Alternative History

Long may she wave

Posted on February 7, 2023 by Mike

A win for sanity, freedom, and property rights.

Victory in Prince Edward County! Just getting out of court. More details to follow, but the judge ruled in our favor, DENYING Prince Edward County’s appeal of the decision of their own Board of Zoning Appeals, and stating that we did everything in good faith and are not responsible for the County issuing us a building permit “in error”.

This is a huge win for us, for the citizens of Prince Edward County, for our Confederate veterans, and for ALL landowners in the Commonwealth and beyond. All glory to God. All honor to our Confederate ancestors.

Baron Bodissey celebrates.

It’s a moment worth celebrating, but the fight is probably not over yet. The Virginia Flaggers took in money from donations (I was one of the donors) to fight their case, but Prince Edward County is using taxpayers’ money to wage their battles, which means their lawyers can continue with their appeals at higher levels, presumably all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court. The Virginia Flaggers will then have to ask the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to dig deeper into their pockets to pay the additional legal expenses.

I don’t understand how the supervisors can justify all this to their constituents. Outside of Farmville itself — where the Longwood University community is a reliable source of wokeness — there can’t be a whole lot of support for fighting to remove the Battle Flag. Even black people are largely indifferent to the issue.

If blacks are indeed “largely indifferent to the issue,” which statistics seem to indicate they are, well, good on them for that. At this late date, the battle is NOT over the flag per se, nor blacks neither. What it’s about now is rewriting history, to suit the Left’s present-day agenda. No more, no less.

Which means that the fight will NEVER be over, as long as one shitlib still draws breath. And on the historical-accuracy note, nice to see Bodissey refer to it, correctly, as the Confederate Battle Flag, which it is, instead of just the “Confederate Flag,” which it never was. A feel-good story all the way around.

“Ace” Biden saves America!

Posted on February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 by Mike

I haven’t been able to verify it as of presstime, but rumor has it that this is the very aircraft flown by China Joe Bribem himself to shoot down that Gook spy balloon.

FlyingTigerP40

For his part, Bitter Centurion reminds us that, ultimately, this was about a heckuva lot more than some overinflated old gasbag.

ALL A BUNCH OF HOT AIR?

I didn’t go too far in depth in one of my last posts on the Chinese ‘spy’ balloon debacle, mainly because I didn’t have enough information available to me to make a definitive call on whether or not it actually was what the media is telling us it was. I more or less wanted to address the fact that, regardless of whether the story was legit or not, China DOES have the west by the balls in many different ways and we have largely been paying lip service to the whole entire issue.

My own thoughts are that it’s certainly possible that the media is telling the truth this time *COUGH, COUGH* BULLSHIT *COUGH, COUGH*….whew, excuse me. Yeah, anyway, the balloon may well be a device that is Chinese in origin used to conduct aerial espionage or perhaps reconnaissance. I mean, it isn’t like they don’t already have several spy satellites in orbit that can obtain this same information far less conspicuously, right?

Actually, there are plenty of perfectly good reasons for using balloons rather than satellites, for one that it’s orders of magnitude less expensive to just float a balloon overhead than to lob a satellite into LEO (Low Earth Orbit). For another, you get a much more clear and detailed view of whatever you want to look at from angels 60 than you can from orbit. Loiter time also factors in to the equation, with balloons winning out there too.

The US uses balloons for these very reasons, as do many of not most other players on the multinational stage.

Aesop points out another aspect of this kerfuffle that most probably haven’t taken into consideration.

As I noted elsewhere, and as anyone from SAC Norad or the Silent Service from 1946-1990 can tell you, don’t tell your enemy how early you can detect him, and you frequently just sit back and watch what they’re doing, because it gives you more intel on what they can do and what they’re interested in, than any intel they think they’re getting from you.

We did that with Russian subs and aircraft for decades at the height of the Cold War, with far more at stake.

Similarly, the whole point of China’s gambit may well have been not to glean intel on the missile silos in Montana, but to test US capabilities and reaction time to such an incursion, which would be highly valuable intel in its own right. Back to BC for what I still believe to be the bottom-line issue.

So, no. I absolutely don’t think that communist China is going to launch an attack on mainland North America, or anything to do with North America. No ‘Chinese blue helmets’. No bio weapons (I mean, no worse than the ‘Coronapocalypse’, but I’m starting to wonder if that was a massive screwup judging by how things played out). They’re not gonna launch chemical weapons, or ‘nuke’ us, or fry our grid with an EMP or cyberattack. And IF they do this, it probably won’t be anything large scale and it wouldn’t be for any other purpose than to harass us and keep us occupied, while they do other things. If the Chicoms are gonna attack anyone anytime soon, it’ll be Taiwan. That could go either way, really.

China is more than content to watch us tear each other apart over manufactured ‘social’ bullshit like gender and racial equity or reparitions, or whatever ’cause du jour’ we conjure up (with some prods and nudges from certain influential folks getting bennies from the CCP) due to our society’s massive inferiority complex, developed because we haven’t actually accomplished anything worthwhile in a few generations because we’re lazy and spoiled. China is quite content to watch us squander our wealth and our children’s futures away in never ending, massive conflicts that further tear our social fabric and destroy our faith in the institutions that our forefathers initially granted permission and responsibility to in order to take care of everything. China is quite pleased to see scores of migrants and ‘refugees’ pouring over the southern border, and in some cases be flown or bused, right into the United States, causing massive issues domestically from rising crime rates and homelessness to stretching taxpayer funded government and social services – everything from nurses, to cops, to teachers – to the point where they’re almost ineffective. On that last point, I still strongly believe China has funded and driven much of that, as I believed they did during the massive migrant surge in Europe back in 2015.

The thing to keep in mind here is that China doesn’t need to hit us with anything in terms of conventional warfare. We’re far too busy kicking our own asses and we’re actually doing a pretty fucking bang up job on that. All the Chicoms have to do is fry up the jiffy pop, enjoy the show, and wait.

