Bah! – Page 19

No harm, no foul

Posted on July 13, 2023July 13, 2023 by Mike

The results of the White (bag) House/Huntersack scandal “investigation” are in, and guess what.

The Secret Service concluded its investigation into the cocaine scandal that rocked the White House earlier this month.

Surprise, surprise! No suspect was identified.

According to CNN, the cocaine was “found in a blind spot for surveillance cameras.”

Because of COURSE it was. I mean, where ELSE would Hunter have left his bump-bag (only to forget he ever even had it, a la the Laptop ‘O Shame) but the one place in the entire People’s Palace complex, other than the private pResidential living quarters, that has no spy cams? If there’s one thing we know for sure by now about this particular fruit of Pervy Jaux’s loins, it’s that he’s no dummy. Nosirreebob, no dummy a-TALL.

Occam’s Razor standard: MET. Smell Test: PASSED. “Beyond reasonable doubt” requirement: SATISFIED. Trust in government: RESTORED. Phew, what a relief!

Meanwhile, in a show of complete transparency proving yet again that all things FedGovCo are entirely above-board, peachy keen, and sans reproche, the Secret Service provided video of the press conference at which their findings were announced:

Update! Ace calls it “another Jeffrey Epstein level cover-up,” which it is, before saying:

Officially they deny it, but they’re publicly flaunting it: We are in control, we say what is a crime or not, we say what is the truth or not, and you can’t do a thing about it, Peasant Scum.

This is how revolutions start. Hopefully.

Indeed. When you’ve reached the point where even actual, blood-soaked revolution starts to sound good, you know things have gotten really, REALLY bad.

Waitwait, WHUT?!?

Posted on July 10, 2023July 10, 2023 by Mike

Okay, I just threw up in my mouth a little at this.

‘Kind Of Turned Me On’: Fox News Host Makes Stunning Admission About Biden’s Rage-Fueled Tantrums
Fox News Host Lisa Kennedy said that Biden screaming obscenities at his staff is “a quirk” and admitted it turned her on during an episode of “Outnumbered” on Monday. Kennedy’s comments came during a panel discussion about an Axios report that said that Biden goes on rage-fueled tantrums inside the White House, some of which are reportedly so intense that staff avoid having private meetings with him entirely.

This Kennedy personage, remember, was once touted as the token “conservative/libertarian” in the EmpTV stable of vidya hosts. The “turns me on” quote was a joke, or so they say, but I ain’t entirely sure I buy that.

“Swearing at people, it’s a quirk. It kind of turned me on when I heard that the president gets angry and volatile, I’m not gonna lie,” Kennedy said. “If he’s throwing a few f-bombs here and there, I kinda like it.”

Despite the joke, Kennedy was quick to assure the panel how discouraged she was with Biden’s tenure. “I’m disappointed by just about every single thing he’s done as president,” she said.

Okay, so at least she DID walk it back somewhat. Gotta give the gal a little credit for that much, I suppose. There’s a bigger, more important story here, though, to wit:

Some of Biden’s aides admitted that they feared meeting with the president alone due to his intense outbursts of anger, Axios reported on Monday. Biden apparently screams expletives at his aides, and engages in interrogation-style lines of questioning that leave them without answers – a routine that some of them call “stump the chump.”

“God dammit, how the fuck don’t you know this?” Biden reportedly told an aide during one such interrogation. “Don’t fucking bullshit me!” he reportedly warned another aide. “Get the fuck out of here!” he screamed at another.

Biden’s reported rage contradicts the kindly old man who loves ice cream that people often see in public, Axios said. Fox News host Harris Faulkner theorized that Biden’s anger likely stemmed from his increasingly old age.

“As you age, particularly up into your octogenarian years – which he’s already entered – there is a pronouncement of emotion and usually it is negative,” Faulkner mused.

Especially so in those afflicted by Alzheimers, of which such sudden temper tantrums and out-of-the-blue rages are a well-known symptom in the early to moderate stages of the disease’s progression. More from Lamont the Big Dummy.

The leftwing media which actually controls the Democrat Party is telling “Old Yeller,” as it now calls Joe Biden, that it’s time to shuffle off to the retirement home.

Axios describes an old man with Alzheimer’s losing his executive function — his ability to moderate and control his, aw come on, man, you know, the thing! — and bursting out in angry frustration when his brain doesn’t work the way it used to. (And how it used to work was poorly. It’s worse now, obviously.)

Axios doesn’t say that but they are describing all the symptoms that point to that diagnosis.

Axios now, bizarrely, spins his angry diminished-executive-function outbursts as…a sign that he’s actually very vigorous and engaged!!!!.

More spin: Biden’s irrational outbursts of volcanic emotion are actually very rational efforts at information-gathering!!!

Speaking of spin, there’s also this wretched hagiographic misfire:

I just love this. Normal. Real. Relaxing. Modest. Humble. Discreet. Everyday. American. Reflective. Respectful. This is such the perfect antidote to Trump. Take a moment & watch.👇 https://t.co/2xqlaDJJRb

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom)

July 9, 2023

Oof. LtBD describes the above arrant horseshit thusly:

While the leftwing media continues pressuring Biden to do what Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not do and retire, NeverTrumpers, many of whom are just paid by Democrats to run psyops operations against Republicans, continue praising Joe Biden’s…shirtless sunbathing.

And hey, if you enjoyed that sterling example of one-hundred-percent Normality and Respectfulness, you’re gonna REALLY love the performative skinny-dipping and general casual nudity in front of appalled and disgusted female Secret Service agents, who described the experience of working on Pervy Jaux’s detail as “the second worst assignment in the Secret Service after Hillary Clinton.“

Modest! Humble! Discreet! What a great guy, eh?

Okay, now I definitely gotta go hurl. Walsh’s eager, worshipful slurping at Biden’s withered nutsack is enough to gag a fucking maggot.

Testosterone: a cornerstone of civilization

Posted on July 9, 2023 by Mike

For starters, there is no such thing as “toxic” masculinity. The term is no more than a politically-useful insult, a cruel slander against males designed to cow and intimidate them. Period fucking DOT, end of fucking story.

