Rule of law by decree

Fascists gonna fascist.

New Mexico governor issues order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least 30 days in response to a spate of gun violence.

The Democratic governor said she expects legal challenges but was compelled to act because of recent shootings, including the death of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium this week.

Lujan Grisham said state police would be responsible for enforcing what amount to civil violations. Albuquerque police Chief Harold Medina said he won’t enforce it, and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said he’s uneasy about it because it raises too many questions about constitutional rights.

The firearms suspension, classified as an emergency public health order, applies to open and concealed carry in most public places, from city sidewalks to urban recreational parks. The restriction is tied to a threshold for violent crime rates currently only met by the metropolitan Albuquerque. Police and licensed security guards are exempt from the temporary ban.

Bold mine, both times. The second instance underscores the essential point made three years ago by Buck Throckmorton which served as the inspiration and springboard for my Friday Eyrie post: that Real Americans will be paying for the disastrously supine response to FauxVid tyranny indefinitely, in ways both many and varied. As for the first instance, CBD has that one covered.

Well, that’s nice, but it doesn’t mean a damned thing. The state has its own thugs who will gleefully do the bidding of LandesFuhrer Lujan Grisham.

Only if the Albuquerque police and the county sheriff’s deputies stop the state police from enforcing this vile and obvious insult to our natural, God-given rights will their statements mean anything. Otherwise they are part of the problem.

Yes, if they act there will be a legal confrontation…something that is sorely missing in America today. Donald Trump should have told Fulton County Georgia DA Fani Willis to pound sand, and that if she wants him she can come and arrest him. Governor Abbot should have told U.S. District Court Judge David A. Ezra that he can enforce his edict himself, but that Texas will continue to defend its border.

Playing by the rules has gotten us to where we are today, with a compliant “opposition” party willing to get along so they can continue to pad their bank accounts while America slide farther into the abyss of totalitarianism. The left is superb at manipulating the law to their own ends, and it is far past the time when rational Americans begin to push back against the insanity of a two-tiered justice system.

Civil Disobedience? Absolutely.

Damned skippy. Civil disobedience, at the very least.

It has been argued in several places, notably around these parts by CF Lifer Barry, that DeSantis should have had the Mar A Lago-raiding FBI/Stasi goon squads stopped in their jackbooted-thug tracks before they ever arrived at the Trump casa, a sentiment with which I concur. Although, given Trump’s tiresome personal attacks against DeSantis and his entire family, I can kinda-sorta see why he might be content to sit back and let The Donald stew in his own juices also. But that only dodges the central issue here, which isn’t just the main thing, it’s the ONLY thing now.

There seems to be general acknowledgment that trouble is coming, a sentiment with which I do NOT concur, quite; trouble is in fact here, all around us, and has been since the spring of 2020. We’re up to our clavicles in it, the only question being which way we’re going to jump this time out. I won’t say it’s our last chance to get it right; I don’t feel as if there’s any real need to, frankly. Just say no, or just say bye-bye to individual liberty.

Update! Brandon Smith knows what time it is.

In terms of direct conspiracy and tyranny, the solution is usually war and the elimination of the cabal behind the agenda. That requires talking about the problem and inspiring people to organize for the fight.

But what happens when you finally have the numbers to do something? I would partially agree that the conservatives, libertarians, independents and moderates that make up what I call the “Liberty Movement” tend to talk a lot more about the problems, to the point that solutions become lost in the fervor of discussion.

After nearly 20 years writing for the movement I have noticed a consistent pattern – When I publish an article identifying a concerted attack on the US economy, for example, the audience numbers run high. When I write an article about methods for preventing collapse, such as independent barter markets and localized production, the traffic is cut in half. The truth is, real solutions are not sexy, they are scary.

People can become addicted to watching the system break down and I realize it’s hard to look away from a train wreck. But when it comes time to doing something about the mess and make some hard decisions a lot of people run away. This has to change.

It is with this issue in mind that I am launching a series of articles focusing ONLY on solutions. These are not silver bullet solutions; they will not save people from struggle or hardship. They will not end the globalist empire with a single calculated social shift or technological innovation. Such solutions do not exist and anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant or a fraud trying to lure you into complacency. The real solutions require hard work, sacrifice, courage, tenacity and above all, risk.

If a solution to tyranny and collapse doesn’t scare you at least a little, then it’s probably not a legitimate solution.

And, if there is one solution that has been demonized more than any other in our modern era, it’s the citizen militia. It’s hard to think of a greater taboo, a more sneered at and disdained concept than the militia, and that’s on both sides of the political aisle. Many leftists hate the militia because they fear it; many Republicans hate the militia because they think it makes them look “extreme.” Sorry sunshine patriots, but if there was ever a time for extreme measures, it is now.

Annnnnd Woot! There it is. He goes on in like vein from there, and although it might not be pretty or comfortable, it’s also bang on the money. I urge everyone to read it to the very last.

Updated update! More from Brandon, in reply to a commenter bringing up Sun Tzu’s dictum: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

You are misinterpreting Sun Tzu – He meant that great strength would be required to DETER the enemy from ever attacking in the first place. Strength is not shown through public engagement; public engagement is how you eventually build strength. The Covid mandates were defeated for one reason and one reason only – Millions of Americans with arms refused to comply, and the elites realized to continue would mean war. But, they never should have felt safe enough to try. With organized militias, there would have been NO covid mandates to defeat. This is what Sun Tzu meant. There is no digital silver bullet solution; this conflict will require rebellion and great sacrifice. There is no other way.

