
Continue reading “The whole megilla”
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1Probably the most important Twitter X thread you’re ever gonna see.
I know it’s long but read this entire thread, I think it’s the most important warning I’ve ever written. Where we’re at isn’t a game. We’re at the edge of the cliff and it’s our last chance to save America. Share this thread if you agree, tag lawmakers and discuss in replies!
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck)
Understand what time it is in America:
• Trump is being prosecuted by Biden’s regime + multiple state level Democrats
• Every agency in government has been weaponized to investigate @elonmusk because he’s trying to level the playing field online to empower citizens
•…
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck)
At the direct request of no less august a personage than the highly esteemed and estimable Elon Musk his own self, Starbuck also posted a recorded version which, being more the written-wordly type myself, I didn’t listen to. But as always, YMMV; whether by ear or by Mark 1-Mod 0 eyeball, be sure to hit “Show more” and take in the whole thing. It really does say it all—and I DO mean all.
Via WRSA and Bracken, with sincere thanks to both for calling my attention to it.
2Oh, just about exactly like a lot of us predicted it would. Thankfully, though, Matt Gaetz just won a small victory—not just for himself, but for us all.
Kevin McCarthy ousted as House speaker, thrusting Congress into chaos
Well good, I’m glad to see it. As much chaos as CongressCreatchters (appropriated from the great Ernest T Bass, look it up) have wreaked on America That Was, they deserve to share in the experience.
Kevin McCarthy made the wrong kind of history Tuesday — becoming the first speaker of the House of Representatives to be ousted by a floor vote driven by members of his own party.
Eight Republicans — Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Matt Rosendale of Montana — banded together with a united Democrat conference to declare the office of speaker vacant by a vote of 216-210, removing McCarthy (R-Calif.) from power and plunging the chamber into uncertainty as it faces a grinding process to pick his replacement.
McCarthy, who made no comment to reporters as he left the House chamber following the vote, was booted from his job three days shy of the nine-month anniversary of his election as speaker on the 15th ballot this past January.
Now, lawmakers face a rerun of that marathon process, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) considered the favorites to put themselves forward for the job — assuming McCarthy doesn’t want to try again.
Having proved out as just the kind of treacherous two-headed serpent we knew him to be, I can’t really see McCarthy trying again, and if he does I can’t see him regaining the position. But perhaps that’s naive of me; a few dirty, quiet deals, a little back-room conspiracizing, and some assiduous scratching of the right backs and hey presto! We’re saddled with Speaker McCarthy again.
Gaetz had dangled the prospect of a revolt against McCarthy almost from the moment the Californian took the gavel.
The 41-year-old finally went ahead with the motion to vacate Monday night, after a weekend of stewing over the now-former speaker’s decision to call up a stopgap spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown — and rely on Democratic votes to get the measure through
“I’m confident I’ll hold on,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday morning, but his political demise became a matter of time when a motion to block Gaetz’s effort failed 218-208. Reps. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Cory Mills (R-Fla.) and Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) voted against the motion to table, but to keep McCarthy in place.
With only 426 House members casting votes, however, McCarthy needed 214 supporters to keep his speakership.
“We need a speaker who will fight for something, anything besides staying or becoming speaker,” declared (Virginia Rep Bob) Good, who assailed McCarthy for both the debt limit deal he reached with the Biden administration earlier this year and the maneuvering to avoid a shutdown.
“We need a speaker — ideally somebody who doesn’t want to be speaker and hasn’t pursued that at all costs for his entire adult life — who will meet the moment, and do everything possible to fight for the country.”
Boy, did you ever say a mouthful there, sir. Bold mine, and quite heartening. Always nice to see a DC denizen who seems to really get it, y’know? As I said, it’s but one small victory, and certainly won’t solve everything for us. But in times like these, you takes your victories where you finds em, be they large or small. Those small victories should properly be thought of as stepping stones to more significant wins. Stack up a big enough pile of those, and you’re on your way to more serious and impactful wins—that’s taking the long view, one of the primary reasons the Left has been consistently our asses for so damned long.