The simple assertion of the ‘toxic masculinity’ crowd is that specifically male behaviours are a problem. The most extreme aspects of male misbehaviour are portrayed as though they are routine. So young feminists insist that we live in a ‘rape culture’, in which men are alleged to be allowed to rape with impunity. Likewise, male-on-female domestic violence is portrayed as a kind of pandemic. And the answer to all these things is essentially to feminise men – to tell specifically young heterosexual men that they must curb their masculinity and subdue many of their most natural instincts. In every direction their path is cut off. For instance, men who come to the rescue of women are dismissed as ‘white knighting’, as though even the wish to help a woman is proof of ‘toxic masculinity’.

Of course, the concept itself is toxic – quite as much so as if our age decided to talk about women in a similar way. There’s no reason why ‘toxic femininity’ couldn’t be made as popular a concept as its opposite number. There are certainly plenty of grounds for talking about such things. For if men are, for example, more prone to physical violence then the data also shows that women are more prone to subtler methods of undermining opponents, such as reputational destruction. There are behaviours that are more male and behaviours that are more female, and the fact that some members of each sex are quite capable of one or other, or both, does not negate that fact.

Nevertheless, we do not hear much talk of toxic femininity. It is men who have been portrayed in recent years as a problem. And if you don’t believe this, speak to any teenage boy. They will be able to tell you some version of this.

Yet there must be consequences to interventions this hamfisted. It is one thing to try to fine-tune our species; quite another to attempt to do so while wearing mittens. And that is what concepts such as toxic masculinity are. They are blundering, blunt, inept efforts at rewiring – efforts that must have consequences.

It couldn’t be more obvious that they have, and not pleasant or in any way positive ones either. This next article looks at the grievous injury Leftist (who else) purveyors of this absurd, hateful shibboleth have inflicted not just on men and boys, but on society at large, men and women alike—knowingly, intentionally, and with malice aforethought.

In Japan, an estimated 1.5 million people — many of them young men — now live in complete isolation.

The problem has grown so severe that the Japanese have a term for it: Hikikomori, one who literally withdraws from society.

Some 6,000 miles away, the United States is experiencing its own form of hikikomori.

During a recent interview with Chris Williamson, a British podcaster based in Austin, Texas, the political economist Nicholas Eberstadt discussed the fact that 7 million men of prime working age are currently without employment and not seeking jobs.

Many of these men, said Eberstadt, spend inordinate amounts of time indoors, totally withdrawn from society.

They play video games, watch pornography, and tend to engage in heavy drug use, according to the author of “Men Without Work.”

Work carried out by academics at Kyushu University in Japan has found that a low testosterone level is one of the common metabolic signatures of hikikomori in young social recluses — which is important to note because testosterone levels among young American men are plummeting and have been for years.

The drop now reportedly affects 1 in 4 men in the US.

It’s commonly assumed that testosterone fuels anti-social behavior.

In December, “Avatar” director James Cameron made headlines when he claimed that testosterone is “a toxin” that needs to be worked out of one’s system.

Last month, NPR discussed the association between “toxic masculinity” and testosterone.

But this belief is not supported by science: There is no strong evidence to suggest that men with higher levels of testosterone are overly aggressive or violent.

On the contrary, testosterone has been linked to more social behavior in males — while low testosterone levels in males are associated with social anxiety and socially submissive or avoidant behaviors.

Research carried out by Dr. David Terburg, an expert in human behavior, has shown the many ways in which testosterone improves both individual behavior and broader cooperation.

In one study, Terburg and his colleagues identified a clear association between the administration of testosterone and increased levels of social cooperation and better moral judgment.

Low testosterone — otherwise known as hypogonadism — meanwhile, was associated with brain fog, poor memory and focus, and an overall lack of mental clarity.

Mark Spritzer, a behavioral neuroendocrinologist at Middlebury College whose research focuses on the cognitive benefits of testosterone, told The Post, that “There is now considerable evidence that testosterone enhances some forms of learning and memory.”

Moreover, he added, “There are a number of studies that have shown that low testosterone is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia in older men.”

And there you have it, folks. Shitlib darling Pajama Boy was unavailable for comment, having quietly “transitioned” himself into infamous brand-wrecker Dylan “Dirk” Mulvaney some years back.

Flying off into aviation history

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

After trying for decades to rid themselves of it—and, happily, failing miserably—the venerable, awesomely-capable A10 Thunderbolt II is finally getting shuffled off to Buffalo by the Chair Farce shitwits.

The A-10 Warthog Making One Final Flight — to the Boneyard
Beloved as much by the grunts on the ground as the pilots who flew it, the A-10 ground attack jet is being retired after five decades of very loud and effective service. Air Force enthusiasts everywhere are going to miss that ugly S.O.B.

The Air Force announced plans last week to replace two of the last remaining A-10 squadrons with more modern F-16s and F-35s. “This is all in line with the service’s goal of divesting the last A-10s before the end of the decade, if not sooner,” according to Yahoo News. Air Force brass have been trying to retire the hog for years but Congress has kept telling them no. This new announcement indicates that the A-10 will not keep flying until the 2040s, after all.

But what a jet, even if it did have a face not even a mother could love.

Hey, speak for yourself, Steve. I think they’re goddamned beautiful, myself.

Fairchild-Republic stepped up to meet the Air Force’s need, and the result was the A-10 Thunderbolt II. Neither sleek nor sexy, the Thunderbolt is usually called the Warthog or just the Hog. The whole jet was designed around the 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary autocannon whose (airborne!) ammo magazine is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. It’s capable of firing depleted uranium shells that tear through the thickest armor like a hot knife moving at 3,324 feet per second through melted butter.

Because the A-10’s job is to get in close, the pilot sits in a “bathtub” made out of titanium. During the Gulf War — when the Warthog first really captured the public’s imagination — I saw one jet on CNN that returned from a mission missing almost a third of one wing and probably half of the other. (I’ve searched for years for that clip but to no avail.) A fully-loaded Hog can carry an additional eight tons of various missiles and bombs.

The Hog’s engines are mounted high and to the rear with a slight tilt up towards the front. That’s to avoid sucking in debris on damaged airfields. Those Fairchild engineers really did think of everything.

The first development version of the Warthog flew in 1972, and it entered service in 1977. More than 700 were built, but only a few dozen are still in service. Although built in numbers to counter Soviet armor, our much-reduced force of A-10s found plenty of jobs that only they could do in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yup—which tends to be the way such things go, even in an age of overemphasis on flashy new technological gew-gaws and gimcracks: the older, sturdier, battle-tested platforms seem almost to be imbued with a will to live as powerful as any sentient being’s, and somehow always find a niche to fill. This next passage makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.