Alas for us all, there is not. If there’s anyone, anywhere, who has been more consistently correct than Brandon Smith about the current sorry state of affairs and how it might most effectively be addressed, I’m sure I don’t know who it would be.

Update to the updated update! Divemedic has questions. Good ones.

Police are used to victimizing unarmed people. That’s why they call SWAT when there is the least chance of facing armed opponents. I want to remind you of this incident, point out that the cops in New Mexico will chase anyone who runs from them instead of allowing themselves to be searched for firearms, and then ask again:

What could a four man fire support element do if they were in an overwatch position 100 yards or so away and this was a planned ambush? How hard would it be to lure police into a kill box and then overwhelm them with large amounts of fire before disengaging and disappearing before the cops can organize an effective counter ambush?

Despite the foolish fantasy cherished by all too many amongst what Brandon calls the “Liberty Movement” that cops and soldiers can reasonably be expected to “switch sides” en masse in a situation like this—which cuts across the grain of the “must get home safe to my family” mantra adopted by 5-0 in recent years as if it were an inviolable Prime Directive—we’re probably going to find out the answers to DM’s questions before too very much longer.

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Note to Henry

Okay, old son, I tried to shoot ya an email telling you I’d look into the problem, and this is what I immediately got back from my server when I hit “send”:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

Followed by your email addy, with a list of reasons the send failed—the gist being that there’s an authentication issue which led to your email address being blocked by the service provider.

This mail is unauthenticated, which poses a security risk to the sender and (service provider redacted) users, and has been blocked.

The message also included a link you can use to login and fix it, which I won’t post publicly for the obvious reasons; if you need it, I’ll put the specific URL up in the comments. But it would seem there really IS an “invalid email address” thang going on, so check into it. If you have an alternative email addy, you can also try using it to contact me if need be.

In a nutshell

Those who want civil war are about to get their wish.

At long last, wake up and notice the moment. Hear the argument.

Anti-Trump legal scholars have been arguing that the third clause of the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War measure barring Confederates from holding public office after participating in an insurrection, can be used against Donald Trump. Attaching a broken boxcar to the back of this moving train, an Aug. 25 essay at Politico casually compares the case for 14th Amendment disqualification from the presidency to the disqualification of southern congressmen during the Civil War. 

You may have already spotted a problem in that last sentence because the story Joshua Zeitz writes about Trump and the 14th Amendment has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment: It’s a story about the refusal of the House of Representatives to take notice of southern congressman in 1864, well before the Reconstruction amendments were ratified. With that in mind, go read it. 

The subtext speaks louder than the text. Notice the framing; notice the language that colors the argument. Here’s how Zeitz describes the context for the 14th Amendment: “They had vanquished the Confederacy and compelled Southern states to remain in the Union.”

So what should we do about Donald Trump? Well, there’s this great moment in history in which a grim-faced dictator maintained tight control for the purpose of implementing radically punitive policies over conquered territories to dominate people who were not entitled to govern themselves.

That’s the discussion we’re having. The people Angelo Codevilla called the American ruling class, the hegemonic academic-political-media hive people, are now casually discussing Trump and Trump voters as a conquered people who have to be dominated and kept out of the system of self-government. Because Trump is a dangerous authoritarian, you see.  

We are not engaged in anything resembling political debate.

I find NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a hilariously obtuse expert on authoritarianism, an especially helpful source for parsing the eliminationist radicalism of the moment because she has the quality of mind that allows her to slop her givens all over the page without ever thinking about them at all. What should we do about Trump? Well, “lots of other heads of state have been prosecuted, convicted, sentenced to jail or house arrest,” so we just need to be more like the countries that imprison their political leaders. In fact, “Trump arrest=democracy in action.” What should we think of the presidential candidacy of Vivek Ramaswamy? It’s authoritarian for him to be allowed a platform because it’s “designed to get more poisonous extremist ideas into the mainstream and further degrade democratic politics.” Allowing Republicans to speak is an extremist assault on democracy; arresting them is “democracy in action.” And again, that’s where we are.

Indeed it is. I think renowned military strategist Bugs Bunny put it best:

So let them have it, then—good and hard.

From the horse’s ass mouth update! Think I’m kidding? Think THEY’RE kidding? Best think again. The reliably execrable John Heinz-Kerry, for one, most certainly is not.

The corporate state is intent, apparently, on ramping up its propaganda against so-called “climate deniers,” presumably to set the rhetorical groundwork for more extreme legal and social action against them in the future. So it dispatched something called its “climate envoy,” John Kerry, to Scotland with that aim.

Continuing with what is essentially Kerry’s declaration of war on “climate change” deniers (emphasis added):

And while they refuse to accept the facts behind increasingly obvious damages, which the First Minister listed, they lash out at the truth-tellers instead, and label indisputable evidence as hysteria. They compound the already difficult challenge of the climate crisis, by promising to do more of exactly what created this crisis in the first place. So now, humanity is inexorably threatened by humanity itself, by those seducing people into buying into a completely fictitious, alternative reality, where we don’t need to act and we don’t even need to care.

