Begins At Home – Page 43

The fight is forever

Posted on March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 by Mike

Sundance quotes a bit from a classic old Mike Vanderboegh post, which I just had to track down and excerpt some of myself.

Are we not already two different countries, the liberals and we traditional believers in free men and free markets? If we cannot agree on something so philosophically findamental as the sanctity of life, what else can we agree on? Have we not just been agreeing to disagree on when the next American civil war will break out?

We must admit that the reason we are losing the world war for western civilization both at home and abroad is because we have elected not to fight it. And we will continue losing it until we do.

Those of us who long for the restoration of the Founders’ Republic are out of time. We cannot allow ourselves to pushed back from our God-given, inalienable liberties any longer. WE MUST REFUSE TO BE SUBJUGATED A THIN SALAMI SLICE AT A TIME. We must refuse to concede to our own enslavement. In the end, and it may come sooner rather than later, we must fight.

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

Along those same lines, Aesop is all in.

It cuts against the grain. Because when they’re enforcing just laws in a just manner, the police are doing Good. I am neither a copsucker nor a knee-jerk cop-hater, and my record in calling out the douchebadges when they royally screw the pooch is beyond reproach. But there’s still quite a lot of them doing God’s work all the time. (In Chicongo, not so much. But I digress.) If I were a bank robber, a rapist, or a murderer, caught red-handed, that would include shooting me in the face.

But when the only alleged “crime” is that some shrieking nancypants got the hebejeebees because I own a gun (or ten, or fifty, or whatever I’m up to these days), and anyone – president, congress weasels, governor, district attorney, hysterical mother, or some black-robed fuckwit too stupid to get into a STEM program – thinks that gives them the a priori right to circumvent Natural Law, the Constitution, and due process in one fell swoop, and send Officer Jackboots And His Merry Men to come take them, without any bill of indictment, witnesses, defense, or any other shred of due process in common law going back to Magna Carta, you’d better send your minions in their serious Kevlar underpants, with their insurance paid up and their wills up to date, and leave the married men at home. Because at that point, the range is now hot in both directions, I shoot Expert, and that red range flag means “No quarter given, nor expected.”

Now, go home and think about your wife and kids. Your friends, family, and hobbies. Everything you hold dear.

That’s what you’re risking for me, and for you, when you decide a paycheck trumps the Constitution.

So think long and hard about whether today is a good day to die, for treating me like a criminal, when we both know I’m not.

Doing that is the day you decide to become a criminal.
And you’ll answer for it, both here, and hereafter.

The war may well end, someday, and either my side or yours will win.

But you won’t live to see it, if I have anything to say about it.
So, do you really want to make all kinds of enemies out of the last people in the country who think what you do is something worth having?

Instead of being so tewwibly, tewwibly fwightened of all those big mean scary-looking guns, they probably ought to be afraid of guys like Aesop, and the millions upon millions more of us out here nodding our heads in quiet agreement with his sentiments. Because it’s as Heinlein’s Sgt Zim said: There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.

Aside: I’m going to put Vanderboegh’s hallowed halls into Ye Olde Blogrolle. Yes, I know Mike’s gone and the blog is defunct as of 2016, alas. But his stuff is every bit as pertinent now as it was back then, so I’m gonna provide myself with a handy reminder to go back and poke around in his archives now and then.

Blago gets some

Posted on February 28, 2020February 28, 2020 by Mike

A shiv for Barky.

Convicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich went on Fox News in his first post-release interview and held very little back about Barack Obama’s involvement in the scandal that put him in prison, while the first black president was never held accountable.

Appearing on “Watters’ World” with Jesse Watters, Blagojevich was quickly asked about the 2008 Senate-seat-for-sale scandal, in which Blagojevich had negotiated appointing an Obama-approved candidate, in exchange for a cabinet position.

“Did you ever talk to Barack Obama about this Senate seat? Did he have any knowledge about what was going on or not?” Watters asked.

“President Obama began the whole conversation because he sent someone to me as a middleman, a mediator — not unusual in politics — on the night he was elected president to say that he’d like to talk about his choice for the Senate and to see what I might be willing to ask for,” Blagojevich told him. “Political horse-trading, not what those corrupt prosecutors said it was.”

“So it was Barack Obama’s understanding that his liaison was going to work with you to appoint the guy that was going to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat, and Barack Obama, incoming president, wanted to know what was going to be in exchange for the seat, is that what you’re saying?” Watters asked.

“Yeah, he was basically, you know, asking whether—the emissary that represented President-elect Obama was interested in a candidate for the Senate, and he asked what would you be interested in, those kinds of things, and we began a discussion over the telephone on what we might or might not ask for as part of a horse deal. It was routine politics, not anything corrupt or illegal like they tried to say it was,” Blagojevich replied.

The host then asked whether money was involved as part of the deal.

“I never said that there was money in exchange for the Senate seat. We talked about Cabinet positions, we talked about, frankly, federal money for the state of Illinois to address some of the issues we had in our state, we talked about ambassadorships,” Blagojevich explained.

No need to be so crude as to discuss a direct exchange of money, seeing as how once you get the seat the money will follow just as surely as night follows day. Blagojevich can deny that these backroom deals are illegal all he likes; hell, he may even be right about that. No doubt they’re every bit as common as he says too, just another part of the begrimed fabric of end-stage American political decay. But such “horse-trading” is indubitably corrupt, as well as sordid and dishonorable—all in all, completely contrary to the phony “not a whiff of corruption” facade so laboriously constructed around Ogabe to cloak his squalid history.

Blago hints at plenty more dirt and old-school Chicago sleaze yet to come. Hopefully he can get it all dished up before his shocking “suicide.”

Ain’t skeered

Posted on February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by Mike

Schlichter’s title contains an unfounded assumption. But other than that, he nails it.

