Alternative History

Moar James Doohan!

Posted on June 13, 2024June 13, 2024 by Mike

Just out of curiosity, I went poking around for more deets on Scotty’s D-Day heroism, and it really is quite a story indeed.

Remembering D-Day Hero James Doohan.
This Memorial Day we’re looking back at Doohan’s service during that fateful landing in the Second World War

Memorial Day is a most appropriate time to think about the sacrifices made on D-Day, the fateful evening in 1944 that the Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, to battle Hitler’s Nazi forces and liberate mainland Europe. One of those soldiers, on his very first combat assignment, was a young Canadian named James Doohan, who later when on to great fame as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott on Star Trek: The Original Series. That bit of trivia — and the story that goes along with it — may be old news to longtime fans, but to the Star Trek newcomers out there, it’s a tale that’s well worth repeating.

“The sea was rough,” Doohan recalled of his landing on Juno Beach that day, an anecdote included in his obituary, which the Associated Press ran on June 20, 2005. “We were more afraid of drowning than [we were of] the Germans.”

The Canadians crossed a minefield laid for tanks; the soldiers weren’t heavy enough to detonate the bombs, the AP story continued. At 11:30 that night, Doohan — a pilot and captain in the Royal Candian Artillery Regiment — was machine-gunned, taking six hits. One bullet blew off his middle right finger, four struck his leg and one hit him in the chest. A silver cigarette case stopped the bullet to the chest.

Throughout his acting career Doohan took measures to hide the missing finger, but it was occasionally visible to the camera, including in certain shots from Star Trek. He made no effort, however, to hide the missing finger during his decades of autograph signings and convention appearances.

In comments here, Aesop remembers:

I went to school with Scotty’s kids.

When Doohan showed up for our sports banquet, I noticed he was missing most of his left ring finger.

His sons thought it was from a childhood sledding accident.

I don’t think dad had shared the full truth with them.

Likely not, as tends to be the way with truly brave men. In a screen grab from one of the most popular ST-TNG eps, Scotty’s injury is clearly visible:

From that pic, it appears as if not only the middle finger but the ring finger also might have been involved—although the rest of the ring finger could be obscured by the excessive fluff of the darn troublesome Tribble. Whatever the case may be, a most humble tip of the CF chapeau to the honorable and admirable LT James M Doohan, a bona fide hero who—like all heroes—actually did instead of just talked.

Yet MOAR update! Turns out, Mr Scott’s maiming resulted from another of those all-too-common “friendly fire” incidents.

Around 11 PM that night, a jumpy Canadian sentry fired at Doohan as the lieutenant was walking back to his post. He was hit by six bullets: four times in the left knee, once in the chest, and once in the right hand.

Doohan recovered from his wounds and joined up with the Royal Canadian Artillery, where he was taught how to fly a Taylorcraft Auster Mark IV plane. He was later dubbed the “craziest pilot in the Canadian air force” after flying between two telephone poles in 1945 just to prove that he could.

Yep, that definitely sounds like the Montgomery Scott we all know and love. The tale of how Doohan came to involve himself in show biz in the first place is a mighty good ‘un as well.

At some point between Christmas 1945 and New Year’s 1946, though, Doohan turned on the radio and listened to “the worst drama I had ever heard,” which prompted him to head down to the local radio station on a whim and do a recording on his own.

The radio operator was impressed enough to recommend Doohan enroll at a Toronto drama school, where he eventually won a two-year scholarship to the esteemed Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.

He returned to Toronto in 1953 and performed in dozens of roles on radio, stage, and television, including some bit parts in famous American series such as Bonanza, Twilight Zone, and Bewitched. Then in 1966, he auditioned for a new NBC science fiction series that would change his life — and the life of sci-fi fans — forever.

The part Doohan auditioned for was one of an engineer aboard a futuristic spaceship. Since he had mastered dozens of different accents and voices from his years of radio work, the producers had him try out a few and asked which he liked best.

“I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, ‘If this character is going to be an engineer, you’d better make him a Scotsman.’” The producers were thrilled with the character who was “99% James Doohan and 1% accent” and the Canadian joined William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy in the cast of Star Trek, the show that would forever cement them in pop culture history.

Indubitably so. Rest ye well, James Doohan. We shan’t see your like again.

Dr Edith Biden?

Posted on June 11, 2024June 11, 2024 by Mike

Not sure which of the calculating, greedy, over-ambitious cunts should be more insulted by the comparison.

Jill Biden, Edith Wilson, and the Changing American State
Biden’s unusually intense reliance on his wife as a cognitive enhancement and an image protector is as inarguable as it is provocative.

Biden’s unusually intense reliance on his wife as a cognitive enhancement and an image protector is as inarguable as it is provocative. According to an NBC News profile, she is known in the White House as “the Decider,” and she wields “unparalleled influence.” “She is,” the profile continues, “her husband’s foremost defender. She guards his interests and dignity….Her input is essential in some of the weightiest political and personnel decisions the 46th president confronts.” She is to Biden what the left used to claim Dick Cheney was to George W. Bush, i.e., the power behind the throne.

All of this has drawn comparisons between Jill Biden and another uniquely powerful First Lady, Edith Wilson.

Some historians consider Edith Wilson the nation’s “first woman president”—and not without cause. When her husband, the execrable Woodrow Wilson, suffered a debilitating stroke on October 2, 1919, Mrs. Wilson essentially took over running the White House and, by extension, the entire executive branch. She screened all government business brought to the Oval Office. She handled all serious matters. Because he was left unable to write his name, she forged his signature on official documents. Most notably, Edith Wilson guarded her husband’s “interests and dignity” by keeping his infirmity secret from the public. As William Hazelgrove noted in his 2016 biography of her, Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson, “her Oval Office authority was acknowledged in Washington circles at the time—one senator called her “the presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man.”