This is a process, not an event, as I’m so fond of saying. Kudos to Matt Gaetz for outlasting and outmaneuvering the shifty, scheming Vichy GOPe shitweasels, and slam-dunking this one on them in the end. Many happy returns, Rep Gaetz. Bravo, and encore.
Update! Multifarious backup for my “treacherous two-headed serpent” slam against FORMER (a-HENH!) Speaker McCarthy.
Eight Republican representatives, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), on Tuesday successfully carried a motion to vacate, meaning Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is no longer speaker of the House. Several of the representatives have spoken out to explain why they ousted McCarthy.
There was a running theme in the comments criticizing McCarthy, who cut deals on spending with Democrats despite the fact that America cannot afford continued high spending, for his financial irresponsibility.
Gaetz posted multiple videos of himself on X (Twitter), including a fiery denunciation of the corruption of our government. “I’ll make this argument at any desk in this building. I’ll make it on every street corner in this country, that Washington must change,” he said.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) tweeted his opinion before the vote happened. “Speaker McCarthy has failed to demonstrate himself as an effective leader who will change the status quo,” he said. “He has gone against many of the promises he made in January and can no longer be trusted at the helm.” Biggs also posted a clip of himself on Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” highlighting McCarthy’s uninspiring record.
Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) posted after the vote that he wants to ensure “We the People” aren’t “steamrolled by the status quo.”
More at the link. I’ll leave you with Catherine Salgado’s summation:
Finally, I’d like to add my own personal opinion. “Infighting is bad for the GOP,” we are told, but spineless politicians who consistently cave to the Democrats are helping destroy our nation. The U.S. debt is “unsustainable,” according to experts, and yet McCarthy even reportedly made a deal with Joe Biden for Ukraine funding we can’t afford! We need people in charge who work for American citizens, not people who assist our disastrous careen toward national bankruptcy and collapse. Republicans lose partly because we have a defeatist mentality; we assume we’re going to lose before we even start fighting, and we choose to act based on how we think Democrats will respond. That’s unacceptable. Thank God the Founders didn’t think the same way. The Democrats sure as heck don’t, which is probably how they took over all our institutions and normalized ideologies that a few decades ago were considered blatant insanity.
I must beg to differ, Cath: Republicans “lose” mainly because that’s their assigned role in this elaborate kabuki production currently misnomered as *gag choke puke spit* “democracy.” Although your point about the debilitating plague of “defeatist” malaise afflicting the hoodwinked Republican Party rank and file is certainly well-taken. The sad fact is that, for far too many years now, conservatives have been content to play defense only, when every winning coach would tell you that the time-tested path to victory is offense.
In military terms, although it’s eminently possible to forestall defeat via a tenacious, determined defense of a position or region, wars aren’t usually won that way. In warfare, the initiative is everything; forever responding to enemy actions is folly, a sure-fire recipe for defeat. Forcing the enemy to respond to you—bringing him to battle on ground of your choosing, not his; forcing his soldiers to cower in hastily-dug foxholes and improvised entrenchments under an aggressive artillery barrage; neutering his own artillery with counterbattery fire; leaving his aircraft aflame in their revetments, the pilots and ground crews fleeing for their lives to the shelters, instead of taking to the air to attack your planes and airfields—is always the way to go, if you can manage it.
3Listening just now to one of the best OTR shows, Gunsmoke, Doc Adams was opining to Marshall Dillon:
ADAMS: Y’know, Matthew, in Europe they don’t allow people to just walk around with guns like this…
DILLON: Yeah, but Doc, this ain’t Europe, we’re in Dodge City.
ADAMS: That’s true, I guess. At least here, we can still drink.
Heh. Turns out, some truths really ARE eternal.