Let’s take the phrase “inexorably threatened” and parse it a bit. Per Merriam-Webster, “inexorable” means “not to be persuaded, moved, or stopped.” What he’s saying — the reason his handlers chose that descriptor — is that there is no longer any need to try to persuade the public of their climate change scam because the “deniers” are individuals who cannot be reasoned with. On a societal level, what does one do with an existential threat that cannot be reasoned with because words are meaningless to it? One goes to war with it.

Humanity, for the record, is, in fact, inexorably threatened by humanity itself in a very real and meaningful sense, but the threat is posed not by “climate change” deniers but by technocrats like John Kerry (assuming he is actually human and not a demonic entity wearing a skinsuit).

An assumption not in evidence if ever there was one. In certain quarters, what Heinz-Kerry is doing here is sometimes referred to as battlespace preparation. Any of you who might be keeping “a little list,” IYKWIMAITYD, needs to be sure that his name features prominently thereon.

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The path to enslavement

TL says he’s all done with being nice about it, and I’m with him a thousand and one percent on that.

As they reinstate mask mandates at colleges and at TSA, one really must recognize that everything they told us before has been proven a lie. Everything you were told about masks, about vaccines, about safety, about mandates were all BS, all of it. Some of us knew that immediately, could smell the rat. A lot didn’t, many fell for some part of it, others for all of it and some just did it to get along without making waves. Well, this is the result of being afraid to rock the boat. Without any evidence, without any medical advice from anyone, they’re back at it. Why? Because you did it the first time.

No matter what your reasons might have been, you complied your way right into this utter, utter stupidity and I’m not going to be as nice about it the second time around as I was the first. I knew people needed time to digest the truth, to see it, to understand that all of their supposed learned institutions were a bunch of Marxist bastards willing to dispense medical information without an inkling of medical training or expertise, because if they had even a modicum of it, they would have understood that Fauci wrote a paper himself that proved that the greater majority of Spanish Flu deaths in the early 20th Century were from bacterial pneumonia caused by wearing masks; inhaling the trapped bacteria from their own mouths. Any idiot who’s seen the film Apollo 11 could understand that inhaling CO2 is dangerous and at certain concentrations, deadly, but it took a study by Harvard, or some such institution, to show that in the first five minutes of wearing a mask, a person’s intake of CO2 is greater than that allowed by Naval submarines before they’re forced to surface.

I didn’t need that level of institutional knowledge for me to reject the very concept of wearing a mask, the porosity of which is larger than a miniscule virus, to understand that they were pulling a fast one. Perhaps, it’s just my strident resistance to any authoritative voice telling me to do something common sense tells me is stupid that causes my resistance to take over my decision-making, but having been proven right, I’m not about to back down now.

This goes back to childhood, if you want to know the truth. The very idea of a Bandaid, after using one a few times and seeing that the the skin couldn’t get any air and was puckered and white and that delayed the healing process told me that they were not only useless, but worked counter to my body’s healing method, which required air.

No, I recognize this for what it is. They’re planning the big Marxist push, the Stalinist treatment to institute their total control. Part of it might be to derail the 2024 election they now know they’re going to lose, or it might just be to complete the takeover before the 2024 election. They tried indictments against their political opponent and it just made him stronger, which is why I suggested not long ago to continue to support Trump, even if you hate him, because he is their measure of us, the measure of resistance and now they know that they can’t win by that method.

What does a communist always do? They always double-down. They never understand that their message is a loser, or that they were wrong, or that the people they claim to represent think they’re a bunch of totalitarian pigs. Control is their game, their only resort and so they’ve rolled out the masks again, then lockdowns. If you can’t see it coming, yet, I’m of no use to you, stop reading.

I can tell you that fighting these mask mandates now is the same as fighting for your very lives, but if you don’t understand that yet, you never will. The world is not taken over by the big bomb or the great battle anymore, right now, in the 21st Century, it’s won or lost in the smallest of things, because they’re signals, signposts that direct the tyrants to impose worse and more and heavier restrictions on a daily basis.

A-yup, nothing more to add from here.

STILL playing their game

Giuliani says things that might have been so twenty years ago or more, but aren’t now.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had a dire warning for supporters and detractors alike on his way to be arrested in Georgia should “the political winds shift, as they always do…”

Faced with the same number of charges as former President Donald Trump, with a number overlapping the president’s as well as the other 17 co-defendants indicted by the state, Giuliani was stopped by the press on his way to the airport to offer some words.

After recounting his record as mayor and as a state’s attorney who “took down the mafia and made New York City the safest city in America,” he expressed, “I’m fighting for justice. I have been from the first moment I represented Donald Trump, and as a man who has now been proven innocent several times — I don’t know how many times he has to be proven innocent and they have to be proven to be liars, actually, enemies of our republic who are destroying rights, sacred rights.”

“They’re destroying my right to counsel — my right to be a lawyer. They’re destroying [Trump’s] right to counsel. It’s not accidental that they’ve indicted all his lawyers. I’ve never heard of that before in America — all the lawyers indicted,” the mayor continued before voicing concern to the public.

