Pattern of (mis)behavior

Gee, quelle coincidence.

U.S Virgin Islands AG Fired during Biden Visit after Vowing to Expose Epstein’s Powerful Friends

The attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands has been fired just days after vowing to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s powerful friends and accomplices.

Denise George was reportedly “terminated” by the territory’s governor during Democrat President Joe Biden’s official visit to the islands.

Deceased child sex trafficker Epstein infamously owned a private island in the Virgin Islands where many of his victims have alleged the abuse took place.

The island, Little St. James, was known by locals and authorities as “Pedophile Island” and was visited by Epstein’s powerful friends.

The news of George’s firing comes just days after she made global headlines by moving to bring justice to those complicit in Epstein’s crimes.

And well into Bribem’s extended “vacation” there, no less. Which, apparently, was something of a working vacation, looks like. Lest we forget:

Joe Biden bragged about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired.
The president said that he instructed the then-president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, to fire the prosecutor general in efforts to tackle corruption.

On January 23, 2018, during a Council on Foreign Relations discussion, then Vice President Joe Biden was asked about Ukraine’s prospects for peace. Biden pursued an anti-corruption policy in Ukraine in 2016 that included a call for the resignation of the country’s top prosecutor who had previously investigated Burisma.

Biden recounted a story in which he allegedly told then-President Petro Poroshenko that the U.S. would not release $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Poroshenko fired the prosecutor general as part of anti-corruption efforts. Buzzfeed reports: “‘I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours,’” Biden told the crowd, taking a long look at his watch for effect. “‘If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch.” Here the audience laughed. ‘He got fired.'”

Son of a bitch is right. That this corrupt old filthbag has somehow gotten away with fifty years of such sleazy, slimy maneuvering is as good an indicator as anyone ought ever to need of just how deeply embedded the rot in the US federal government is: all the way down to the fucking bone.

Hope springs eternal

However manifestly forlorn it may be.

The exhausting toils of the holidays are behind us; the mischief that could be done by the lame ducks in Congress has been done ($1.7 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill); and the time has come for the citizens of this land to get some answers about the escalating trips laid on them by their own government. The House of Representatives is in new hands. You’ll know in pretty short order whether they are capable, trustworthy hands, or just a blur of fast fingers running another three-card-monte table.

The most pressing questions abide around justice, and the gavel of the Judiciary Committee passes from the barely-alive Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to the very animated Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). He needs to ask FBI Director Chris Wray how it came to be that the Bureau sat in possession of the Hunter Biden laptop during the impeachment of January 2020 and did not offer up to the defense the exculpatory evidence it abundantly contained in the way of business deal memos between the Biden family and officials in several foreign lands, Ukraine in particular. After all, the impeachment hinged on a telephone inquiry Mr. Trump made about just those matters. Was there a good reason for that phone call, or not? Obviously, there was, and Mr. Wray’s conduct looks like obstruction of justice in the highest degree.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) comes in as chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. He announced months ago that he would hold hearings on interesting issues such Hunter Biden’s taxes and exactly who has paid to support his new career as an “artist.”

We’ve got national security concerns with respect to Hunter Biden. We want to know if you remember who bought that expensive artwork when he was an artist for about three days and sold the artwork for half a million dollars. We want to know why the Russian oligarchs who paid Hunter Biden money were mysteriously left off the sanctions list when Joe Biden started putting sanctions on Russians and Russian oligarchs. We’ve got a lot of questions about shady business dealings that Hunter had and whether or not they impacted the Biden administration.

Next Mr. Wray has to answer for the FBI’s infiltration of social media. How did the top lawyer at the FBI, Jim Baker, come to be employed as the right-hand to Twitter’s chief censor, Vijaya Gadde? How did all those former FBI agents land at the company along with Jim Baker, and what did Mr. Wray have to do with the FBI demands to censor news and persons on matters of critical national importance such as vaccine safety and election fraud? How did more than a hundred former federal agents land on Facebook, Google, and other platforms? How did Mr. Wray decide to shut down the avenues of the First Amendment to the Constitution?

Next up: Attorney General Merrick Garland. On what grounds are pre-trial January 6 Riot suspects being held in the decrepit DC federal lockup without bail on rinky-dink charges two years after the event? How does that square with American due process of law? What did he know about the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop and the evidence it contained? What is he doing about it? How did Mr. Garland happen to target for prosecution parents protesting school board policies on race and sexual matters? Of course, Mr. Garland is going to evade answering by using the ploy that all these questions “pertains to ongoing investigations.” Mr. Jordan had better hire a gutsy chief counsel with some brains to penetrate that bodyguard of lies.

If the Special Subcommittee on the January 6 Riot is disbanded, turn the matter over to the Andy Biggs’ Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Let’s hear from Nancy Pelosi’s staff as to why her office (of the Speaker) turned down offers from the Trump White House for national guard protection that day. Let’s also hear from the then-chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, who resigned from that job two days later — in consternation or disgrace? Bring back Mr. Wray and Mr. Garland. How many federal agents were circulating in the crowd the night before and on the day of the January 6 riot? Why was one Ray Epps never indicted for his much-recorded incitements to enter the Capitol? Who opened the magnetically-locked doors from the inside of the building? Stuff like that. What was the decision process for not charging officer Michael Byrd in the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt?

I hope it’s not too impertinent to suppose that the January 6 Riot was engineered by our government to embarrass and punish its political opponents — taking advantage of the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” which was what that crowd had come to do in Washington DC that day. Interesting how a little tweaking here and there turned that into a convenient fiasco. Entrapment, anyone? And how government control and interference over social media and corporate news reinforced the narrative that the stage-managed riot was “an insurrection” — one of many actual “big lies” of our time nurtured by our government against its citizens.

