Begins At Home – Page 38

Restaurant holocaust

Posted on July 28, 2020July 28, 2020 by Mike

New economic data released Wednesday by business review website Yelp shows that approximately 60 percent of restaurants that had to shut down during the pandemic have permanently closed their doors.

Outlined in a July economic impact report, this figure is notably higher than the same data from March, where Yelp found 53 percent of all restaurant closures were indicated as permanent closures.

Countrywide data indicates that the most permanent closures have occurred in California, Texas, Florida and New York — states that have been or are currently especially affected by the virus.

Overall, as of July 10, 26,160 restaurants closed in the U.S., an increase of 2,179 since June 15.

Bad as that is, it’s only the beginning. Partial, tightly-controlled “reopenings” requiring no more than fifty percent capacity, early close times, no bar seating at all, and the like will no more than delay the now-inevitable tsunami of destruction. The sad, sorry fact is that the restaurant biz as we once knew it, along with many other worthwhile and irreplaceable things, is now gone for good—all wilfully and wantonly destroyed by bureaucrats on a power-rampage; a compliant press; Democrat-Socialist politicians intent on unseating Trump by any means necessary; and the foolish, unnecessary panic instigated at the behest of that nefarious combine.

Resist we much!

Posted on July 27, 2020July 27, 2020 by Mike

Signs and portents—encouraging ones.

One such example is the police department in the town of Marshall, Arkansas. Despite Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) officially signing an order forcing civilians across the state to wear masks, Police Chief Lang Holland has said that his officers will not force anyone to do so, nor will they wear masks themselves.

Chief Holland said that people “have the freedom to choose” whether or not they wear a mask, and that such a move “should not be dictated by the nanny state.”

A similar example, also located in Arkansas, is found in Lonoke County. There, Sheriff John Staley said that while he agrees with Governor Hutchinson’s mask decision, his department will not “be out writing tickets for masks,” primarily because they simply do not have the manpower needed to enforce such an arbitrary rule.

Similar acts of civil rebellion by police forces have occurred in Texas, Montana, and Alabama, among other states.

Good on ya, fellas, with three groans and a moist fart for Lonoke’s Staley for doing the right thing for the wrong reason. It’s only a bare handful of PD’s and states at this point, but it’s a start.

It’s come to this

Posted on July 25, 2020July 25, 2020 by Mike

Ace sums up the current contretemps before providing us with the Feel Good Video of the Week.

Police won’t protect us. It’s time to admit our only defense is self-defense, and the only help we can expect is self-help.

And to mutually vow to each other that we will never, ever convict someone for resorting to self-help, if we’re on someone’s jury.

Either the state will enforce the law and protect us, or we’ll protect ourselves, and protect those who protect themselves. Period.

The officials sworn to protect the civil peace have instead decided to protect the bandits and looters and arsonists. Instead of prosecuting them for their crimes, they nullify the law and let them out the next morning.

We can nullify the law too, guys.

You’re not the only ones who can set aside the law and free people for what might, in other times, be considered crimes of violence.

If you won’t prosecute looters, arsonists, and insurrectionists, we will not convict those who use violence to stop looters, arsonists, and insurrectionists, or use violence (as here) just to fucking get home without being illegally held-up by bandits blocking the road like old-time highwaymen and road-thieves.

The state has decided we will be ruled by the mob.

But we never agreed to that. The Constitution says that we will rule ourselves, through our elected officials. Not to the violent insurrectionists and anarchists the police and government have turned the streets over to.

Read it all, then watch the vid. You’ll feel a whole lot better.

The sad fact is, if Real Americans had taken to dealing out some righteous street justice to PantiFa and all the other ingredients of the noisome, toxic Leftist bouillabaise right from jump, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.

The Peltzmann effect

Posted on July 22, 2020July 22, 2020 by Mike

Unintended consequences.

In the 1960s, numerous countries (including the United States) began adopting laws that mandated the use of seat belts. The hope was that this would reduce mortality in motor accidents.

However, economist Gordon Tullock once quipped that “if the government wanted people to drive safely, they’d mandate a spike in the middle of each steering wheel.” Why would that be? Because of how we respond to risks. If we know that even the slightest accident might impale us on our driving wheel, we would all drive more safely. While it is a strange thought experiment, we can run it in reverse. If one driver knows that all the other drivers are wearing a seat belt while he also wears a seat belt, that driver faces a lower risk level. As a result, feeling safer, that driver acts more recklessly. He exceeds the speed limit, accelerates at a yellow light etc. This greater recklessness, in turn, increases the risks of an accident.

As a result, there is an ambiguous effect from the regulation. On the one hand, the law reduces risks but it also induces a behavioral response that increases the likelihood of an accident happening. Thus, we must wonder which effect dominates the other.

The same logic applies to face masks. Imagine a fictitious Canadian economist who, fearing the risk of bringing the virus to a loved one or catching the virus himself, avoids situations that would be too risky for his tastes. He avoids going to the coffee shop for a latte and limits himself only to doing groceries. With everyone being forced to wear a mask, he may decide to go pick up that latte. Technically, the activities of shopping for coffee and groceries are individually less risky with mandatory face masks. However, that fictitious economist now exposes himself to two activities that carry a risk rather than a single activity and so he faces a higher likelihood of catching the disease. Just as with seat belts, we must ask which effect dominates: the risk reduction of masks or the behavioral response?

In the end, the answer is an empirical one. Yet, the case of seat belt laws suggests that the precise answer might be elusive. The first paper of importance on the effect of seat belts was published in the 1970s by Sam Peltzman who found that the behavioral response by American drivers completely washed out the effects of the law. Since then, numerous papers on the topic have been published. Some confirm the findings of Peltzman while others infirm them. All these studies confirm that there is some offsetting behavior. They simply cannot agree on how strong it is.