“Now, whether you dislike or like Donald Trump, let me give you a warning, ” said Giuliani. “They’re gonna come for you. When the political winds shift, as they always do, let us pray that Republicans are more honest, more trustworthy, and more American than these people in charge of this government. Because if our government is conducted this way and the system of justice is politicized and criminalized for politics, your rights are in jeopardy and your children’s.

“Donald Trump told you this,” he reminded. “They weren’t just coming for him or me.”

Pathetic, there simply is no other word for it. “IF,”? Rudy? You’d’ve been a helluva lot more accurate to have ommitted that word entirely from your statement. Yes, it’s true that you ARE fighting for justice—or you were. Sorry to have to tell ya, but you lost, and so did justice…and so did we all.

It’s simply beyond belief to me, how so very many of us still carry on like this isn’t really happening or something—even Trump, Giuliani, and the rest of these poor schlubs, all denying the evidence of their own lyin’ eyes even as the handcuffs are snapped on and the mugshots are being taken. Soon enough, they can join in with the J6 Gulagees for a rousing nightly sing-along of the Star Spangled Banner from the comfort and security of their own cells, I guess.

This is now business as usual in Amerika v2.0, and it’s not going to stop until (and unless) it IS stopped—firmly, almost certainly by force of arms. Lincoln Brown grimly reminds us that America That Was is well and truly dead, dead, DEAD.

If you have read much of my stuff before, you may know that years ago, my wife and I were part of a human trafficking awareness mission to Cambodia. We traveled around the country and visited some historical sites. We saw the infamous prison Tuol Sleng, where people were routinely tortured, often to the point of death.

We saw the killing fields with stacks of skulls and bones of victims and their pictures in which they gazed ahead with anger or resignation during their final moments. We saw a tree on a place called “Women’s Island.” Khmer Rouge soldiers would take babies by the feet and slam them against the tree until the infants were beaten to death in front of their grieving mothers. Across the country, we saw the legacy of Pol Pot’s rule.

People may be tempted to think that Pol Pot’s forces only targeted known political enemies. As illustrated above, that was not the case. I met some of the people who came through that horrific time. One man told me that as a young person, he was forced to take the buckets from the latrines, and with no shoes or gloves, hand-fertilize the rice fields. Rice was a year-round crop. People were arrested for having too much fabric in their possession. They were arrested for owning radios. They became suspects for wearing glasses since glasses were seen as a sign of education, and an educated person was a potential threat.

Under the Khmer Rouge, anyone could be arrested for anything, even those who thought they were loyal and obedient party members. Many soldiers who had enjoyed herding people into crowded cells and then hauling them away for torture began to find themselves under arrest and sitting in the very cells that they used to guard. Because that is what happens when a government is run by amoral, power-hungry people.

The people who hate Trump will find a way to get to you. Even if you are a solid Trump-hater yourself, they will get to you for something. They may freeze your social media or your money. They may refuse to let you fly. They may shut down your business or establish laws that might get you fired. They may even knock down your door in the early hours of the morning and take you to jail because of your views on abortion. This current episode in American history is nothing more than an appetizer. These people are just getting stretched out and warmed up.

They most certainly are. You don’t have to like it, but you DO have to admit it, unpleasant though it is.

Update! In an irony so scorching it could raise blisters on unprotected flesh, in the course of doing my usual post-posting proofread, I noticed a most curious juxtaposition:

EndCommies

Learn it, know it, live it indeed.

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Predictable as yesterday’s sunrise

Ace indirectly offers a couple of bets I wouldn’t take even if I WAS a betting man. Which, y’know, I ain’t.

Biden, Who Has Been on Two (2) Vacations Since the Maui Wildfires and Said “No Comment” When Asked About Them, Will Finally Tour Hawaii
—Ace

And I’m sure he won’t work in a Special Bonus Vacation while he’s there.

Heh. See what I mean? Bet Numero dos:


Nope, not having any of that one either. Nor should you, unless you have no problem with throwing good money down the terlet.

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Vegan sausage? WTF!!!

Some people just can’t deal with being at the top of the food chain. Tough noogies for them, sez I.

The time has finally come when your intrepid food and cooking guru finally puts his money where his mouth is and tries those horrid, soul-killing, culture-destroying, taste-obliterating, post-modern monstrosities that are fake meat.

“Made From Plants.” That’s the full description of this “food,” (ie, Impossible™ breakfast sausage—M) which looked very much like some crap breakfast sausage that had been overcooked and was now rather dry and tough. “Made from plants?” So is steak and pork chops, and I don’t crow about it! But right next door was turkey sausage, which is also an abomination unto the Lord, so what did I have to lose?

A lot! My soul for one. My rapidly diminishing faith in Mankind for another. And more importantly, there was actual real bacon within arm’s reach!

Yeah…I chickened out. Maybe next time.

Heh. I see what you just did there, CBD, and I like it.

What’s always struck me as hilarious about all these “vegan” products is how their manufacturers always desperately (and deceptively) try to market them as almost exactly like bacon, hot dogs, ground beef, sausage, etc. If vegans want to eat meat so badly as all that, maybe they ought to just nut the fuck up and, y’know, eat some fucking meat then, instead of ceaselessly trying to convince themselves, you, me, and everyone else within arm’s reach that no, really, that flavorless, disgusting-looking, dried-out Not Dog or Fakin’ Bacon or whatthefuckever is just as good as the real thing.