The D.C. establishment and their media rump-kissers went into a full-on spazz mode when President Trump continued his unbroken streak of awesomeness by appointing Ric Grenell the acting Director of National Intelligence, thereby threatening the intelligence community’s unbroken streak of failure. None of our media idiot savants – a term which is only half-accurate – thought to ponder the question of exactly how Ric’s appointment could possibly make the IC worse. Its legacy of ashes is a national embarrassment. But then, the purpose of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment is not to serve the people of the United States. Its purpose is to serve the personal interests of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment.

Dead on the money so far. But then:

Its denizens fear that this fearless patriot is going to burn down their whole shoddy edifice, and we can only hope they’re right.

Flick that Bic, Ric.

We can hope so, yeah. No real harm in keeping a positive attitude, right?

On the other hand, when has anybody seen any evidence of fear on their part, really? I haven’t. Anger? Yeah. Narcissism? Sure. Assumptions of superiority and entitlement? Absolutely. Vengefulness, pettiness and spite, a strong determination to fight in defense of their presumptive turf? Yep, yep, yep, and damned skippy.

So what real evidence can be cited in support of Kurt’s contention that they’re afraid, they’re very afraid? Or even that they should be? Yes, the Deep State establishment is shrieking, all right. Along with the rest of their ideological confreres on the Left, when are they not? They’ve been shrieking about absolutely everything Trump has done or attempted to do since November 2016, even before. In the case of FedGovCo specifically, however, I do NOT take the anguished caterwauling as evidence Deep State termites are actually afraid of anything. I think of it more along the lines of battlespace prep. Or psyops, maybe.

Kurt goes on from there to laud Grennel for previous accomplishments and overall attitude, and rightly so. Grennel’s appointment bodes well for several reasons. And this bodes even better:

Today, we’re hearing that Kash Patel, a National Security Council staffer and former aide to Devin Nunes, has been tapped as a senior advisor to Grenell. Patel has also been a loyal ally to the President and to Republicans. Patel wrote the famous February 2018 “Nunes memo,” a document which alleged that the FBI used the phony Steele dossier as the basis of their application to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. In his December 2019 report, Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed the accuracy of the entire document.

The importance of having two loyal and like-minded Trump allies in place at the helm of the DNI cannot be overstated.

CBS News’ Catherine Herridge reported that Grenell has been given a mandate which is to “#cleanhouse including a “top to bottom” review of DNI operations.”

This is good news indeed. It appears that President Trump is starting the clean sweep of the government agencies he hadn’t known was so crucial early on.

It’s good news right enough, and I’m glad to see it. Nonetheless, where Kurt sees a glass at least half-full here, I can’t help but also see…well, this:

Three separate stories converged to drive home the obvious truth that America has a two-tiered justice system: the Justice Department’s decision to not indict the guilty-as-sin plotter Andrew McCabe, the attempt to give Roger Stone an outrageous jail sentence, and the Army’s decision to shrug that one of its officers attempted to orchestrate the removal of his commander-in-chief.

There are a couple of simple reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that the entire federal bureaucracy is one giant Democrat machine. This cannot be repeated enough. Nearly every member of almost every single department is a Democrat.

How bad is it? Back in 2016, 95 percent of campaign contributions for the presidential race went to Her Royal Awfulness. The Justice Department overachieved, coming in at 97 percent.

Liberal scolds are always lecturing Americans on how they are racist, imperialist, misogynistic, homophobic monsters, even if they don’t know it due to implicit bias. This is nonsense. But it is curious that these same fools see no problem with implicit bias when the entire government-media-academia complex is one giant exercise in leftist groupthink.

Daniels is talking about the DoJ here, but it’s still relevant; if anything, the IC is even worse. And, as he later cautions, “Identifying the problem is far simpler than coming up with practical solutions.”

It’s as I’ve said all along: a single President is never going to be able to force the Shadow Government genie back into its bottle; no, not even Trump, not even with two terms. The nation has been lured, tugged, and/or dragged—according to which MO seemed most practical or effective at the time—consistently Leftward for nigh on a century now, with a strident, near-continuous effort beginning in the 60s. Anyone seriously thinking that all this might be corrected in a scant eight years, by just one man, isn’t really thinking. He’s dreaming.

“The un-American Deep State and the malevolent Obama administration”

Posted on February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by Mike

Extremely apt nomenclature and some harsh reality courtesy of John Nolte.

There is no justice in this country, only them the persecutors and we the persecuted.

Democrats and their Deep State allies can lie and leak to destroy innocent people, they can destroy evidence, they can seek to manipulate and overturn democracy, and all they get are movie deals, book contracts, speaking fees, and cable news cash.

And now there’s this…

The Democrat frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, was briefed last month that Russia is attempting to help him win the nomination.

Did you catch that?

Bernie.

Was.

Freakin’.

Briefed.

Briefed.

Bernie got a briefing, y’all — a heads up, a warning…

And you know what? That’s appropriate. That is exactly what should have happened. But…

If you’ll recall, that is not what happened to Donald Trump in 2016.

Nope, in 2016, the un-American Deep State and the malevolent Obama administration did not offer the Trump campaign a heads up, did not give them the courtesy of a briefing over potential Russian interference.

Oh, no…

Instead, the un-American Deep State and malevolent Obama administration chose to use Russian-interference-that-didn’t-end-up-interfering-in-anything as an excuse to spy on the Trump campaign using spies, to wiretap the Trump campaign using wiretaps, to commit perjury against the Trump campaign using forged warrants filled with perjury.

And then, after Trump won in an electoral vote landslide, the un-American Deep State and the malevolent Obama administration committed crime after crime (classified leaks, more perjury) to launch a coup against Trump by way of a three year drip-drip-drip investigation, even though the investigators knew the investigation was bullshit on day one.

We are second class citizens in our own country.