For what it’s worth, the Air Force has long argued that the F-35 Lightning II multirole stealth fighter is better prepared for ground attack in the 21st Century.

As a lifelong Warthog fan, it pains me to say this, but they’re probably right.

I wrote years and years ago at the original VodkaPundit.com that “stealth is the price of admission to the modern battlespace.” Non-stealth jets simply don’t stand a chance against the latest generation of air defense systems. Hell, they barely stand a chance even against a slightly older one.

The war in Ukraine has proven me (and many others) correct on that score. Despite having a much larger and more modern air force than Ukraine, Russia has been unable to achieve air superiority — even in the early months of the war, long before Western antiaircraft systems began service with Ukraine. Russia has no combat stealth aircraft in service, so even their most advanced Su-34 attack jets have been mostly limited to lobbing inaccurate dumb bombs from safe distances, outside the reach of Kyiv’s air defenses.

In a war with China or Russia, the A-10 likely wouldn’t survive. If — and this is a big if — there’s still a role for manned ground-attack jets, it’s with stealthy planes like the F-35 that are hard to see, harder to kill, and can fire a variety of long-range stand-off weapons.

Yeah, no, not so much. In the first place, war with China or Russia is unlikely in the extreme. In the second, you’re (and the Chair Farce as well) making some highly unfounded assumptions about the one-size-fits-nothing F35 Turducken, which is so bug-ridden, fantastically expensive to build and maintain, and over-engineered it’s no better than fifty-fifty whether a full squadron could even manage to get off the ground in-theater.

As for the casual dismissal of manned combat aircraft, that’s another thing the desk-bound zoomies have been pimping for decades now with little to no success, for a very simple reason: there is no substitute for boots on the ground, swabbies on deck, eyes in the sky, and Marines storming ashore. All the adolescent onanism extolling futuristic, bloodless warfare waged exclusively via drones, combat mechs, and AI geekery controlled from extreme standoff range will never replace the human ability to adapt, improvise, and overcome on-scene, in the heat of the moment—especially in the kind of 5G brushfire conflict against some dimestore dictator in Shitholistan’s ragtag army of goatherds we’re much more likely to find ourselves engaging in going forward.

Stephen’s point about latest-generation air defenses is well-taken, certainly. But how many of those exorbitantly expensive cutting-edge systems are going to be finding their way into the hands of the kind of backasswards Third Worlders we’re likely to be squaring off against, really? Admittedly, I damned sure wouldn’t want to be caught with my ass in the breeze at the stick of an A10 and have some illiterate yahoo set off my threat-warning alarms by pointing one of those high-tech death spikes at me. But still. I don’t have any numbers on how many times such a thing has happened to some poor ‘Hog jock, so I won’t offer any guesstimates on the odds for or against, or what the frequency of such incidents might actually be.

Looking at the bigger picture, though, the days of massive armies marching in serried ranks to take up entrenched positions along a clearly-defined MLR, underneath a sky-full of overly delicate air-superiority aircraft, are over. At least for the foreseeable future, war will be grubbier, dirtier, closer-in, and more vicious than some tech weenie peering at a computer screen a thousand miles away can begin to imagine. Modern warfare has become more of a shoot-and-scoot proposition, fought by adversaries close enough to smell each other’s weeks-ripe BO before things go loud. Hyper-sensitive, persnickety gadgetry that can be rendered combat-ineffective by a fistful of dust in the avionics suite or sucked into an intake won’t be up to the job.

Maybe the A10 really is past it, I’m hardly qualified to say. But I bet there would still be plenty of occasions when some poor ground-pounder up to his eyeteeth in the real, the bad, and the scary would be mighty glad to hear one in the hands of an experienced, crafty pilot loitering overhead. To abandon a proven-effective tool in favor of the premature forced adoption of an apteryx like the Turducken is exactly the kind of fanciful wishful-thinking shitlibs have become notorious for.

Tucker on Twitter

Posted on June 29, 2023 by Mike

Episode 7 is now up and running, sports fans.

Ep. 7 Irony Alert: the war for democracy enables dictatorship. pic.twitter.com/tk7aOZ4H6n

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson)

June 28, 2023

Haven’t watched it yet myself, but from what Margolis has to say about it, I’m thinking it’s liable to be another winnah.

In the latest episode of Tucker on Twitter, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson made a rather bold prediction about the 2024 election.

Carlson pointed out that the recently released WhatsApp messages from Hunter Biden to his Chinese business partner proved that Joe Biden was involved in (or at the very least knew about) Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes. He called the messages a “smoking gun” that “would have been enough to cripple a normal president, would have been more than enough to keep a normal president from running for office again,” yet they had “virtually no effect on Joe Biden.” Why? Because the mainstream media relentlessly defends him from his scandals.

If there’s anything that the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have proven, it’s that Joe Biden is a pro-war authoritarian. Emergencies like pandemics and wars allow those in power to behave like dictators in the name of “democracy,” and Joe Biden is no different, so our institutions will do anything to keep him in power.

“The people who control Joe Biden — Susan Rice and the rest — know they can continue to run our government, writing the press releases, formulating the policies, and they can do it effectively forever, as long as Joe Biden gets dressed in the morning, and of course that’s their strong preference,” Carlson explained. The problem is Biden’s failing mental health. His cognitive decline was easier to keep hidden during the pandemic but is now impossible to ignore, and it’s getting worse by the day.

“In a year or two, he will be gone completely, and there will be no hiding it,” Carlson said. “At that point, the Democratic Party will face a succession problem.”

“If Joe Biden is reelected next year and then forced to leave office during his term due to disability or death, that means Kamala Harris will become president of the United States,” he added. “And nobody wants that, not even her husband.”

Heh. Well, I mean, what sane, decent person would, really? On the other hand though, as near as I can determine nobody really wanted Biden either, and look where we all are anyway. Turns out election-rigging has consequences, I suppose. Until such time as those sham “elections” have been UN-rigged, then, my overall take on bothering to “vote” for “President” will remain a big, fat MEH.

HAPPY JUMETEEMF!

Posted on June 19, 2023June 19, 2023 by Mike

Doc 0 unravels this specious joke of a “national holiday.“

One reason Juneteenth isn’t catching on organically with the general public is that it’s obviously a politicized partisan “holiday,” not a celebration where all Americans are invited to join hands and rejoice in a great achievement. That’s what it should be, but it isn’t.