A few other inquiries in this new Congress that need to commence ASAP: Can we hear from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as to how come the US-Mexican Border is absolutely wide open; why his employees are transporting illegal aliens all around the USA; why he is running a program in Mexico to give Venezuelans and other select alien nationals “advanced authorization” and “two years parole,” then sneaking them into the USA through regular ports-of-entry?

Hey, I have an idea: maybe Miss Lindsey “Talk-talk” Graham can empanel another of his vaunted Blue Ribbon Commissions™ to “get to the bottom” of this extensive litany of corruption, malfeasance, and dysfunction again!

RuiNation

Anybody who has ever worked for a medium-to-large-sized corporation in America has experienced this same sort of thing. Even working for a small, strictly-local B-drayage hauler in the air-freight business for many years, I most certainly have.

What happened to Southwest Airlines?

I’ve been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I’ve given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.

Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow-motion train wreck for sometime. And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.

Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day-to-day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front-line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy-in. Everything that was needed to run a first-class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.

Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches then neither do the lower levels of leadership.

Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day-to-day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.

They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.

But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?

We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.

A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010’s. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990’s technology. We didn’t have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.
When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.

Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline’s technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.

But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990’s operating system.

The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.

We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.

The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.

I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.

It’s been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.

Herb once said the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was. I miss Herb now more than ever.

Whether they know of him specifically or not, many people do. Or almost certainly will, as time grinds on.

The American economic juggernaut was built on the idea that people would start at the bottom of any given enterprise and work their way up based on experience, talent, and knowledge of the business from soup to nuts. Alas for us all, the advent of the MBA replaced that excellent system with nebbish dweebs coming in from outside to “manage” the business without ever having set Foot One on a loading dock, factory floor, or assembly line in their entire lives, which has all but done away with any concept of making it on merit. Those overcredentialed-but-undereducated, shiny-loafered, smug college-boy types have been nothing but sand in the gears of what was once the mightiest wealth-producing engine in all of history.

Like church bells

Give the man semi-ambulatory rutabaga credit for this, at least: he has some pair of balls on him. Great big brass ones, all a-clank.

Biden Has Multi-Trillion Dollar Spending Bill Flown to Caribbean Vacation So He Can Sign It

That, of course, would be the phonus-balonus omnibus “budget” bill chockablock with Climate Change (formerly Global Cooling, formerly Global Warming, formerly The Weather™) “amelioration” grift, graft, and outright highway robbery.

The $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed last week will soon be on a plane headed for the Caribbean, so that President Joe Biden can sign it without delay while on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a White House official confirmed to Fox Business on Thursday.

The deadline to sign the massive spending package is Dec. 30, and the Bidens will be in St. Croix through the New Year.

Fox Business Network White House correspondent Edward Lawrence reported on Thursday that the omnibus bill will therefore “be transported to St Croix for POTUS to sign.”

On a chartered private jet, natch. Or so I’m assuming, that is. For all I know, the sorry sack of shit shanghai’ed a USAF F16, pilot, and ground crew to wing this vitally, critically, crucially important “climate change amelioration” package for him to wave his palsied hand over.

I dunno, though, could be that gargantuan set of swingin’ boy-beans on Bribem are what the hapless stumblebum keeps tripping over on the AF-1 boarding stairs every time he tries to get up ’em.


Romney rubs it in

A pluperfect example of GOPe “thinking.”

Mitt Romney Tries to Explain the Omnibus Vote, and It’ll Leave You Punching Walls

Far better to punch Romney, if you ask me. Certainly more productive, and easier on the hands too.

On Thursday, 18 Republican senators joined hands with Democrats to pass yet another massive Omnibus spending bill. This time, it cost US taxpayers $1.7 trillion, setting spending baselines that will now be used for the next two years via continuing resolutions. All of this happened mere weeks before the GOP was set to take over the House of Representatives, meaning that the power of the purse that was just won has been conceded without anything resembling a fight.

Luckily, we have Sen. Mitt Romney around to explain that this wasn’t actually a betrayal of what was promised during the last election. In fact, you are just too stupid to realize that this is actually a good thing.

Romney begins by saying that he’s “convinced that this will cost less money than if we kick the can down the road until next year.”

So let’s just kick the can down the road this year instead. Hey, makes perfect sense, I guess, for certain values of the word “sense.”

He then cites the fact that the House GOP hasn’t selected a speaker yet to bolster his argument, saying that he’s “not sure they’re going to be able to take on the budget for this as well as the next year.”

In other words, you absolute rubes who voted for Republicans during the last mid-terms can’t be trusted to have your votes actually mean anything. Instead, you must be protected from yourself by having GOP Senators nuke the power of the purse before Republicans even take control. And you should be thankful that Romney and the rest did that for you.

The Utah senator then goes on to point out that even if House Republicans put together a budget, Democrats wouldn’t vote for it. Well, yes Mitt, we know. We are all well aware that Democrats actually keep their promises and hold the line. Why can’t the GOP do the same thing? Why can’t they lead and dictate instead of constantly reacting and bending the knee?

Oh, they can, right enough. Trouble is, they don’t want to. They know their prescribed role in this putrid little charade, and are content to stick with it.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, Romney then does what establishment Republicans always do, which is to suggest that military spending justifies all manner of domestic insanity. That’d be the same military currently instituting a preferred pronouns policy and that hasn’t won a war since the early ’90s. To end the video, he then lists out all the pork he’s bringing home to Utah.