The biggest difference between Edith Wilson and Jill Biden is that Wilson got away with it. While Jill Biden is front-and-center in her husband’s public life at all times, earning the admiration of his supporters and drawing the ire of his opponents, Edith Wilson worked effectively and quietly behind the scenes. Through quiet diligence and discretion, she was able to convince those outside of Washington that all was well in the White House and that her husband was still in charge. His stroke occurred more than 17 months before Warren G. Harding was inaugurated on March 4, 1921. That’s more than 35% of his second term and nearly one-fifth of his entire presidency.

Edith Wilson was able to keep this secret and succeed where Jill Biden has failed, not because she was especially crafty or exceptionally dishonest (although she was both) but because the president was not, at the time, the most important person in the world. The government was small enough and the presidency unimportant enough that no one missed Woodrow Wilson in the slightest. No one outside of Washington noticed or cared that he wasn’t around. No one needed him to fix their problems, right their wrongs or deliver retribution upon their enemies. No one needed him to be the cause of all economic activity or the source of the nation’s self-image. He wasn’t the “empathizer in chief” or a powerful father-like figure. He was a just a guy, albeit a guy with an important job, but not one that was so important that it completely preoccupied everyone’s waking hours. Celebrities didn’t obsess about the man or deliver foul-mouthed press conferences declaring that the world’s fate depended on his reelection. No one cared—and nor should they have.

If it seems that every election these days is billed as “the most important election ever,” that’s only because every election is the most important one ever. As we, as a society, continue to destroy any sense of community, any sense of autonomy, any sense of personal responsibility, and liberty, as we continue to invest more and more power in people and institutions far removed from our lives and our interests, we also continue to make elections and elected officials more and more important in the operation of those lives. We continue to give people who are not especially smart, especially talented or even especially competent greater and greater control over us. We continue to sacrifice that which the Founders fought for on the altar of our comfort and indolence.

No one in the country should give a tinker’s damn what Jill Biden thinks, says, or does. The fact that we obsess over those things serves as proof that we have come along way in the last century—and not necessarily in a good way.

Speak for yourself, Bub. Personally, I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling donut what either “Dr” Jill OR her senile husband “thinks”—never have, never will.

The most well-named website EVAR

Posted on June 8, 2024June 8, 2024 by Mike

Hoo, BOY, talk about yer Intarwebz rabbit holes! This one got me, and I mean but GOOD. First, it was this:

12 Stimulating Facts About Coffee
10 _{of 12} The First Webcam Was Invented For a Coffee Pot

We can credit coffee-craving inventors for creating the first webcam. In the early 1990s, computer scientists working at the University of Cambridge grew tired of trekking to the office kitchen for a cup of joe only to find the carafe in need of a refill. The solution? They devised a makeshift digital monitor — a camera that uploaded three pictures per minute of the coffee maker to a shared computer network — to guarantee a fresh pot of coffee was waiting the moment their mugs emptied. By November 1993, the in-house camera footage made its internet debut, and viewers from around the globe tuned in to watch the grainy, real-time recording. The world’s first webcam generated so much excitement that computer enthusiasts even traveled to the U.K. lab to see the setup in real life. In 2003, the coffee pot sold at auction for nearly $5,000.

Next, I scrolled on down to…

6 Colossal Facts About the Hoover Dam
2 _{of 6} Building the Dam Meant First Building an Entire City

Constructing a large-scale dam meant hiring a massive workforce: By the end of the project, the employee roster swelled to 21,000 people. An average day had 3,500 workers reporting to the construction site, though that number rose during busy periods, like in June 1934, when as many as 5,218 men reported to the jobsite per day. Bringing in that many workers (and their families) meant the federal government had to have a plan — which is how the town of Boulder City, Nevada, came to exist.

In December 1928, President Calvin Coolidge authorized the creation of Boulder City on federal land specifically to house workers. Construction of the town’s buildings began in 1931. Families were housed in cottages, while single men slept in dormitories, and meals were provided in a jumbo-sized mess hall that served 6,000 meals per day. Boulder City was also equipped with a state-of-the-art hospital to handle jobsite accidents, a fire department, a train station, and a movie theater.

After that, there was this.

15 Geography Facts You’ve Always Wondered About
13 _{of 15} Where Does One Ocean End and Another Begin?

Despite being divided into sub-oceans, there is only one ocean in the world, which scientists refer to as the “world ocean.” Historically, cartographers and government officials found it helpful to divide the massive ocean into smaller entities, which is how the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Indian Oceans were named. More recently, the ocean surrounding Antarctica, dubbed the Southern Ocean, has been added to the list. Despite being located in different regions, there is actually no way to tell when one ocean ends and the other begins — because the ocean is a singular continuous body of water. However, there is one exception to this rule. The Southern Ocean is radically different from the rest, with a strong current that surrounds it and notably frigid water, making it easier to recognize where this sub-ocean begins.

Cool, no? And STILL, I’m only halfway down the page. I warn you, folks: do NOT click on the link above unless you have nothing whatever to do, and all day to do it in.

A PROPER D-Day 80th anniversary commemoration

Posted on June 6, 2024June 7, 2024 by Mike

Leave it to Steyn to provide one, from the Canadian perspective.

A lot went wrong, but more went right – or was made right. A few hours before the Canadians aboard the Prince Henry climbed into that landing craft, 181 men in six Horsa gliders took off from RAF Tarrant Rushton in Dorset to take two bridges over the River Orne and hold them until reinforcements arrived. Their job was to prevent the Germans using the bridges to attack troops landing on Sword Beach. At lunchtime, Lord Lovat and his commandos arrived at the Bénouville Bridge, much to the relief of the 7th Parachute Battalion’s commanding officer, Major Pine-Coffin. That was his real name, and an amusing one back in Blighty: simple pine coffins are what soldiers get buried in. It wasn’t quite so funny in Normandy, where a lot of pine coffins would be needed by the end of the day. Lord Lovat, Chief of Clan Fraser, apologized to Pine-Coffin for missing the rendezvous time: “Sorry, I’m a few minutes late,” he said, after a bloody firefight to take Sword Beach.