Pretty much, yep.

So how is Biden’s War On Russia working out so far?

Posted on February 3, 2023 by Mike

Not too good.

The point of the war, you recall, is “to weaken Russia” (so said DoD Sec’y Lloyd Austin), even to bust it up into little geographic tatters to our country’s advantage — that is, to retain America’s dominance in global affairs, and especially the supremacy of the US dollar in global trade settlements.

The result of the war so far has been the opposite of that objective. US sanctions made Russia stronger by shifting its oil exports to more reliable Asian customers. Kicking Russia out of the SWIFT global payments system prompted the BRIC countries to build their own alternative trade settlement system. Cutting off Russia from trade with Western Civ has stimulated the process of import replacement (i.e., Russia making more of the stuff it used to buy from Europe). Confiscating Russia’s off-shore dollar assets has alerted the rest of the world to dump their dollar assets (especially US Treasury bonds) before they, too, get mugged. Nice going, Victoria Nuland, Tony Blinken, and the rest of the gang at the Foggy Bottom genius factory.

All of which raises the question: who is liable to bust up into tatters first, the USA or Russia? I commend to you Dmitry Orlov’s seminal work, Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects, Revised & Updated. For anyone out there not paying attention the past thirty-odd years, Russia, incorporated as the Soviet Union, collapsed in 1991. The USSR was a bold experiment based on the peculiar and novel ill-effects of industrialism, especially gross economic inequality. Alas, the putative remedy for that, advanced by Karl Marx, was a despotic system of pretending that individual humans had no personal aspirations of their own.

The Soviet / Marxist business model was eventually reduced to the comic aphorism: We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us. It failed and the USSR gurgled down history’s drain. Russia reemerged from the dust, minus many of its Eurasian outlands. Remarkably little blood was shed in the process. Mr. Orlov’s book points to some very interesting set-ups that softened the landing. There was no private property in the USSR, so when it collapsed, nobody was evicted or foreclosed from where they lived. Very few people had cars in the USSR, so the city centers were still intact and people could get around on buses, trams, and trains. The food system had been botched for decades by low-incentive collectivism, but the Russian people were used to planting family gardens — even city dwellers, who had plots out-of-town — and it tided them over during the years of hardship before the country managed to reorganize.

Compare that to America’s prospects. In an economic crisis, Americans will have their homes foreclosed out from under them, or will be subject to eviction from rentals. The USA has been tragically built-out on a suburban sprawl template that will be useless without cars and with little public transport. Cars, of course, are subject to repossession for non-payment of contracted loans. The American food system is based on manufactured microwavable cheese snacks, chicken nuggets, and frozen pizzas produced by giant companies. These items can’t be grown in home gardens. Many Americans don’t know the first thing about growing their own food, or what to do with it after it’s harvested.

There’s another difference between the fall of the USSR and the collapse underway in the USA. Underneath all the economic perversities of Soviet life, Russia still had a national identity and a coherent culture. The USA has tossed its national identity on the garbage barge of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” which is actually just a hustle aimed at extracting what remains from the diminishing stock of productive activity showering the plunder on a mob of “intersectional” complainers — e.g., the City of San Francisco’s preposterous new plan to award $5-million “reparation” payments to African-American denizens of the city, where slavery never existed.

As for culture, consider that the two biggest cultural producers in this land are the pornography and video game industries. The drug business might be a close third, but most of that action is off-the-books, so it’s hard to tell. So much for the so-called “arts.” Our political culture verges on totally degenerate, but that is too self-evident to belabor, and the generalized management failures of our polity are a big part of what’s bringing us down — most particularly the failure to hold anyone in power accountable for their blunders and turpitudes.

As for the “which will fall first” question, with America now entirely in the inept hands of its own homegrown Marxists and their pretend “opposition,” well, the answer ought to be obvious. Russia already went through that cataclysmic teachable moment once; soon, it will be our turn.

And yes, Kunstler’s reversion to his by now Standard-Form surfeit of unfounded optimism concerning “investigations” and such tripe in the final ‘graph remains in full rose-tinted effect. Y’know, just in case any of you were wondering about that.

The Sumter Gambit

Posted on February 1, 2023February 1, 2023 by Mike

A look at Robert Spencer’s new book of the same name.

Viewing Lincoln’s 1860 election as a threat to their “peculiar institution,” Southern states began seceding even before he took office; in his inaugural address, delivered two weeks to the day after the formation, on February 18, 1861, of the Confederate States of America, Lincoln eloquently articulated the hope that even now, when a standoff between Union and rebel forces was brewing at Fort Sumter, an Army installation in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., further compromise was yet feasible: “Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

But no reunion was forthcoming. No angels materialized. On April 12, Southern forces began firing on Fort Sumter. As Robert Spencer puts it in his engaging, important, and wide-ranging new book, The Sumter Gambit, the war “started when the Confederate side forced it to begin.” Ordered to abandon the fort, the Yankees refused. “Then the South warned that even resupplying the fort with food would be considered an act of war. The choice was clear: surrender the fort and accept the secession of the Southern states or go to war.”

Well, that’s one way to look at it, certainly. But as an unreconstructed Southron, my own preference is suggested in the shouted exchange across the MLR between two infantrymen: “Why are you fighting, Reb?” “Because y’all are down here!”

That concise conversation took place, if memory serves, at Fredricksburg, as recounted in Shelby Foote’s magisterial The Civil War, without a doubt the absolute best book on the War Of Northern Aggression yet written. Anyways. Onwards.

And so it was war. The longstanding divisions had finally split the house in two. Today, argues Spencer, America is in a not dissimilar fix – although, in his estimation, the divisions now are even wider. In 1861, North and South shared “a common culture, a common religion, a common heritage, and a common outlook”; today, left and right barely share “a common language.”