However, let us take one important fact in consideration: the first laws mandating seat belt use were adopted in the 1960s. This is more than fifty years ago. Yet, there is still a discussion among experts who try to design the most convincing statistical tests. If there is uncertainty about the past, how can experts today be certain that compelling the use of face masks will not result in a greater level of risk taking? What if the offsetting behavior is stronger? Experts and policy-makers probably do not know this information (and I believe that they cannot reasonably be expected to know this). As the damages from faster propagation are exponential (given the nature of the virus), there is a real risk of backfire!

The question of whether or not seat belts, motorcycle helmets, masks, suits of medieval armor, etc save lives might be a fascinating one. It’s probably worth the ongoing research it inspires, I suppose. Ultimately, though, it’s the wrong question. What any and all Americans SHOULD be asking themselves, and constantly, is this: in a supposedly “free” country, with a government whose reach and scope is confined within very explicit limits set by the US Constitution, are ANY such mandates in accordance with those limits? Or do they so flagrantly breach them as to do far greater harm to the Constitution’s continued authority and relevance, thereby harming the nation entire?

Tragically, most of us long ago forgot about just how important that question really is, and no longer care anyway. If they think about them at all, they consider such notions quaint, antiquated, and hopelessly silly—the exclusive province of cranks and fools who are completely out of touch with reality, too thick to really comprehend what government’s true purpose is: to solve every problem, grant every wish, scratch every itch, safeguard every life, and abolish all risk, forever.

Apologies to one and all

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Mike

For the delay in posting the new Donnybrook edition this week, y’all. Had a major automotive disaster over the weekend: apparently, either the timing chain or the camshaft broke, bending a few valves and leaving me without compression and therefore stranded until I could get a tow-truck out to drag the shattered carcass on back to the house. Been coping with that mess all week so far, which has of necessity shifted all other considerations to the back burner for the nonce.

To make matters worse, after consulting with the fine folks at Hosting Matters it seems almost certain that all those suspicious user registrations I mentioned last week are most likely the precursor moves for another catastrophic Russian hack attempt, a la the one that laid us so very low this past winter. So for now anyway, registration is disabled. I’m considering either just forgoing registration permanently or implementing a Captcha-type deal for user logins. I hate to do that, really; I know it’s a damnable pain in the ass, particularly for those of you who comment most frequently around here. So I dunno; we’ll see about that, I suppose. Maybe the absence of any login process at all for a while will be enough to persuade those nefarious creeps to look elsewhere to get their sick jollies.

Liberal Utopia: if you build it, they will run

Posted on July 11, 2020July 11, 2020 by Mike

Looks like we’re gonna need another Big Beautiful Wall, stat.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former police commissioners such as Bernard Kerik, who headed up the NYPD force from 2000 to 2001 and directed the police response to 9/11, can only watch and weep as the city they had so successfully cleaned up rapidly descends into chaos and carnage. This Nightmare in New York is brought to you courtesy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo; Mayor Bill de Blasio; and a cast of thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters, anarchists, and street thugs. The once vibrant city is turning into a virtual no-go zone of looted shops, shuttered store windows, and skyrocketing murder rates. The number of shooting victims is up 51% this year so far, and that tragic trend is accelerating. In June of this year, there were 250 shootings, as opposed to 97 in June of 2019.

New York was already reeling from the highest coronavirus death toll in the (formerly) United States, due in large part to Gov. Cuomo approving the transfer of thousands of recovering COVID-19 patients to nursing homes at the height of the pandemic. Then the rioting began, and Mayor de Blasio’s response was to shame cops and propose cutting his city’s police department budget by more than one billion dollars. (That’s one thousand million for those of you who were educated in the city’s public schools.)

The Dimwitted Duo have caused a mass exodus, with 500,000 mostly middle-class New Yorkers fleeing the city thus far and many more likely to follow. Half a million New Yorkers heading for the proverbial hills. That’s more than the entire population of Minneapolis, where all the madness started. Of course, with the Minneapolis City Council repeatedly voting to disband its police force, the entire population of the “Mini apple” may head for the hills as well.

They should all be forced—at gunpoint if necessary—to stay and enjoy the fruits of their labor. They should DAMNED sure not be permitted to scatter out and infest the more civilized and liveable parts of the country, locust-like, to then start lobbying for, voting for, and otherwise insisting upon the exact same policies that they fouled their own nests with all over again.

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE!!!

Posted on July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 by Mike

Whatever you do, DON’T PANIC. Unless they tell you to.

A new pandemic is raging. Even before the Covid 19 pandemic has subsided, the WHO has now warned that a virulent form of Hoof and Mouth disease has “jumped” species in record time from horse to humans and is threatening to devastate the planet. It is even more deadly than the original. An appropriate name for the pathogen is being considered, as we speak. A tricky task, this, as it is imperative to avoid giving offense and fostering lasting grievance on the part of those who would level the charge of speciesism. After all, equine phobia is a thing. We must avoid maligning horses and their hoofs at all cost. Needless to say, the same consideration must apply to their owners, as well as their countries of domicile and origin.

Let us discuss the symptoms: Because we are confronted with a new disease, the syndrome and its various manifestations are still regarded as capable of impressive plasticity—that is, they are changing and changeable. The disease can rampage through every organ, bone, nerve, blood vessel and system in your body. The result is manifold noxious, painful, and deadly symptoms that appear to be unrelated to each other. Furthermore, these symptoms are similar to every disease, ailment, malady discomfort and inconvenience that you, or anyone else in the world, has ever experienced. Thus, it is easily confused with other morbidities. But, make no mistake about it, the underlying cause can only be one thing when testing indicates that the pathogen is present.