Lovat had asked his personal piper, Bill Millin, to pipe his men ashore. Private Millin pointed out that this would be in breach of War Office regulations. “That’s the English War Office, Bill,” said Lovat. “We’re Scotsmen.” And so Millin strolled up and down the sand amid the gunfire playing “Hieland Laddie” and “The Road to the Isles” and other highland favorites. The Germans are not big bagpipe fans and I doubt it added to their enjoyment of the day.

The building on the other side of the Bénouville Bridge was a café and the home of Georges Gondrée and his family. Thérèse Gondrée had spent her childhood in Alsace and thus understood German. So she eavesdropped on her occupiers, and discovered that in the machine-gun pillbox was hidden the trigger for the explosives the Germans intended to detonate in the event of an Allied invasion. She notified the French Resistance, and thanks to her, after landing in the early hours of June 6th, Major Howard knew exactly where to go and what to keep an eye on.

Shortly after dawn there was a knock on Georges Gondrée’s door. He answered it to find two paratroopers who wanted to know if there were any Germans in the house. The men came in, and Thérèse embraced them so fulsomely that her face wound up covered in camouflage black, which she proudly wore for days afterward. Georges went out to the garden and dug up ninety-eight bottles of champagne he’d buried before the Germans arrived four years earlier. And so the Gondrée home became the first place in France to be liberated from German occupation. There are always disputes about these things, of course: some say the first liberated building was L’Etrille et les Goélands (the Crab and the Gulls), subsequently renamed – in honour of the men who took it that morning – the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada house. But no matter: the stylish pop of champagne corks at the Café Gondrée was the bells tolling for the Führer’s thousand-year Reich.

Arlette Gondrée was a four-year old girl that day, and she has grown old with the teen-and-twenty soldiers who liberated her home and her town. But she is now the proprietress of the family café, and she has been there every June to greet those who return each year in dwindling numbers…

That’s the late Bill Bray and the late John Woodthorpe with Mme Gondrée (pictured at the link—M) on the seventieth anniversary. The Bénouville Bridge was known to Allied planners as the Pegasus Bridge, after the winged horse on the shoulder badge of British paratroopers. But since 1944 it has been called the Pegasus Bridge in France, too. And in the eight decades since June 6th, no D-Day veteran has ever had to pay for his drink at the Café Gondrée.

They were young, but they were not children. Ten years ago, I listened to President Obama explain from Brussels that the deserter he brought home from the Taliban in the days before the D-Day anniversary was just a “kid”. In fact, he was 28 years old. I remember walking through the Canadian graves at Bény-sur-Mer a few years ago. Over two thousand headstones, but only a handful of ages inscribed upon them: 22 years old, 21, 20…

But, unlike the deserter and traitor honoured by Obama, they weren’t “kids”, they were men.

Gott damn skippy they were, whatever their chronological age may have been—real men, of a stripe they just ain’t making any more of, to our enormous cost. How many times have I said it over lo, these many years: if we’d had to rely on today’s twee, pampered Manwomen to storm the Normandy beaches back in 1944, we’d all be singing Deutschland Über Alles as our national anthem—in the original Churman, natch.

Update! Say, did someone mention “real men” just now? Why yes, I do believe someone did at that.

D-Day: When Real Men Held The Moral High Ground
One of the most popular books in the 1980s was the satire “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.” It was a tongue-in-cheek homage to what even then was a perceived fading masculinity starting to infect our broader society.

One of the chapters listed “Historic dates in Real Man history.” Of June 6, 1944, better known as D-Day, it states: “150,000 Real Men storm Normandy beach.” In a way, I could end this piece right there, as I cannot offer a more fitting tribute to what occurred on those hallowed beaches 80 years ago today. But I will try. Because as the years pass, and the Greatest Generation fades to the point where soon they will be gone, this monumental event in the annals of war offers us both a remembrance of what was, and reflection of what we as a nation have become.

Sadly, one cannot help but think the goodwill and moral capital we so justifiably earned on this day of days and many others throughout that awful calamity that was the Second World War has been squandered, one ill-fated, ill-conceived act of military adventurism at a time. One can say that the advent of the American Empire could be traced to the sands of Normandy. And, as with all empires, we are destined to fall. We are, in fact, seeing the classic signs of decline today. Among them are the over-expansion of a nation’s military far beyond its own borders; we currently have nearly 800 bases in over 70 countries. Another is an insurmountable national debt; debt service is now eclipsing military spending. Another still is decadence at home; I’ll let you ponder this while the next “Drag Queen Story Hour” comes to your schools.

One must wonder, then, if any of the remaining D-Day veterans might take the measure of the country they were once willing to die for and find today’s America worth storming another Normandy Beach to preserve. I wonder.

What we do know, however, with absolute certainty is that a lot of real men did do incredible things on this day 80 years ago. They did it not for conquest, treasure, or vendetta, but rather to liberate a people they never knew, in countries they’d only heard about, from an oppressive force so evil it had to be destroyed. They met the challenge. And so we salute them all.

We do indeed, humbly and with utmost gratitude. Doughty men, valiant men, intrepid men, ordinary men—pride of the American heartland; scions of Flatbush Avenue, South Street, Orange County, Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill, Cleveland’s Broadway Avenue; from every sleepy hamlet’s Main Street, every jostling, jiving metropolis’s main stem, American men signed up for they knew not what, were transported they knew not where, and stood up manfully under a waking nightmare which no one who wasn’t there with them on that day of testing and abject horror can ever hope to comprehend.

Now most of those men have left us, one by one by one: their challenge accepted and met, their task completed, their mission nobly accomplished, their sacrifice redeemed. God forbid that I ever hear any shitlib utter the vapid, obnoxious phrase “toxic masculinity” in reference to the heroic men Reagan immortalized as “the boys of Pointe Du Hoc.” Should such an unforgivable indecency transpire in my presence, I refuse to be held liable for whatever I might say and/or do in response.

For those who wilfully forget

Posted on June 6, 2024June 6, 2024 by Mike

I’ve been agonizing for a couple of days now over how to put this D-Day anniversary post, after seeing this jagged shard of complete idiocy cited approvingly all over the place.

White Brother War 768x753.