Like the standoff in Charleston harbor, the present crisis follows decades of increasing tension between two Americas. This time it’s not about freedom vs. slavery, however, but about freedom vs. statist tyranny. And there are other divergences. One is that slavery was there from the beginning and was essentially (in the words of the old hymn) from age to age the same; by contrast, the left’s governing ideology has, over the decades, grown steadily more radical and hard to square with individual freedom, common sense, or (for that matter) the hard lessons of 20th-century totalitarianism. As late as 1960, JFK and Nixon were remarkably close to each other on the issues; a few years later, LBJ’s Great Society marked a great leap forward from federalist republic to welfare state; in 1972, George McGovern’s presidential run represented, in Spencer’s words, the “mainstreaming of…anti-Americanism in the Democratic Party.” In the ensuing years, the mainstream media, the D.C. swamp, and – most decisively – the schools and universities fell increasingly under the control of radicals who taught young Americans to hate liberty, capitalism, and their own country and to embrace globalism, multiculturalism, climatism, and, more recently, “anti-racism” and gender madness. And Congress welcomed members like Ilhan Omar, who makes McGovern look almost like Eisenhower.

Then there’s the longtime problem of the Deep State. As early as 1961, in his farewell address, Ike warned about the military-industrial complex. The CIA is now being seriously accused of having a hand in the JFK assassination. A generation grew up believing that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein saved democracy by bringing down Nixon; now they look like unwitting tools of Deep State operatives eager to oust a strong-minded president who’d just won an overwhelming election victory. Almost half a century later, the same Deep State tried its darndest to bring down Donald Trump – and then, almost certainly, foiled his re-election.

In the Watergate era, to be sure, Democrats viewed Republicans as opponents. Now they’re seen as nothing less than enemies – a chilling attitude that found its ultimate expression in Joe Biden’s speech of September 1, 2022 (delivered, ironically enough, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia), in which he described Trump and his supporters as “extremists that threaten the very foundations of our republic.” Quite rightly, Spencer views that dark moment in Philadelphia as pivotal. “For the first time in American history,” he writes, “a president declared that his primary political opposition was outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse….Biden came closer to calling for war upon American citizens than any president since Jefferson Davis.”

How ironic, then, that the DemonCrats and Repugs now stand exposed as not “enemies,” but co-conspirators—collaborators in the self-same nefarious enterprise: raw, bare-naked tyranny. That stipulated, Real Americans DO have an enemy, right enough.

But Spencer doesn’t leave it at that. He also compares Biden’s speech to one given by Hitler on March 23, 1933, in support of a piece of legislation called the Enabling Act. Of course, we’re never supposed to compare anyone to Hitler. Leo Strauss called it reductio ad hitlerum. But why is this so verboten? There have been tyrants as terrible as Hitler in the past – in the twentieth century alone we had Stalin and Mao – and there will be terrible ones in the future. If an American president stands in front of a blood-red background, with Marines at attention behind him, and demonizes his political opponents in fiery language that’s eerily reminiscent of a specific Hitler speech, is it unreasonable to note the similarity? When Biden and his flunkies routinely smear MAGA Republicans as fascists – even while his own regime, by covertly collaborating with Silicon Valley and other corporate cronies, is acting out the very definition of fascism – wouldn’t one be a fool not to point out the truth?

One thing’s for sure: Spencer, as he’s proven in over a dozen exceptional books, is no fool. In The Sumter Gambit, he perceptively examines the various fronts on which the left is pushing freedom-loving Americans to the brink, frequently focusing in on various obscure episodes that illuminate just what we’re up against. Did you know, for example, about January 6 “insurrectionist” Matthew Perna, a decent patriot who, on February 25, 2022, his heart and soul finally broken after more than a year of emotional torture at the hands of the Justice Department, committed suicide? Spencer contrasts the system’s cruel tormenting of Perna with the case of Quintez Brown, a BLM thug who, after shooting at a Kentucky politician who’s now the mayor of Louisville, was treated sympathetically in the media, welcomed on Joy Reid’s MSNBC show, “anointed as a rising star by the Obama Foundation,” and given a column in Louisville’s major daily.

S’truth, right down the line. If these ain’t enemies, they’ll do till the enemy gets here, to paraphrase one of my all-time favorite lines from one of my all-time favorite movies:

Heh. Indeed.

Gainless employment

Posted on January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 by Mike

The latest in Mike Walsh’s continuing “To save America…” series.

To Save America, Abolish the Civil Service

I must say, I’m liking it already.

Over the past few months, we’ve been considering the wholly negative history of the so-called “Progressive”-era constitutional amendments, none of which did anything to improve the nation but did much to undermine its founding principles. Until the end of the Civil War, the constitution had only been amended twice since the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1791: the obscure, jurisdictional 11th Amendment, (1795), which had to do with lawsuits involving state and federal courts, and the 12th, (1804), which partially clarified the procedures for presidential elections. Then, between 1865 and 1870, came the three Reconstruction amendments, abolishing slavery (except as a punishment for a crime, such as a prison chain gang) and giving African-Americans citizenship and voting and other rights.

And then after a 43-year break, came the Progressive Era and its assault on Americans’ money and personal freedom, the radical changes in how the Senate is selected, Prohibition of a formerly legal substance, and finally the extension of the franchise to women, in defiance of all historical norms going back to the ancient Greeks, on the theory that it wasn’t “fair.” All have been proven disasters.

It’s not just the constitutional amendments that have contributed to the decline of the Republic, however: it’s also the actions of an ever-burgeoning federal government, which has simultaneously abandoned its core fiscal, executive, judicial, and legislative responsibilities, and extended its intrusive reach into almost every facet of our existence via the creation of the regulatory agencies, which now essentially control every aspect of a citizen’s public and private life.

Created by Congress, often at the urging of the president, these independent, immortal bureaucratic golems are a second form of government that co-exist with the constitutional system most Americans think we have. Being “independent,” they are at once legislative in function but also judicial in essence: their wishes have the force of law (often written by themselves), tried before administrative law judges, and enforced at gunpoint by their private police forces when necessary. They are effectively beyond the direct supervision of all three legitimate branches of government, to the extent that they now form a fourth branch of government.