Curiously enough, the pathogen has an affinity for the right foot of its human host. At this early stage of the pandemic, we can already state, with confidence, that the microbe can be detected by the application of a simple laboratory test to the right foot. A swab administered between the big toe and second toe with a sterile Q-Tip is capable of rendering a true positive, false positive, true negative or false negative result, based on the suppleness of the skin. In short, the test is just as efficacious as the current Covid 19 test. A small fragment of DNA of the patient’s skin is sufficient for one of the above four possible diagnoses.

However, acute observational skills are also imperative! Let us describe what we definitively know: In addition to the laboratory test, the disease can also be diagnosed visually, if the carrier’s big right toe angulates away from the foot, upward by one fourth of an inch, in either or both directions.

Because an emergency has been declared, a vaccine is being rushed to market and will be ready between six months and two years from now. It will be administered alongside the greatly anticipated vaccine for Covid 19. By necessity, we have dispensed with the usual safety controls required for other drugs. Fortunately, therapeutics, such as hydroxychloroquine, widely in use for over 70 years for other diseases, and proven safe for them, is frowned upon by pharmacists. They are withholding the drug from the patients whose doctors prescribe them for Covid 19. Obviously, the pharmacist’s judgment should and does pre-empt the advice of the patient’s doctor! The pharmacist studied drugs in school. That is why he or she is called a pharmacist. What does a doctor know?

Now that we know what we are dealing with, what do we do to prevent the spread? We cannot simply wait for the vaccine. Patience is not an option. There is no time for that. We must act now!

Fortunately, our experience with Covid 19 has paved the way for imposing the additional discipline required for battle against the soon to be renamed disease originating from the beloved horse. First of all, we have become accustomed to sheltering in place. We now have learned to distinguish between essential and non-essential businesses. We wear a mask and we maintain social distance. Furthermore, we are intensely motivated to continue to observe the above admonitions, rules, and guidelines, thanks to our recent and current riots.

The riots have taught us that the nonessential businesses are the ones that the rioters have looted, ransacked, and burned. We know that they are nonessential because we are still alive even though those businesses are gone. If they had been essential, I would not be writing this essay and you would not be reading it.

This would seem to be satire worthy of the Bee itself…OR IS IT?!? No matter what, we must all proceed with extreme caution to eliminate all risk until we’re absolutely certain one way or the other. Therefore, I am pleased to join the author in her urgent call for a new national and/or state and/or local and/or neighborhood decree requiring every American to…

No, I can’t do it; you gotta go read the whole thing to find out.

Just how the hell DID we get here, anyway?

Posted on July 5, 2020July 5, 2020 by Mike

If we’re ever to have any hope of repairing this badly broken nation, we all know where that Herculean labor must begin.

A recent man on the street interview by Campus Reform saw many college-aged kids asked about what they think of America, its history, and what the 4th of July means. Nearly all of them showed an astounding level of ignorance, and not even just ignorance, but disinformation.

Most didn’t know the 4th of July celebrates the day we declared independence, and all but one couldn’t even come close to guessing the year. Guesses as to which war helped us gain our independence ranged from the Civil War to World War 2.

What they didn’t know isn’t even as shocking as what they thought they knew.

Nearly all of them believed that America is a racist country founded on racism. This is completely false as Lincoln himself pointed out during a speech generations ago.

“America was built off slavery,” said one of the kids.

One of the kids said that America is built off a bad legacy and that the presidency of Donald Trump is proof that our country is a racist one.

There was, however, awareness by the students that something was missing once confronted with their own ignorance. One confessed to never having been taught any of this in school.

“I just know that teachers do not want to teach it,” said one of the kids.

Campus Reform later proved this in the same video as an interview was conducted with a couple of teachers, one of whom admitted to not teaching American history, focusing instead of social issues and painting America as a racist country. Sadly enough, the teacher didn’t even seem to know what year we won our independence.

Can it really be any wonder that things have deteriorated to such a fantastical degree? Somewhere, in one of the very hottest corners of the excruciating fires of Hell, Antonio Gramsci smiles over his brilliant victory.

This, too, must be part of the overall plan for recovery.

You can take all that as "crazy talk," or you can wake up and see where this all came from and what history tells you has to be done with it, before it consumes us and we are no more.

— Martin McPhillips (@corpseinarmor) July 3, 2020

They have called the question. That's the answer.

— Martin McPhillips (@corpseinarmor) July 3, 2020

(Via Larwyn and WRSA)

Independence Day, or something like it

Posted on July 4, 2020July 5, 2020 by Mike

This is gonna be a long ‘un for sure, with some twists and turns y’all might find surprising. I’ll probably still only manage to get around to a fraction of all the things I want to say even so, and I’m thinking I’ll just go ahead and dump half of it below the fold under the “More” link.

First off, a real gem from the inimitable John Wilder.

Boston, Massachusetts: 122 killed, 211 wounded in a daybreak raid by troops sent to confiscate privately owned weapons and ammunition. “Patriots” claim government troops fired first.

It has been reported that at dawn a group of self-styled “Patriots” engaged a heavily armed troops sent to confiscate guns and ammunition. These “Patriots” though initially outnumbered, stood by the side of the road, fully armed with modern assault weapons at the ready. The “Patriot” leader at the site, John Parker, claims to have been only standing there with the other “Patriots”. It has reported that Parker said, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

According to Parker, the soldiers ordered the “Patriots” to disperse, and he ordered his men to “disburse and go home,” but “the soldiers were yelling,” and there was confusion. There was a shot, fired, but both the “Patriots” and the spokesman for the troops claim the other side fired the first shot. Badly outnumbered at first, the “Patriots” were reinforced by the local members of their radical libertarian movement as the firefight wore on. House-to-house fighting was reported.