“Europe’s best men, our brothers,” is it, shit for brains? That would be Nazi scum you’re talking about there, pal. And let me hip ya to something you prolly ain’t gonna like much: NAZI SCUM AIN’T NO “BROTHERS” OF MINE, AND AIN’T EVER GONNA BE EITHER, GET ME? Nor are Saudis, nor Persians, nor Paleosimians, nor ChiComs, nor Tojos, for the matter of it. Sorry if my hatred for (((DemJooJooJooJOOOOOOZ!!!))) just ain’t intense enough to suit ya, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles, fuckface. If that’s what it takes to qualify me as officially “White,” then thanks but no thanks; I’d just about as soon call myself a nigger as to stoop that goddamned low.

My now-deceased Uncle Murray, who was an MP in the ETO and participated in the liberation of one of the concentration camps idiots like Mr “CEO of Based” above swear never existed—a life-altering experience he couldn’t even speak of without choking up in tears til his dying day, by the by—was probably the single toughest hombre I ever did know (my assessment made after a lifetime spent hanging with some damned tough hombres, mind) and woulda kicked your sorry ass so hard by the time you stopped rolling your clothes would be out of style for such loose talk as that.

“Are you mad yet?” You bet your ass I am now, you miserable turd. FUCK YOU in the spleen, with a sparking cattle prod.

*spit*

The Donald Trump of Julius Caesars

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those, among other unpleasant possibilities.

Inter-cross-simu-posting

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

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

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

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

Words which should be kept in mind, here:

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

Conversion

Posted on May 31, 2024June 1, 2024 by Mike

A diehard NeverTrumpTard comes around.

I just donated $300k to Trump
I just donated $300k to Trump. I’m prepared to lose friends. Here’s why.

Back in 2016 I had drunk the media Kool-Aid and was scared out of my mind about Trump. As such I donated to Hilary Clinton’s campaign and voted for her.

By 2020 I was disillusioned and didn’t vote – I didn’t like either option.

Now, in 2024, I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump.

I know that I’ll lose friends for this. Some will refuse to do business with me. The media will probably demonize me, as they have so many others before me. But despite this, I still believe it’s the right thing to do.

I refuse to live in a society where people are afraid to speak.

Fair enough so far, but then ol’ boy lapses into a brief near-delusional endorsement for the veracity of Her Herness!©’s long-since-debunked Russia Collusion hoax. Maybe he’s crazy, but he demonstrates he ain’t stupid with his next section, containing some up-close-and-personal observations and analysis on Asscrackistan, Bribem’s failed foreign policy initiatives, and beyond.

My “radicalization” towards the center
August 16th, 2021 was the day I knew I could never support Joe Biden or any of the senior officials in his administration. This was the day that Afghans fell to their deaths from US C-17 airplanes at the Kabul International Airport, or KAIA as ISAF forces referred to it.

Back in 2012 I deployed to Afghanistan working for DARPA. I used to fly out of KAIA at least weekly, usually taking a Blackhawk to Bagram Airfield (BAF), but sometimes jumping on a C-130 down to Kandahar (KAF).

I’m not going to go into all of the details here, but this was personal for me — as it was for anyone that served in Afghanistan. Most have the wrong impression of what happened there. Afghanistan wasn’t Iraq. And real progress had been made. It took roughly 15 years to stabilize most of Afghanistan, but the ISAF coalition had gotten it to the place that little girls were going to school in Kabul, sometimes walked there by their mothers who weren’t even wearing Burkas anymore. All of this was unimaginable a decade prior.

And then there’s the strategic aspect. The US’s most strategic base in Afghanistan was Bagram Airfield. Unless you’ve been there it’s impossible to imagine how strategic this base is, and how easy it is to defend. Nestled in a remote valley at the foothills of the Himalayas. Within a couple hour flight of China and Iran, and a few minute flight to Pakistan. I believe this airfield could have been held for 50+ years with 50,000 men. A similar scale to the US permanent forces stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany or the US bases in Okinawa, Japan.

We gave up one of the most strategic air bases in the world, and arguably stability in Kabul, for political gain — to be able to say that President Biden ended the War in Afghanistan. And we did it in the most incompetent manner possible, literally with people falling from our airplanes. Everyone I have spoken with that served in Afghanistan knows this.

It wasn’t just Afghanistan, I believe that the Biden administration has had some of the worst foreign policy in decades. And this has manifested in two major Wars breaking out during their administration, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s proxy attack against Israel.

Was the timing just bad luck? I don’t believe so. I believe that a weak America leads to a chaotic world.

Just for the sake of contrarianism if nothing else, a few questions:

Are there any serious, well-informed souls left who are entirely comfortable with Amerika v2.0’s FederalGovCo apparat arrogating to itself the role of World Policeman?
Has there ever been a time when the world wasn’t chaotic to some degree or another?
Can a shambolic, inept, and badly over-committed Amerika v2.0 credibly be considered NOT weak?

Asking for a friend. Follows, the meat of the matter.

The next topic that has boiled my blood are the double standards and lawfare that Trump has faced. Here are some examples:

Classified documents: Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence and Donald Trump were all caught with classified documents. Only Trump was indicted. Either it’s a crime for all of them or none of them. All of the arguments about quantity of documents or obstruction are distractions to justify a double standard.

The Border Wall: remember how Trump was villainized for promoting a border wall? Biden resumed building sections of it after pausing them, which the legacy media has been very quiet about.

Election denialism: yes, Trump denied the 2020 election results. But as we linked to above, so did Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden regarding the 2016 results. As have hundreds of other politicians since 2000. Either they’re all election deniers, or none of them.

Corruption charges: every inch has been searched for Trump corruption while Joe Biden’s involvement with foreign countries (through Hunter) have been swept under the rug. Here are some examples.

Three strikes for thee but not for me: Joe Biden was the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill, which most attribute as the source of the mass incarceration we saw over the next two decades (especially amongst black communities). Crack cocaine in particular was treated harshly when combined with the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Watch this video. Hunter Biden would be locked up for life if the same rules were applied to him that Joe Biden imposed on thousands of others.