The rest of our political culture loudly insists every day that no “victory” has been won against slavery or racism. We’re told they are the founding sins of America, for which there will never be atonement or forgiveness. We’re told “white supremacy” remains a systemic problem.

If anything, our hysterical racial grievance industry and the ruling Democrat Party say racism and white supremacy are getting WORSE. We’re all supposed to feel perpetually guilty and submissive to endless demands for reparations. So what great victory does Juneteenth celebrate?

The Democrat Party is wholly dedicated to stoking racial grievances for political and financial gain – the man in the White House is infamous for yelling “they’re gonna put y’all back in CHAINZZ” – so the new federal holiday is naturally viewed with skepticism. Context matters.

Persuading more states to commemorate Juneteenth would have been a better way to go, but as we know, the totalitarian Left has no patience for representative government. It had to be imposed top-down after the George Floyd riots – a flex of power, not persuasion.

And now look at what we’ve got: a bloodbath. Juneteenth murder sprees. The long, slow work of creating a more harmonious nation, of putting racism and grievances behind us instead of nuclear-weaponizing them, would have produced a better holiday.

Americans know the calendar is being chopped up into more identity-grievance days and months, pushed on them with corporate and government power instead of fellowship. True holidays spring from goodwill: from people seeing the best in others and offering it from themselves.

If you want to plant a new holiday and have everyone feel comfortable beneath its spreading branches, you need the fertile soil of goodwill, a sense that everyone is invited but no one is commanded. Too much of our political culture is barren of that soil right now.

“Too much”? ALL of it, I’d say; as the Left’s radicalization and hostility towards even the mildest of dissent continues to metastasize, it was inevitable, really. Read the whole thing, as per usual with the incomparable John Hayward’s stuff.

MLK Day, Jumeteemf—what next? How many holidays, celebrations, and forelock-tugging acknowledgments, how much more groveling, obsequious foot-bathing will it take, prithee tell, before American Blaques are at long last placated—their inchoate rage diminished, their hatred attenuated? Is there no point at which even “too much” will be considered enough?

Never mind, no need to answer that. I think we all know well enough by now, thenkyewveddymuch.

Traitors and turncoats and frauds, oh MY!

Posted on June 14, 2023June 14, 2023 by Mike

I have here in my hand a list.

The Full List of RINOs Who Helped Adam Schiff Avoid Fine and Censure
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) had a plan to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for his role in perpetuating the Russia hoax, which ended up costing U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, and almost irreparable damage to the country’s political system.

The move was supported by a large swathe of America First Republicans, though DeSantis supporters like Rep. Thomas Massie came out against it, on spurious terms.

Now, the full list of so-called Republicans who sided with Democrats and Adam Schiff can be revealed, perhaps demonstrating which so-called “conservatives” need primary challengers at their next election.

Primaries? Oh HELL no. What they actually need is to be swung from a DC lamppost, pour encourager les autres. That might seem somewhat excessive, but I’ve gotten grouchy and obstreporous in my old age.

The list follows, and none of the names will come as any big surprise. Which is illustrative of the underlying problem here.

How to make a shithole

Posted on June 13, 2023June 14, 2023 by Mike

Our brother-from-another-mother Big Country posts a heartwarming tale.

SO I was up at the U-Haul and this young-ish couple were in there all happy and talking about how they moved here just today…the guy behind the counter was all being nice and whatever…me being the bastard curmudgeon I’ve become, I asked where thy moved from…

“Rhode Island!” said the chirpy tatted-up girl…(maybe she was 22, 23 at most…) not bad looking but a lot of ‘warning tattoos’, i.e. dreamcatcher on her neck, the word ‘breathe’ on the inside of one wrist…her significant other, Mister “I could smell the soy from six feet away?” Yeah, his tats? Flowers. Lil daisies on the back of his elbows…bad hair, shitty handlestache…

Uh… yeeeah

I looked at ’em both, and growled “Welcome to Florida! Don’t you fucking dare vote like you did back home.” The guy behind the counter looked at me, and looked at them and nodded and said “Yep…don’t screw up our state like you did yours!”

On that I turned and walked out…let them chew on that bit of advice.

But folks like that are like an infectious virus.

Moving in from a fucked up state, to OUR state, and then voting in the same types of assholes who made their state of origin all fucked up, which, while NOT intentionally planning on fucking it all up again, but doing so, and then wondering “How did this happen?” Self awareness purely doesn’t exist in the hive-mind of a liberal I swear.

Their look of shock was great.

Heh. I just bet it was at that, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer brace of assholes. Wish I’d been there to see it; I call ‘em locusts, myself, which I think is a very apt and fitting name for ‘em.

I’ve read in several different places over the past cpl-three years or so that, according to the stats, that’s actually not so much the case, though—that the vast majority of those fleeing the blighted, pestilential urban hellholes are NOT the idiot libs who did so much to help make them what they are, but are in actual fact mostly RightwingNaziDeathBeasts who have, after many years of suffering through the gradual, pre-planned decline, finally gotten a bellyful of it and decided to uproot and make good their escape. Never an easy decision to make, especially for someone who has lived in such an area his whole life, with deep family roots in what we unreconstructed Southrons used to call the old home-place.

Having lived for many years in one such example—CLT, which admittedly has always leaned pretty sharply Left, as has the entire state; over my entire lifetime, I can remember but one nominally “Republican” mayor, the execrable stealth-liberal Pat McRory—I dunno whether I buy the aforementioned statistics or not; I gotta say, I’m skeptical. But who knows, it could be so; with the widening Right-Left divide becoming more and more hardened and virulent over the past several years, it may very well be. It’d be nice if it was, that’s for definite sure.

The dead giveaway that you’re looking at a locust infestation as you drive around any given neighborhood? One of those obnoxiously self-righteous “In this house, we believe…” signs posted in the front yard. Know that, and adjust your behavior towards the occupants accordingly.

Big-city living is not ever going to be everyone’s cup of tea; for years, it was certainly mine, although nowadays I wouldn’t live in the city, any city, if you paid me by the hour. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that it has to be a horrible, unbearable nightmare, either. For many, many years, American cities were envied around the world as desirable, worthwhile places to live and work—to ENJOY living, rather than merely existing. As with so many other things, the question must be: Who did this to us, and why on Earth did we ever allow it to happen?