Sources to this blog have indicated that the “Patriots” had been tipped off to the troop movements and were aware the gun confiscation was coming. The troops were forced to withdraw under fire, although rescue from a larger detachment of troops from Boston was required for their safe evacuation.

A local lawyer, John Adams, viewed the battlefield the next day, “The die was cast. The Rubicon crossed.” Pressed by this blog for an explanation of these cryptic comments, he referred us to our previous post (American Caesar: Coming Soon To A Country Near You?).

The events listed above happened 245 years ago, except John Adams being snarky to me, yet somehow the concepts behind them are fresh in American life in 2020. The battles of Lexington and Concord, though small by today’s standards, produced the “shot heard ‘round the world” as the American Dream and American Identity were formed.

Why yes, you WILL want to read the rest, why do you ask? John’s closing question is piercing; its pertinence is everlasting, and will never fade.

Next, via Ed Driscoll, a 4th of July speech from the greatest President America ever had, or ever will have.

It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.

Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the Colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. Whatever else we may say of it, the Declaration of Independence was profoundly American.

If this apprehension of the facts be correct, and the documentary evidence would appear to verify it, then certain conclusions are bound to follow. A spring will cease to flow if its source be dried up; a tree will wither if its roots be destroyed. In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.

We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Under a system of popular government there will always be those who will seek for political preferment by clamoring for reform. While there is very little of this which is not sincere, there is a large portion that is not well informed. In my opinion very little of just criticism can attach to the theories and principles of our institutions. There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes. We do need a better understanding and comprehension of them and a better knowledge of the foundations of government in general. Our forefathers came to certain conclusions and decided upon certain courses of action which have been a great blessing to the world. Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought.

A wonderful, insightful speech that, to those among us of a certain raddled decrepitude, probably sounds at least somewhat familiar. But then, we old fogies came up in a time when Civics was still a class taught in the schools.

As beautiful, as uplifting as Coolidge’s speech most certainly is, however, it is also profoundly depressing—downright heartbreaking, in fact, when you contemplate how very much we’ve either allowed to be stolen from us or just flat given away with nary a thought.

Continue reading “Independence Day, or something like it” →

A win is a win

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by Mike

Even the smallest victories count in these parlous times.

A southern Illinois judge on Thursday voided Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker’s Coronavirus lockdown orders.

The Illinois Attorney General’s office is expected to appeal.

Pritzker first declared a statewide disaster because of Coronavirus back in early March and continued to issue 30 day extensions — he has used the disaster proclamations in his restrictions in each ‘reopening phase’ dubbed “Restore Illinois.”

Recall, back in April Republican Rep. Darren Bailey sought a restraining order against Governor Pritzker and Clay County Circuit Judge Michael McHaney sided with him personally.

Judge Michael McHaney on Thursday said state law does not give governors the authority to extend disaster proclamations past 30 days or activities and businesses via executive order.

Mo’ bettah still:

The immediate implications of Clay County Circuit Judge Michael McHaney’s order, which stemmed from a lawsuit filed by state Rep. Darren Bailey, were not clear.

“That’s gone as we stand here right now,” said Bailey’s attorney, Thomas DeVore.

“This is a victory for freedom. This is a victory for the people of Illinois,” Bailey said Thursday outside the courthouse, where he was greeted by supporters, some of whom wore T-shirts that read “My governor is an idiot” on the front and “Fire Pritzker” on the back. None of them appeared to be wearing the face coverings required under Pritzker’s executive order

At the risk of seeming churlish, I’d like to remind those good folks that they’re the ones who hired the “idiot” in the first place.

It’s always darkest just before the dawn

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 by Mike

And right now, it’s pretty danged dark out there.

Let me tell you why I believe the polls… Because in 2016, the polls were accurate. No, not the state polls. The state polls were way off. The average of the national polls, however, was almost exactly correct.

President Trump lost the national popular vote in 2016 by 2.1 points — and just barely beat Hillary Clinton.

The average of the national polls in 2016 had Trump behind Hillary by 3.2 points.

So, as you can see, the average of the 2016 national polls was only off by 1.1 points. That’s what you call some damn fine polling, and right now, those very same damn fine polls have Trump losing to Joe Biden by 9.2 points.

And these polls were all taken before the president stupidly tweeted out video of an idiot yelling “White Power!”

Donald Trump is not only losing this election, if the election were held today, his loss would possibly be catastrophic, would be remembered as one of the most humiliating in history. He’s not only facing a landslide rejection of epic proportions, he’s losing to a 77-year-old imbecile and racist who’s hiding out in his basement.

How is this possible?

How is it even remotely possible Joe Biden is kicking Trump’s butt?

Don’t know how much of what Nolte writes here I actually agree with; Nolte was originally a NeverTrumpTard who eventually came around, and for all I know he might be eagerly reverting to type. But the dismayingly-successful COVIDIOT gambit, followed by the sacking and burning of pretty much every city in America with no response from Trump besides unfulfilled Twitter threats, has undoubtedly shaken his support more than anything the Marxist-traitor Left has been able to come up with so far. And, well, here we all are.

Despite their roots in reality, there is no doubt that these crises — and the White House and Senate’s attempts to tackle them — would be reported differently if Hillary Clinton were president.

The Federalist’s exclusive Friday Oval Office interview revealed a president and West Wing that are happy and optimistic, while realistic about the political danger they face — a stark contrast, publisher Ben Domenech notes in Monday’s Transom newsletter, with his “interviews in the dark days of George W. Bush’s second term.”