This is just the tip of the double standard iceberg.

Ain’t it, though. Ain’t it just. The article carries on from there—some of it insightful and eminently reasonable, some of it…ehh, not so much. Greatly to his credit is his diligence in maintaining a genuinely even-handed approach to his subject matter, I must say. Several of his professed “concerns” are plain-as-day indicators of his abiding liberal-Leftism, his declaration that he’s a libertarian notwithstanding.

All in all, if you’re looking for support for the contention that there in fact are some more or less sane, open-minded, non-wild-eyed zealot shitlibs still extant who might actually be worth bothering to talk with, debate, and/or attempting to persuade, this could very well be your cup of tea. Myself, I blew past that stage at speed and left it in the rearview a goodish while back, so I can’t in all honesty say it’s mine.

Reassuring as it is to know such thoughtful, agreeable rara avii haven’t gone totally extinct just yet, in my estimation there aren’t anywhere near enough of them to matter much now. Our stolen, intentionally-broken nation is ablaze; open, no-shit existential war is close at hand, therefore making the hardening of Real American hearts a non-negotiable requirement if we intend to prevail. And prevail we must—in this strictly-binary solution set, the lone alternative is far too ghastly to even contemplate.

(Via Stephen Green)

Moar Verdict fallout

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

Leave it to the ever-brilliant CatTurd to hit the Vichy GOpers with it like a brickbat to the kisser. It’s another damnable “Read more…” Tweet, so I’ll just skip the embedding and cut straight to the transcription chase.

Catturd ™

@catturd2

Dear Republican Party

@GOP

…

I don’t want to hear another damn word about Ukraine.

I don’t want to hear another damn word about Israel.

I don’t want to hear another damn word about GAZA.

I don’t want to hear another damn word about Taiwan.

I don’t want to hear another damn word about any other country except the USA, you America-last war pigs.

The fascist Democrat Party has completely destroyed our country from within, we have a wide open border, and they’re shitting on the Constitution while you spineless, coward losers get rich on insider trading, rage tweet, and talk about your “principles.”

They’re literally arresting their political opponents and their lawyers and having kangaroo communists show trials – and you pitiful, worthless losers are doing absolutely nothing.

If you don’t have balls to fight for freedom – RESIGN!!!

At this late date, there’s little if any point to wagging my fingers in anybody’s face concerning the fact that the GOPe’s notorious unwillingness to show fight isn’t due to any lack of balls, but to the fact that they’re actually complicit. No matter; CatTurd’s general sentiment here remains valid, and the point is still worth making. Updates to follow…

Update! Our blog-bud Aesop brings the pain, bruise, and agony (to quote the inimitable American Dream, Dusty Rhodes) perfectly.

The meaning of today’s verdict is actually quite simple:

The Democrat Party hereby announces that they have formally seceded from the United States Of America.

This announcement, therefore, makes them nothing less, at best, than seditious criminals and rebellious traitors, and as such, liable to hanging or shooting on sight, wherever and whenever found, top to bottom, and coast to coast.

The only open question is not any longer whether there will be an open, shooting civil war, but when it will commence being a range with the firing line fully open in both directions.

That’s not an incitement to anyone, nor intended as any such thing; it’s merely a statement of facts.

Whether the nation rises up as one and purges the rot, or doesn’t, there is an immutable Truth smacking us all in the face:

America That Once Was Is

ABSOLUTELY IRRETRIEVABLY OVER.

It didn’t die of natural causes.

The Democratic Party Killed It.

All that remains to be seen, from now going forward, is whether We, the People, have the stones to hold them and their members accountable for the murder, round them up, and begin the mass hangings or shootings on sight such a calculated and treasonous criminal act demands.

If not, this was the moment when we began our irreversible slide into being Amerizuela, with all the trimmings, for years to decades.

Absitively, posolutely, indubitably so. You don’t have to like it, and when it comes right down to the nut-cutting, you really, really shouldn’t. You DO have to admit the inescapable truth of it, and disport yourselves accordingly.

And speaking of the Best Dressed Man in Wrestling, well, what the hey.

Y’know, I watched Dusty wrestle for years until his retirement from the ring, whereupon he joined Mean Gene Okerlund in the WCW broadcast booth as a blow-by-blow announcer, and I swear I think he was actually more entertaining on the mic than he was in the squared circle. Which, y’know, is really saying something.

Updated update! Don Surber, too, knows the score.

Of course they will send him to prison
Of course they convicted him. There is no justice in New York City. The Mafia proved that a century ago when it bought off the judges. The corruption runs deep and putrid in the city that never sleeps. Alvin the Chipmunk Bragg ran for prosecutor on a platform of letting criminals run rampant and bringing Donald Trump down. No one should be surprised by the 34 cries of guilty by a jury of liberal sheep.

New Yorkers love living in swill. They brag about their swill city and its diversity and rightly so.

There are black victims of violent crime. There are white victims of violent crime. There are Asian victims of violent crime. There are Hispanic victims of violent crime. There are Jewish victims of violent crime.

New Yorkers laugh and mock the victims because the city sides with the bad guys. Criminals no longer have to post bail. Businessmen who take out loans and repay them with interest, however, must post millions of dollars in bond to appeal a ridiculous verdict.

The clean and relatively crime-free city that Rudy Giuliani bequeathed to New Yorkers has gone back to rot.

New Yorkers are responsible for this. This is the life they chose. They elect the corrupt and communistic.

Judge Juan Merchan does their bidding because most New Yorkers hate decency and they hate the rule of law. This is a city that honors a career criminal and drug addict — George Floyd — while making the author of the Declaration of Independence a pariah.

All perfectly true and accurate, no argument to make from here, as far as it goes. Unfortunately, it’s worse than that though: nowadays, it applies not just to NYC alone, Don. Not by a long yard, it don’t. Surber waxes even more depressingly prophetic from there, before finally collapsing in an exhausted heap on the old reliable standby. To wit:

Judge Merchan deliberately gave Trump a trial riddled with errors that demand an appellate court to overturn him.