Like most things involving the feds, they are largely staffed by members of the Civil Service — nearly three million employees and counting. Many, if not most, belong to one of some one hundred civil-service unions, through which they bargain with the IRS-funded government regarding their wages and working conditions; you, the taxpayer, have no say in the matter. So it’s no surprise that over the past hundred years, jobs in the “public” sector now pay better and have greater benefits, including more time off and greater job security, than do jobs in the private sector. So what if it’s become the employer of last resort for a significant portion of the population? They vote, en masse, for the folks who pay them.

I’ve been saying for years now that basically, the federal G amounts to a sort of wink-nudge employment program for Nee-grows who are too stupid, lazy, or just generally incompetent to hold down a job that’s actually, y’know, useful at all.

Theater of government

Posted on January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by Mike

Protecting the bureacRats is an old, old tradition in Mordor On The Potomac, going all the way back to Andrew Jackson’s day.

Republicans Are Failing Unless They Are Disrupting, Discrediting, And Destroying The Bureaucracy
For well over a century, we’ve all been told the progressives’ folk tale about the Jacksonian revolution: that he didn’t really get rid of any of the bureaucracy, but what he did do was he brought in a rabble, and created the spoils system. In this telling, the nation is essentially held captive by the crooks, by the cronies, until the heroes arrive: when the progressives ransom democracy for the passage of this little statute called the Pendleton Act.

The Pendleton Act (and all of its progeny that follow up through Jimmy Carter’s 1978 civil service reform), had essentially one goal, which was to insulate the civil bureaucracy from political accountability — to “protect” civil servants. Now, I think in fairness we would all agree that Jackson’s idea did fail. He had a novel concept: what he called a rotation in office, essentially term limits for civil bureaucrats.

We’ve never really come back to that concept. We want to terminate the actual democratically accountable leaders of the nation and leave the permanent Mandarin class (which some folks in this room belong to here in Washington) as an occupying army. The idea was good, and Jackson would say, “I don’t want the civil bureaucracy to remain a species of property for these people.”

But even by the numbers, Jackson only took out about 10 percent of the then-existent civil service, which by even the modest standards of 19th-century America, 10 percent was insufficiently small.

Priority No. 1: Take Out the Bureaucracy
The last thing I’ll just say really quick is for those of you who actually advise members of Congress or senators. There was a recent celebration at the institution which is still called publicly the University of California at Berkeley (which is not really much of a university anymore). Professors Lee Raiford and Ula Taylor gave a presentation on Berkeley’s purchase of a whole tranche of documents from J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure as director of the FBI. The documents are largely focused on the counterintelligence program, which was known as “cointelpro.”

The presentation from the professors in why Berkeley was interested in this tranche of documents was that it supposedly was confirmation of the systemic racism of the FBI from its inception through the duration of Director Hoover’s tenure. For my purposes, I think what’s fascinating is how they highlighted this line from an internal memo that Hoover authored to field agents where he said, “The obligation you have is to disrupt, discredit, and destroy the Black Panther movement.”

The advice I would give any of you who are advising members of Congress when you go to stage what are otherwise meaningless Kabuki-theater hearings [is this]. When you want to exercise oversight by asking the bureaucracy to provide the information that will then allow you to exercise your oversight authorities — unpack that one: The very people you’re supposed to be controlling are the ones you’re dependent upon for information — when all that’s happening, the mantra that you should have in mind is: We are failing unless we are disrupting, discrediting, and destroying these people.

Precisely, indubitably so. Unless and until that happens, it’s all just posturing, preening, and pissing into the wind.

Southern gentleman

Posted on January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by Mike

His hallowed name will resonate deeply in the hearts and minds of every proudly unreconstructed Southron forever and ever.

Robert E. Lee, in full Robert Edward Lee, (born January 19, 1807, Stratford Hall, Westmoreland county, Virginia, U.S.—died October 12, 1870, Lexington, Virginia), U.S. Army officer (1829–61), Confederate general (1861–65), college president (1865–70), and central figure in contending memory traditions of the American Civil War.

Robert Edward Lee was the son of Henry (“Light-horse Harry”) Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee. His father had been a hero of the American Revolution and governor of Virginia, and uncles and other relatives had signed the Declaration of Independence, served in Congress, and otherwise achieved notable reputations. When Lee was age six, his father moved to the West Indies and never returned, leaving the family in financially straightened circumstances.

Lee entered the United States Military Academy in 1825 and graduated second in the class of 1829. Fellow cadets referred to him as the “Marble Model”—a nickname that reflected envy as well as admiration. Just under six feet (1.8 metres) tall, with black hair and brown eyes, Lee cut a striking figure. High class ranking entitled him to enter the Engineer Corps as a second lieutenant on July 1, 1829.

More than a decade and half passed before Lee saw a battlefield. Promotions to first lieutenant (September 21, 1836) and to captain (July 7, 1838) punctuated his peacetime engineering service. In June 1831 Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the only daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington. The couple would share a 39-year marriage that produced four daughters and three sons. Lee took seriously the ties to George Washington, whom he sought to emulate throughout his life.

On May 13, 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico. Between March and September 1847, Lee served on the staff of Winfield Scott during a campaign that ended with the capture of Mexico City. Lee impressed superiors throughout these operations and won brevet promotions to major, lieutenant colonel, and colonel.

As sectional stresses related to the institution of slavery mounted in the 1850s, Lee held the superintendency of the United States Military Academy (1852–55) and later served as lieutenant colonel of the 2nd Cavalry in Texas. In 1859 he was in Washington, D.C., when the abolitionist John Brown mounted his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Summoned to the War Department on October 17, Lee proceeded to Harpers Ferry with a detachment of Marines and the next morning orchestrated the capture of Brown, whom he described as an “enemy of the Country.”