“The president clearly believes he is down, and that he has been prevented from using ammunition curtailed by the continued challenge of the virus and without Joe Biden doing things like walking outside and talking for more than 30 minutes,” Domenech writes. “But the president clearly is not of the opinion that Biden’s lead is insurmountable.”

And it isn’t. But a corporate media that have struggled for years to achieve their openly stated goal of defeating the president finally have a working plan. The president and his Republican allies had better get ahead of it, or Democrats will win the Senate –and Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

And that there is the problem, really: despite his own natural inclinations, Trump appears now to have shifted—been maneuvered, more accurately, with an unwitting assist of every panic-ninny currently berating sensible people for refusing to don the Mask Of Submission—from the offensive to the defensive. That’s a defeat in and of itself, and I’m unsure how it might be reversed. But it must be, that’s all there is to it. Charles Hurt warns that complacency is the real enemy:

Mr. Trump’s fourth year in office has been an unusual one, to say the least. But even that gives his supporters unwarranted reason to be complacent. They see a president in a time of national threat trying to unify the country while his enemies in Washington and in Congress only work to weaponize every tragedy for their own personal political advantage. With dishonest, evil vermin like this against him, how could Mr. Trump NOT win?

To be clear, any such complacency among Trump supporters is badly misplaced. The only difference between 2016 and 2020 is that this time, Democrats, the political media and the so-called “Deep State” now know that Donald Trump can win. This time, there is nothing they will not do to destroy him.

Something decides every election. oftentimes, it’s the economy, Stupid. Other times it is security. It can even be personality that determines the outcome of an election.

The 2020 election is shaping up to be the “Make it stop!” election. Ardent Trump supporters love Mr. Trump and will walk through fire over broken glass to vote for him. Rabid anti-Trumpers despise the president and will loot and riot through tear gas to vote against him.

This election will be determined by an altogether different group of voters. These voters don’t particularly like Mr. Trump, but they also aren’t crazy haters. Many of them voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and are open to doing so again.

Today, they see rioters in the streets, smashing store fronts, torching police cars and toppling statues. They are appalled, and they just want it to stop.

Mr. Trump claims to be the “law and order” guy, but the mayhem continues under his administration. Mr. Biden is desperate to curry favor with the peaceful protesters so he cowardly declines to forcefully condemn the lawlessness and rioters.

The average voter is watching it all and just wants it all to stop. If a vote for Mr. Biden would make it stop, that’s what he will do. Same with Mr. Trump.

It’s kinda tough for Trump to run on “law and order” when he’s the guy ultimately responsible for seeing to it that law and order is maintained…and anyone can see that he has failed to do so. To wit:

Trump’s campaign has suggested that riots and more disorder will happen if Biden is elected. The problem with this argument is that disorder is already happening now under President Trump.

Admittedly, Trump has had a difficult fight from the beginning. He has been hamstrung by investigations, a hostile deep state resistance from career civil servants, and a nakedly partisan propaganda campaign by the media. Nevertheless, he has a job to do. He’s not merely citizen Trump. He’s not just an observer. It’s his FBI. It’s his government to run. It’s his military to command. If he can’t run it, he needs to fire people until he can get the right people where they belong.

It’s not entirely clear whether Trump’s reluctance to use force is a cynical calculation that this chaos works to his advantage, or a vague instinct that anything he does will boomerang. It does not matter; there is a job to do regardless of electoral consequences.

As it stands, the country and the president are diminished in the face of extended disorder. A strong and swift response, while controversial, would restore the sense that the nation is not up for grabs. It would also do much to restore Trump’s prestige. Impotent tweeting and inaction encourages more assaults, demands, and brinksmanship.

Voters need to understand that ejecting Trump will not lead to a restoration of order. But Trump needs to understand that inaction will not bring it about, either.

Here’s hoping it does. But there IS at least a feeble ray of hope amidst all this gloomy darkness.

President Trump has told people in recent days that he regrets following some of son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s political advice — including supporting criminal justice reform — and will stick closer to his own instincts, three people with direct knowledge of the president’s thinking tell Axios.

Behind the scenes: One person who spoke with the president interpreted his thinking this way: “No more of Jared’s woke s***.” Another said Trump has indicated that following Kushner’s advice has harmed him politically.

…Several conservative allies of the president have reached out to him and advised him to reduce Kushner’s influence over his re-election campaign.

For God’s sake listen to ’em, Mr Preznit, sir. They have a much better idea of where your best interests lie than any damned liberal ever will, however highly your liberal daughter might think of him.

‘Trump has a Jared problem,’ is how one conservative activist who works with the White House on immigration puts it. ‘Jared is a total fuck-up. Everything he touches turns to lead.’ Others groan about ‘four more years of Jared’ should the President be re-elected in November.

And if Trump does, we all do. Dump him. An hour ago wouldn’t be too soon.

Various sources in, or connected to, the administration are stunned by the amount of power Kushner wields. He is a 39-year-old rich kid who had no experience in government before 2016, yet he is in charge of Middle East diplomacy, police reform, a major immigration reform package, criminal justice reform, PPE procurement during COVID-19 and construction of the border wall.

Kushner’s inexperience might be excusable if he were particularly brilliant. People who have sat in meetings with him, however, describe him as ‘slow’, ‘a moron’ and ‘not really that bright’. He struggles to master detail. One official suggests he doesn’t have the acuity to master one, let alone all, of the tasks the President gives him. For instance, he was in charge of producing the 600-plus-page immigration reform package, but conservatives were horrified at how little he knew about the issue he was leading on. He didn’t even seem to know what was in his own proposal; others had to step in when he was unable to answer the more technical questions.