That won’t happen because everyone knows John Roberts is a pawn of the deep state and the trio of justices that Trump appointed to the high court fear the mob will go after their kids and their loved ones. That fear is well-founded. Why would a lower appellate court even take the case on?

Judge Merchan will put Trump in prison. He has to or the DNC’s checks to his daughter won’t clear the bank.

The state will proceed to confiscate all of Trump’s property — including Mar-a-Lago which will trigger a decades-long legal battle between Florida and New York, which will end when Floridians foolishly elect a Democrat governor.

The only hope the nation has left is to elect Trump president on November 5.

Dude, SRSLY?!? All the power, all the Überstadt muscle being flexed, the unabashed, in-your-face lawlessness and brazen criminality, extending from the Oval Office all the way down to the most benighted, semi-sentient shitlib NYC juror—yet somehow, some way, you think Trump is going to win the next sure-to-be-rigged “election”? Sorry—agreeable though it is to idly imagine, I still just can’t quite see it happening; as comforting fantasies go, it’s the pure, the blushful Hoppocrene. If that truly IS the only hope we have left, then in practical terms we have no hope at all.

Update to the updated update! It occurs to me that, even now, “What next?” is the wrong question. What Real Americans need to be asking themselves (and each other) is, “Okay, what the hell are we gonna do about this shit?” Think proactive, not reactive, people. Although defense might sometimes forestall defeat, it’s offense that wins the game. That mindset has been axiomatic with every great football coach since Vince Lombardi, every great general since at least George Patton.

One of the primary reasons the Confederacy’s Robert E Lee believed deep in his soul that his breakaway nation was foredoomed to ultimate defeat was the various cold, implacable realities that forced him and his boss President Jeff Davis to adopt the strategic defensive, rather than the offensive they both greatly preferred. The two great men discussed this very issue many times over the course of the war; neither of them was happy about it, but they never managed to find a way around their dilemna.

The Tytler Cycle

Posted on May 23, 2024May 23, 2024 by Mike

A refresher course on how history just keeps on repeating itself.

WTF is Happening to America & What Are You Going To Do About It?
The title of this piece is a question I always hear (and ask). What the fuck is happening to this country?

From listeners, neighbors, friends, family, and even those whom I despise on the opposite end of the political spectrum, it’s obvious to anyone paying attention that this country is a complete mess. The natural follow-up question is, how did we get here?

It’s not hard to answer.

It simply took 248 years for our government to bloat itself to what we are witnessing today. That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our founders understood this, and Benjamin Franklin wondered aloud when Elizabeth Willing Powell asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” They knew what we are experiencing today was inevitable. That government naturally evolves to seek unbridled growth and total power over the people. What no one knew was how long it would take to lose it, and here we are today, in our lifetimes, living through what may very well be the end of our constitutional form of Republic unless we decide to “keep it” and “keeping it” my friends, is not a foregone conclusion.

To understand this requires a glance back to the work of Lord Alexander Tytler, a Scottish historian who lived between 1747 and 1813. Tytler wrote what has been referred to over the centuries as the “Tytler Cycle,” outlining the eight stages of a democracy or a democratic republic such as ours. His words were prophetic indeed. He believed that every society began in bondage and progressed through the stages below:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage.

He professed that our form of government’s average life is 200 years.
While the Roman Republic survived nearly 500 years before its collapse, we’ve outlived his theory by 48 years. Washington, under Democrat leadership, is pushing us through stage seven en route to its goal of total control, or as Tytler put it, bondage. We are closer than at any time in our history to our eventual disintegration.

This is the “fundamental transformation” of America referred to by Marxist Barack Obama.

Indeed so. Seems like there oughta be some way we could thank the slope-shouldered sissymary properly for that, but then that’s where the second half of the title question comes in, I suppose.

Another one they aren’t making any more of these days

Posted on May 18, 2024May 18, 2024 by Mike

That would be gifted actor, horseman, Marine veteran, Hollywood stuntman, ranch hand, jazz singer, blacksmith, and world-champion poker player Wilford Brimley.

Anthony Wilford Brimley (September 27, 1934 – August 1, 2020) was an American actor. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and working odd jobs in the 1950s, Brimley started working as an extra and stuntman in Western films in the late 1960s. He became an established character actor in the 1970s and 1980s in films such as The China Syndrome (1979), The Thing (1982), Tender Mercies (1983), The Natural (1984), and Cocoon (1985). Brimley was known for playing characters at times much older than his age. He was the long-term face of American television advertisements for the Quaker Oats Company. He also promoted diabetes education and appeared in related television commercials for Liberty Medical, a role for which he became an Internet meme.

Brimley joined the Marines in 1953 and served in the Aleutian Islands for three years. He also worked as a bodyguard for businessman Howard Hughes as well as a ranch hand, wrangler, and blacksmith. He then began shoeing horses for film and television. At the behest of his close friend and fellow actor Robert Duvall, he began acting in the 1960s as a riding extra and stunt man in westerns. In 1979, he told the Los Angeles Times that the most he ever earned in a year as an actor was $20,000. He had no formal training as an actor, and his first experience in acting in front of a live audience was in a theater group at the Los Angeles Actors’ Theater.

His first credited feature film performance was in The China Syndrome (1979) as Ted Spindler, a friend and coworker of plant shift supervisor Jack Godell (portrayed by Jack Lemmon). That same year, he appeared in the Robert Redford/Jane Fonda feature film “The Electric Horseman” cast as simply “The Farmer” while assisting Redford and Fonda’s characters evade troopers while transporting the horse in a cattle hauler. Later, Brimley made a brief but pivotal appearance in Absence of Malice (1981) as the curmudgeonly, outspoken Assistant Attorney General James A. Wells. In the movie The Thing (1982) he played the role of Blair, a biologist among a group of men at an American research station in Antarctica who encounter a dangerous alien that can perfectly imitate other organisms.