To sum it up, the Republican Party deserves to lose, and parties that deserve to lose rarely win. There is no point in winning elections if the results are the same. The GOP had a chance to stand up here and at least demand the inclusion of funds to secure the border, and they couldn’t even get that done. And in the midst of being fed that turd sandwich, we are told it’s actually smoked brisket.

Heh. Brings to mind a bona fide classic from years ago, which featured now-irrelevant Milquetoast Conservative and bland Vichy GOPe shill Hugh Hewitt smacking his lips in gustatory delight and declaring, “My, this shit sandwich sure is tasty!” Can’t recall now who posted it originally—the Onion, maybe, back when they were still worth reading, which sorta tells you how long ago this was—nor which issue Hewitt had folded like a cheap accordion on, even. Trust me, though, it was a good ‘un.

WHOSE party?

Not yours, not mine, not ours. THEIRS.

At their convention in 1900, the Republicans renominated William McKinley for president. They also had a problem on their hands: a boisterous trouble-maker with an exceptional ability to inspire crowds. His name was Teddy Roosevelt, a man more than one contemporary would describe as “the most remarkable man I ever met.” But the Republican Party had never liked Roosevelt, principally because he was impossible to control. He had a penchant for saying exactly what he thought and doing exactly what he wanted, no matter whether it was in line with the approved party platform.

In 1900, Roosevelt had been making a huge nuisance of himself as governor of New York, a position of massive importance in which, as he grew more and more popular, he became harder and harder to control. The Republicans, led by Thomas C. Platt (“Boss Platt”), wanted him out—out of New York, and out of power, period. So they hatched the perfect plan, nominating him for vice president, where he couldn’t do anything.

Roosevelt took the bait. The temptation of being a top man in Washington, D.C., was too great for him to resist, even though he knew he’d have no real power. And when McKinley won the election, the political bosses were doubly delighted: They had the White House, and they had managed to move TR from the vital role of New York governor to the totally impotent role of vice president.

The vice presidency at the turn of the century was a political graveyard, where politicians were sent to be gently eased out of power forever. We had not yet arrived at the modern tradition of having vice presidents generally rise to the presidency, or at least to the nomination. A vice president wasn’t even guaranteed to be nominated as the running mate for the second term of the president he had served. (McKinley’s first vice president was Garret Hobart, although he had a particularly good reason for not getting a second term—he died in office of a heart attack.)

Teddy Roosevelt’s political career was considered over when he went to Washington as vice president after the Republican victory of 1900. And it would have stayed that way if not for a freak twist of fate: In September 1901, McKinley became the third American president to be assassinated. Roosevelt was elevated from obscurity to the office he most desired and was best-suited to fill. The political bosses realized they had made a mistake, but it was too late: Their mistake haunted them through three presidential terms (two of TR’s and one of Taft’s). And then, after Taft’s first term, things got really bad.

TR wanted to be president again. He thought Taft was doing a mediocre job. And he argued (with a certain logic) that he’d never really had the two terms to which an American president was traditionally entitled because he’d only been elected president once—his first term, remember, had merely been the completion of McKinley’s.

But the Republican Party hated TR even more by 1912, even if the voters adored him. So they renominated Taft against the popular consensus. In response, TR founded a third party, the infamous “Bull Moose” party. This split the Republican vote, though in the process, TR got more votes than Taft, the only time in history that one of the two main parties finished in third place. This handed the presidency to Woodrow Wilson, one of the most destructive men of the 20th century (and the first academic to be elected president). Wilson never would have stood a chance had the Republican nomination gone to TR—he was elected with a mere 41 percent of the vote, an historic low.

But from the Republican perspective, it was better to lose the presidential race and have a Democrat in power with whom they could work—one who could play the game and be part of the machine—than it was to have someone who couldn’t be controlled. They never again made the mistake of nominating a man who wasn’t under their thumb. At least, not until 2016.

So remember: The GOP isn’t really our party. It never was. That is the central truth that the Trump phenomenon has exposed—or exposed anew. It’s a political machine, just like the Democratic Party, and it wants to run itself, not be run by “ordinary” people like you and me. Trump’s nomination the first time around, from the GOP’s perspective, was a huge mistake, just as TR’s had been. And they have no intention of repeating that kind of mistake.

Keep the story of the 1900 Republican Convention in mind, too, when you think of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: He’s a huge success in Florida, and is the only governor standing up to the federal government in any meaningful way. What could be better than to seduce him away from that role with the promise of the presidency? Kill two birds with one stone, and kill America, too, while you’re at it.

Trump was a huge mistake: He was the biggest mistake machine politicians had made in over a century. The success of Trump’s presidency dealt establishment politicians a heavy blow. A second Trump term might kill them, and they know it.

Nah, not a chance. They’ll kill HIM long before they ever let that happen, count on it. Don’t dare kid yourself that they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, or don’t dare to. As I keep saying, that leaves us with just the one option, and we all already know full well what that option is.

A real headscratcher

So, where IS that strong fishy odor coming from, anyway?

Christmas meals will cost 16.4% more this year
Christmas meals will take a bigger bite out of your budget this year, according to a recent report.

The holiday dinner grocery basket is estimated to cost an average of $60.29, according to data from Datasembly.

That’s 16.4% higher than last year’s basket when comparing the same exact basket of goods. It’s also double the year-over-year increase reported last year at 8.2%, according to the retail data firm.