Sad to say, but I think most of us know that by now, or at least we should. Which makes the only pertinent question confronting us all the more unpleasant: What, if anything, are we gonna do about that? The answer:

It’s all got to come down… All of it.

Yep, ‘fraid so.

“Professionalizing” pr0n

Posted on February 22, 2020February 22, 2020 by Mike

Is there NOTHING they won’t try to meddle with, micromanage, and regulate unto ruination?

In a very California story, inter-union drama appears to be marring the introduction of a bill that would require porn stars to get business licenses.

On Tuesday, Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) and Christina Garcia (D–Bell Gardens) introduced Assembly Bill (A.B.) 2389. The bill would require adult entertainers and video performers, including webcam performers, to obtain a business license and complete a state-mandated training course before being allowed to ply their trade.

Requirements for that training would be developed by the state’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), which would, in turn, be advised by a new 10-member, governor-appointed board composed of two adult film actors, three dancers, two medical doctors, a therapist, and a money manager.

This training will be a minimum of two hours and will provide information on reporting workplace injuries, sexual harassment, and sex trafficking. Adult performers would be required to cover the cost of this training. The bill would also require that they be finger-printed.

The creation of licensure requirements gives state regulators the authority to police the behavior of participants in what is often a pretty informal industry. Reason recently covered how police in Florida have conducted sting operations on handymen as part of their enforcement of that state’s contractor licensing laws.

As Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown has covered extensively, sex workers have plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about the expansion of the regulatory state.

It’s true also that regulatory seeds, once planted, tend to grow. It’s conceivable that the bill’s current two-hour training requirement could be expanded to become more onerous over time.

“Conceivable”? You must be joking; it’s INEVITABLE. The “training requirement” will grow exponentially…as will the licensing fees, the regulations and restrictions, the taxes, the paperwork, the headaches and hassles, and of course the bureaucracy required to administer and oversee it all. It will ALL “expand”—until the point at which no one wants to be in the industry anymore because it just isn’t worth the bother is reached.

At which point a grim milestone of sorts will have been achieved in the Land of the (gag) “Free”: against all odds, Almighty Government will have effectively destroyed the porn and titty-bar industry. Whodathunkit?

Update! Anybody seeing a pattern here?

The same San Diego area assemblywoman who brought you the job-killing AB 5, which kills freelance jobs, is back to finish off the “adult” freelance industry.

The adult workers are gobsmacked that the state has involved itself in their business— and presumes to train them in order to get a license for a job they’re already doing, while being forced to pay for it all.

Then, once the goobermint has “fixed” all the problems, they can get busy “fixing” all the problems their previous “fixing” caused. Lather, rinse, repeat, forever and ever amen. Y’know, like with Obamacare.

Manufacturing victims

Posted on February 18, 2020February 18, 2020 by Mike

One of the ways the Left does it: redefining cowardice as courage, weakness as strength, and disgrace as nobility.

Perhaps it is time for us to face a few facts. The first is this: bullying is an inevitable result of the human condition. There is no real reason to think that this ugly aspect of our nature has manifested itself more in recent years than in any other period of human history. Yet it does seem to be the case that bullying is sending kids spiraling into depression, sometimes suicidal depression, at a much higher rate today than in the past. What does this tell us? Not that bullying is worse now, or more common, but that our children are less equipped to cope with it. And why is that? Well, there are probably several reasons, but one of them is certainly the fact that we are conditioning our kids to be victims.

We have built of this mythology of “the bigger person,” and told our children that the “bigger person” is the one who walks away from bullies, disengages, tells an adult. The “bigger person” is somehow the submissive one who slinks away and runs for cover. We tell our children that remaining silent in the face of a bully is “strong” and “courageous.” But somehow the strong, courageous, bigger child, who spends his childhood avoiding confrontation and retreating in the face of aggressors, never actually feels very strong, courageous, or big. He feels, rather, like a punchline. Because that is what we have told him to be.

I’d be willing to believe that, say, an MMA fighter who remains confidently silent in the face of some scrawny punk’s drunken taunting at a bar is truly being a bigger person. He could tear the other guy to shreds. He isn’t afraid. But he chooses the high road because the scrawny punk isn’t worth his time. Being the bigger person, taking the high road — these are things we do from a position of strength. If we do them because we’re scared, or intimidated, or just praying for the confrontation to be over, we are not on the high road. We are almost literally crawling away on our knees, hoping not to be noticed. Many children spend their formative years in this position. We congratulate them for their maturity while their self-image collapses.

Now, there is a problem with teaching our kids to stand up for themselves and give back what is dished to them. The problem is that every school in America has adopted the profoundly insane position that “it doesn’t matter who started it,” everyone involved in a fight or argument will get in trouble. What sort of system is that? Of course it matters who started it. If Jimmy is defending himself from Bobby, or responding to harassment from Bobby, how is it just or reasonable to punish both Jimmy and Bobby as if they are equally to blame? I understand it can be hard to adjudicate these things in a school setting, but that doesn’t give us an excuse to adopt a blanket policy of punishing children for refusing to bow in submission to bullies. Maybe this is why we are dealing with a so-called bullying epidemic: because we have given bullies free rein and taught our children to wilt in their presence like fragile tulips.

It’s less a bullying epidemic than it is a fragile tulip epidemic, if you ask me. Kind of a symbiosis type thing; you can’t really have the one without the other. And if your culture selects for fragile tulips, then fragile tulips ye shall have, anon and in plenty. It’s exactly as Bill says:

We teach them to be cowards. We reward them for being cowards. And then we wonder why we have so many screwed-up, miserable cowards.

If boys act like boys, we drug them until they behave like good little girls. What Walsh doesn’t quite pinpoint here is that by far the vast bulk of “bullying” issues revolve around boys and their behavior. And from a feminist point of view, boys are just nasty. Violent, testosterone-drenched rapists and murderers in the making, the only decent thing to do is at least force them to act like pacifist females, who are ever so much less threatening to feminist fantasies about dangerous men.