Brimley’s close friend Robert Duvall (who also appeared in The Natural) was instrumental in securing for him the role of Harry in Tender Mercies (1983). Duvall, who had not been getting along with director Bruce Beresford, wanted “somebody down here that’s on my side, somebody that I can relate to.” Beresford felt Brimley was too old for the part but eventually agreed to the casting. Brimley, like Duvall, clashed with the director; during one instance when Beresford tried to advise Brimley on how Harry would behave, Duvall recalled Brimley responding: “Now look, let me tell you something, I’m Harry. Harry’s not over there, Harry’s not over here. Until you fire me or get another actor, I’m Harry, and whatever I do is fine ’cause I’m Harry.”

It was Brimley’s showstopper star-turn as AAG James J Wells (not James A Wells, as Wiki erroneously has it above) in Absence of Malice that sent me down the Wilford Brimley rabbit hole today, after re-watching Brimley’s riveting performance on YewToob. Interesting thing about the apparent James J/James A flub: Brimley’s character may very well have been James A in the script (don’t know, didn’t check), judging from what appears to be his momentary hesitation when giving his name as James J in the AoM final cut:

Note ye well that Mr Brimley, a relatively unknown bit-player-cum-character actor at the time, just walked in, sat down, riffled some papers, opened his mouth, and proceeded to steal the entire film from screen titans Paul Newman and Sally Field, without so much as breaking a sweat. By God, that there is what you call acting, bub. Ahh, but how very typical of Wilford Brimley: Kurt Russell, Robert Duvall, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon—running scenes with all of these fine actors and many more, he refused to be intimidated or overawed, nonchalantly holding his own with all those marquee names, making it look not just easy, but effortless.

More rich, buttery Brimley goodness from AoM:

One more time:

Over the years I must’ve seen Absence of Malice about, oh, I dunno, forty or fifty times—enough that I’ve long since had every word of Brimley’s dazzling five minutes or so of screentime towards the end down by heart, anyway—and still ain’t no way tired of the flick. If you’ve never seen the movie, I urge you with all my heart not to let another sun go down before you rectify that gap in your cinematic education. They ain’t making movies like Absence of Malice anymore, nor actors like Wilford Brimley, nor sturdy, versatile, by-God American men like him, for that matter.

Anybody else thinking, as I just was, that the AAG Wells character, in fact pretty much all the G-men in the above climactic scenes, represents another long-gone American totem: the competent, reasonable, and trustworthy public servant? Not to mention Sally Fields’ newspaper reporter, who, although she lost her way temporarily and compromised her professional ethics in pursuit of a red-hot scoop, nonetheless proves herself to be basically decent in the end, deeply regretful for betraying her integrity and resolved that she will NOT let it happen again.

As Wells says of the DA ensnared in Michael Gallagher’s clever trap: “Yeah, he’s a nice guy, he just forgot about the rules.” When the dust has settled, the wayward but basically well-meaning are chastened, the corrupt and malifecent made to face serious consequences, and AAG Wells has somebody’s ass in his briefcase, as promised.

Today, though, is there anyone left among us so naive, so unworldly, that he seriously expects such unflagging virtuousness from his “public servants,” even in a fictional movie? Yep, the past is a different country all right.

Constitutional course of instruction

Posted on May 14, 2024 by Mike

Roth Renegade discovers one of Porretto’s favorites, the uncompromising champion of human liberty Lysander Spooner.

The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the Constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but “the people” then existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind any body but themselves.

It cannot be said that the Constitution formed “the people of the United States,” for all time, into a corporation. It does not speak of “the people” as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as “we,” nor as “people,” nor as “ourselves.” Nor does a corporation, in legal language, have any “posterity.” It supposes itself to have, and speaks of itself as having, perpetual existence, as a single individuality.

Moreover, no body of men, existing at any one time, have the power to create a perpetual corporation. A corporation can become practically perpetual only by the voluntary accession of new members, as the old ones die off. But for this voluntary accession of new members, the corporation necessarily dies with the death of those who originally composed it.

Legally speaking, therefore, there is, in the Constitution, nothing that professes or attempts to bind the “posterity” of those who establish it.

S’truth, strange though it may sound to contemporary ears; no less august a personage than Thomas Jefferson himself implicitly affirmed this thesis years before, with these stirring words:

God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.

The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state.

What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

Bold mine, and a hearty amen to that.

Orange Man BAAAAAD

Posted on May 10, 2024May 10, 2024 by Mike

That consarned Trump, what a repulsive sicko pervert he is.

Stormy Details of Past Affairs: When a President Watched As His Aide Had Sex With a Girl
Most of what follows aren’t rumors. It’s not a Stormy Daniels, “she said- he said” allegation. There are multiple witness accounts. The president had quite a sexual appetite, beginning with his loss of virginity at 17 to a Harlem prostitute. After he was elected president, he arranged for a tryst with a 19-year-old White House intern. It lasted a year – perhaps because the teenage intern aged out. There were other interns and at least one famous movie star.

The president watched, and a Secret Service agent observed as the president’s Special Assistant was “banging a girl on the edge of (the) pool” just feet away. One would think that the media would spend days, if not weeks reporting those details if they could verify that Trump was that president.

S’awright, we all know he did it. That, and much, much worse, even. Why, the putrid demon-fiend said “grab ’em by the pussy,” for Christ’s sweet sake!

But he wasn’t. That president was the mythical King of Camelot, the icon of the Democrat Party, and an equal to Lincoln in stature. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was that adulterous cad of a chief executive.

John Kennedy couldn’t keep his pants zipped and reportedly looked at his watch while he gave his sexual attention to extra-marital partners. From start to finish — 15 minutes was all the time they got. Then, out the door. It wasn’t a secret. His wife knew. The Secret Service knew. Reporters knew. J. Edgar Hoover knew and threatened to use Kennedy’s trysts as political blackmail. But JFK was the golden calf.

Ahh, the exalted, golden days of holy Camelot, when D卐M☭CRATs and their pet Enemedia poodles ruled the DC roost with benevolence and skill, and none dared question or defy their absolute right to do whatever they pleased. Enlightened, evolved, compassionate, “mostly peaceful,” sensitive: t’was a better age, a better America, and a better President, that’s for sure.