Which, y’know, he in fact was, in light of the deadly and disastrous conflagration Brown’s murderous fanaticism helped to touch off.

Ever since Lee’s illustrious, entirely admirable conduct of himself as the CSA’s foremost general, he has been held up as a role model for young Southern boys, a pluperfect exemplar of what every Southern man should always strive to be. This is only meet and just, a well-earned plaudit for a true paragon among men. For me, the great Robert E Lee will always be a hero, plain and simple. Shitlib Yankees inclined to disparage him ought to pay careful heed to the righteous words of Merle Haggard.

PREACH it, brother.

Speaker Trump?

Posted on January 15, 2023 by Mike

Highly speculative, certainly. But highly amusing just the same.

Meet the New House Speaker: President Donald J. Trump…Running Congress Direct From Maralago
I told you so. My plan worked. It just worked in a way I never imagined.

Like Martin Luther King, I had a dream. My dream was Trump as House Speaker. I was the first in America to propose the idea in a commentary on 1/30/21. Then I talked about it nonstop for months on my nationally-syndicated radio show. I personally lobbied President Trump in numerous appearances on my radio and TV shows.

But Trump made it clear he never really wanted it. Trump is always number one. The Chairman of the Board. The 5 Star General. He doesn’t take orders from anyone. I think he always looked at Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan and John Boehner (the last 3 House Speakers) as errand boys and girls. Order takers. So, Trump never wanted the job. Not enough star power for him.

And who can blame him? Look at Trump’s life. Trump had the greatest life on earth. He became not only a billionaire, but the most famous billionaire on earth. The celebrity of all celebrities. With the most famous celebrity estate- Maralago. And the most famous reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Who’d give that life up?

Trump did. To save America and the forgotten middle class. To fight the DC Swamp and the Deep State. To make America great again. He gave up his one-in-a-billion life for you and me!

Now he wants to be president again. Trump never saw House Speaker as his calling. He was flattered by my idea. But he never wanted the job. House Speaker takes up too much time. Trump needs to be free to run for president again.

Trump plays chess at much higher level. My idea was a good one. Trump just made it happen in a different way. You see, Trump is the newly elected House Speaker. Just not in name. In name, the title goes to Kevin McCarthy.

But guess who got McCarthy elected? Trump. And guess who controls McCarthy’s every move as House Speaker? The MAGA, America First, loyal Trump members of the Freedom Caucus.

MAGA has McCarthy by the short hairs. McCarthy can’t take a bathroom break without asking the Freedom Caucus for permission. So, guess who’s actually running Congress? De-facto House Speaker Donald J. Trump.

Few understood why Congressman Matt Gaetz and his band of merry Trump warriors embarrassed McCarthy for 15 excruciating rounds. It was all about extracting every last conservative MAGA concession from McCarthy. To make sure McCarthy understood that MAGA was his master.

Well, possibly, I guess. Certainly, that would be the only credible explanation for Trump fellating McCarthy during the Speaker-selection process I’ve heard proposed, especially after McCarthy had so egregiously stabbed Da Donald in the back over J6. Nonetheless, it’s all just a bit too much of the old Q-style “eleventy-D chess” wishful thinking for me to just gulp down whole. But t’is a consummation devoutly to be wished. In the final analysis, one can only shrug and mutter, “Hey, who the hell knows?”

NAILED it, and I do mean ALL of it

Posted on January 15, 2023January 15, 2023 by Mike

Our good friend Chris Muir has really outdone himself with today’s strip, I think.

True as true can be, right down the line. Well done indeed, Chris.

Germans gotta German

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Mike

Some Master Races never change.

German court orders Holocaust survivor to be sent to psychiatric institution for forced COVID shots

STUTTGART, Germany (LifeSiteNews) – German authorities want to put a famous Jewish composer and Holocaust survivor into a psychiatric clinic and force her to take the COVID injection.

Inna Zhvanetskaya, who lives in Stuttgart, Germany, was supposed to be taken to a psychiatric institution and forcefully injected with the COVID jabs on January 11, according to the news outlet Report24, which has been in personal contact with Zhvanetskaya.

However, according to several reports, she has been transferred to a safe place by friendly activists who wanted to prevent her arrest.

The 85-year-old Zhvanetskaya sent a video message to Report24 saying that “music is my life, and if they take away music from me then they take my life.”

Report24 also received a copy of the court order, which authorizes her forceful transfer to a psychiatric institution and for her to be forcefully injected with the COVID-19 shots “for her own good.”

The court order was officially appointed by her professional guardian, which seems somewhat contradictory given that the German national federation of professional guardians is strictly against forced vaccinations of patients against their wishes, according to statements made on their website.

“I talked to her on the phone for an hour,” Orel said, according to a report by TKP. “She is vulnerable, frightened, and has lived in this state for about two years, as her legal guardian has apparently tried to institutionalize her several times.”

“She drew an unequivocal comparison: ‘It’s like when Dad was at the front and Mom had to flee with me and my brother.’”

It surely is–just EXACTLY like, I’m afraid. Which is nothing short of horrifying.

Professor Martin Haditsch, who was one of Austria’s most famous critics of the COVID-related government measures, said that the forced vaccination represents a violation of the Nuremberg Code, which forbids medical experiments on humans since the COVID injections were not properly tested before being introduced to the market.

Ironic, isn’t it? After all, Germany was the whole reason the Nuremberg Code came into being in the first goddamned place. Don’t make us come back over there again, assholes.

(Via GP)

“Insurrection” psychosis

Posted on January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 by Mike

In the deathless words of the great Gen Tony McAuliffe, in a quite different context: NUTS.

The Shameful Exploitation of Brian Sicknick’s Death
Unfortunately, few seem interested in honoring who Sicknick was or allowing him to rest in peace. Shame on them all.