Well, no, actually, it isn’t. Not even close. “Vegan alternatives” are usually overpriced, soy-rife, nutrition-bereft chemical compounds engineered and grown by scientists in a chem lab someplace. Do I like vegetables? Of course I do. But most of those Frankenmeats have precious few real vegetables in ‘em. Might not leave room for all that tofu, unnerstand.

Add in the cost of the family-size jugs of Beano you’ll have to buy and gulp down in handfuls to cope with the extraordinary bouts of ass-ripping flatulence those “vegan alternatives” bring on, plus the pallet-loads of Kaopectate to help you deal with the constant drizzling shits you’ll also be plagued by, and pretty soon that “healthy” alternative to real meat is going to put a serious dent in your bank account.

But hey, if it allows the vegan to feel all smug and superior to those barbaric, unevolved omnivores, then it’s a bargain at any price, amIright? Oh, and since I backhandedly mentioned evolution just now, wonder how those “enlightened” vegans explain away the fact that humans are equipped with molars, canines, and incisor teeth, hm?

All in all, I’m firmly and forevermore in my old friend Horton Heat’s corner on all this.

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Ready for Round Two?

Hate to say I told ya so, but…I told ya so.

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Preparing to Bring Back FULL Covid Restrictions, Rollout to Begin Mid-September
Whistleblowers from the TSA and Border Patrol have raised the alarm to Infowars that the Biden administration is setting the stage for full Covid lockdowns that will begin with incremental restrictions like masking TSA employees in mid-September.

The first source, a high-level TSA official confirmed and known to Infowars, reached out to Infowars and cited a Tuesday meeting in which TSA managers were told new memorandums & policies were being completed that would reimplement masking, starting with TSA & airport employees as early as mid-September.

The TSA official also said next week they will receive new guidelines on how the policy will escalate: by mid-October, mask-wearing will be required by pilots, flight staff, passengers, and airport patrons.

After hearing from the TSA manager, Infowars reached out to our trusted Border Patrol source who is also a manager. This source confirmed the same directives were being given to Border Patrol.

Infowars’ analysis is clear: this new rollout’s timing is perfect for the embattled Biden administration to put the country back in a state of civil emergency and even martial law to further divide and confuse the public and move forward with the greatest election meddling in history.

After the dismal success of Test Run For Tyranny v1.0™ in 2020-2022, an encore was never a matter of if but of when. So will “Americans” lay docilely down en masse again and take their buggering like good little sheep as they so disgracefully did last time around? Or can we expect more resistance of these blatantly contra-Constitutional edicts than we too-recently witnessed?

Compliance, or defiance? That, folks, is the crucial question. Our liberty, our fortunes, our sacred honor, our very future (if any) all hang in the balance, awaiting our answer. Our posterity likewise hangs by the same slender, frayed thread…waiting.

Fingers crossed and all that, but honestly, I can’t say I’m expecting very much. We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan’s prophetic words of warning from his 1967 Inaugural Address ring out more clearly and somberly than they ever have before.

Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to properly be appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.

In 2023, after everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve endured, can any sane, sensible person seriously contend that Reagan was mistaken? About so much as a single syllable of it?

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MYOB, serf

Know what quite possibly the best thing of all is about living in a free, open society? Gotta be the total transparency on the part of our dedicated, conscientious public servants, who always see to it that their employers are kept fully informed about what the government Of, By, and For The People is getting itself up to.

Regrettably, this is assuredly NOT that society.

IRS special agent killed at Phoenix gun range during training exercise
The FBI is investigating after a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service was killed at a gun range at a correctional facility in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the shooting happened at the firing range at the Federal Correctional Institutional in Phoenix, located near Pioneer Road and Interstate 17 in north Phoenix. Aimee Arthur-Wastell, spokesperson with the FBOP, said the range was being used by multiple federal agencies at the time.

The FBI specified that the agent was there for “routine” training when they were killed, but didn’t offer specifics as to how the agent was killed or if anyone was in custody.

According to Phoenix police, officers who responded to the area found a person shot, later determined to be the IRS agent. The agent was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. It wasn’t immediately clear if the agent died en route or at the hospital.

According to Arthur-Wastell, no FBOP or firing range employees were injured.

“To preserve the integrity and capabilities of the investigation, details of the ongoing process will not be released,” the FBI said in a statement. “Findings of the FBI investigation will be turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona for review.”

Phoenix police remained on the scene assisting the FBI, which took command of the investigation.

Arthur-Westell directed all inquiries regarding the incident to the Department of Treasury’s Office of Inspector General, which as of Thursday evening had not responded to a request for comment.

And there you have it—that’s it, the news “report” in its entirety, nothing redacted,  expurgated, or left out by little old moi. Not a jot or tittle therein of anything resembling actual information, other than  that one of our notional “employees” went to the range and then “was killed”—somewhere, somehow, somewhen, who really knows? Inquiring minds would surely wish to know more, but in Amerika v2.0, inquiring minds can just go suck themselves a fat dique for all their “public servants” give a shit.