Unfortunately, as with so much else in our deranged culture, we have turned the raising of our men over to women. One should not, therefore, be surprised when women try to raise boys by forcing them to imitate girls.

Nor ought feminists to be complaining about how there aren’t any real men out there for women to marry—when feminists have brutalized all the manhood right out of them, leaving themselves with nothing but simpering eunuchs to choose from.

How the Trump admin went off the rails

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Mike

Personnel is policy.

Unlike a George Bush (either of them), Donald Trump arrived in Washington, D.C. with no connections to the DC policy establishment. In fact, he arrived after a bruising primary and general election that left him alienated from the GOP establishment. The GOP establishment might not have called his supporters “a basket of deplorables” but they nodded their heads and chuckled when they heard it. The same establishment had gotten rich and fat off illegal immigrant labor and outsourcing American jobs to wherever. They were used to keeping the GOP base in line with promises and crumbs (George W. Bush had GOP majorities for 6 of his 8 years, how much did they accomplish in regards to slowing illegal immigration or reducing abortion?) while delivering zero. When Trump arrived in Washington he was reliant upon the very same people who had opposed his election to staff his administration.

Some hard-core NeverTrumpers were hired in an attempt to placate factions in the GOP. Some cabinet secretaries, like, for instance, James Mattis and Rex Tillerson, pressed to retain Obama appointees or bring in registered Democrats with whom they had worked into senior policy positions. The head of the White House personnel office overseeing the hiring of political appointees went to an “end of the world party” when Trump dispatched Ted Cruz in Indiana. A guerrilla war was fought against the Administration by using the security clearance process to force out many of Trump’s most loyal followers.

Streiff then links to this piece, which fleshes things out a bit further.

In past administrations, a candidate’s allegiance to the president was vetted and considered a plus, if not a must. So why is the Trump White House filling any of these spots with people who have been openly (or privately) hostile to the president?

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor summed up the absurdity of the situation on Fox News. “I think President Trump lost control of the whole appointment process in staffing the government shortly after the election,” he said. “He ended up appointing large numbers of people who subsequently brought in their friends, almost all of whom were opposed to Donald Trump and his agenda.”

Indeed, the appointment of never-Trumpers was aggressively championed and insisted upon by some senior Cabinet members. Some candidates were directly approved by the president himself, while others were proposed by White House political staffers as compromise picks with Cabinet secretaries. Many others slipped in because, despite their anti-Trump sentiments, they had not revealed — or were not asked about — their views in public. Some of the appointments appear to have been downright disastrous. Although many never-Trumpers hired early in the president’s term have departed, others have been elevated or reshuffled as new never-Trumpers continue to enter the administration’s ranks.

The permanent-bureaucracy insiders, in serving their own interests and safeguarding their sinecures, are keeping their eyes on the long term. Back to Strieff.

This, by the way, is not unique to Trump. Historically, party outsiders have failed or been co-opted by the system because, just like Trump, they arrive with a popular mandate but because they are outsiders, and threatening outsiders at that, the formal and informal levers of power are often out of their reach because they can’t put enough of their supporters in mid-level policy positions. When results don’t materialize, the reformer is turfed out by the voters and we all go back to the way it was.

Which, of course, is the desired outcome, the whole point. It’s the grimmest of ironies, and the neatest of tricks: the system has been so thoroughly rigged to serve the interests of its career players by thwarting any true outsider elected to clean out the rot—to “drain the swamp”—that it actually functions as a self-perpetuation mechanism, ensuring said outsider will be removed when he inevitably fails to get the job done.

Put another way, the Deep State ouroborus produces antibodies to counteract and flush away potential threats to its own continued existence and supremacy. Kinda daunting to think of FederalGovCo being so awesomely resilient, virtually immune to all but cosmetic, trifling reform or restriction. More daunting still, though, is the question of whether this systemic self-defense mechanism came into existence organically, just as a natural consequence of the gummint having metastasized far beyond its intended limits, or whether its establishment was the intentional, coordinated result of insider engineers who knew just what they were building, why they were building it, and how to build it right.

The latter scenario isn’t merely daunting but downright scary, in truth—because successfully animating such a monster would have required true genius on Dr Frankenstein’s part. A people who value Constitutionally-ordered liberty will need him to be something a good bit less than that if he’s ever to be defeated, his abominable creation laid to rest.

Still a ways to go

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Mike

Welcome to the party and all, I guess. But see if you can pick out the part I’m more and more tired of.

You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments. I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone who wasn’t a straight white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.

But when I witnessed the amount of hate coming from the left in this small, niche knitting community, I started to question everything. I started making a proactive effort to break my echo chamber by listening to voices I thought I would disagree with. I wanted to understand their perspective, believing it would confirm that they were filled with hate for anyone who wasn’t like them.

That turned out not to be the case.

It’s pretty much your standard-issue recounting of a Lefty’s shock to learn that the bubble she’s been living in was filled all along with lies and propaganda, with nary a truth or hard fact allowed entry. Then:

I started to question everything. How many stories had I been sold that weren’t true? What if my perception of the other side is wrong? How is it possible that half the country is overtly racist? Is it possible that Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing, and had I been suffering from it for the past three years?

To ask it is to answer it, each and every one. Now to the meat of the thing, such as it is.

Once we got inside, the atmosphere was jubilant. It was more like attending a rock concert than a political rally. People were genuinely enjoying themselves. Some were even dancing to music being played over the loudspeakers. It was so different than any other political event I had ever attended. Even the energy around Barack Obama in 2008 didn’t feel like this.