Joe Biden held a solemn ceremony at the White House to commemorate January 6 and present more presidential awards to some of the day’s “heroes”—recipients just happened to include several individuals who participated in the January 6 select committee’s televised performances. It was the first time Biden bestowed the Presidential Citizens’ Medal, an honor reserved for those “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country,” Biden said.

The ceremony in reality served as an opportunity for Biden to again perpetuate one of the biggest lies about January 6: that numerous police officers, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, died as a result of the Capitol protest.

As a military officer read a brief summary of Sicknick’s military and law enforcement career, Biden held hands with Sicknick’s mother, Gladys, in attendance with Sicknick’s father to receive a posthumous award on behalf of their son.

“He lost his life protecting our elected representatives, upholding the will of the American people, and defending our Constitution,” a military aide said from the podium in the East Room on Friday. “For his service and his ultimate sacrifice, we the people honor U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick.”

But that isn’t what happened. Sicknick suffered two strokes caused by a blood clot near his brain stem; the D.C. coroner concluded Sicknick died of natural causes on January 7, 2021 at the age of 42. Rather than allow his family the chance to grieve with dignity and in privacy, the media immediately seized on his untimely passing to portray Trump supporters as cop killers.

Less than 24 hours after Sicknick died, the New York Times published an anonymously sourced account claiming Sicknick had been bludgeoned to death by protesters using a fire extinguisher. The paper retracted the story a month later but the damage was done; the notion that Sicknick died at the hands of Trump supporters became an animating feature of “insurrection” folklore, repeated to this day by the news media and federal judges handling January 6 criminal cases.

For example, during a court hearing last year, D.C. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan berated a January 6 defendant for contributing to Sicknick’s death. “We had officers who died because of this,” Sullivan scolded Dustin Thompson before sentencing him to 36 months in prison for his role in the protest.

Actually, no, you fucking did NOT, you shameless liar.

The sideshow, according to a former fellow officer and longtime friend, does not properly reflect Sicknick’s legacy.

“He was the type of guy you would drop everything for to help if he needed,” Travis Page, who texted Brian the day of the protest, told me over the weekend. “He was very independent, very professional, very honest, very much did not like being the center of attention. He was hardworking, and he was a better man than me. And I don’t praise too many people in that way. He would absolutely hate being used in the political arena like people are doing.”

Page said Sicknick’s death is being used by both sides to score points. “I know it’s cliché, but when he was laid to rest he sincerely would want that to be the end of talking about him. Lawsuits, half hearted ceremonies, political tug of war, it’s not what he would have wanted,” he said.

It’s disgusting; the whole damnable J6 shitshow entire is a blot on Amerika v2.0’s escutcheon which won’t soon be lived down. Meanwhile, in other news, Ashli Babbitt, murdered in cold blood by a trigger-happy, cowardly Capitol Gestapo pusnuts, is still dead. Next time they descend on Mordor On The Potomac en masse, Real Americans will hopefully provide a firm reminder of that to those desperately in need of one.

” THAT TIME IN 1968 WHEN JIMMY PAGE AND THE YARDBIRDS PLAYED AT A CINCINNATI HIGH SCHOOL PROM”

Posted on January 12, 2023January 13, 2023 by Mike

Full props to Ed for a truly great catch.

IN 1968, JIMMY PAGE AND THE YARDBIRDS PLAYED AT ST. XAVIER’S PROM
Months before the legendary guitar player formed a little band called Led Zeppelin, he and his bandmates took an unexpected gig—and made quite an impression.

Oh, I just bet they did. I just bet they did at that.

By all accounts St. Xavier High School was a pretty buttoned-up place in the late 1960s: an all-male student body with a coat-and-tie dress code, daily Mass (confession optional), and a special Jesuit brand of detention called J.U.G., or Justice Under God (still in place today; ditto for the all-male thing). The chief rule enforcer back then was Patrick J. Boyle, S.J., the school’s assistant principal and unofficial dean of discipline, legendary for incidents like sending boys home mid-day for a haircut if their locks even grazed the tops of their shirt collars.

At the very same time, out in the world-at-large, the times they were a-changin’, as the song lyrics sort of go. Between war, devastating assassinations, increasingly violent protests, political theater, and even the world’s first manned lunar orbit, 1968 in particular would end up being one of the most pivotal and tumultuous years in recent U.S. history. High school and college students nationwide had begun advocating vehemently for a freer, less restrictive, and more open society; in the process they’d also managed to usher in a new era of rock music that aptly reflected the times (sex, drugs, et al). Such was the cultural landscape when St. X’s class of 1968 entered its senior year and a new principal, Father Ed Smith, arrived on campus for—among many other things—his first meetings with the student council.

One of the group’s first orders of business: planning the prom.

Even if you’re not a classic-hard-rock fan—which I am—a Led Zep fan—which, ditto—or a Yardbirds devotee—which I ain’t, and never have been—you’ll still find this a fun read. It’s an amazing story, albeit an all too familiar one to any poor lost soul who’s ever seriously attempted to embark on a career as a full-time professional musician. The weddings, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties, and sundry private gatherings any such misguided fool must endure so as to eke out their paltry living in the biz are indeed the curse of the calling.

No, whether or not you do manage to scratch and claw your way to the top of the rock and roll heap, the road there is a long and thorny one, guaranteed to be liberally salted with what my erstwhile partner in musical crime Mookie Brill (yes, that’s moi with Mook in the top-left photo, thenksveddymuch; there’s video of our old power-duo, the Parodi Kings, available for perusal there also, looks like) un-affectionately used to call “menu venues,” along with the whole panoply of other painful life experiences. Not to complain or anything, it’s all just part of the working-musician life.

I remember one wedding the BPs played in DC, for one of the steepest tolls we ever did charge, wherein the minister responsible for the preceding nuptials introduced the band by turning to us to glare in goggle-eyed horror and sneering over the mic, “Guess it really does take all kinds to make a world.” My brother the doghouse bassist was so offended by the obvious insult he immediately started lobbying me hard for just up and walking out then and there (direct would-be-exit quote: “Man, SCREW this, let’s just pack our stuff up and leave!”), before we’d struck the very first chord and/or rock-star pose.