One conservative source who attended a briefing on the plan led by Kushner told The Spectator he was shocked that Kushner seemed to have no sense of how to answer basic questions about chain migration and the diversity visa lottery. ‘He presents as someone very knowledgeable and in the know until he faces questions,’ the source said. ‘He goes off the record or on deep background so people don’t realize he’s a fucking idiot.’

Some assign sinister motives to Kushner’s missteps. His negative influence on the administration, it’s whispered, goes beyond incompetence and veers toward deliberate sabotage. Several individuals close to the administration claim Kushner’s history as a rather progressive Democrat makes him far more ideological than he lets on, and this causes him to subvert Trump’s populist agenda. ‘The depths and lengths Jared is going to to stab Trump in the back [are] quite profound,’ one source claimed. ‘Trump’s been burned by Jared so many times,’ said another.

Naturally. What we’re all pleased to misnomer “liberalism” isn’t a set of political opinions, nor a mere ideology. It is a religion, and its faithful acolytes will always and forever put advancing the agenda way before friendship, family ties, decency, and common sense six days a week, and twice on Sunday. If Trump doesn’t realize this by now, he’d better wake the fuck up, and fast. He has no more than three and half months to turn this out-of-control bus around, before we all wind up bleeding in a ditch on the Left side of the road, dazed and wondering how the hell we got there.

Another case of a gun stopping a crime without a shot being fired

Posted on July 1, 2020July 1, 2020 by Mike

Wonder if the fools will learn anything from this experience?

Shit, who am I kidding.

The aforementioned McCloskeys, of course, are the St Louis attorneys who brandished some hardware at a mob of “peaceful protesters” who had broken down a gate to their neighborhood clearly marked with “No trespassing” and “Private property” signs. It was later learned that the two are self-declared BLM supporters and Mark 1-Mod 0 libtards, more or less, so the fact that they even had any guns at all is an indicator of your typical shitlib hypocrisy. Also obvious from the next pic is why liberals should never be allowed to play with guns:

Pathetic. Pretty much everything about this picture, from a proper gun-handling point of view, is back-asswards and wrong. As for whether they shouldn’t oughta be defending their property against a gang of marauding thugs with firearms, well, I just gotta wonder how quickly the gendarmerie would have had a conservative and/or less well-connected couple booked and in the slammer, their property confiscated, and what their prospects might be for ever getting their freedom or their stuff back.

Hey, your rules, libtards, not ours. If the McCloskeys wind up finding themselves forced to live by ’em against all odds…well, my inclination is to say that one might be amazed how little I care about their plight.

On the other hand, though, maybe they DID learn something at that.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey said they grabbed their guns and stood in front of their house, on their own property, to back-off screaming Black Lives Matter protesters, and told KSDK TV they thought they’d have to make a deadly last stand to protect themselves. See Mark McCloskey’s video below.

When they kick in the gate, when the first thing they do is destroy private property and they storm in angry and shouting and threatening. This isn’t a protest. It’s a revolution. It’s just an attempt to inflict terror.

McCloskey said “the only thing that stopped them was my rifle.” McCloskey’s wife had a pistol. He said she doesn’t know much about guns but knows a lot about feeling scared:

Well, you know, we were always obviously upset. My wife doesn’t know anything about guns, but she knows about being scared. And she grabbed a pistol and I had a rifle, and I was very, very careful I didn’t point the rifle at anybody. The only thing that stopped the crowd from approaching the house was when I had that rifle and I was holding there. The only thing that stemmed the tide. I can’t blame my wife for being terrified and for doing what she could to protect what she thought was her life, it was it was, you know, a horrible, horrible event.

Bold mine, and perhaps indicative of a lightbulb coming on somewhere. And hey, you gotta give ’em at least some props for at least having the stones to go out and make a stand all by their lonesomes against a rampaging, thuggish mob that hugely outnumbered them, rather than cowering indoors praying feverishly that the cops would show up in time to save their asses.

However the education of these two privileged libs may or may not progress from here, the first takeaway for all of us, as confirmed by the despicable city attorney’s statement, is this: your government, on every level, is NOT your friend. The second? As the PJM article concludes, this sort of thing is one of the primary reasons we have a 2A in the first place.

There are other edifying developments here as well:

Following the incident people began calling for the McCloskeys to be doxed – resulting in at least one publication removing their address from a 2018 article detailing the extensive renovations they performed on the 1912 mansion.

One of those calling for doxing the McCloskeys, ‘anti-racism executive coach’ Kyle Dennis, restricted his Twitter account after he himself was doxed.

This piece of subhuman garbage called for his fellow Leftwit assholes to “sue them, ruin their businesses, call their kids, call their families” and the like, in a perfectly typical display of shitlib “tolerance” and “compassion.” Hopefully he’ll suffer all those things and much worse himself now that he’s been given a taste of his own rancid medicine.

One of CA’s readers offers a useful AAR, concluding thusly:

Consider the sharply changing trajectory of these riot mob groups if every time they went after someone in a residence, they had to face not only the home owner, but his/her neighbors as well? What if they realized that they now had such on at least one flank, and reinforcements were probably going to start pinching off their avenue for withdrawl? Once they sense that and panic, that will be some security footage to see as they bolt for the gaps. In such circumstance, I would hope that the residents keep their heads and let them flee unmolested. There is a lesson to even the most obtuse when they realize that the only thing between them and a chalk outline is the good order, discipline and decency of the Average American. It will be a glorious day when some unnamed suburbanite “fixes bayonets” in a possible dystopian future and performs in a way suitable to his forebears.