I had attended an event with all the Democratic contenders just two days prior in exactly the same arena, and the contrast was stark. First, Trump completely filled the arena all the way up to the top. Even with every major Democratic candidate in attendance the other night, and the campaigns giving away free tickets, the Democrats did not do that. With Trump, every single person was unified around a singular goal. With the Democrats, the audience booed over candidates they didn’t like and got into literal shouting matches with each other. With Trump, there was a genuinely optimistic view of the future. With the Democrats, it was doom and gloom. With Trump, there was a genuine feeling of pride of being an American. With the Democrats, they emphasized that the country was a racist place from top to bottom.

Now, Trump is always going to present the best case he can. And yes, he lies. This is provable.

Oh, izzat so? Name one, then. Name just fucking ONE. No, I do NOT mean some spurious morsel of twipe you’ve been spoonfed, either taken out of context or manufactured from whole cloth by CNN or some other pack of balls-out bullshit artists. I mean one genuine, bona-fide, shame-the-devil lie. Go ahead, I’ll wait. But not for long.

No matter how deep or complete the conversion, they always, always, always say this. Hell, the NeverTrumpTard pseudo “Right” never seems to STOP saying it. But as “provable” as the claim is supposed to be, I have yet to see even ONE of the people so blandly making it offer any of that “proof” to back it up.

Note that my annoyance in no way equates to declaring that Trump never lies, or never has lied. Exaggeration and hyperbole? Stipulated. These are both an integral part of his personality and, I believe, tactics Trump deliberately employs when he thinks them useful. Still, though, even they aren’t LIES.

Now, this woman seems one hell of a lot more broad-minded, thoughtful, and reasonable than the overwhelming majority of her fellow Lefty lemmings, so hats off to her for that much at least. Maybe if she continues along the path of this first exploratory step, she’ll find her eyes opened further—her vision becoming clearer, her intellectual horizons broader. Eventually, perhaps she’ll recognize that ALL the bushwa she’s uncritically swallowed all these years for the deceitful manipulation it really is. Such is to be hoped, anyway. I will not speculate on how likely I think it might be.

Via Glenn, who says: “I love that it was the PC meanness of SJW types in the knitting community — yes — that opened her eyes.” Heh. Indeed.

San Francisco priorities

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Mike

James Woods is back to Tweeting again, and just won the Innarnets for the day with this one.

Where are the San Francisco police? Can’t they see the plastic straw on the sidewalk? pic.twitter.com/SxIrlOto9X

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 13, 2020

Some of the follow-on Tweets are pretty funny too.

Virginia is just the beginning

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Mike

None of this is random. The enemy thinks long, and is working a plan.

They’re coming for you next: Much has been made of the onerousness gun control laws passed by the Democrats in the Virginia state legislature this past week.

When it became clear that the Democrats were going to pass such laws, having gained control of both the legislature and the governorship, 95 counties and cities in the state made it publicly clear they would not enforce these laws, announcing that they were now second amendment sanctuary counties. Then, more than 22,000 Virginians gathered in protest at the statehouse, peacefully but forcefully declaring their opposition to these proposed laws.

None of that mattered to the modern Democrats now in charge in Virginia. They passed the laws, one of which gives the state “the authority to confiscate certain types of magazines that are considered ‘high capacity.’” I don’t know how they think they will enforce that confiscation right, but since they think it appropriate and just, don’t be surprised if they impose new laws to strengthen their ability to do so, including the right to do house-to-house searches.

Most of the the discussion about this story has been focused on the opposition to the laws themselves. I want to focus on what it tells us about the modern Democratic Party. You see, these fascist actions — which do nothing to reduce violence or crime while making law-abiding citizens criminals — are being planned by practically every local Democratic Party operation across the nation. All they require to make them law is to obtain power, as they have in Virginia.

My proof?

He has plenty, all of which you should read. But it all boils down to the simple fact stated in the headline: “Democrats in VA and AZ issue a warning: “We will oppress you if you elect us!” They most certainly will, just like every other Marxist dictatorship throughout history has; as the scorpion told the frog, it’s what they are, it’s what they do. No Democrat-Socialist candidate, for ANY office, should be able to garner even a single damned vote from anyone not already a dyed-in-the-wool fellow traveler living in one of America’s Democrat Urban Blight zones.

And yet.

(Via Sefton)

Gloves: still OFF

Posted on February 11, 2020February 11, 2020 by Mike

Trump unleashed.

The Trump administration has removed 70 Obama holdovers at the National Security Council (NSC), Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard reported on Monday.

The Trump administration has removed 70 Obama holdovers at the National Security Council (NSC), Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard reported on Monday.

The administration removed Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, from his post at the NSC last week. It also removed his twin brother Yevgeny, who worked as a lawyer on the NSC.

While Vindman has denied knowing the identity of the “whistleblower,” he has been suspected of being a leaker in the past.

A good enough start, to be sure. But Booboo Vindaloo of right ought to be sitting in prison for that leaking, among several other things, and I for one won’t be truly satisfied until he is. There’s a bunch of other news along these same lines out there today; I’ll shift you over to Sefton’s morning roundup for all that stuff, and limit myself to this one.

President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 includes sweeping cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Commerce, and foreign aid, the White House announced Sunday.

The budget cuts funding to the EPA by 26%, foreign aid by 21%, and the DOC by 37%, though the majority of that could be attributed to the completion of the 2020 census.

For the first time, the fiscal year 2021 budget will feature a chapter devoted entirely to eliminating “wasteful” government spending, as previously reported by Daily Caller.

The proposal targets agencies with overlapping and similar goals, agencies that provide similar or identical services to the same group of recipients, programs without a clearly defined federal role, federal programs that mirror state-level initiatives and erroneous payments.

Now, you might say that this doesn’t really matter much, and you’d be more or less right about that; none of it has the proverbial snowball’s chance of being implemented. Any President’s budget proposal is just that: a proposal. The House holds the pursestrings, and the House is currently in the hands of Guess Who. The odds of them paying a second’s worth of attention to what Trump asks for in any imaginable circumstance currently stand somewhere between “zero” and “you must be joking.”