Amerikan Bacchanalia

Posted on June 13, 2023June 13, 2023 by Mike

Surely some revelation is at hand; surely the Second Coming is at hand.

SHOCKING VIDEO: Transgender Influencer Goes Topless at White House Pride Event
During the White House’s Pride Celebration on the South Lawn on Saturday, many Americans rebuked the flag display as disrespectful and not in line with the proper flag code. But, the desecration of all respected norms and markers of our national pride didn’t stop there. Transgender Tik Tok influencer Rose Montoya decided to go topless, along with others.

In a video posted to Montoya’s Tik Tok account, clips of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden giving pep-talk affirmations of “you are love” and “you belong” are featured. In the next segment, Montoya is seen greeting both Jill and Joe Biden, saying:

Hi, Mr. President. Trans rights are human rights.

Then the President is seen, looking confused and failing to successfully take a selfie, as Montoya laughs saying:

Oh, it’s a video!

The video cuts to Montoya dancing provocatively in front of a barrier adorned with the Seal of the President of the United States, while waiving a transgender flag and making sure their butt wiggling is captured for online audiences.

Three people are featured in the clip, exposing their chests while two are touching their bare nipples. Montoya, a biological male, jiggles implanted breasts in their hands while smiling for the camera. The individual shown last in the clip is a biological woman who had their breasts removed, leaving scarring. Defiant in the face of the dishonor Montoya’s actions bestowed upon our capital, the final clip is more self-absorbed vapid antics, posing, and blowing kisses to the camera.

Self-absorbed, vapid, posing, gratuitously obscene—to paraphrase one of wildly-overrated Springsteen-wannabe John Cougar Melonhead’s shitty, melodramatic songs, ain’t that Amerika v2.0.

What a fucking disgrace. Or, to paraphrase the voiceover chant from the ’68 Democrat Convention riot in Chicago, which Chicago Transit Authority used as the intro for track 1, side 4 of their entirely brilliant CTA debut album: The whole world’s laughing! The whole world’s laughing! The whole world’s laughing!

Meh, not their best song by any means. Here’s a much better one from the same LP, featuring a characteristically blistering showcase performance from their late guitarist Terry Kath.

Now that’s some gooood squishy right there. Eat your heart out, John Cougar Melonhead.

Update! OH HOLY CRAP! A live version of “I’m A Man” just popped up in the ol’ YewToob feed, in which Kath is just positively smoking hot. I’ma have to switch the vid to that one. WORK that wah, Terry!

Updated update! Fuck all that Biden/tranny freakshow noise, here’s a backgrounder on the great Terry Kath as a palate-cleanser, for those of you who might not know much about the guy.

Terry Alan Kath (January 31, 1946 – January 23, 1978) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the rock band Chicago. He played guitar and sang lead vocals on many of the band’s early hit singles. He has been praised by his bandmates and other musicians for his guitar skills and Ray Charles–influenced vocal style, and was said to be one of Jimi Hendrix’s favorite guitarists.

Growing up in a musical family, Kath took up a variety of instruments in his teens, including the drums and banjo. He played bass in a number of bands in the mid-1960s, before settling on the guitar when forming the group that became Chicago. His guitar playing was an important component of the group’s sound from the start of their career. He used a number of different guitars, but eventually became identified with a Fender Telecaster fitted with a single neck-position humbucker pickup combined with a bridge position angled single-coil pickup and decorated with numerous stickers.

Kath struggled with health issues and drug abuse towards the end of the 1970s. He died in January 1978 from an unintentional self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The bereavement tempted Chicago to disband, but they ultimately decided to resume as is signified by their memorial song “Alive Again”. To commemorate his musicianship, they issued the 1997 album The Innovative Guitar of Terry Kath. In 2016, Kath’s daughter Michelle Sinclair released the documentary The Terry Kath Experience, which chronicles his life and Chicago’s early years.

Kath was born to Raymond Elmer “Ray” (1912–2003) and Evelyn Meline Haugen Kath (1916–1982) on Thursday, January 31, 1946, in Chicago, Illinois. He had an older brother, Rod Kath, was raised in the Norwood Park neighborhood of Chicago, and attended Taft High School.

His brother played the drums and his mother played the banjo, and Kath attempted to learn these instruments too. He acquired a guitar and amplifier when he was in the ninth grade, and his early influences included The Ventures, Johnny Smith, Dick Dale, and Howard Roberts. He was later influenced by George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Mike Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix.

Unlike several other Chicago members who received formal music training, Kath was mostly self-taught and enjoyed jamming. In a 1971 interview for Guitar Player, he said he had tried professional lessons but abandoned them, adding “All I wanted to do was play those rock and roll chords.” His father wanted him to have a steady career, but he decided he would prefer a career in music.

Self-taught, a multi-instrumentalist, with all the right musical influences: all pretty typical of the very best guitar players, actually. The bit about him being one of Hendrix’s faves isn’t just “said to be,” by the way; Hendrix himself is known to have said that very thing many times, along with his oft-professed admiration for Billy Gibbons and Mountain-man Leslie West. Yes, yes, yes, stop yelling, I’m gonna embed that one too.

One of my all-time favorites for sure, and a bona fide classic.

Update to the updated update! And just like that, down a Leslie West rabbit hole I go.

Known far and wide as a true monster of the ever-elusive, almighty tone, West produced one of the boldest, most perfect sounds in rock using only a single-P90, single-cut, El Cheapo Gibson LP Junior and a pair of extensively re-jiggered Sunn (ick!) PA amps which, according to West, had formerly belonged to Jimi Hendrix. Thoughts on the subject, from the acknowledged master:

In acknowledging the guitarist’s monumental influence, nearly everyone sooner or later (and often immediately) seizes upon the same word: tone.

The sound that West achieved with a P-90-loaded Gibson Les Paul Junior has been consistently cited as one of the most distinctive in rock music. His sonic signature is a thick, singing tone that has both weight and depth, and a vibrato that can sustain a note for days.

His phrasing is all about economy. The man wasted not a single note to overplaying, or tried to dazzle with bombastic flurries of speed.

As he said many times, his aim was to create solos that could be sung, and music that moved the heart and soul, rather than impressed minds with its technical prowess.

At the dawn of the age that brought forth a new breed of powerhouse guitar hero, his guitar playing immediately resonated with listeners hungry for unique voices.

West always said he wasn’t a fast player – all that mattered to him were tone and a desire to have a vibrato like a classical violinist.