The bride and groom were so mortified by this incident that, in addition to our exorbitant fee (of which we damned well earned every fucking penny), they were moved to ship us an entire case of pricey Knob Creek small-batch bourbon and a nice note when they got back home to San Francisco by way of apology. Handsome is as handsome does, as they say; they were actually very nice people, one of many couples who had met at one of our Double Door shows back when they were living in CLT.

In one of life’s great ironies, the majority of those couples at whose wedding receptions we later played, those that I know of anyway, ended up divorced after a few years. It got so bad that, before the last few we did before giving them up forever, we went out of our way to warn the soon-to-be-unhappy couples when they first inquired about us playing for them of our dismal track record to date, and what it might well wind up meaning to them ere the (bitter, acrimonious) end.

Anyways, the thing that really grabbed me about the Yardbirds-prom article is this photo of Jimmy Page:

Whaaa....? — *Page goes nearly all-Fender, shockingly enough*

Yep, that is indeed Jimmy Page—renowned throughout the guitar-playing universe for his strict insistence on running various Gibson Les Pauls through several serried ranks of Marshall full-stacks, with a doubleneck SG along for the ride on “Stairway To Heaven,” natch—working not just a chop-shop Fender Tele (GASP!!!) but what looks to my jaded eyes to be a silverface Bassman head, alongside a Vox UL4120, through three (count ’em, 3) Dual Showman cabs.

A replica of Jimmy’s beat-up, junky old Tele can now be had from Fender as the obnoxiously-overpriced “Jimmy Page Signature Model Telecaster,” no less, available in various colors including “Natural with Artwork” at selected music stores near you. Really, what can one say but, “YIKES!”

Hell with them Yardbirds, sez I, have yourselves a little Led Zep as a palate cleanser instead.

ZOMG update! Scanning the comments over at Insty, there’s a whole slew of similar stories, including this one, from 1971:

Black Sabbath plays Union Catholic High School
From Master of Reality documentary
On the second night of their tour, February 18th, they played an uncommon stop for most rock bands. Union Catholic High School in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. The student body contacted the band’s booking agent, asking if Sabbath would play at their school. Tired of the usual dull bake sales and dances, the students of Union Catholic endeavored upon a novel approach to fundraising. It first started with The Who concert at the school in 1967, followed by other notable bands such as Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears, and Cream. Black Sabbath would be the last.

One first-hand account said: “As the concert started, Ozzy came out with his band from our left. Then FROZE midstage. Facing him right up front were rows of seated priests and nuns in the audience. I still remember the puzzled look on his face. He then shrugged his shoulders and began.” Apparently, the nuns and priests had commandeered the first two rows.

The Marist brother, who was assigned to the student council, took one look at Ozzy, wearing a big cross and chain around his neck, and turned a member of the student body and said, “Finally. (YOU booked) A Christian band!”

The sold-out concert, with an estimated 2,200 attending, would gross $8,803.50, over $60k in 2022 dollars. Black Sabbath would go down as the biggest revenue generator in all of Union Catholic High School’s concert history.

Heh. And probably made about 300 bucks themselves, if that. There’s also this:

The Way It Was – The Who, 1967
The night of Nov. 22, 1967, is indelibly etched in the memories of local music fans lucky enough to nab a ticket to The Who’s performance at Southfield High School’s gym. “It was packed to the gills, and I was in the front row,” recalls Don Henderson, who shot this photo. The British group was preceded by warm-up bands The Unrelated Segments and The Amboy Dukes (with Ted Nugent). Singer Roger Daltrey’s back is to the crowd in front of drummer Keith Moon while guitarist Pete Townshend puts the finishing touches on his signature windmill move, in which he wound up his arm in anticipation of striking a furious power chord. Not pictured is bassist John Entwistle. Henderson, who was just 17 at the time, was himself then in an established local group, The Gang, which was one of the house bands at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom. Lead guitarist Henderson also saw The Who in June of ’67 at Ann Arbor’s The Fifth Dimension club, now long gone. He and his bandmates were smitten by the English group. “Our band looked up to The Who,” Henderson says. “They were what we wanted to be like and sound like and we did their songs.” By the time they appeared at Southfield High, The Who already had a string of hits, including “I Can’t Explain,” “My Generation,” and “Happy Jack.” Their signature concert finale was smashing their instruments. Henderson says they did so at Southfield High — after a fashion. “They didn’t go too crazy,” he remembers. “Pete Townshend knocked his guitar to the floor a couple of times and Keith Moon tipped his drums over.” Incidentally, the fellow peeking out of the curtains is Tom Weschler, a respected music photographer in his own right who also became Bob Seger’s road manager. Henderson continues to keep in touch with Weschler and Nugent.

Mind-blowing pics from the Sabbath show are included with that article, too. Other brushes with future greatness from Glenn’s/Ed’s comment section include Van Halen, REO Speedwagon, Chicago, Ted Nugent, and more. Every professional player, every band, be they exalted or humble, is gonna have skeletons of this nature rattling around in their closets.

Calls for another embed, I think, of the dead-bang greatest Sabbath tune of them all.

Not sure if that’s the original Sabbath drummer in that vid or not, and my apologies to Geezer Butler and all, but as far as I’m concerned as long as you have Ozzie and Tony Iommi in there, then hey, it’s Black Sabbath.

Repost update! After much thrashing about trying to figure this whole Substack business out, this post can now be viewed at my grubby, disreputable hangout there also: The Eyrie, Mike’s CF Adjunct. I left comments open, if you feel like giving it a whirl.

The past is prologue

Posted on January 10, 2023 by Mike

The imminent fall of the rusty, rickety, ramshackle New Roman Empire.

Every. Single. Thing. about out Centralized DotGov and its DotMil is Bullshit.