Nonetheless, I still like it anyway. If nothing else, it’s yet another signal to Real Americans that their President is still engaged, still doing battle on their behalf, still undaunted and aggressively making whatever moves he can towards fulfilling his promises to them. The political PR benefits come November should be pretty obvious. It’s also a timely warning shot across the Democrat-Socialist bow that he’s stood up to the worst they could throw at him so far, yet somehow the band still plays “Hail To The Chief” whenever he enters a room. Rubbing their noses so thoroughly in last week’s humiliating crash ‘n’ burn like that, again and again, has tremendous psy-ops value, if nothing else.

Why no, I am NOT tired of all the winning yet.

From his (our) lips to Republican ears

Posted on February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 by Mike

Daniel Bobinski re-emphasizes a crucial point.

To every Republican Senator, Congressman, and Congresswoman,

The State of the Union address has been delivered. The impeachment trial in the Senate is over. Trump has been acquitted, and the Democrats have egg on their face. Not only from Trump’s acquittal, but also from the Iowa Caucus fiasco. As of this writing, there are 268 days until the 2020 election. It’s time for Republicans to shine, but will you?

Some say Republicans don’t fight for their platform because they’re afraid Leftists will call them names. Well, it should be obvious by now that the Left slaps vicious ad hominem labels on conservatives without cause, plus they make up stories about events that never took place. They even send out their talking points to their partners in the legacy media so everyone uses the same labels and makes the same accusations.

No matter what conservatives do, Leftists attack like starving alligators. Republicans must realize that this is going to happen no matter what – and press forward anyway.

My question for Republicans on Capitol Hill is, “Can you maintain the momentum?” Earlier today I saw a screen shot of a post-SOTU fundraising email sent from Nancy Pelosi, saying, “We can’t let up.”

To all Republicans in the Senate and the House I say the same thing: You can’t let up.

Dan takes on off from there, delving a lot deeper into the topic than I did in last night’s post. You’ll definitely want to read all of it.

(Via Larwyn)

Californication

Posted on February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 by Mike

Lie down with Democrats, get up with flees.

Beset by high housing costs, crippling taxes, astronomical gas prices, wildfires, and rolling blackouts, Californians are heading for the exits. That’s sparking anxiety in places where these Golden State migrants are relocating. A mayoral candidate in Boise, Idaho, recently suggested building a wall to keep out Californians, who account for 60 percent of domestic migration into the growing state. The election of increasingly progressive candidates in Colorado sparked talk there of the “Californication” of the Centennial State.

Early last year, the Dallas News described the “California-ing” of North Texas, citing a study showing that 8,300 Californians move to the area yearly. Texas governor Greg Abbott launched a petition titled “Don’t California My Texas.”

Much of this anxiety revolves around fears that the migrants will transform the politics and culture of the places that they’re moving to—bringing an appetite for big, intrusive government. But a new survey suggests that, while plenty of people are looking to leave California, many are fleeing the state’s high costs and politics and may not be interested in voting for the same things in their new homes. The poll, by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, found that 52 percent of California residents are considering migrating. As these polls go, that’s exceptionally high, putting California in the same category as some other states with very unhappy residents. A recent poll in New Jersey, for instance, found that about 44 percent of its people are looking to depart, while 50 percent of Connecticut residents indicated a desire to leave the state in a 2014 Gallup poll, the highest figure among any state at that time.

The article goes on to suggest that common assumptions about who’s doing the fleeing from collapsing Red territories might be off, although the evidence I see around here says otherwise.

(Via Linda Fox)

Character flaws

Posted on February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 by Mike

Hate to have to do it and all, but I fear I’m gonna have to pick a few nits with the esteemed CBD’s premises here.

President Trump has many character traits that seem, at first glance, to be wonderful openings for his political opponents to make substantive inroads on his popularity with the 20% of the voters who are not firmly in one camp, and perhaps decrease the enthusiasm with which his base supports him.

Here is a partial list, in no particular order, and without vetting for accuracy. But any casual perusal of the raw sewage pouring out of the media will lend support to these tendencies.

He is undoubtedly thin-skinned,

Could be, could be. Alternative take, though, is that Trump does not suffer fools gladly, nor does he let an insult, slight, or treachery pass him by without returning the favor in spades. After seeing the deluge of pure shit he’s been indundated with the past three years, I’m okay with that myself. In fact, the more he bristles, bares the claws, and attacks, the happier I’ll be. If fighting back hard against any and all provocation is being thin-skinned—and perhaps it is—well, so be it.

Note too, though, that Trump was clever enough to entirely ignore the Shittpeachment farce in his SOTU last week, not mentioning it even once. In that case, he managed to suppress any reflexive tendency towards being thin-skinned at least enough to use forebearance to his own tactical advantage, which says a few encouraging things about him too.

is prone to exaggeration and hyperbole

Alternative take: is confident, a perennial salesman and self-promoter, and a self-made larger than life character.

uses odd grammatical constructions that seem ripe for parody

And that prevents his opponents from pinning him down, keeping them off-balance and uncertain.

has goofy hair

Hey, he’s 70 and still HAS hair. I just turned 60 and am quite frankly envious.

Is curiously uninterested in reining in a bloated federal budget

This is the one I have the hardest time disputing. On the other hand, the budget is Congress’s responsibility, not his; there just isn’t a hell of a lot he can do about it, even if he wanted to.

is a big fan of firing people, and on and on.

Another one I don’t have any problem with. Actually, in my opinion he hasn’t fired NEARLY enough people since taking office. Hopefully he gets himself good and busy with rectifying that after re-election.

I’m only needling CBD a little with this, but there is one complaint about Trump we hear constantly, mostly from people whose criticism is a lot less constructive than CBD’s and whose motives are questionable at best: his Tweeting. They claim Trump’s Twitter assaults are rude, vulgar, and a childish affront to the solemn dignity of his exalted position. They wish he would just cut it out already, relying instead on Enemedia to honestly vet and oversee his statements rather than bypassing them to communicate directly with the people via Twitter.