Lest any of you still have any doubt—which I can’t even BEGIN to imagine at this point—we are indeed at war against Enemies, Domestic—a war which has been slowly, incrementally ramping up from cold to lukewarm to toasty, and will almost certainly wind up going full-on scalding-hot sooner than we might wish. Gird your loins.

Satan’s spawn

Posted on June 28, 2020June 28, 2020 by Mike

So much evil flowing from the evil mind of one truly evil, evil son of a bitch.

“White” does not mean white. “White” in radical parlance means anyone of any race, creed, nationality, color, sex, or sexual preference who embraces capitalism, free markets, limited government, and American traditional culture and values.”

This philosophical concept belongs to Noel Ignatiev, a white American of Russian origin, who is the ideological founding father of numerous radical black movements in America. The author of this concept was even lucky enough to see his best students — Black Lives Matter (BLM) — in action.

Research into the work of this former Harvard professor finally answered the question of why BLM proponents are so negative about the perfectly rational slogan “All Lives Matter.” The fact is that the “black” in the interpretation of Ignatiev is a revolutionary Marxist. All those who do not agree with the Left ideology should, according to Ignatiev, be eliminated.

According to Ignatiev, “black” is not the level of pigment in the skin, but the level of adherence to the Marxist doctrine.

Noel Ignatiev (1940-2019) was born in America in a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia and was a third-generation communist. Moreover, he was not just a member of the Communist Party of the USA from the age of 17 but belonged to its most radical, ultra-left Marxist-Leninist wing. What was his most outstanding contribution to American philosophy? Here it is:

“Eventually white women can breed out, but my feeling is that if you are a white male, you should kill yourself now. If you are a thoughtful person, with a social consciousness who considers himself white, you will consider suicide.”

It was he, a convinced, uncompromising, and resolute communist, who in 1967 proposed the doctrine of “white privilege.” Not as a racial term, but as a somewhat modified Marxist term of the class struggle. The notorious “eradication of white privileges” is simply the standard Marxist wealth redistribution, expressed in newspeak.

No, this is not black racism. This is a systematic, canonical, and “ideologically correct” approach to the class struggle, designed to accomplish a dogmatic Marxist wealth redistribution. Why? Because since the 60s, all leftists have known the maxim: “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”

That is why the two paramilitary wings of the Democrat party — the “white” Antifa and the “black” BLM — perfectly understand each other. After all, the race is not a problem. The main goal is the revolution. (By the way, the “white” wing of the stormtroopers was also created by the communist(s): Soviet agent Ernst Thalmann established Antifa in Germany in 1932.)

Gee, it almost seems as if every ill we currently suffer are really branches of a single tree. Must be a coincidence, I guess.

Should Real Americans be able to salvage anything of their own from the wrack and ruin after the current struggle plays out, the founders of the new nation would do well to remember that there are always limits to free speech, and see to it that the fomenting of Marxism in any way, shape, or form is written into law as a capital crime before they do anything else. As history shows, they will never fail to pull down and destroy any house they’re allowed to infest.

Vipers in the nest

Posted on June 26, 2020June 26, 2020 by Mike

A fellow named Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at the University of London, did a survey. The answers merely confirm what we all already know.

“In order to find out how willing liberal Americans are to jettison the country’s cultural identity, I decided, on May 7th, to ask what I thought were outlandish questions…” he wrote. “The answers I received amazed me. I then repeated the exercise on June 15th, after the George Floyd killing and subsequent protests to see whether things had gotten even crazier. It turns out they have.”

“Respondents on these platforms lean young, liberal, and white,” Kaufmann noted, but he wanted that, as these groups are the most politically extreme. After getting the survey results, he focused on the 414 respondents who identified themselves as “liberal” or “very liberal.”

He had asked them to disagree or agree with 16 questions that aimed to gauge support for “a radical blow to American cultural nationhood.” Besides the three mentioned above, the next most supported changes were, in order:

“Rebalance the history taught in schools until its voices and subjects reflect the demographics of the population and heritage of Native people and citizens of color” (60 percent support among liberals, and 60 percent support among very liberals);

“Allow our public parks to return to their natural state, before a European sense of order was imposed upon them” (58 percent support among liberals, and 68 percent support among very liberals);

“Remove existing statues of white men from public spaces until the stock of statues matches the demographics of the population” (51 percent support among liberals, and 60 percent support among very liberals);

and “Gradually replace many older public buildings with new structures that don’t perpetuate a Eurocentric order, until a more representative public space is achieved” (52 percent support among liberals, and 59 percent support among very liberals).

In addition, majorities of “very liberal” respondents supported destroying Mount Rushmore and renaming streets and neighborhoods according to racial quotas. So did significant percentages of “liberals,” as you can see in the below graph. A third or more supported renaming the United States of America something “that better reflects the contributions of Native Americans and our diversity as a people.”

When he asked these same questions soon after the George Floyd killing and subsequent riots, support for cultural revolution had increased and support for President Trump had dropped, among both self-described liberals and conservatives.

“All of these protest-driven changes are statistically significant,” Kaufmann writes. “…Far from being a disaster for the Left, as in the past, the protests and rioting seem to have invigorated it.”

Did someone mention Proggy being emboldened by his recent victories just now? Why yes, I believe someone did.Kaufmann remains optimistic that this dismal trajectory can still be reversed, but his proposed solutions don’t impress me.

“Faced with neglect or hostility from the media and educational establishment, conservatives should use civil society institutions, associations, and media to keep the country’s customs and traditions alive in recognizable form. This may extend to advocating for, or relocating, statues and other elements of heritage,” he says.