Recruiting is Down, if not entirely nonexistent these days. The Imperial Untied Staatz is going to go the way of Ancient Rome at this rate…what’s next? Offering citizenship to all these Mexicans crossing the border IF they do a stint in the Imperial DotMil? Currently the status of an Illegal:

Can an illegal immigrant serve in the US military?

Undocumented immigrants are generally barred from serving in the military, though occasionally (especially in times of military need) an undocumented person might be allowed to join the armed forces in spite of this rule.

Military Membership – Curran, Berger & Kludt

Search for: Can an illegal immigrant serve in the US military?

So, key words: especially in times of military need
I’d say that that time is rapidly approaching
Seeings that ‘Heritage ‘Murican’ i.e. Southern boys and Midwesterners who typically form the backbone of the US DotMil across the board are, for the most part actively avoiding the Imperial Legion due to The Pozz and all it’s indoctrination. Recruiters can’t and haven’t made their markers. Last time things were this bad was back in 2006 when the Iraq shitshow was entering year two point five…

That’s when we heard about literal retarded kids, autistic kids and downs syndrome kids being recruited just to fill in the numbers… I actually met one of those kids who was, no joke a Learning Disabled country boy from Alabama who was a functional (or non functional?) illiterate. He literally couldn’t read. I helped him quite a bit, as I had MomUnit send me some learn-to-read books and I worked with him to get him to a 2nd grade level. He was a fast learner, and a hell of a Combat soldier, but should he have been recruited?

Oh Hells Noes
The Roman Empires fall was directly due to the fact that “Heritage Romans” were no longer serving in the Legion. They started recruiting from the ‘provinces’ and that led to the eventual dissolution of the Empire, as instead of Roman, the Legion was a diverse mishmash of “others”
Sounds familiar donitnow Aye?

All too, my brother. All too. Lots of things do nowadays, way too many of ’em for comfort.

What are they even teaching kids in school nowadays? ANYTHING?!?

Posted on January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 by Mike

Better to remain silent and be thought a fucking moron than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

People in California and New York pay 20% of federal taxes and have 4 Senators. People in 21 states–AK ID UT MT WY ND SD NE KS OK IA MO AR LA MS AL TN KY IN WV SC–pay 15% of federal taxes and have 42 Senators.

What's that old saying? Oh yeah, taxation without representation. pic.twitter.com/oZRatpkQXt

— Kurt Andersen (@KBAndersen) January 4, 2023

Actually, bright boy, EVERY state has TWO (count ’em, 2) Senators; totting up a passel of less-populous states for purposes of sniveling about how UNFAAAIIIIR!™ it all is is entirely beside the point, and therefore irrelevant. That’s because, until the 17th Amendment stood the whole concept on its head and ruined everything, the Senate was originally conceived as providing representation for the sovereign States, not Duh Peepul. Which would, y’know, be the House’s job.

No seriously, dude, you could look it up. Assuming you can even read at all.

Happily, J.kb has an idea for a solution I believe I could probably live with.

20 Superheroes

Posted on January 5, 2023January 6, 2023 by Mike

Please note the absence of capes.

Dozens of prominent conservatives, including a former attorney general for the Reagan administration, released a letter Wednesday in support of the 20 House Republicans standing between Rep. Kevin McCarthy and his bid for the speakership.

“Months ago, these members made clear that this established way of doing things was no longer acceptable,” the Conservative Action Project letter said. “Rather than engage them in a good faith negotiation, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has instead maligned both the requests and the messengers. He has publicly and through proxies leveled attacks against members of his own party, including threatening to deny committee assignments for those who continue to oppose him.”

Some of the signees included Edwin Meese III, former attorney general for Ronald Reagan, Ginni Thomas, president of Liberty Consulting and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Jim DeMint, chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute and former U.S. senator.

Composite pic of these true American heroes, screengrabbed off of GP:

The White Hats — *God bless ’em all for standing strong and tall*

God bless ’em indeed, every one. The spectacularly entertaining futility of Kevin’s Folly continued through today with a historic (most since 1859, I believe it is) eleven ballots held sans denouement and will pick up again tomorrow at noon, so as to allow all the august national “leaders” time to recover from their throbbing hangovers and hunt around in the closet and under the bed for whatever pitiful scraps of dignity they may once have had, if any. Aesop pithily analyzes the doin’s.

Much funnier than watching Moscow try to take Kiev, and almost as funny as watching Emperor Stumblefuck Poopypants try to form coherent sentences without crapping himself.

And for all the punditry that claims “conservatives” never conserved anything: HTF do you expect them to do that, when there are apparently only 20 of them out of 222 nominal Republicans in the House? (And that’s probably a high-water mark in the last 50 years.)

BTW, we note in passing, there is no requirement anywhere whatsoever that the Speaker of the House be a sitting congressweasel. Which means, just for giggles, that the Republicants (not a typo) could, if they so chose, elect President Donald J. Trump to the post, and there’s fuck-all anyone else could do about it. He would thus preside over the entire run of the 118th Congress in the House of Representatives, assign committee seats, decide what bills moved forward for voting, etc., yet without a vote himself on any bills.

Just for the comedy factor, it’d be a YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE win, while emphasizing the smallness and ineptitude of Emperor Poopypants to serve as the selected Fraudulent.

Just saying.

And I’m just agreeing, brother. Alas, with the willful destruction of the supply-chain and all, I fear the nation’s available popcorn supply is gonna wind up falling FAR short of demand before this all shakes out completely. Meanwhile, no money is being spent; no unnecessary, redundant, and/or meddlesome legislation is being passed; and the essential gridlock so wisely hard-coded into the system by the Founders remains in effect, for the nonce. For which blessing we can all be thankful.

Update! Close. No cigar.

It is clear that Republicans in Congress are upset.

They have every right to be.

But it’s McConnell, not McCarthy!

DUDE, embrace the healing power of AND, ferchrissakes.

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