31That would be the ever-intrepid Tucker Carlson, who sat for an extensive chat with Urs Gehriger of Die Weltwoche, boosted by the likewise-intrepid Tyler Durden. The intro:
“Our System Is Collapsing In Real Time”: Tucker Carlson Gives Bombshell Interview
When Tucker Carlson departed the Fox News Channel in April, his enemies cheered. But if they thought the happy warrior had finally been defeated, their judgment was as dismal as their approval ratings. With an assist from Elon Musk, Carlson is reaching an even larger, global audience with his new show, “Tucker Carlson on Twitter (now known as ‘X’).”The veteran newscaster has expanded his mission: to defeat the mainstream media’s suffocating bias and incuriosity not just about critical events at home but in capitals around the world.
When we reach him, Carlson has just returned from the United Arab Emirates where he met with its president, Mohamed bin Zayed. Carlson pronounces the sheikh “the most interesting, wisest leader I’ve ever spoken to” — a provocative assessment given that the talk show host sat across from Donald J. Trump last month. Of the Arab leader, Carlson enthuses, “I’ve never met a more humble leader, ever — and I believe humility is a prerequisite for wisdom.”
Carlson is far less kind about his colleagues in the press. “They’re all fearful people,” the 54-year-old scoffs. Instead of holding the powerful to account, “they do exactly the opposite.” Indeed, “they do their bidding.”
Looking ahead to the Presidential elections in 2024, he says: “They’re trying to put Trump in prison for the crime of running against Joe Biden…That’s what this election’s about. Are we going to allow that, or aren’t we? And I just don’t think we can.”
Bold Tyler’s, not mine. And I’ll say it again: getting unceremoniously dumped by Faux News looks more and more like the best thing that ever happened to Tucker.
41Is this post related to the one immediately below? Oh, you just bet your numb ass it is.
Truck This: Why I’m Leaving the Long-Haul Industry
I’ve been a truck driver for over 20 years. I suppose I always knew I would be, ever since that career day in the third grade when among all the kids dressed like doctors and baseball players, there I stood dressed like Jerry Reed from Smokey and the Bandit. Pop culture in the 80s painted the picture of truckers as rugged men, wild and free, burdened by nothing except their own wanderlust. That romanticized version of the American truck driver still lingers in the back of my mind, but in recent years the burden of government regulation has proven to be greater than my desire to see what’s over the next hill.Oppressive regulation in the trucking industry has been around almost as long as the iconic chrome bulldog on the hood of Mack trucks. Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Federal Motor Carrier Act (FMCA) of 1935 during his first term. This gave the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), an agency originally formed to regulate railroads, the authority to regulate the burgeoning business of moving goods by tractor-trailer. The ICC ultimately decided which companies could haul certain goods, for whom, where, and what they could charge. The ICC even decided if new transportation companies could enter the market by requiring eager upstarts to prove their services were “needed.”
The only exemptions to these laws were in the agricultural sector. FDR and his horde of central planners did not want to cause an increase in food prices during a time when many Americans were already struggling to put food on the table. Nevermind the tacit admission that the FMCA would raise prices on all other goods. This exemption had its own unintended consequences. While independent drivers, commonly referred to as wildcatters in driver slang, were not subject to the price floors previously mentioned, they were limited to hauling only agricultural goods. This limitation caused a significant logistical dilemma for wildcatters delivering in industrialized parts of the country, and is largely responsible for the mythos of the outlaw trucker we all know today from music and film. Whether in an old country song from Red Sovine or Kurt Russell’s character in Big Trouble in Little China, such renegades are almost always hauling agricultural goods.
Thankfully, a trend towards deregulation began in the 1970s, and the cesspool of cronyism and perverse incentives created by FDR was substantially reined in with the FMCA of 1980. This is why we now see hundreds, if not not thousands of company names sprawled along the sides of 53-foot trailers. Granted, we still have the ICC, though today it is known as the Department of Transportation, and any truck driver that has had to spend 10 hours at a scale house without a shower or a hot meal over a minor infraction of hours of service rules (another specter of the FMCA of 1935) will tell you it remains quite burdensome. But things are still better than they used to be.