As he said in 1987, “I’m no great guitarist technically, but you wanna know why people remember me? If you take a hundred players and put them in a room, ninety-nine of ’em are gonna sound the same.

“The one who plays different…that’s the one you’re gonna remember. I learned that you should think about the song, think about the chords you’re playing behind. Most of my solos come right out of those chords. You play the notes within the chords and try to pick a melody from there.”

When it came to amplifying West’s gutsy approach, a happy accident led him to finding the perfect fit.

“It was just two Sunn stacks with the [Sunn] Coliseum PA heads,” he explained. “They were Hendrix’s old amps, re-Tolexed and reconed.

“See, the PA heads had those four inputs and a master volume, which started the distortion thing for me. This was years before guitar amps had master-volume controls. The head had huge transformers and gigantic KT88 tubes, and the cabinets were loaded with Eminence speakers, which never hurt your ears even with the treble all the way up.”

It was that amp that appeared on 1970’s Climbing!, Mountain’s debut album, which included the song that would forever be linked with West: his raging hard rocker, “Mississippi Queen.”

“I’d turn the mic volume and the master all the way up, and overdrive the thing like crazy,” he said.

That’s putting it mildly, I’d say.

Back in my own NYC days, West had a weekly gig at some little venue or other, can’t remember which one it was. My two greatest regrets about what were some of the absolute best years of my life were that I never did go to see him, and same-same with Les Paul himself, who in those days played every Monday at the Blue Note, I believe it was (nope, it was Fat Tuesdays). Les was famously in the habit of hanging around after the last set to autograph Les Paul guitars for anyone who brought one in; like the fool that I am, I always told myself “Yeah, I’m gonna get up there and get my TV-model LP signed soon,” but I never did. And now I never will, alas.

Crap In A Barrel

Posted on June 12, 2023 by Mike

Going down hard.

We take no pleasure in reporting that @CrackerBarrel has fallen.

A once family friendly establishment has caved to the mob. pic.twitter.com/IM0p1NT20S

— Texas Family Project (@FamilyProjectTX)

June 8, 2023

Meh, no great loss as far as I’m concerned, their food always sucked anyway. The best part? This.

It may not just be ESG pressure, there is every possibility that Cracker Barrel hired an Ivy League MBA to work some magic on its brand image, just like Bud Light did.

Whatever the case, Cracker Barrel stock is now in free fall.

At the beginning of June Pride Month, Cracker Barrel stock (CBRL) was trading at $102 per share. It is now down to $91 per share, losing $4 per share on Friday alone.

Like Target and Anheuser Busch, Cracker Barrel is committing stock market seppuku. In barely a week (during which the stock market rose) Cracker Barrel lost 11% of its value.

Oh well, even if heartland American stop going to Cracker Barrel, maybe those lost customers can be replaced by coastal leftists who are all wrapped up in sexual identities. So long as Cracker Barrel pivots to serving sustainable, organic, locally sourced, GMO-free fare in hip, urban settings, there should be no problem replacing the customer base that is being run off.

May those Wokester CEOs at Crap In A Barrel have joy of their choice.

A curious incuriousity

Posted on June 9, 2023June 10, 2023 by Mike

Most curious indeed.

There isn’t a real journalist in the universe — not a beat reporter or opinion writer or copy editor — who wouldn’t want to read an informant’s account of a sitting president taking a bribe. You can debunk it. You can prove it. But you want to see it. But therein lies the problem. There aren’t many journalists left.

Take Philip Bump, who contends that “James Comer’s bribery allegations are out on a very shaky limb,” even though Comer has never once made any bribery allegations. The House investigation is focused on the “decision-making process” that followed the informant’s accusation.

Last week, CNN ran a piece that might well have been sent verbatim from the FBI press shop. CNN’s “sources” claimed that “the form in question has origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020” and the investigation led nowhere. A big nothingburger.

It’s this CNN story, and another version in The Washington Post (almost surely from the same sources), that allowed Jamie Raskin, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, to claim that “Rudy Giuliani surfaced these allegations,” and that a “team” had looked at the document and “in August determined that there was no grounds to escalate from an initial assessment to a preliminary investigation.”

None of that, apparently, is true. As my colleagues Margot Cleveland and Mollie Hemingway report, former Attorney General William Barr told The Federalist that the investigation had never been closed, it had merely been sent to an office in Delaware. And the document did not emanate from Giuliani — the same ploy used to undercut the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story — but from a 2017 whistleblower report that showed up in a 2020 search. No one has come forward to accuse Barr of lying, so I assume the above is true.

Who knows what this is all about? I’ve learned not to make too many assumptions. For all I know, this all leads to a rickety accusation and a dead end.

Oh, I think we all already know perfectly well what it’s all about, David. Fact is, you could count the number of real American journalists still extant on the fingers of one hand, with a pinky and a thumb left over. The Praetorian Media’s total lack of interest in the Biden Crime Family’s endemic corruption isn’t in the least perplexing, once you’ve acknowledged who and what they are at bottom.

Ain’t getting mine

Posted on June 9, 2023 by Mike

Except bullets first.

No, Just No
They tell us that we are paranoid because no one wants to take our guns.

Jane Fonda says that we need to kill all of the white men in order to save the planet. You see, according to her and the climate change religion, we only have eight years to cut our greenhouse gas emissions in half, or the world is doomed. Of course, they were saying we only had eight years last year. They also said it the year before that. They also said we only had eight years in 2007, sixteen years ago.

She should have been arrested and sentenced to death for treason when she went to North Vietnam and sat on that anti-aircraft gun for a photo opportunity. I am sick of the anti-American left telling me how they are going to come after me to have me killed, fired, deplatformed, or whatever, then telling me that I am paranoid for not wanting to give up my guns.

I am not giving up my guns, I am not getting into the rail car, and if you try, my only hope is that I make the trade an expensive one.

Preeee-cisely. As the Marines used to say, I plan to go to Hell in a crowd.

I repeat: stop flapping your yaps and just come and take them already, Leftards. At this point, there are untold millions of us out here who are hoping you’ll do exactly that. Enough talky-talk; do or do not, there is no try. So let’s get this party started, then. We’ll see how THAT works out for you in the end.

Any time you feel froggy, cockholsters.