Stuff and nonsense. Taking to Twitter to both needle his adversaries and inform his supporters is simply Trump making good use of an extremely popular platform to reach as many people as possible, directly and without interference or manipulation by any self-appointed “gatekeepers.” FDR did pretty much the same thing:

The fireside chats were a series of evening radio addresses given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (known colloquially as “FDR”) between 1933 and 1944. Roosevelt spoke with familiarity to millions of Americans about the promulgation of the Emergency Banking Act in response to the banking crisis, the recession, New Deal initiatives, and the course of World War II. On radio, he was able to quell rumors and explain his policies. His tone and demeanor communicated self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty. Roosevelt was regarded as an effective communicator on radio, and the fireside chats kept him in high public regard throughout his presidency. Their introduction was later described as a “revolutionary experiment with a nascent media platform.”

The series of chats was among the first 50 recordings made part of the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, which noted it as “an influential series of radio broadcasts in which Roosevelt utilized the media to present his programs and ideas directly to the public and thereby redefined the relationship between President Roosevelt and the American people in 1933.”

I just bet the tightassed fussbudgets of that era didn’t care much for FDR’s end-run around the gatekeepers, either. I noticed a huge irony in the above-quoted Wiki, boldfaced below:

It cannot misrepresent or misquote. It is far reaching and simultaneous in releasing messages given it for transmission to the nation or for international consumption.
— Stephen Early, FDR press secretary, on the value of radio

Roosevelt believed that his administration’s success depended upon a favorable dialogue with the electorate — possible only through methods of mass communication — and that this would allow him to take the initiative. The use of radio for direct appeals was perhaps the most important of FDR’s innovations in political communication. Roosevelt’s opponents had control of most newspapers in the 1930s and press reports were under their control and involved their editorial commentary. Historian Betty Houchin Winfield says, “He and his advisers worried that newspapers’ biases would affect the news columns and rightly so.” Historian Douglas B. Craig says that he “offered voters a chance to receive information unadulterated by newspaper proprietors’ bias” through the new medium of radio.

How very odd that the Left doesn’t seem nearly so concerned about media bias or its corrosive effects these days. In fact, having been in charge of Old Media for so long now, they take its power to drive the national debate as read, viewing any challenge to its waning might as the threat to them that it truly is. It’s no wonder they’re so put out by Trump’s “unpresidential” Tweeting, and petulantly demand that he knock it off.

Gloves: OFF

Posted on February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 by Mike

You can’t win, Stretch. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Keiler, "You have been watching the President …. with an unscripted, vindictive, at times profane, angry, rambling response to his impeachment acquittal.

Borger: "An avalanche of grievances … It was vindictive…it was mean-spirited, it was poisonous, it was spiteful." pic.twitter.com/bi0urv9Y2Y

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) February 6, 2020

SUCK it, fuckfaces. Suck it good, suck it long, suck it hard. If you spit, you start again.

Ahh, but does it get even better? I thought you’d never ask: Both the HEROIC!!!™ Vindaloo Blue Falcons got their soft, doughy asses frogmarched out of the White House today:

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was fired from his job at the White House on Friday. He was not expected to leave his post in July, but the Washington Post reported Friday morning Vindman and “other national security officials who testified or cooperated with House Democrats” were being considered for dismissal. According to the earlier report, Trump discussed with aides removing officials he called “disloyal.” According to that earlier report, Vindman will be assigned a different position in the Department of Defense.

Vindman’s twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, a National Security Council attorney, was also fired, and both were escorted off the White House grounds.

Too, too delicious.

Trump was asked about Lt. Col. Vindman earlier on Friday. “Well, I’m not happy with him. You think I’m supposed to be happy with him? I’m not.”

That said, Trump needs to proceed with caution when it comes to firing people who have testified against him. Trump should be able to trust that members of his administration aren’t trying to undermine him from within, but any mass firing of individuals could backfire on him politically.

Stuff, nonsense, and bullshit. This sort of thorough housecleaning is exactly what Trump was elected to do; on the contrary, after being unleashed via the implosion of the phony Shampeachment coup attempt, FAILING to follow through on his promise to drain the damned Swamp is what would cost him politically.

Thankfully, our God Emperor seems to harbor absolutely NO inclinations in that direction. But even with the joyous news of the Vindaloo bints getting the bum’s rush, the Greatest President In American History wasn’t finished yet.

Ambassador to the European Union Gordan Sondland announced Friday that he was being recalled from his post by President Donald Trump.

“I was advised today that the President intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” he said in a statement.

Sondland testified in President Trump’s impeachment trial, informing members of Congress that in his mind he felt there was a quid quo relationship between the president’s decision to halt aid to Ukraine and convincing Ukrainian officials to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden and the corrupt gas company Burisma.

Okay, that’s GOTTA be about it, right? I mean, just that much amounts to a fairly historic and frabjous day; there CAN’T be more, can there?

Why, hush yo’ mouf, honeychile.

The Department of Homeland Security has suspended Global Entry and several other trusted traveler programs for all residents of New York.

Chad Wolf, the Acting Homeland Security Chief, was on Fox News Wednesday night when he told host Tucker Carlson that all residents of the Empire State will be unable to enroll in the programs that make flying both domestically and internationally smoother.

Wolf said that New Yorkers “can’t enroll or re-enroll” in the Trusted Traveler Programs — which includes Global Entry, Nexus and more — because the department “no longer [has] access to make sure that they meet those program requirements.”

The news from the Trump administration official comes in response to New York’s sanctuary and Green Light laws, which allow residents to apply for a driver’s license or learner’s permit regardless of their immigration status.