Unfortunately, the federal government continues its misguided attempts to control an industry regulators know little to nothing about. But today’s attempts tend to focus more on something they understand even less than trucking: technology.
Odd, innit, how so much of the intrusive, meddlesome legislation that still hobbles ordinary workaday Americans to this very day originated with über-Left/liberal FDR—scion of one clan amongst several of a de facto if not de jure American Royalty class, a class which to this day we flatter ourselves does not, indeed cannot, exist—who is still worshipped by contemporary shitlibs as if he were some kind of demi-God.
The author goes on to discuss electronic logs, the godawful Regen/DPF devices, and speed governors, soon to be inflicted on big-rig jockeys nationwide by our know-nothing DOT czar Pete “Penelope” Buttplug, before arriving at his grim but inevitable conclusion:
However well-intentioned these rules and regulations might be, it’s clear that no one is consulting with the long haul truckers about the totally foreseeable bad outcomes. The great problem with all central planning is that regulators lack local knowledge, and are not inclined to speak to the people living with the consequences of their decrees. Probably because we would tell them what idiots they are.
The last two decades I’ve spent traversing this beautiful nation have, by and large, been a wonderful experience. I have countless stories to share with other drivers over a cup of coffee at my favorite fuel stops or with my more stationary friends over a cold beer. I wouldn’t trade the things I’ve seen, the binds I’ve been in, or the successes I enjoyed, for anything. But the burden that has been laid on these old tired shoulders by bureaucrats and central planners has become more than I’m willing to bear. I’ll always yearn for the open road, but now I’ll have to satisfy that wanderlust in my pick-up truck. I’m pulling the parking brake on this Peterbilt for the last time.
Having spent well over twenty years myself as a freight-humper (ie, loading-dock ape) and -hauler, whose younger brother still slaves away in the industry*, I can understand the sentiment—although I must disagree vehemently with the risible notion that restrictive edicts that destroy livelihoods, erode liberty, and ruin lives are in any way “well-intentioned.” On the face of it, they cannot possibly be any such thing, being just one part of a well-established historical pattern that has never ended well for hoi-polloi kulaks such as truck drivers.
* When his dispatcher can even find any work for him, which has dried up almost completely thanks to the Biden Economic MIRACLE!©
23Pretty funny one, if bitterly so, from Kurt Schlichter.
Becoming, Kurt?
The United States just lost an F-35 as part of its campaign to reduce itself from the greatest superpower in human history to a pitiful punchline. Ah, the magic of leftism – only it can make a great country like America ridiculous. From an inability to find its fighters to an unwillingness to defend its borders or prosecute criminals – with the exception of conservatives framed for the crime of conservativing – our country has become the Three Stooges without the dignity.
The first question that arises from the mystery jet is not what happened – we can safely assume it was some manner of gross incompetence – but what the plane’s pronouns were. We had the spectacle of the Marine Corps high command dragging itself away from one of its drag shows to ask regular folks if they could pretty please give the jarheads a hand finding their wayward fighter. They couldn’t even spin this fiasco effectively and brag about how their not being able to detect the $100 million aircraft just goes to show how darn good our stealth tech is. No, instead it was just exactly what it sounded like. We can’t keep track of our jets. The only ones happy about it had to be the Navy, since this was a welcome respite from the mockery it earned smashing its destroyers into other boats. Our Army – with its colonels running sex kennels – used to recruit with slogans like “Be All You Can Be,” and now it would probably be better off with “We Suck Less Than That Other Service That Lost The Jet.”
Over on Capitol Hill, where the People’s House that you get sent to jail for peopling inside is located, we have the Republican Charlie Browns once again teeing up to kick the football held by the Democrat Lucys. Yeah, this time will be different! The GOP has only had the better part of a year to get ready for this debt ceiling thing and to plot out a course of action to get some concessions. But have they? Ha! Why win when you can lose?
And on the Senate side, our minority leader keeps freezing up like a Windows blue screen as everyone explains how it is perfectly normal for McConnell to stand there rebooting every time someone puts a mic in his mug. And, of course, there’s Chumley the Congressman insisting that the august institution conform to his desire to dress like a guy playing $2 blackjack hands at Circus Circus on a Monday morning.