According to the data, biscuits had the highest price increase year-over-year, rising 47.7%. Butter and russet potatoes weren’t far behind with prices rising 38% and 32.6%, respectively, the data showed.

The smallest increase, according to Datasembly, was the frozen whole turkey with a 6.3% increase. Although it’s an uptick from last year, that’s still down from November, when the firm reported that frozen turkey was up 11% on average.

And yet, somehow, FederalGovCo expects us all to believe that Bidenflation is around 8%. Riiiiiight.

Sorry, don’t care

Let’s try something a little out of the ordinary here: a fisking done entirely via FIFY (Fixed It For Ya).

A man who allegedly entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 is being persecuted by the patently illegitimate system without ever having committed an actual crime, is now being accused of conspiring to kill FBI agents Ordnungspolizei thugs.

Edward Kelley, 33, has been charged with conspiracy, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, and other charges committing acts of patriotism and righteous justice, according to a criminal complaint ginned up pack of risible lies unsealed on Dec. 16.

“Today’s allegations ineptly-contrived falsehoods that individuals sought to attack and hurt or kill FBI personnel jackbooted Stasi goons are sickening heartening and encouraging to any right-thinking Real American. FBI employees honorably insidiously perform their duties lawless acts of intimidation, violence, and soulless perfidy against guiltless Americans protecting the American public and upholding the Constitution oppressing the American public and flouting the Constitution and they should be able to execute these duties without threats of violence must be resisted at every possible turn, by any conceivable effective means,” FBI Amerikan Gestapo Director Christopher Wray said in a statement another of his regularly-scheduled attempts at misdirection, blame-shifting, and deceit.

It still just galls the living hell out of me that Trump ever hired this asshole in the first place, it really does, another of his myriad self-damaging bad decisions that both puzzles and infuriates at once. As for Herr Wray’s obnoxious, self-serving whine, I’m with Bill on that.

Yeah, yeah. Nobody believes your crap any more, Director Liemore. Anymore than I believe this faked up arrest has anything to do with the way you are reporting it.

You cloud people want a low trust society? Well, you’ve got one.

Indeed. May they have joy of their choice, and that right soon.

Of tautology, coercion, mafiosi, and…bad drivers?

Peters pulls all that together for us.

If they can’t get you “vaccinated” via a mandate, maybe they’ll be able to get you using the mafia. The insurance mafia.

How?

By citing a “study” – you know, The Science – published by the American Journal of Medicine, that associates not taking whatever drugs the government/corporations order you to take with…a higher likelihood that you’ll wreck your car.

Fortune cites the study, which claims that the un-drugged (the proper term to use, as these drugs are not vaccines since vaccines prevent infection and stop transmissions – and these drugs do neither) are “72 percent more likely to be involved in a severe traffic crash in which at least one person was transported to the hospital” than those who have been drugged.

The premise of this claim is not, however, evidence that being un-drugged has a negative effect on driving competence. It is an oily assertion of correlation with not-following-the-rules (as regards traffic rules) and not following orders, as regards the taking of drugs.

“The authors (of the study) theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also ‘neglect basic road safety guidelines.’ “

Meaning, they assert a causal link between “resist(ing) public health recommendations” and “neglec(ting) basic road safety guidelines.” It is as “scientific” a theory as the one that insisted others must wear a “mask” to “protect” those who are already wearing one.

Or two.

It presumes that both “public health recommendations” – which are no such thing, since the “recommendations” carried the de facto force of law – and “road safety guidelines” are correct, ipso facto.

In fact, the “public health recommendations” (sic) were entirely wrong – and it was therefore sensible to “resist” them.

“Masks” – and maintaining a space bubble around you six feet feet in radius – did nothing to “stop the spread” of anything. In fact, they spread alienation and fear. They helped to instill millions of cases of pathological hypochondria. The drugs all-but-forced on the population were not vaccines, though people were deliberately misled to believe they were. Those who just took them, just trusting them, are discovering their trust was abused. Those who didn’t just trust – who “resisted” the “recommendations” – have been proved right to have resisted them.

Man, no way could I not include that image, it’s just too perfect. Read it all, it’s one of Eric’s best yet.

Baby, it’s politically-incorrect up in here

VP calls for a fresh look at a great old song.

It’s Time to Rehabilitate ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’

It’s been nearly two decades since “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” earned the ire of our finger-wagging, no-fun, culture scolds.

This week I saw the first sign that might finally be happening.

The heat was probably never more intense than it was four years ago when GenZ got into the act and demanded that radio stations stop playing it. The Wall Street Journal had the details in a piece headlined, “‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Heats Up Culture Wars.

The actual history of the tune is that Frank Loesser wrote it for himself and his wife to perform as a duet. And not just sung, but to be performed, perfectly staged, live at parties. The Journal spoke with their daughter, Susan, who said that “the reference to what is in the woman’s drink was common at the time, signifying only that having an alcoholic beverage was cool.” When I was a young boy in the ’70s, I can remember on many occasions my grandmother asking the very same thing when my grandfather had poured her a stiff one, and him replying, “Nothing I didn’t make for you last night,” or words to that effect. The same generation as the Loessers, middle age didn’t make them any less playful with one another.

Dean Martin recorded the song in 1959, and his daughter Deana told Fox News on Tuesday that she’s “flabbergasted” by the controversy. “It’s just insane. When I heard it, I said, ‘This can’t possibly be.’ You know, it’s a sweet, flirty, fun holiday song that’s been around for 40 years.”

No real conundrum or cause for bafflement here, I’d say. Sweet, flirty, fun—can it really come as any big surprise to saner sorts that pinched-faced, juiceless, joyless liberal bluenoses have so worked hard to do away with it?

