So my very first blog-stop every day, after I’ve painfully hauled my creaky, clanky old carcass out of bed, grabbed a cuppa Joe, and lit the first smoke of the day, is always JJ Sefton’s reliably-excellent Morning Report over at the ol’ AoSHQ. As y’all no doubt know, last Thursday I did a post (“Time to wise up, dont’cha think?“) gingerly (well, for me) taking Sefton to task for this passage in that day’s edition of the MR:

Emphasis mine, because with all due respect to the author, RUFKM? We’re going to play by rules which the other side not only never does but now never needs to because the game, the stadium and the entire league has been wiped out?! Please. Let’s stop pretending. The thugs and terrorist goons of Antifa and BLM are already assaulting us in the streets while the crooked cops, DAs and judges are throwing us into political prisons just for daring to show up in public. But, that said, I think it’s crucial to still show up and vote, not so much being confident that Dao-Min Yen can’t steal the election, but that in the likely event that that happens it will just underscore the fact that America is no more and that we are being held hostage, in many ways just like the hundreds or thousands of Americans left behind in Afghanistan.

I registered my (frankly niggling) disagreement with JJ here with as much caution and reserve as I could muster—neither of those things being what anybody would call my long suit, since I never have had a whole hell of a lot of ’em to begin with—and did so with great reluctance and trepidation. I’ve been a tremendous fan of Sefton’s skillful, astute blogging since before he even came on board at the ol’ Ace Place. JJ is a damned fine writer, and in my opinion has made a valuable contribution at AoSHQ since taking up the post there. The last thing in the world I’d ever want to do would be to antagonize him, slight or insult him, or hurt him personally in any way. As I said in the post: he’s one of Our Guys, and a highly admirable and valuable one at that, one of the most indispensible players on Team Liberty’s first-string squad of heartbreakers and lifetakers.

With that mind, I published the Thursday post with no slight trepidation, although in truth I also didn’t really think it too likely that JJ would ever even see the damned thing. For one thing, there’s never yet been a link to CF from the HQ to my knowledge; honestly, I have no idea if Ace or any of the cobs over there even look in on this site at all. Which, y’know, that’s perfectly okay, I got no gripe with ’em for it. Although I rely a good bit on the HQ as a blog-fodder source, I’ve had no more than a brief and perfectly cordial email exchange or two with Ace over the years, and no such correspondence with any of the cobs. Which, too, is perfectly okay. They do their thing, I do mine. I like their work, I respect them, I check their site more than once a day. We have a great many beliefs and opinions in common, but not all of them. That’s as it should be, too. Anyone who finds himself in one hundred percent, across-the-board agreement with someone else is probably crazy as a shithouse rat, a certified headcase.

The folks over there have made AoSHQ a genuine blogosphere juggernaut, one of the biggest of the Bigs, by dint of a lot of what Heinlein called “skull sweat,” dedication, and effort. Having been on this beat myself for twenty years now almost to the very day, I know full well how much work it is, what it requires of the person doing it. Trust me, this blogging gig takes a lot more out of a fella than most who haven’t tried it probably realize— it’s way more time- and labor-intensive, more just plain exhausting, than you might think. The people at AoSHQ didn’t rise to their current lofty position by either coincidence or dumb luck, I assure you.

So in light of all of the above, imagine my surprise to see this earlier today:

Good morning, kids. Tuesday and it’s back to work and school after the long Labor Day weekend. Or at least it would be if we were living in normal times. But this is the “new normal” where we are through a glass and darkly. I don’t usually respond to criticism but in this instance I feel it will help make my point about the state of play and what it means for all of us. Mike over at Cold Fury was a bit irked with my observations on elections in a post-2020 world:

I do hate to look as if I’m jumping all over JJ here; I have tremendous respect for him, and always enjoy his posts. Thankfully, after the above-noted momentary swerve into the “Vote HARDERER!TM” ditch, he righted himself and got back on track again with those closing ‘graphs. But I declare, if I see one more of Our Guys (and Sefton surely is that) so much as bring up American “elections” again as if they still mattered as anything other than pure theater, I may just start rending my garments, tearing out what hair I have left, and swallowing my tongue over it.

It’s a fair point, because I too have on more than one occasion called out pundits, respected and otherwise, who write the most perceptive essays on where we’re at yet shit all over them in the end with exhortations to organize and/or “Vote HARDERER.” In my own defense I will chalk it up to not adequately articulating and organizing my thoughts insofar as my perception of things, so with that let me see if I can get it right. As I said, through a glass and darkly. It’s some sort of alternate reality where everything appears to function as before but it’s all wrong. Terribly wrong. For me that happened 20 years ago this week. Shock, numbness, and denial. After that comes acceptance and G-d help me if I ever feel that because I’ll have to stick my head in an oven. Assuming we haven’t banned natural gas by then.