We have a president who sounds both like English is his second language and that he’s gotten into the cooking sherry. We have a vice president who, if not for fractured cliches and bizarre cackling, would not be speaking at all. Biden takes the short stairs to get up to the short bus, which is what Air Force One now is. Hey, at least they haven’t lost it. Yet.
Heh. I especially like that “what the plane’s pronouns were” bit. He carries on in like vein from there, all of it good, juicy stuff. Best of all, he resists the urge to start up with the usual blibbering in the last two ‘graphs about how we’re gonna vote so hard we kick their sorry asses black, blue, and purple in the 2024 presidential “elections,” yo! Maybe Col Schlichter has at last outgrown all that airy-fairy horseshit.
2And I love it.
A Pride flag ban sparks accusations of betrayal in tiny Michigan city
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — This city of 28,000 was once so Polish it was dubbed “Little Warsaw.” But in recent decades, an influx of immigrants gave Hamtramck new character. Bengali and Arabic joined English on signs at City Hall. Yemeni and Bangladeshi mosques, restaurants and shops proliferated.And last year, a Muslim who emigrated from Yemen as a teenager became mayor — the city’s first leader in nearly a century with no Polish roots — alongside what is believed to be the nation’s only all-Muslim city council.
Many residents in this tiny enclave just north of downtown Detroit saw these changes as a sign of the Hamtramck’s progressiveness. The Muslim community that had previously experienced discrimination, including voter intimidation and resistance to mosques’ public call to prayer, had finally taken its seats at the table.
Yet the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity that made Hamtramck something of a model is being put severely to the test. In June, after divisive debate, the six-member council blocked the display of Pride flags on city property — action that has angered allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community, who feel that the support they provided the immigrant groups has been reciprocated with betrayal.
“We welcomed you,” former council member Catrina Stackpoole, a retired social worker who identifies as gay, recalls telling the council this summer. “We created nonprofits to help feed, clothe, find housing. We did everything we could to make your transition here easier, and this is how you repay us, by stabbing us in the back?”
All together now: WAAAAAAHHH!!! Nota bene this next part, y’all, it’s important.
The council’s unanimous vote in the middle of Pride Month seemed intentional to Stackpoole and others, though the resolution banned not only the rainbow flag but all flags except for the U.S., state, city and POW/MIA banners. Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, defends the action as one of neutrality, saying no group should be able to promote a political agenda on city property.
Emphasis mine, in both excerpted sections, and entirely dispositive. So to translate from the WaPo shitlib-ese hysterics, then: This “ban” affects city-government buildings only, which is no more than appropriate; individuals remain perfectly free to fly any flag they like from their homes, places of business, and personal conveyances without falling afoul of this ban-that-isn’t-really-a-ban-at-all.
Ahh, but does it get even better, you ask? Why yes. Yes, it does.
Anyone who thought the controversy might soon go away was mistaken. The tension surfaced again in early September when the mayor and council balked at marching next to the Hamtramck Queer Alliance in the Labor Day parade.
“Basically, they wanted to destroy our image in front of our supporters by making us look like we were leading the queer group with all those flags flying behind us,” Ghalib said in a statement afterward. He’d managed to arrange a ride in a white SUV at the front of the parade, several spots removed from his concern.
The Labor Day Festival committee also issued a statement last week, saying the event was organized to celebrate “the diversity that makes Hamtramck unique. We are saddened to hear that Mayor Ghalib has expressed a complaint about being in the parade in proximity to a rainbow flag or a display of LGBTQ+ pride.”
As for Hansknecht, who walked in the parade holding the alliance’s bright yellow banner — “two square miles, for all of us,” it proclaimed — the incident only reinforced what he’d believed from the start.
The flag ban, he said, “has always been about being anti-queer rather than the neutrality they claimed.”