Susan Loesser backs up that interpretation, telling the Journal, “The female singer’s repeated insistence that she needed to go was halfhearted, as she too wanted to stay.” Which is exactly how every female performer in every version of this song has sung it. She isn’t threatened or out-of-control drunk; she showed up at his place knowing exactly what she wanted. Or as Loesser explained: “She’s flirting like crazy. She’s wanting to stay, but she’s worried about what people will think.”

In other words: a nice girl with a naughty side. Just what I wanted for Christmas!

Better watch your step there, Stephen; they’ll be coming for you next, if you keep it up.

Not “stupid,” not “weak,” not “clueless”—COMPLICIT

None so blind as those who will not see.

What Moves the Voters Republicans Lost?
Unless there is a major turnaround in the culture, the Republicans will have to deal with a strong and vocal opposition in future elections.

In “The Republican Struggle with Defeat,” Conrad Black lays out the situation that the Republican Party confronts after its unexpectedly disastrous midterm elections. Despite Joe Biden’s unpopularity and the range of problems he and his party have caused—from broken borders and inflation to the cultural radicalization of both the military and public education, and debacles abroad—the Democrats did unexpectedly well at the polls. Unlike during the Obama Administration, Biden’s party won the Senate, several governorships, a number of state legislatures, and held its defeats in the House to a minimum.

Black avoids exaggerating the Trump factor in the defeat of Republican candidates. One can point to some worthy Trump picks, including Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Adam Laxalt, Lee Zeldin, and J. D. Vance, even if other picks, such as Herschel Walker and Doug Mastriano, were duds. But there is no convincing evidence that Trump’s support for a candidate was the decisive factor in any person’s defeat. Other circumstances, as Black points out, led to those candidates’ losses. If the United States now “plods on with a one-and-one-half party system” and “veers harder to the left,” we should look elsewhere for the most decisive reasons.

A major cause for the midterm results, argues Black, “is the apparent inability of the Republicans to master the harvested ballot. Trump correctly warned in 2020 this would be used to rig the election, but he was completely inadequate in the counter-measures he took to prevent that.” In my view, one can’t stress enough the games that the Democrats have mastered in changing electoral procedures. From vote-harvesting and voting without personal identification to election outcomes being determined by insecure mail-in ballots sent in more than a month before scheduled in-person voting, these Democratic “reforms” should have met unrelenting Republican resistance.

Unfortunately, they didn’t, which raises the question: How would the elections in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania have turned out if these states had the voting laws that are in force in Florida?

An utterly pointless debate, an exercise in abject futility, perhaps even outright misdirection, at least in some cases. Those laws are NOT in force; the Vichy GOPe did NOT resist, and only a delusional fool expects that they ever will. If they had any interest in such piffling bagatelles, they would have done so already. Get your head around it already, ferchrissakes, and deal with current reality at long, long last.

For obvious reasons, Republicans are hesitant about contesting questionable ballots.

“OBVIOUS reasons,” is it? Name three for me, please. Don’t strain yourself, I’ll wait.

They quake at the thought of being accused of election denial or suppressing minority votes. This hesitancy puts them at a disadvantage against a radical leftist party that shows no compunctions about cheating or election denial.

Not hardly, amigo. What actually makes them quake at the thought of it is the prospect of upending a comfy, too-familiar applecart, thereby disrupting a wholly rotten system in which they’ve long since accepted their assigned role—a system which has made them rich beyond the dreams of avarice, despite their demeaning status as junior partners therein.

This hesitancy puts them at a disadvantage against a radical leftist party that shows no compunctions about cheating or election denial. The fact that Democratic Party organizers and politicians can engage in their legerdemain with unfailing media protection makes them even more brazen.

That lack of compunction and brazenness is a very, very old story, told from deep within a very crowded memory hole.

Democrat Voter Fraud: A Brief History
This is a “brief history” because the complete history of Democrat electoral malfeasance reaching back to Tammany Hall and Tweed would require four volumes or more. (I’m running into the same problem with a new book I’m outlining analyzing the Democrats as a criminal organization, much like the Mafia or the Camorra.)

So a brief history it is, limited to the past thirty years or so. Believe you me, there’s no lack of cases even in that short span.

The Dinkins Magic Voting Machines

Just days before voting in the 1993 David Dinkins/Rudolf Giuliani election, the New York Times reported that a number of voting machines had been found in a closed Manhattan school. All the machines were loaded with votes for Democrat incumbent David Dinkins.

Voting proceeded without the help of those machines, and of course Rudy was elected. But that was the end of it. As far as I’ve been able to learn, there was no investigation, no inquiries, or, for that matter, any further reportage on it.

Votes from the 8th Dimension

The 2004 Washington state gubernatorial contest between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine Gregoire ended with Rossi up by 261 votes. A machine recount left him still ahead by 42 votes. The state Democrats paid over $700,000 for a hand recount, and whaddaya know… Votes started appearing from any and all conceivable sources. A bag containing votes here…  an electoral official’s car there… it’s surprising they didn’t start falling out of the sky like the frogs in Magnolia.

By the end of the year Gregoire was ahead by 130 votes and was inaugurated on January 12. Rossi, God love him, continued fighting, taking Gregoire to court over the blatantly illegitimate votes. A Pierce County judge tossed the votes out, only to be overruled by the Washington State Supreme Court. A final decision didn’t come for six months, when Judge John Bridges, a Democrat appointee, tossed aside the concept of “chain of custody” to find in favor of Gregoire. Rossi should have continued on to the U.S. Supreme Court – after all, a critical legal concept was being overthrown – but he does get an E for Effort, since he did more than any other Republican in recent memory.