From the notable lack of interest on the part of our dogged media establishment in pursuing things any further, one can safely assume that no Ultra Mega Mucho MAGA Americans© whatsoever were involved. As such, expect this story to disappear quicker’n lightning, no further elaboration sought or neccessary, as far as They’re concerned.

Multiple indictments of one Donald J Trump for causing this “tragedy” to follow, naturally.

Via Insty, who quips: REMEMBER, ONLY TRAINED GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS CAN BE TRUSTED TO USE FIREARMS SAFELY. Yes, if there’s any reasonable takeaway here, that would have to be it.

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The Oliver Anthony story

In his own words, straight from the horse’s mouth.

Im sitting in such a weird place in my life right now. I never wanted to be a full time musician, much less sit at the top of the iTunes charts. Draven from RadioWv and I filmed these tunes on my land with the hope that it may hit 300k views. I still don’t quite believe what has went on since we uploaded that. It’s just strange to me. 

People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off 8 million dollar offers. I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression. These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung. No editing, no agent, no bullshit. Just some idiot and his guitar. The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place. 

So that being said, I have never taken the time to tell you who I actually am. Here’s a formal introduction:

My legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford. My grandfather was Oliver Anthony, and “Oliver Anthony Music” is a dedication not only to him, but 1930’s Appalachia where he was born and raised. Dirt floors, seven kids, hard times. At this point, I’ll gladly go by Oliver because everyone knows me as such. But my friends and family still call me Chris. You can decide for yourself, either is fine. 

In 2010, I dropped out of high school at age 17. I have a GED from Spruce Pine, NC. I worked multiple plant jobs in Western NC, my last being at the paper mill in McDowell county. I worked 3rd shift, 6 days a week for $14.50 an hour in a living hell. In 2013, I had a bad fall at work and fractured my skull. It forced me to move back home to Virginia. Due to complications from the injury, it took me 6 months or so before I could work again. 

From 2014 until just a few days ago, I’ve worked outside sales in the industrial manufacturing world. My job has taken me all over Virginia and into the Carolinas, getting to know tens of thousands of other blue collar workers on job sites and in factories. Ive spent all day, everyday, for the last 10 years hearing the same story. People are SO damn tired of being neglected, divided and manipulated. 

In 2019, I paid $97,500 for the property and still owe about $60,000 on it. I am living in a 27′ camper with a tarp on the roof that I got off of craigslist for $750.

There’s nothing special about me. I’m not a good musician, I’m not a very good person. I’ve spent the last 5 years struggling with mental health and using alcohol to drown it. I am sad to see the world in the state it’s in, with everyone fighting with each other. I have spent many nights feeling hopeless, that the greatest country on Earth is quickly fading away.

FAIR WARNING: the link is to a post on Anthony’s Fakeberg page, if that’s a problem for ya. This once, it wasn’t for me.

I’ve seen some speculation here and there that Anthony is in reality some kind of false-flag sleeper agent for TPTB, but I can’t honestly say I buy it myself; his story rings true enough to me, especially knowing as I do how these lightning-in-a-bottle moments work in the music biz, and how commonly they actually do occur.

And, per John Nolte, those jackwagons at NRO can STILL kiss my baggy, white ass.

(Via Insty)

3

Power failure

Coming all too soon to an aging, overburdened, decrepit electric grid near you.

A Silent Threat to the Energy Transition: America’s Broken Infrastructure Policy
So much of the conversation focuses on the tired and misleading narrative about Oil & Gas villains vs. Renewable heroes. The true enemy of our sustainable energy future is the nation’s broken infrastructure policy. We could greenlight every renewable project in development today and innovate every piece of technology needed to meet our climate goals, and it wouldn’t matter because we lack the ability to utilize and store the energy we create.

Infrastructure isn’t top of mind for most people, but it has gotten more attention in recent years, particularly after Congress passed the massive $1 trillion infrastructure bill in 2021. The legislation included funding for everything from airport repairs to clean drinking water. It also contained the largest investment in clean energy transmission and the electric grid in U.S. history – $65 billion – to be used for new transmission lines for renewable energy, advanced transmission and distribution technologies, and research hubs for next-generation technologies, including carbon capture and clean hydrogen.

But what good are new transmission lines and next-gen technologies if they never make it past the black hole of red tape, interminable delays, supply-chain problems, and exploding costs that derail so many energy projects?

Much of the U.S. grid was built in the 1960s and 1970s, and over 70% of it is currently more than a quarter-century old. But age isn’t the grid’s only problem. The U.S. power infrastructure was built to bring energy from where fossil fuels are burned to where the energy will be used. The nation’s electricity industry, meanwhile, grew via a patchwork of local utility companies whose targets were to meet local demand and maintain grid reliability.

Emissions-free energy sources like sun and wind are, by nature, intermittent. They’re abundant only in places where the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, and therefore need to be stored and transmitted to other locations where there is demand for power. 

Along with the need for new ways to transmit and store sustainable energy, the existing grid will need a major upgrade as demand for electricity rises to meet the needs of electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other replacements for conventional energy sources. A modernized and expanded grid “will be the backbone of the energy transition – and a requirement of any realistic decarbonization pathway,” according to a 2022 report by McKinsey & Company.