Aw, cry me a river, cupcake. I note that you DID carry your precious banner along the entire parade route without incident of any kind. I think it safe to assume that this hyper-sensitive bint was screaming the most offensive and confrontational epithets (s)he could come up with every last step of the way, too, at every innocuous spectator that looked the least bit like one of those goddamned cis-het Normie oppressors to shim/zhir.
Ghalib, with whom I enjoyed a very cordial email exchange on this topic back in June, was perfectly correct in his clear-eyed assertion that the freaks ’n’ geeks’ sole interest in demanding he march alongside the HQA was to humiliate him—to claim a victory for themselves and then rub his face all in it. Open-mindedness and tolerance is no longer enough for these miserable wretches, oh no; you will be forced to march in their parades, bake intentionally-offensive cakes for them, give your children over to them, and enthusiastically applaud them on demand. It’s like this:
Call it The Way Of The Leftist, maybe. I must say, though, that I am thoroughly enjoying the sudden implosion of the post-9/11 alliance-of-convenience betwixt American Progtards and mainstream Moslems, whose primordial “religion” puts them squarely at odds with every tenet of the shitlib catechism. I’ve long insisted such a schism was inevitable, and I was correct all along about that, too.
11Personally, I’m just rooting for casualties.
There was once a time when I would have been aligned with management for a variety of principled economic reasons, but with the executive suites of US auto companies now full of radical leftists who see their role as being extra-governmental agents whose role is to help install a global eco-communist order, they’ve lost me. My principles do not require me to support any party, company, or principle that will result in a loss of my liberty.
This battle between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three auto executives is effectively a proxy war between those of us who wish for a future with gas-powered cars and those who want a future with electric vehicles only. The autoworkers’ future depends on survival of gasoline vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (“ICE”).
Unfortunately, the UAW’s leadership has done terrible harm to the rank and file by continuing to aid and abet Democrats, who in turn are seeking to destroy the traditional American auto business by legislating it away with EV mandates. And remember, the ultimate goal of “the EV transition” is not to get people out of ICE vehicles, it’s to eliminate mass-market car ownership altogether. There is no future for auto workers in the world the left is trying to take us to.
But finally, there is some awakening among the UAW and its leadership that there is no place for them in the green new future of the American left.
Just a reminder – the “Inflation Reduction Act” that failed America’s union workers was really the Green New Deal, and had nothing to do with inflation.
United Auto Workers (UAW) members feel as though the Democratic Party abandoned them, a former president of the union said ahead of a potential strike.
“I think there’s a segment of the Democratic Party that sees itself as serving corporations rather than the common good.… We’ve had a lot of disappointments,” King said.
To be fair, that faction of the Democratic Party that is “serving corporations“ is actually in service to corporate agents of Klaus Schwab and the anti-humanity tyrants at the World Economic Forum.
As to the specifics of the union’s demands, a 36% pay increase over the next five years is not that outrageous, considering the double-digit inflation that shows no sign of abating, and which has eaten away at so much consumer purchasing power. (I’m talking about actual inflation, not the fabricated inflation rate published by the Department of Labor.) What amounts to 7% yearly wage hikes does not keep up with Biden’s inflation, and since the Big Three auto companies are such cheerleaders for Biden and his radical policies, the least they can do is offer their employees wages to keep up.
Buck Throckmorton goes on to rightly lambaste Ford CEO and all-in Green weenie Jim Farley for his lavish compensation:
Let’s look at Jim Farley, who as CEO of Ford is aggressively destroying the company. He’s also doing what is normal for executives aboard a sinking corporate ship – grabbing as much for himself while he still can.
Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley received nearly $21 million in total compensation in 2022…
The total compensation package that Farley, 60, earned last year included a base salary of $1.7 million, $15.1 million in stock awards, and nearly $2.8 million in bonuses. He received nearly $1.4 million worth of other compensation in the form of perks like the use of private aircraft and company vehicles.
That marked a 93% increase from 2020, when he became CEO.