A perfect response, in my opinion, adroitly and handsomely done. JJ goes on from there to make another point I’ve been meaning to get around to myself, but haven’t yet found time or opportunity for it:

Some people, and absolutely justifiably so, are calling for the impeachment and removal from office of Joe Biden.

The Afghanistan disaster has surely taken out what little fetid wind was left in the sails of Nancy Pelosi’s Trump-hate, January 6 committee. Instead of a Monrovian “era of good feelings,” America is having and executing a time of increasing unease over bad policy failings in every important field, ostensibly presided over by an opinionated but incoherent man approaching the last extremity of cognition adequate to hold such a great office. It cannot go on like this and it won’t.

Joe Biden is not up to the job. Barring a miracle (and they do occur sometimes), he will not go on for three-and-a-half years. The powers that be in the Democratic Party appear already to be trying to shuffle the vice president out of the deck and bring in someone who might be able to hold the commanding heights of American government through what is building up to be a broad consensus for radical changes of personnel and policy.

Aside from his blind worship of FDR which has rendered more than a few otherwise cogent essays unreadable, I really like and respect Conrad Black. But here too, the “miracle” he’s relying on is not Biden lasting until 2024, but of a leopard changing its spots. Joe Biden is merely the proverbial deck chair on the Titanic. The entire Democrat Party, and sad to say most of the GOP, are at best incompetent grifters and at worst anti-American ideologues. Even if you got rid of both parties we’re still left with the Leviathan bureaucracy – including our military – that is 100% Marxist/socialist and a seriously corrupted judiciary which is just as bad. And that’s just government. The same rot has infected our schools, private sector and even our houses of worship. I am in total agreement that some sort of miracle is required at this point. But replacing Biden and even Harris along with him, is not it.

Black, like so many people, is still under the illusion that America functions under regular order, with the rules, conventions and norms associated with them respected and followed. Canadian or not, the fact that he and so many others cannot or will not see that the USA as of last January 6th has been overthrown is troubling to say the least. Troubling but understandable. It’s human nature to not want to face that horrible, undeniable truth. Maybe that’s why I dithered or sent mixed signals about voting.

Ironically enough, I’m smack in the middle of work on a post saying almost exactly the same thing. Mine will undoubtedly be a lot wordier than his, with wild stream-of-consciousness digressions, overlooked typos, and miscellaneous other grammatical, syntatical, conceptual, and structural atrocities scattered throughout. Hey, you get what you pay for, people. Now, to the thrilling conclusion:

But there’s no denying that the enemy is doing all it can to consolidate power, control elections, flood the country with foreigners (now including unvetted Afghanis in the thousands), and continue to use a phony health “crisis” as a means to eviscerate whatever shred of the Constitution still existing. Did I mention sick a feral law enforcement and intelligence apparatus on anyone who dares object, soon to be aided and abetted by a military that can’t fight the PLA or the Taliban but has its weapons trained on the climate and “insurrectionists” but mostly average G-d fearing Americans.

So, what do we do? If you vote, they’ll steal it or otherwise create some other pretext to cancel the elections to avoid being ousted, Dao-Min Yen notwithstanding. If we don’t vote, they win automatically and declare a mandate (which is what they do win, lose or draw anyway). Do we take to the streets peacefully? That risks being arrested for insurrection. Do we do nothing? I wish I knew what to tell you. We are out of time. Either there is a mass movement of civil disobedience where people really do have to risk everything here and now or else it’s over over here. And there for 500 years as the Pox ChiCom-ica replaces the Pax Americana.

I’ve never felt so helpless, useless and hopeless in my entire life. I’m just sick and tired. Maybe I just need to eat something.

Fret not, my friend. The way things are going, NOT feeling the way you do would be something to worry about. Your reaction, though certainly discomfiting and unpleasant, is the only sane, appropriate option for any American whose moral compass and integrity remain intact and functional. The problem here ain’t with you. It’s with them—with what they’ve done, and continue to get away with doing. It’s a bona fide litany of outrage and evil so excessive, so brazen, so mind-bendingly perverse that it might make even Lucifer himself blanche and recoil in disgust. As a decent and honorable man yourself, if you weren’t positively choking from despair, gloom, and incandescent rage over the whole sordid mess, it would be an indication that there’s something seriously, seriously wrong with you.