There is no silver bullet to fix this complex set of issues. But it’s clear we need a strategic approach to infrastructure investment, and fast. Part of that investment needs to come from Washington in the form of comprehensive policy and regulatory reform, which is the single biggest blocker to private investment and healthy competition in the energy sector. 

Simply put, building energy projects is complicated. Who pays for what is even more complicated, as processes, permitting, payment, and incentivization are all misaligned. Current policy doesn’t support the buildout we need; in fact, it slows it down and exacerbates the problem. Without policy and regulatory reform, we’ll continue to pay more and more to maintain our quality of life. Even worse, we’ll never reach the finish line in the race to a sustainable energy future.

I’ll say it yet again: funny, innit, how almost all of our contemporary woes have their origins in the same place: a greedy, grasping, over-powerful central goobermint?

(Via Bayou Peter)

1

Mea culpa, kinda-sorta

Off to a late start today, thanks to a miserable night spent being tormented by phantom pain in my no-longer-extant left foot, which kept me up and screaming out loud beginning at about 3-3:30 AM and carrying on non-stop until damned near four this afternoon. That shit ain’t no joke, folks, trust me on this one. Having watched my GF’s father go through it during my immediately-post-high-school years, I thought I understood that as well as anybody could, but now I know: until you’ve actually dealt with it yourself, you really have no idea.

Now to see if anything out there lights my blog-posting fire…

3

Hitching a ride

Family learns the hard way that they’d be better off to spit on their asses and slide than relying on a coal-powered EV for their transportation needs.

Family ditches electric truck on drive from Winnipeg to Chicago after charging troubles
Road trip completed with rented gas-powered vehicle, while Ford says charging infrastructure is improving

The owner of a 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat with an extended-range battery regrets buying the electric truck after attempting a road trip, only to abandon it and finish the drive with a gas-powered rental vehicle.

Dalbir Bala of La Salle, Man., left the truck in Minnesota last month after he said he tried unsuccessfully to charge the battery at two different charging stations.

“It was really a nightmare frustration for us,” Bala said.

He bought the truck — which is advertised as having a range of 515 kilometres — for $115,000 in January. He spent an additional $16,000 installing chargers at his home and his trucking business, and upgrading his residential electrical panel.

Bala, his wife and three kids left on a trip to visit Wisconsin Dells, Wis., and Chicago for business, on July 27. The truck was fully charged when they left their home just south of Winnipeg, and Bala had plans to stop at level 3 charging stations, which provide faster charges, located along the planned route.

Bala’s first stop was about 350 kilometres south of Winnipeg in Fargo, N.D. He paid $56 to charge his vehicle’s battery from 10 per cent up to 90 per cent.

The trouble started at his next stop in Albertville, Minn., where Bala said the only fast charger brought up a faulty connection message in his truck when he plugged in. He called the number on the charger for help but never got a response.

He headed to another charging station in nearby Elk River, Minn., but a charger there wouldn’t work either, he said.

With only 15 kilometres remaining on his battery and no fast charger within that range, he decided to ditch his Lightning. Bala got it towed to a Ford dealership and the family rented a gas-powered Toyota 4Runner to finish their trip to Chicago.

A nightmare indeed. The ultimate lesson here was expressed in a great movie from many years ago:

There’s another great old movie clip that is quite apropos to this sad story.

Heh. Indeed.

1

Travesty

Justice? Not in Amerika v2.0, bub. No chance.

The Jury’s Verdict in Andy Ngo’s Case Against Antifa Sends Shockwaves
At the conclusion of journalist Andy Ngo’s multi-day civil trial against Rose City Antifa, whose far-left militant members brutally beat the investigative reporter when he went undercover to expose Antifa’s extremist activities on the riot-torn streets of Portland, a 12-person jury reached a verdict in the case Tuesday evening, reportedly finding both of the defendants not liable for all claims.

The Post Millennial’s senior editor—represented by attorney Harmeet Dhillon’s nonprofit Center for American Liberty—sought almost $1 million in damages in a lawsuit accusing the co-defendants of assault, battery, theft, and intentional infliction of emotional distress over a series of violent Antifa attacks beginning in 2019, when Ngo was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage.

Bad enough, certainly. But hold onto your hats, it gets even worse from there.

In closing statements, defense counsel Michelle Burrows told the jurors that not only does she self-identify as an “anti-fascist,” she strongly declared, “I am Antifa,” and insisted upon making herself an “I am Antifa” t-shirt, which the activist attorney said she would wear after the trial. In spite of Antifa’s well-documented history of violence, Burrows told the jury that Antifa’s unfavorable reputation is untrue and depicted the organized militants as activists fighting for social justice and civil rights. “Resistance in this country has never been peaceful,” Burrows argued in defense of Antifa, admitting that Ngo’s tormenters were, in fact, “terrorists.”

Rather than taking the time to provide evidence as to why the defendants should be free of liability, Burrow instead defended anti-fascism and attacked Ngo’s credibility as a journalist. Burrows also told jurrors that she “will remember each one of their faces.”