This, mind, while Farley gleefully pimps useless coal-powered vehicles that are losing over 32k per unit for the company, and the near-zombified car company he’s looting sinks like a rock under the weight of its shitlib execs’ obedient folly. As Throckmorton pithily observes:
A 93% increase over two years for the CEO seems a lot more excessive than the 36% over five years being requested by the rank and file.
Farley has no moral authority to criticize his labor force for seeking wages to keep up with Bidenflation while he is looting the company and re-allocating the company’s equity from shareholders to himself.
If auto manufacturers can’t afford to pay higher wages that keep up with inflation, then they can’t afford obscene executive pay.
In this blue-on-blue battle between organized labor and globalist eco-communists, I favor the side that is currently the least threat to me, which is labor.
Pretty much, yeah. There could well be an additional long-term bonus for siding with the unions in this instance: by expressing support for them, Real Americans stand at least some chance of inspiring Big Labor to rethink a few pertinent things, like for example where exactly welding themselves to the D卐M☭CRAT Party has really gotten them.
11I’ve always maintained that the highly-esteemed (and usually estoned and esdrunked, to quote my old friend Pfout’s immortal line) John Wilder’s stuff is extremely tough to excerpt, since to excise anything is to fail to properly do the post justice. This would be an exception to that rule.
In July, the New York Times® ran a story titled, Is the Cure to Male Loneliness Out on the Pickleball Court? It wasn’t particularly political, and I think I can summarize it in just a few words: “If you’re a dude, have a few friends. The best friends are those that share some sort of common interest with you. Friends make you happy.” Writer Michelle Cottle strung those three sentences out into several hundred words of mainly forgettable fluff that would be obvious to anyone with an I.Q. higher than a Phoenix, Arizona winter temperature. In centigrade.
The real joy of this particular story, however, was the unleashing of memes. The picture that accompanied the article, however was, shall we say, regrettable. It’s above, showing a man (I think, it’s 2023, so who can even define a man in 2023) with massive, fat tears containing enough water to keep California going through a megadrought. I think he might be crying because he hates pickleball, or maybe because he can’t afford a shirt with sleeves.
And with that, we’re off and running. John’s captions are as funny as the memes themselves are, really. Sample:
That’s John’s caption at the very bottom, of course, and it’s a real sockdolager. Nice work, my friend.
NOT. TOO. GOOD.
LA mayor ‘fearful’ that planes of illegal aliens might arrive in city that ‘welcomes immigrants’
LA boasts the label of ‘sanctuary city’ for illegal immigrantsLos Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she is “fearful that any day” planes filled with illegal immigrants will be flown into the city.
During an event hosted by Axios on Thursday, Bass said, “We live in a city that welcomes immigrants, and so I think we have been able to handle it, but I am fearful that any day, planes could start coming.”
She added that the transportation of immigrants from border states and Florida to “sanctuary” juristictions “is just setting the stage for the presidential election next year.”
Yeah, whereas your open-borders scheme is “just setting the stage” for the next, oh, forty or fifty of ’em.
Don’t look now, folks, but it appears that Staten Island residents are taking matters into their own hands, exactly as Texas Gov Abbott and DeSantis have done. So naturally, NYC shitlibs are weeping bitter, salty tears of OUTRAGEOUSLY OUTRAGED OUTRAGE!!© over the heartless inhumanity of being forced to put their money—and their hotels, personal safety, civic hygiene, and their city itself—where their oh-so-righteous yaps are.
NYC shelter migrants bombarded with 24/7 blaring recording telling them to leave: ‘Legal psychological warfare’
Migrants at a Staten Island shelter are being bombarded by a blaring 24/7 recording urging them to leave, claiming the site is rat- and mold-infested and that they “are being lied to by Mayor Eric Adams.”The audio recording was being blasted from a professional speaker in five languages — English, Spanish, Ukrainian, Chinese and Urdu — at an ear-splitting level of 117 decibels Monday afternoon from the property of homeowner Scott Herkert next to the controversial former St. John Villa Academy-turned-migrant shelter.