A washed-up porn pin cushion and her story about blacking out and not remembering what happened should never have seen the light of day or the inside of a courtroom. Her new claims that it wasn’t “about the money” and her insistence that she was an apparent unwilling victim are equal parts garbage, legally irrelevant, and clearly intended to prejudice the 12-person jury. The scandalous testimony Judge Merchan allowed has been, without doubt, utterly irrelevant to the case at bar. Merchan is sheep-dogging a kangaroo court, a political show trial that the KGB’s Lavrenty Beria would be proud of.

I got your attention by leading with a false suggestion. Misdirection. That’s what the prosecution is doing in Manhattan. Trump wasn’t “banging” interns. And this trial isn’t about Daniels or her claims. It’s [supposed to be] about business documents. But the prosecution got what it wanted. A false suggestion that Trump may have raped Daniels.

Orange Man bad.

The Manhattan trial and the blatant misconduct of the trial judge have made it crystal clear for Americans. This isn’t about what Trump did or didn’t do. It’s about getting Trump.

Well, I mean, DUH. The only question remaining now is how much more of this arrant horseshit Real Americans will put up with before they finally get up off the couch, raise up on their hind legs, and strike back at their antagonizers.

The greatest irony of all is that Bad Back Jack’s radical-supply-sider tax cuts were more draconian than either Reagan’s or Bush’s cruel, heartless, ruinous ones in percentage terms, yet elderly shitlibs nevertheless drench their Depends to this very day in rapturous memory of the self-serving, womanizing, election-buying rich-boy heel that was taken from them far too soon. Go figger. Worked a treat at stimulating a stalled economy too, in all three instances. Then again, tax cuts almost always do, regardless of who implements them—almost as if there might be some sort of symbiotic, mutually-reinforcing relationship between them (for more on that curious, inexplicable conundrum, please see this post).

Put-up job

Posted on May 7, 2024May 7, 2024 by Mike

Waitwaitwait, you mean to tell me that the whole thing was all just a DO(I)J swindle all along?!? That Meinherr Garland’s DO(I)J really, truly is as marrow-deep corrupt and partisan-politicized as some of us have been insisting for years? Why, I can’t believe it. I WON’T believe it.

The DOJ’s Doctored Crime Scene Photo of Mar-a-Lago Raid
New disclosures in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage case against Donald Trump reveal the FBI tampered with evidence to create the infamous photo–and DOJ has lied about it for nearly two years.

It is the picture that launched a thousand pearl-clutching articles.

A few weeks after the armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, the Department of Justice released a stunning photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing scary classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump’s private office.

Included as a government exhibit to oppose Trump’s lawsuit requesting a special master to vet the 13,000 items taken from his residence, the crime scene pic immediately went viral—just as Attorney General Merrick Garland, who authorized the unprecedented raid, intended.

At the time, even regime-friendly mouthpieces questioned the need and optics of the raid; the photo helped juice the DOJ’s justification for the storming of Trump’s castle.

“[The] question of whether Trump had classified material with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort has captured the public’s attention. The photo published by the government appears to answer that question quite affirmatively,” Washington Post resident fact checker Philip Bump wrote on August 31, 2022.

Yeah, well, y’know, the Washington Post. That would of course be the longtime regime house organ Washington Post, after all. Fake News doesn’t come any more Fake Newsier than them. Onwards.

Some of Bump’s colleagues were more hyperbolic. An ex-CIA officer told ABC News the cover sheets indicated the highest level of secrecy, which in the wrong hands could have resulted in murder. “People’s lives are truly at stake. Without being melodramatic, anything that helps an adversary identify a human source means life and death,” intelligence expert Douglas London melodramatically warned in reaction to the photo.

The New York Times insisted the photo was consistent with how the FBI handles criminal investigations. “[It] is standard practice for the F.B.I. to take evidentiary pictures of materials recovered in a search to ensure that items are properly cataloged and accounted for. Files or documents are not tossed around randomly, even though they might appear that way; they are usually splayed out so they can be separately identified by their markings,” reporters Glenn Thrush and Adam Goldman wrote on August 31, 2022.

Except…that is not what happened.

And it most certainly wasn’t, as the article goes on from there to detail. Highest possible kudos for the indespensible Julie Kelly for yet another marvelous real-journalistic coup de main. The woman is like a fucking machine.

Rockin’ in the free world state

Posted on May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 by Mike

Not to restart the whole “DeSantis is a Deep State boll weevil” discussion, mind; certainly, he’s amply demonstrated himself to be an extremely ambitious ProPol at best, which is in no way a compliment. That said, though, he does just keep on doing good and worthwhile things as FLA Guv, if only in spite of himself, perhaps.

Ron DeSantis wants to teach young people about communism. He should use rock ‘n’ roll
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has written a bill that requires teaching on the history of communism in Florida public schools, beginning in the 2026-2027 school year. DeSantis wants students inoculated against the evils of Marxism.

It’s a great idea. One suggestion — use rock ‘n’ roll in the lesson plan.

Rock ‘n’ roll is an exciting, popular art form geared toward young people. It also has a proud (and largely ignored) history of anti-communism.

In their book, The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, who both work for the libertarian outfit Reason, reveal the often hidden history of popular music as a weapon against totalitarianism. In the chapter “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World,” they detail how the music helped defeat communism.

As Welch and Gillespie note, Vaclav Havel and the leaders of the 1960s revolt against communism in Czechoslovakia were deeply influenced by American rock and roll, particularly the band the Velvet Underground. A group of young Czech hippies formed the group the Plastic People of the Universe, named after a Frank Zappa lyric, and were soon banned by the government. A fan of the Rolling Stones, Havel saw and heard in rock and roll “a temperament, a nonconformist state of the spirit, an anti-establishment orientation, an aversion to philistines, and an interest in the wretch and humiliated.”

It’s an exciting piece of history. DeSantis should add it to Florida’s new pro-freedom curriculum.

A sound idea all around, to my way of thinking.

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