SSDD

Posted on June 8, 2023June 8, 2023 by Mike

Yet another cave from the Vichy GOPe, just another act in FederalGovCo Kabuki theater. UNEXPECTED!!!™

House GOP drops plan to hold FBI director in contempt

Anybody out there surprised by this? If so, may I ask WHY, exactly?

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Wednesday dropped its plans to advance a measure holding FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress.

Why it matters:

A: It doesn’t. It never did. I repeat: SSDD.

The contempt push was the closest House Republicans have come to direct action against an executive branch official as part of their vast array of probes into the Biden administration.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee similarly scrapped its plans last month to target Secretary of State Antony Blinken with contempt.

GOP lawmakers have also inched closer to impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Driving the news: Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement the FBI accepted his demand to let all his panel’s members review a 2020 document detailing allegations against President Biden.

“After weeks of refusing to even admit the FD-1023 record exists, the FBI has caved,” Comer said, calling it “an important step toward conducting oversight of the FBI.”

The committee’s planned markup on its 17-page contempt resolution, planned for Thursday, has been removed from the schedule.

Context: Republicans have honed in on the document — which, they say, accuses Biden of taking payments from a foreign national in exchange for affecting policy decisions as vice president — to try to bolster their case that he and his family are corrupt.

Which none but a fool—or a Biden-boosting butt-boy and/or Jurassic Media “journalist” (BIRM)—didn’t already know anyway.

Joe Biden allegedly paid $5M by Burisma executive as part of a bribery scheme, according to FBI document
Biden’s son Hunter was a board member of Burisma and also allegedly in on the scheme

EXCLUSIVE: President Joe Biden was allegedly paid $5 million by an executive of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, where his son Hunter Biden sat on the board, a confidential human source told the FBI during a June 2020 interview, sources familiar told Fox News Digital.

The sources briefed Fox News Digital on the contents of the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions.

The FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI’s interview with a “highly credible” confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Fox News Digital has not seen the form, but it was described by several sources who are aware of its contents.

According to the FD-1023 form, the confidential human source said the Burisma executive discussed Hunter’s role on the board. The confidential human source questioned why the Burisma executive needed his or her advice in acquiring access to U.S. oil if he had Hunter Biden on the board. The Burisma executive answered by referring to Hunter Biden as “dumb.”

The Burisma executive explained to the confidential source that Burisma had to “pay the Bidens” because Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma, and explained how difficult it would be to enter the U.S. market in the midst of that investigation.

The confidential source further detailed that conversation, suggesting to the Burisma executive that he “pay the Bidens $50,000 each,” to which the Burisma executive replied, it is “not $50,000,” it is “$5 million.”

“$5 million for one Biden, $5 million for the other Biden,” the Burisma executive told the confidential human source, according to a source familiar with the document.

In related news, Sen Ms Lindsey Graham (“R”—Swamp) announced that he would immediately be empaneling a “blue-ribbon investigative commission” to “get to the bottom” of these “serious allegations.” When reached for comment on Ms Graham’s declaration of “intent,” Hunter Biden and his father both tried unsuccessfully to stifle yawns, after which Hunter asked, “Say, Big Guy, anything good on TV tonight?”

Eminently impeachable update! One of these things is not like the other.

BREAKING: Trump Says He Has Been Indicted By Biden’s DOJ — Will Be Arraigned Tuesday in Miami!
Former President Donald Trump has posted to Truth Social that Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has indicted him and he will be arraigned in Miami on Tuesday. According to Trump, the indictment is over the “boxes hoax” in which he allegedly had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump maintains that the documents were declassified before he left office.

“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is ‘secured’ by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time,” Trump wrote in the first of three posts to Truth Social.

Trump continued, “I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM. I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”

Oh, rest assured, Mr President sir, it WOULDN’T happen to any other former president. As with impeachment, that dubious “honor” is reserved exclusively for you, I’m afraid.

Smoke, mirrors, and the fog of (pseudo) war

Posted on June 3, 2023June 3, 2023 by Mike

I wish I could argue with TL on this, any of it. Alas, I cannot.

We find ourselves under more tyrannical oppression than at the time of the Revolutionary War. I’d say that we’re under more oppression than the Soviet population during Stalin. American citizens don’t readily recognize it, because a lot of it’s going on in the background. Whereas Stalin had to send troops to a person’s door, the federal government comes right in, taps into SMART phones, refrigerators, electric meters, Wi-Fi connections and home speakers, which are actually microphones. This is equivalent to having British troops quartering with every family in America and the British didn’t even do that. Instead they recognized people for their opinions toward independence or resistance and quartered troops in their homes. Now, the Feds invade every home, every phone, everything posted or even written on Wi-Fi connected computers, like this one.

Free speech is dead, though many continue to verbalize their opinions, they’re forced to recognize the possible consequences. The wrong words can lead to unemployment and increasingly, with ESG and DEI, outcast, literally exiled from public interactions. It worked during the pandemic and that set up the model for the future of government interactions with the serfs, aided wholeheartedly by compromised corporations, who eagerly sign on to these discriminatory measures in order to receive government grants and positive representations in their increasingly hostile regulatory environment.

Like many readers, I knew somehow McCarthy would cave. I thought that fear of losing the Speaker of the House role through a motion to vacate the chair would deter him from making it too bad, but my understanding is that not only did he give Biden everything he could have wanted from the debt deal, he also agreed to align openly as the uniparty by requesting Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat Leader, to join him in passing the deal in the House where more Democrats voted for it than Republicans. For those 73 Republicans who voted no, well I’d say good job, but that’s the only thing they were sent there to do and they did it. I hate telling someone “good job” for doing what is expected. I usually save that for someone who outperforms.

People like Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene surprisingly voted for the bill. Intellectually, I know they did so for assurances that they would be able to expose the January 6th videos or to be able to bring impeachment charges to the floor for several members of the Biden Administration, but Steve Bannon made a good point when he acknowledged that if they voted for the debt limit increase bill, they don’t have the stomach to fully prosecute anything else; they won’t be able to hold the DOJ or FBI accountable, because they gave away the purse strings to Biden and Jeffries.

When it comes to vacating the chair, McCarthy doesn’t have to worry. Sure, some Republican will call that to a vote, but now we know that a significant part of the Democrats in Congress will vote to retain him. What would be interesting is if they betrayed him on that promise and got enough RINOs to go along and they elected Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House in a Republican congress. While that would destroy the purpose of having a majority in the House, who cares at this point when the people have been so thoroughly betrayed?