In a letter to New York State officials, Wolf noted that the law prohibited state DMVs from sharing criminal records with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The law “compromises CBP’s ability to confirm whether an individual applying for Trusted Travelers Program membership meets program eligibility requirements” and hinders ICE and their agents from fulfilling their mission.

Quoth the Ace, so very pithily:

Awwww, the well-heeled Acela Corridor class is going to have to suffer some inconvenience due to their own #Resistance policy choices, which put other Americans’ very lives in danger.

Cry more, bitches.

If you don’t like it: Secede.

To which I can only append:

Speaking of Ace, he laid utter waste to all the weepers, pissers, moaners, and boll weevils lamenting the beyond-righteous Vindaloo Boys shitcanning as well:

The left is now playing the game they play with all Republican presidents, insisting that Republican presidents must keep on partisan Democrat staffers.

Remember when Clinton fired all the currently serving US Attorneys, who’d been appointed by Bush the Elder? Probably not, because it wasn’t reported on. And it wasn’t reported on because of course an incoming president of the opposite party fires all the political appointees of the old regime.

But then the younger Bush fires all of Clinton’s US attorneys, and the press screams it’s unconstitutional and an attempt to establish a “unitary executive.” Which is supposed to sound ominous, but it’s not — the Constitution establishes a “unitary executive.” All lesser executive officials only exercise those powers devolved to them by the elected Chief Executive.

But during Republican administrations, the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) start insisting that executive power is not vested in an elected Chief Executive, but resides chiefly with permanent or political bureaucrats, most of whom are Democratic operatives or strongly aligned with liberal policy positions, and that it’s an illegal abuse of office for the President to appoint people he trusts to those positions, or fire people he doesn’t.

Oh, and of course when Obama fired all of Bush the Younger’s US Attorneys — crickets from the media again.

Well, the National Security Council is supposed to advise Trump and if he doesn’t trust an adviser, he can fire him. And he should fire him.

Let’s hope Ciaramella gets transferred to a Bering Sea covert radar ship for his next assignment.

Well, now, that might be a little too vindictive; I’m not sure I could really endorse such a cruel…

Oh, who the hell am I kidding. Put every last treacherous, conniving Ogabe stay-behind to work scrubbing the White House toilets with a toothbrush, sez I. Their own personal ones, preferably. But hey, I’m a reasonable man; I’d be willing to settle for a one-way trip to the breadline, eternal destitution, and want for each and every one of them, too.

As Limbaugh has said so many times: this is what fighting back looks like. Let the NeverTrump Cuckpublicans, the effete handwringers, the Democrat-Socialist Party, and Enemedia (BIRM) cry as bitterly and copiously as they like. Let them wail about how “ugly” it all is. Don’t care, not a whit. A defeat for them is always and forever a victory for America, and at long, long last America has a champion willing and eager to wage total war on her behalf. You gotta cut the grass to see the snakes.

A grim morn, a glad day, and a golden sunset.

Update! As always, Kurt is having himself entirely too much fun.

Three Glorious Days of Democrat Agony
So, February 3, 4, and 5, 2020 were pretty much the most miserable three days in the history of the Democratic Party. I’m not laughing, really I’m not! You know how sometimes you have a bad day when nothing goes right? Well, these super-achievers managed to triple that streak. They are achievers in the same sense Hoover Snort Biden is an achiever.

Let’s start with Monday, February 3rd and the Iowa Caucuses. In their defense, it wasn’t like they had four years to get prepared to handle…counting. Oh wait, they did have four years to handle…counting. Okay, well, then in their defense they went to unionized failing government schools, so counting is hard. But not for the Republicans, who managed to count their votes just fine.

As of when you read this, they might still not have actual numbers. Audie Murphy Buttigieg, Crusty Commie Curmudgeon and Chief Sitting Bolshevik may well all still be claiming victory, while Gropey J’s handlers are likely still complaining about the process and Not Senile Joe himself is chasing an uppity squirrel around a Nashua park.

Fresh from the hellish nightmare that was Monday came Tuesday with its own infernal events. The Iowa situation remained fluid, that fluid being similar to the hobo juice freely sprayed around Scat Francisco’s sidewalks. On Tuesday, rumors spread that Pete Rambo Buttigieg was linked to the mysterious app maker designated the fall guy for the caucus circus. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, but these are Democrats so it really doesn’t matter.

And then President Trump gave the best State of the Union speech pretty much ever, spending much of it listing real achievements that help real Americans while Nancy Pelosi fumed behind him, offering a running commentary to her invisible friend. Trump played the Dems like Pete Townsend plays the guitar.

These may have been good looks on college campuses and in communist bookstores, but not so much in the United States. The speech was masterful, and when Pelosi tore it up, she highlighted just how owned she was for the whole world to see.

Then February 5th came along and their impeachment collapsed into rubble. We all knew it was coming, but then … poof. Gone. You tried to take out the king, and you failed. How lame.

Sorry, but I must cut in to point out that February 5th was also my 60th (gulp!) birthday. I considered the Shampeachment implosion a most excellent birthday present, one we can all enjoy and remember fondly. Onwards.

Yeah, history will record that you managed to impeach Donald Trump. History will also record that Donald Trump beat you donkeys like rented mules.

Advantage, Trump.

No—advantage, America.

Happy happy joy update! The agony of their defeat is such a pleasure.

FOX News host Pete Hegseth was in Carthage, North Carolina, on Wednesday morning talking to voters. Pete was asking for their reaction to President Trump’s SOTU Address. One woman said it best “We need to put a cape on his back, an “S” on his chest, and call him Superman. No mortal man could take what he has took in the last three years and do what he has done.”

Most remarkable thing? Even now, they STILL cannot begin to fathom how Trump consistently outmaneuvers them; where his support really comes from; why it still exists; and what they must do to end this nightmare. They’re the smart people, the good people, the educated people, the competent people.

Aren’t they?

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