The Washington case enshrined the concept that all Democrat votes, whether they emerged from a portal into hyperspace or were discovered in a 2000 B.C. Sumerian temple, had to be counted no matter what the circumstances. GOP votes… not so much.

Goshdarnit, People Liked Him

A similar chain of events occurred in the election of Al Franken in Minnesota in 2008. Incumbent Norm Coleman originally prevailed with over 700 votes, which were mysteriously whittled down to 200 in short order. Franken called for a recount, and begorrah, the votes suddenly started appearing. Some, anyway — an envelope of votes from one county simply disappeared, but were counted regardless, the totals evidently being read out from tea leaves. By the time it all ended, Franken was ahead by 312 votes. Coleman, a Republican gentleman of the old school, made perfunctory efforts at protest, but was undercut by the GOP itself, led by former governor Arne Carlson, a RINO to rule them all, who had refused to endorse Coleman during the campaign.

Shortly after the election, it was discovered that at least 1,099 illegal votes had been cast by felons, and this had been known during the vote count, but had been ignored. Franken exchanged his diapers for a suit and spent the better part of two terms voting the way he was told and embarrassing his party before being forced out during the “MeToo” craze.

Lots more where that come from, and remember, these are contemporary examples only. Back to the AG piece for the sad, sorry denouement.

The solution to these problems for Republicans is to ignore the righteous accusations and to challenge unwaveringly suspicious ballots.

It isn’t a “solution,” it’s their sworn and sacred duty, or would be in a better, less ruinously-crooked system than this one is.

It would make even more sense to get voting to take place on election day and in a precinct station under bipartisan surveillance. It is just plain dumb for conflict-averse Republican leaders to tell their constituency to learn to do mail-in voting months ahead of Election Day. Most Republican voters cast ballots, as they should, in the assigned places on Election Day.

Fine suggestions all, not a single one of which has a ghost of a chance of ever being implemented. The larger problem?

Even more problematic for the Republicans are the large voting blocs they are losing by ever larger numbers: 18-to 29-year-old voters, in which the proportion of college students is rising. In November, unmarried women voted 70 percent for the Democrats, and in Pennsylvania they helped significantly in electing the brain-injured radical John Fetterman. More than 70 percent of college students voted, and 63 percent of them broke for the Democrats. Although the Republicans have made modest inroads among black voters and while the Hispanic vote has increased for the GOP by 10 points since 2018, they are losing badly key constituencies. These blocs are mostly on the woke Left and not likely to be won over by appeals to “conservative values.”

Heh. “Not likely,” he says. Understate much, pal?

Further, there is no indication that the electorate cares about Democratic scandals and failures. Republican attempts to call attention to such issues or to the damaged brain of our new Pennsylvania senator or to Joe Biden’s obvious decrepitude fall on deaf ears with these voters. Unrestricted abortion rights count for them far more than broken borders or the venality of the Biden family.

That’s because more and more of us are being brought around to the grim realization of the uselessness, the hopelessness, of Voting Harderer!™ at them to provide a way out of this stinking bog for us. The cynicism and disgust at the wholesale, systemic corruption of “elections” in Amerika v2.0 is growing by leaps and bounds, which I take as a positive sign. The more of us who acknowledge the farcical nature of the whole shit-circus, however unpleasant a reality it might be to confront, the sooner something meaningful might actually be done about it, I believe.

Just another phony war

For Aesop: seen this one yet? Asking for a friend, that’s all.

Merkel Spills Beans on How U.S. and NATO Partners Planned War in Ukraine Against Russia

It is becoming irrefutably clear that the United States and its NATO partners have been planning for many years for the current war in the Ukraine against Russia. That fact makes the prospects for peace all the more elusive. How to negotiate with a mindset that is so deeply invested and ingrained with belligerence?

Western governments and media accuse Russia of “unprovoked aggression” against Ukraine and are clamoring for Moscow to hand over eye-watering financial compensation as well as face war crimes prosecutions.

The bitter irony is that the war in Ukraine, which is dangerously escalating and could spiral into a nuclear cataclysm, was sown by the United States and its accomplices. It is the West that bears ultimate responsibility for this abysmal situation, not Russia.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2005-2021) is the latest Western source to come clean or let their guard down. She disclosed in a recent interview with Der Spiegel the real roots of the war.

Merkel’s reprehensible revelation is inadvertent. She refers to appeasing the Ukrainian regime as a way to eventually build up its fighting strength against Russia. She invokes this reasoning as a way to justify why she objected to Ukraine’s earlier membership of the NATO alliance in 2008. The fact of membership wasn’t wrong, it was just a matter of wrong timing, according to Merkel.

As respected independent military analyst Scott Ritter points out, Merkel also knew that the Kiev regime installed by the CIA-backed coup d’état in 2014 was not interested in a peaceful resolution of the civil war in that country.

The unspoken policy in Berlin was all about buying time for the anticipated aggression against Russia. This was in spite of the fact that Germany along with France was supposed to be a guarantor of the Minsk peace agreements negotiated in 2014 and 2015.

In other words, Ukraine was primed for war against Russia from 2014 onwards.

Merkel’s admission is therefore really a confession of Western duplicity towards Russia, as Ritter astutely notes.