A migrant who arrived outside the shelter with her luggage Sunday, when the warning first started playing, pulled out her phone to record it and then called an Uber and fled, residents said.
More than a dozen asylum seekers were seen leaving the site — the scene of previous large protests attended by hundreds of residents — as the audio blared Sunday and Monday.
Hrm. Wonder where that particular “wretched refuse yearning to breathe free” might’ve found the pocketful of cash it would’ve taken to pay for that Uber from.
As Ed Driscoll helpfully reminds us:
The ghost of Saul Alinsky smiles: “Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. ‘You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.’”
Heh. Indeed.
42Abbott has shipped 500 busloads of illegal aliens to shitlib “Sanctuary cities”? Had no idea it was that many—good on ya, gov!
Battles are usually fought with horses, tanks or aeroplanes. Greg Abbott used buses. As of June, he shipped 500 busloads of illegal aliens to sanctuary cities. The shipments continue.
You want ’em, you got ’em.
It turns out, sanctuary cities don’t want them.
National Review reported, “The Democrat mayor of a small Massachusetts city is urging state lawmakers to reform a 40-year-old right-to-shelter law that is putting immense strain on the area as thousands of migrant families arrive.
“Woburn mayor Scott Galvin said by Friday there were about 150 families living in the city’s hotels, an arrangement he called unsustainable for his 40,000 constituents.
“Under the 1983 right-to-shelter law, Massachusetts officials are legally required to offer housing to any homeless families seeking shelter in the state. The law now covers a rising influx of migrant families, although individuals are not covered under its provisions.”
I remember when Gimme Shelter was a song by the Rolling Stones and a demand. By the way, what’s with NR calling illegal aliens “migrant families” as if MS-13 is a mom-and-pop business?
Greg Abbott did not send those illegals but he has sent illegal elsewhere. The left’s resentment is so livid that it is comical. It’s as if his name were Trump.
Don’t look now, but Governator Abbott just forced the shitlibs to put their money where their big, fat, lying yaps are, and they ain’t liking it much. I haven’t agreed with him on everything, not by a long yard I haven’t. But I couldn’t possibly agree with him more on this one. Keep ‘em howling, Governor.
OH NOES update! My heart, it bleeds for them.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that because of the huge influx of asylum seekers into the city and the lack of help from Albany and Washington, he’s been forced to ask for a 5% reduction in spending from all city departments. And if no help is forthcoming, he says he’ll have to ask for another 5% reduction in January and another 5% next March.
Adams says the migrants will cost the city up to $12 billion over the next three years. Without state and federal funds, they will “destroy New York City,” he proclaimed earlier in the week.
Frankly, it’s hard to tell if Adams is just trying to put pressure on his friend Joe Biden and his enemy Gov. Kathy Hochul, or if he’s serious about cutting billions in city services.
Gee, that’s a real head-scratcher for sure!
In a pig’s eye, it is. Myself, I think it’s easy enough to guess which it might be.
Reap what you sow update! The triumph of reality over rhetoric.
There is a huge difference between true caring and indignant self-righteousness, a fact that the mayors of many sanctuary cities are now learning. It’s one thing to climb up on your soap box and declare that immigration makes communities stronger when you have no idea what you’re talking about. The truth is that these cities never had any intention of being sanctuaries for anyone. They never dreamed that the overflow would reach them. So they smugly smirked and ridiculed the governors and mayors of border cities and states, dismissing the immigration mess and open borders as someone else’s problem.
Now their holier-than-thou attitudes have dissipated into whining. Their smugness has been replaced with poor me syndrome, as they begin to understand the full weight of the issue.
The leaders of these cities have no one to blame but themselves. They practically begged for this invasion by placing their egos ahead of their citizens. By continuing to govern in this irresponsible manner, they are only compounding an already dangerous problem.
All our “Sanctuary city” betters ever had to do was ask border towns like El Paso about it, and they could’ve saved themselves a lot of grief. But noooo, they’re MUCH too evolved, caring, and generally superior to ever stoop that low, apparently.
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