Not me, for one. God, how I would LOVE to see ’em do precisely that. At that point, even the pretense of a sham of a Kabuki of a fraud would be well and truly finished, beyond any possibility of further debate—even on the part of the most adamant “but muh DEMUHCRACY!!” reality-denialist.

Not just Republicans, either. The House bill that McCarthy went into negotiations with was supported by 75% of the people, including Democrats and Independents. If this were a vaunted “democracy” as they claim, they just proved that it’s not even that.

Most of what is going on in our country is illegal, unethical, or in violation of some operating principle. You just have to find your niche and dig into it. If enough of us who feel betrayed and daily insulted by the woke/DEI/green agenda would do that we would find some means of pushing back that would be effective and could be repeated.

There’s always a workaround, and humans will always find it eventually. It’s bringing enough of them around to wanting to, to finally admitting to themselves that they really need to, that’s tough.

Coming unglued

Posted on May 31, 2023May 31, 2023 by Mike

Is Trump losing his grip?

What Is He Thinking? Trump Attacks His Former Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
On Tuesday evening, former President Donald Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social and launched an assault on his former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. He leveled accusations against her, claiming that she distorted poll figures during her appearance on Fox News.

“Kayleigh ‘Milktoast’ [sic] McEnany just gave out the wrong poll numbers on Fox News. I am 34 points up on DeSanctimonious, not 25 up. While 25 is great, it’s not 34. She knew the number was corrected upwards by the group that did the poll,” Trump wrote.“The RINOS & Globalists can have her. FoxNews should only use REAL Stars!!!”

Trump decided to attack McEnany, who is now a co-host of Fox News’ Outnumbered, where she reported on polling data from Iowa indicating that Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is “closing the gap” with Donald Trump since officially announcing his candidacy last week.

Trump’s use of “milktoast” is an apparent misspelling of the term “milquetoast,” which refers to a timid or weak person. How exactly can Trump justify using such a term to describe McEnany, given how she effectively and aggressively handled the media during her time as White House Press Secretary?

Indeed, Trump’s attack on McEnany is unacceptable. She demonstrated unwavering loyalty to the former president, even enduring personal attacks on his behalf. And for what reason did he turn on her — reporting on a poll? Trump has attacked many people who served him loyally, but it’s still hard to believe that McEnany is now on that list.

President Trump did great things for this country, but his attack on McEnany — and frankly, most of his attacks on people who chose to serve in (his) administration — have been unhinged and childish. I suspect they will drive more people away from supporting him in 2024.

Not that post-Ailes Faux News is exactly a paragon of journalistic virtue or anything, mind, but I remember liking McEnany a lot myself when she was in Trump’s employ as press secretary. She was aggressive, well-prepared, and never took a single ounce of the horseshit lobbed by shitlib propagandists during their ceaseless attacks on her and her boss lying down. “Milktoast”? Oh, puh-LEEZE. She was never anything of the sort, and Trump ought to know that better than just about anybody.

Frankly, it bears careful thinking over; like pRetend “president” Biden, Trump is no spring chicken himself, and we’re all susceptible to gradual loss of mental acuity and emotional outbursts as we age. Unlike Biden, Trump has held up remarkably well, both physically and mentally, but that doesn’t mean that this will remain so forever. I’ll hold off for the nonce on offering a firm opinion on what the real deal here might be, but this overwrought, ugly, and wholly pointless blue-on-blue diatribe against McEnerny over a completely trivial non-issue is somewhat worrisome.

This inexplicable fusillade against one of the best of his very few good hiring decisions having been provoked by what at this early stage amounts to no more than a rounding error, it’s all too clear that Ron DeSantis is now living in Trump’s head rent-free and full-time. If Trump hopes to regain the Presidency, he needs to tighten up and get back on track again—to focus more tightly on America’s enemies, not his own.

Update! In light of my choice for post title, looks like this might be the perfect opportunity to run my favorite STP tune, I think.

But DAMN, ain’t that wine-red-finish, single-bound Les Paul a beauty!

Updated update! Stripping all the gears.

The thing is, I’m likely to vote for Trump, and it wouldn’t be the first time. I know what I’m getting. I like his foreign policy, as far as his anti-war stance, and impressive diplomacy, given his personality quirks. It’s DeSantis who has something to prove to me. There are things I’m waiting to hear that would help me view him on a national and global stage, instead of my current perspective which is “America’s Governor.” Everyone calm down! Yes, I’m an undecided voter, heaven forbid.

But, I keep saying to myself, and even posting on social media: “I swear Trump wants me to vote for DeSantis.” I also keep saying that it doesn’t seem like anyone is competing for my vote, because it’s just a bunch of internet shaming on one side or the other. Am I required to vote for who has the best internet trolls, or am I supposed to cast a ballot based on which meme is the most disparaging? Pray tell.

And, perhaps Trump is running his worst campaign, ever. This seems hard to do, next to DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces kickoff where I was given a migraine but gathered no new information. True story.

On Tuesday, Team Trump posted their latest criticism of DeSantis, claiming that he voted in 2017 to confirm Christopher Wray as the Director of the FBI. Sick burn, except…DeSantis was a member of the House, and it’s the Senate that confirms appointments. There is no way that I just started my day by correcting a multi-hundred-million-dollar campaign about how Congress works, right? IS THIS REAL LIFE?

Not only this, but Wray was Trump’s appointment…that was the quality work that can be ascribed to Trump. Had Wray not been selected by the President, no member of the Senate could have cast a vote to confirm him. So, Team Trump, this isn’t the “own” you think it is, and you should probably not taunt people for voting for Trump’s nominations in the future. It wasn’t DeSantis’ job to pick an FBI Director, it was Trump’s.

Ummmm…OOF.

Update to the updated update! There’s a simple, obvious solution to the underlying problem here, which we will almost certainly never avail ourselves of. Since the Constitution sets a firm floor for a President’s age (35), should we not consider establishing a formal, black-letter age ceiling as well? Or must we forever resign ourselves to being ruled by a neverending procession of addled, decrepit old fossils?

“Ageist discrimination,” you complain? Meh—so what, who cares? For many years now, I’ve wished in vain to see our ruling gerontocracy at last broken up, at the very least via a tacit mass refusal to support any nominee in his 70s. Maybe the issue could be addressed as part of that sweeping, comprehensive election-reform package we’re never going to get around to actually, y’know, doing.

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