Plenty more at the link, all of it damning for the unabashedly evil Western manipulators running this whole shitshow. While I do have sympathy for the workaday Ukrainians suffering through this, I still don’t give a rat’s patoot about the fate of Ukraine’s current kleptocracy, given how it has functioned for many years now as basically a Democrat Party ATM. And though I harbor neither affection nor allegiance for Pooty-Poot (as the ridiculous George W Bush called him), if he takes Zelensky and his corrupt cabal down hard, I won’t be shedding any tears over it.

(Via Dave Renegade)

Pedophile story hour

Maybe it’s time we just start calling a spade a spade here.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and self-control. But the fruit of public libraries is faux diversity, drag queens, and rejection of the sexes — which is why the taxpayer-funded cesspools are “not interested” in giving Kirk Cameron a storytime slot to read his new children’s book on the fruit of the Spirit to kids.

The actor, writer, and producer “has not gotten a single ‘yes’ from the 50-plus public libraries his publisher has contacted so far,” Fox News reported in a Wednesday exclusive. According to Cameron’s publisher and Fox’s scouring of the libraries’ websites, “Many of the same libraries that won’t give Cameron a slot…are actively offering ‘drag queen’ story hours or similar programs for kids and young people.”

It’s not only drag queen story hours, where adult men derive pleasure from strapping on prosthetic breasts, painting theatrical contour all over their masculine faces, and sporting fishnet tights for an audience of children. These libraries reportedly host queer book clubs, a series called “Every Month Is Pride Month,” and so-called “get free help” events where attorneys and other volunteers help patrons fill out legal paperwork to change their names, record themselves as the opposite sex (or sexless entirely), and alter birth certificates, Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, IDs, and passports. But if you want to read to kids about gentleness, goodness, and kindness, it’s a hard no.

The self-important and self-appointed “principled conservatives” have expended much energy lecturing right-wing culture warriors who resist this debauchery. When conservatives took offense at libraries using their tax dollars to sponsor sexualized events that spit in the face of their deeply held religious beliefs, The Principled Conservatives™ were there with a finger wag and a condescending, First Amendment! Tsk! Viewpoint neutrality!

Barring people from doing sex shows for kids in publicly funded venues is not against the Constitution, and it’s specious to argue that if you insist there are constitutional limits on speech and this is precisely one, that you’re somehow a proponent of “big government” or “against the free market.” There is no free market for children. And there are ways to establish reasonable and constitutional limits on speech — such as withholding government funding from events and venues that peddle books and activities about sex for children — something many conservatives are striving to do even if the self-described principled wing is too lazy or too cowardly to do that intellectual and ground-game work.

At this point, the only way Cameron stands a chance of equal access to public libraries across the country is if he dresses up like a prostitute, gyrates around a reading room, and prods children to shove singles in his underwear.

The thing people like Cameron — or Jack Phillips or Barronelle Stutzman or Lorie Smith — understand but many establishment Republicans and “principled conservatives” don’t is that the left hates us and all the values we claim to be conserving. They don’t care about playing by a certain set of rules because their method is lawlessness (see: unpunished Black Lives Matter riots, brazen election meddling, illegal student loan bailouts, or unconstitutional vaccine mandates, to name a few). They scoff at viewpoint diversity because their aim is groupthink (consider: Big Tech suspensions for dissenters on a number of topics, or mass firings of health-care professionals who held unfavorable opinions about the jab). And they laugh at appeals to the First Amendment because they abandoned it long ago.

As my colleague John Daniel Davidson recently wrote in these pages, “[A]ccommodation or compromise with the left is impossible. One need only consider the speed with which the discourse shifted on gay marriage, from assuring conservatives ahead of the 2015 Obergefell decision that gay Americans were only asking for toleration, to the never-ending persecution of Jack Phillips. The left will only stop when conservatives stop them.”

Standing athwart history, yelling “stop” — or “viewpoint neutrality” or “free speech” — might have been enough to preserve liberty in the ’50s, but it’s almost 2023. If you want to know how well it’s working today, ask Kirk Cameron.

Or, y’know, anybody else who’s been paying attention and has even half a lick of sense.

Doing in diesel

As fossil fuels go, it just might be the most “problematic” of them all.

The $5.25 Per Gallon Canary in the Coal Mine

There may not be a shortage of diesel fuel yet but there is something else that amounts to the same:

Unaffordable diesel.

A gallon currently sells for about $5.25 per gallon on average.

Interestingly, this is about $2 more per gallon than the current cost of a gallon of regular unleaded. The Biden Thing has succeeded in temporarily tamping down the cost of the latter by draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – but diesel prices have not come down appreciably from their spring/summer high of about $5.70 per gallon.

Diesel cost less than half as much two years ago – just before the Biden Thing was selected president.

If you have a diesel-powered car (such as the excoriated-anathematized VW Jettas, Golfs and Beetles equipped with the TDI engines you can’t buy anymore) with a 15 gallon tank, you’re currently paying about $80 to fill ‘er up.

That’s not very affordable.

But not many people are driving diesel-powered cars – chiefly because the car companies haven’t been selling them for about seven years now, ever since the federal government sicced itself on VW for selling them. In italics to emphasize the true nature of VW’s “crime,” which was not “cheating” on government “emissions” certification tests anymore than Matt Strickland’s restaurant, Gourmeltz, was Hut! Hut! Hutted! the other day for supposedly selling alcoholic beverages without an ABC permit.

Alternatives always present problems for those who do not want others to have alternatives.

And now, they don’t.

Diesel-powered vehicles are problem vehicles – from the point-of-view of those pushing the electrification of vehicles. Not only because they go farther than gas-powered vehicles and  much farther than electric vehicles – but particularly because it is possible to keep them going independently of a centrally controlled distribution apparatus.