Before jury deliberation commenced, Judge Chanpone Sinlapasai announced that the jurors have raised safety concerns about being “doxxed” and claimed that people have been trying to identify them, according to a Post Millennial report by Seattle-based correspondent Katie Daviscourt. Prior to the trial’s conclusion, Sinlapasai issued court orders banning the public and non-credentialed press from the courtroom for the duration of Ngo’s jury trial as it was underway in Multnomah County Circuit Court. The judge’s decision was made due to multiple in-court disruptions since the trial began on July 31 as well as security issues.

On the final day of the trial, both Ngo and his colleague Daviscourt, who has been providing day-by-day coverage, were harassed by Antifa’s associates. Ngo was heading into court while Daviscourt was threatened inside the courthouse as the jury sat down to deliberate. “Get in the elevator with us,” one of the co-defendants, joined by two others, told Daviscourt in a threatening tone, calling her a multitude of names. “Why won’t you get in the elevator with us? We want you in here.”

Why, it’s almost as if, buoyed by the sure and certain knowledge that pAntiFa is the semi-official street-enforcement arm of the D卐M☭CRAT Party Criminal Organization just as surely as the Ku Klux Klan used to be, the “defendants” in this sham of a “trial” believed themselves to be immune from all consequences for their violent acts.

About which assumption they turned out to be one hundred percent correct.

Antifa rioters destroyed a Post Millennial reporter’s car at the courthouse where she was covering the verdict to a case involving one of the outlet’s reporters who was suing the domestic terror group.

Katie Daviscourt, the reporter who was covering the Ngo (case), returned to her car after attending the court session to find it vandalized by the far-left thugs.

“After I left the courthouse where I was reporting on @MrAndyNgo’s trial against Antifa, I found that my car was broken into by my hotel. The windows were busted out, items were stolen, and personal identification documents were taken—I’m obviously upset” Daviscourt tweeted.

The Antifa treatment was not new to Daviscourt, who was attacked on camera by Antifa.

Ahh, but let’s not anyone be thinking that the court system, the judges, the lawyers, and the jury are the only ones at fault here. Of course and as usual, we must include the cops in our lengthy list of culprits.

Before you dismiss this as “Hey, you signed up for this, Portland, you voted in these knuckleheads who gave Antifa a wide berth,” let’s consider what this case means.

I sat in a Multnomah County courtroom in the trial of another journalist who was beaten by Antifa members and who pulled a pistol to fend off a second attack in 2016. Not a shot was fired, the second attack was thwarted, and instead of prosecuting his attackers, woke politicians went after Mike Strickland for showing his gun. He went to jail. His attackers were never pursued. In fact, they were never identified in court or by any of the undercover cops that had infiltrated the protest crowd that day.

The cops didn’t bother to help Strickland, either. While in the courtroom at his trial, I was threatened by Antifa allies. I also later received death threats that the Portland Police dismissed as no big deal.

I only wish I could say I’m surprised. Can’t say I necessarily agree with Taft’s assertion re Portland; surely any sane and decent soul has long since fled the anarchic rubble-pile for more agreeable, civilized climes by now, so all who remain are in fact just reaping what they’ve sown. Let them wallow in it then, for all me.

As for pAntiFa, CF Lifers will already know my own prescription for fixing that little red wagon: there should never again be any gathering of these oxygen thieves, of any sort whatever, that doesn’t end with at least one of their number lying in the street swiftly bleeding out—felled by a righteous dose of .308 caliber justice, administered from a great distance. After all this, it ought to be clear enough that nothing short of that is going to get the job done.

Update! Related? Oh, you just better believe it is.

On the eve of a potential fourth indictment of former President Trump, I cannot help but observe how certain actions and policies, all under the illusion of safeguarding our “democracy,” are sowing the seeds of division and disillusionment. In this theater of political maneuvering, self-anointed “guardians of democracy” have brazenly cast aside time-honored norms and foundational principles as they callously disregard the legitimate grievances voiced by a substantial segment of the American populace.

Thus ordinary Americans find themselves subjected to attacks and marginalization, and carry the risk of being labeled extremists. Biden’s declaration further solidified this trend, branding these individuals as forces determined to “destroy democracy” and saying they represent an “extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

I continue to grow extremely concerned knowing the path toward radicalization is forged by unaddressed grievances, suppressed dissent, hopelessness, and the unchecked abuse of power.

What damned well oughta concern you a hell of a lot more is if, in the current case, it isn’t.

Only those in power can pull us back from the brink.

In a pig’s eye. As history hath shewn, when those in power are the authors of our woes, there isn’t the slightest chance of their ever fixing the damage they wantonly, knowingly created. That responsibility then falls on the shoulders of We The People, as is only right, proper, and just.

3

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CF Glossary

ProPol: Professional Politician

Vichy GOPe: Putative "Republicans" who talk a great game but never can seem to find a hill they consider worth dying on; Quislings, Petains, Benedicts, backstabbers, fake phony frauds

Fake Phony Fraud(s), S'faccim: two excellent descriptors coined by the late great WABC host Bob Grant which are interchangeable, both meaning as they do pretty much the same thing

Mordor On The Potomac: Washington, DC

The Enemy: shitlibs, Progtards, Leftards, Swamp critters, et al ad nauseum

Burn, Loot, Murder: what the misleading acronym BLM really stands for

pAntiFa: an alternative spelling of "fascist scum"

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