“Relocating” and “advocating for” are not synonymous, but contradictory. The only proper response, the only one that should be considered, is a hearty “go fuck yourself,” perhaps followed by a stern glare of warning and a snarled “just you fucking try it.” That steely-eyed warning must then be righteously supported by actions—not compromise, not half-measures. Sadly, this ain’t gonna cut it:

To keep America’s traditions and principles alive requires boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning the left’s sources of cultural power. It requires taking spoils after successful tactical operations, such as cutting off federal funding to higher education, enacting full-scale school choice at the state and local levels, buying American-made products from smaller businesses that don’t fund Marxist change agents, and starting and joining new cultural institutions to replace the formerly apolitical ones they’ve mind-hived, like the Boy Scouts and League of Women Voters.

And hey, remember to vote Republican, too!

In a pig’s eye. Proposals like this presume we’re still dealing with rational but well-intentioned fellow Americans, not committed Leftist who viscerally hate America, our way of life, and ourselves personally with an almost marvelous malevolence and venom. Such civilized measures may have had a ghost of a chance of working had they been undertaken decades ago, although I’d posit that even that’s doubtful. They will certainly avail us nothing at this late stage.

We have allowed these vipers into the American nest, to flourish and multiply until the nest was overrun. Boycotts and replacing the institutions the Left has poisoned—ie, ceding defeat by abandoning them—will never suffice to clear it and make it habitable again.

To win, you must truly fight

Posted on June 26, 2020June 27, 2020 by Mike

Mercilessly, remorselessly, viciously, until not one brick is left standing upon another, as the great Curtis LeMay is reputed to have said.

There’s a lifelong maxim that states that only the complete destruction of one’s enemies will suffice.  Merely winning a particular battle is not enough.  If they survive the defeat and can come back to fight another day, then the ultimate victory is not assured.  In contrast, the contest still hangs in the balance, and the outcome of any one battle may not be the overriding determinant of the final result.

This thought is summed up in the work The 48 Laws of Power, a bestselling 1998 book by American author Robert Greene.  Law 15 states, “[A] feared enemy must be crushed completely.  If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out.  More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation.  The enemy will recover and seek revenge.  Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.”

The Democrats follow these rules consistently.  They never let up, not for even the briefest moment.  Neither the Democratic Party nor the liberal media have accepted President Trump as the legitimately elected president for an instant.  By refusing to recognize his election victory as valid, they have absolved themselves of any obligation or requirement to accord either Donald Trump or the office of president with the respect and deference that is ordinarily due.  In their minds, his “illegitimacy” gives them free rein to bombard him with all manner of public disrespect, to disavow any policy or accomplishment of his as meaningless, and to concoct an endless stream of fantastical so-called crimes and transgressions that require immediate investigation, with the thinly veiled aim of ending his tenure.

In the end, the upcoming election is not about Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden. The 2020 version of Biden is plainly afflicted by severe, paralyzing dementia, but even in his so-called “prime,” he had no particular vision or core convictions. This is an election either for Trump or against Trump. Biden’s presence is irrelevant.

The roughly 43% of the solid for-Trump vote and the approximately 45% of the always-anti-Trump vote are already baked into the election. The election will turn on that casually-attentive, somewhat-persuadable 12%. The Republicans will make their usual mistake of thinking that the merits of the issues–the facts on the ground, like how far back the economy/employment has come by November and whether or not the racial tension has smoothed out a bit—will carry the day.

The Democrats will instinctively operate on the correct presumption that it is their skill at employing the 48 Laws of Power approach to campaigning in addition to the facts on the ground that will win the day. President Trump’s team had better get up to speed quickly on waging effective trench warfare in 2020, or they will find themselves outflanked, out-maneuvered and out-gunned in the most crucial electoral battle of our lifetime.

Actually, after the previously undreamed of and rapidly escalating horrors of the last several months, I’ve come to believe that it isn’t about the election either; given the Left’s recent string of unqualified victories, Trump himself is all but irrelevant too. As Feinstein himself notes earlier in the article, the Democrats are not interested in governing the country. It is now so plain as to be inarguable that their goal is to destroy the government, establish a Communist tyranny, and get on with the eternal Progressivist project of remaking mankind entire to better suit them. So confident has the Left become after their long string of wins that they’re not even bothering to hide their ambitions anymore:

In a Wednesday interview with Fox News Channel, Greater New York Black Lives Matter president Hawk Newsome warned that if the country “doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.”

“If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down the system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking figuratively, I could be speaking literally,” Newsome told The Story host Martha MacCallum.” It’s a matter of interpretation…”

“Burn down the system and replace it” IS what you want, shitbird, according to your seditious terrorist organization’s own despicable founders.

Naturally, Trump weighed in, and he ain’t wrong.

President Trump weighed in on Newsome’s threat, tweeting: “Black Lives Matter leader states, ‘If U.S. doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it’. This is Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!”

It surely is at that, Mr Preznit, sir. So may we expect you to stop talking and actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT? Say, right after you get around to declaring pAntiFa a terrorist organization like you promised?

Real Americans are in a fight for their very lives at this point. So when do we start acting as if we were, pray tell? When do we start taking our Leftist enemy at his word, and crush him as he deserves?

Update! SteveF recommends this typically brilliant Kipling poem in comments to the previous post, but I think it’s more apropos to tack it onto this one.

It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late,
With long arrears to make good,
When the Saxon began to hate.

They were not easily moved,
They were icy — willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the Saxon began to hate.

Their voices were even and low.
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not preached to the crowd.
It was not taught by the state.
No man spoke it aloud
When the Saxon began to hate.

It was not suddently bred.
It will not swiftly abate.
Through the chilled years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the Saxon began to hate.

Speaking strictly for myself, I’m what you might call an early bird; I started on hating ’em myself a long, long time ago.

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