Gas-powered vehicles require gasoline to keep on going. If there’s none at the pump, it is hard to refine your own. Gas does not store very well for very long, either.

Actually, it used to, but not since FederalGovCo foisted the ethanol-based shite on us all, which worthless crap will reliably convert itself into so much sugary glop in about, oh, an hour and a half or thereabouts.

So even if you thought ahead and stored 50 gallons in a drum for just-in-case, its shelf-life is limited.

Electricity is hard to generate independently in the quantity needed by electric cars. Even on 120v grid power, it takes a day or more to instill a charge in a 400-800 volt electric car battery. If the grid goes down, it will take much longer – unless you have a seriously mighty solar array on your roof or on your backyard.

Diesel, on the other hand, stores almost indefinitely. And many diesel engines can burn bio-diesel, which is “diesel” not made from petroleum. It is made from vegetable oil, animal fats and restaurant grease. In other words, almost anyone can make it.

Themselves.

This presents a dangerous alternative to those pushing “electrification,” which is really more about centralization.

Annnnnd BINGO. In other words, for our Deep State lords and masters, this is really about exactly what it’s always about: Power, and Control.

Update! Ernie drops a most interesting and informative comment.

Eric, you have a bit of a technical error. Natural fuels are refined using fractional distillation, the light stuff comes off first, then some gasoline, then kerosene, then progressively heavier grades of fuel oil, down to bunker fuel and asphalt/tar. In a barrel of crude oil there is inherently a lot more diesel fuel of various types than gasoline. Diesel fuel is inherently far more abundant and used to be far cheaper than gasoline- thus its use in heavy haulers like rigs, trains, and ships.

Also, old school mechanically injected diesels are inherently cleaner than gasoline engines until the 90’s closed loop engine management. As usual, pinheads saw occasional puffs of soot and assumed they had to be dirty, leading to a lot of prejudice against Rudolph Diesel’s “black mistress.”

Man, I’m so old I can remember back in the Olden Thymes of the late 70s/early 80s, when diesel was in fact so much cheaper than regular gasoline that people all over the country were dumping their old rides for diesel cars because of the savings they could realize from making the switch. My, how times have changed.

Just following orders

Didn’t fly at Nuremberg, shouldn’t oughta be expected to fly now. Tough noogies, Offissa Pup.

 

The ugly backstory:

More details:

A Fredericksburg restaurant that has repeatedly made headlines for defying Virginia’s COVID mandates during the height of the pandemic and battling to maintain its licenses was subject to a search and seizure by the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC) Friday morning.

A search warrant was issued for Gourmeltz’s sales records and any information related to “possession of alcoholic beverages without a license, maintaining a common nuisance and the illegal sale of alcoholic beverages.”

Gourmeltz owner Matt Strickland had his license to sell wine/beer/mixed beverages on and off-premises suspended in September 2021, but ABC put a stay on enforcing the order to give Strickland time to appeal. In November 2022, a final ruling was issued and ABC ordered Gourmeltz to halt selling alcohol for 90 days. The agency said it would reduce the suspension to 15 days if Strickland paid a $4,000 penalty and more than $6,400 in investigation costs.

But Gourmeltz did not comply.

The details matter here.

Strickland lost his liquor license for refusing to shut down, mask up, and destroy his livelihood at the behest of a government making illegal orders that did absolutely nothing to stop a respiratory virus that was largely only lethal to the elderly.

The state then tried to strong-arm Strickland into admitting his guilt and assuming financial responsibility for the fiasco by telling him it would only slap him on the wrist if he paid the government $10,000.

When the media tells you he “did not comply,” understand the framework of abject tyranny that surrounds the situation.

Back to the Hodge Twins for their perfect followup:

“We have a court order”

To our brothers in blue, it’s time to start speaking up when you know something ain’t right. This man put his biz and family on the line when the tyrants shut him down and tried extorting money from him.

“I’m just doing my job” won’t work anymore.

Well, it damned sure shouldn’t, at any rate. Let the last word be Strickland’s.

More context on Strickland from a 2021 article written by my coworker Daniel Payne when he was writing for Just The News:

Like many restaurateurs, the Stricklands shut down in the early months of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic spread. Strickland said he attempted to do carryout-only but the restaurant was unable to generate enough income to maintain operations. In June, he said, he opened up his storefront again under Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s reopening guidelines, among which were numerous dining regulations and capacity limits.

“We followed all the governor’s mandates when the COVID stuff first happened,” Strickland said, “because I didn’t know what COVID was about just like anybody else.” After reopening several months into the pandemic, however, he said the new spate of restaurant regulations “were about something else other than our health and safety” because “they just made no sense.”

“Nobody could sit at a bar, but you could put a table up next to the bar and sit,” he said. “You had to wear a mask just to walk in but when you sit down, you can take it off. [The] regulations made no common sense.”

The state was “starting to strip away the constitutional rights and freedoms of myself and my customers,” he said. “And I wasn’t going to be part of that.”

Fuck the Virginia Waffen SS officers in the liver with a rusty railroad spike for their disgusting role as tyranny-pimps, attempting to ruin an honorable and entirely blameless small-business owner struggling to provide for his family under their godawful yoke. One must hope that there’s an especially warm corner of Hell waiting to welcome their sorry asses for all eternity when their time at long last arrives.

Update! I consider the above story more than adequate confirmation of the truth of Divemedic’s contention:

People need to have a belief that the police are not just another criminal street gang. The more I interact with and see how police work, the more I come to believe that we would be better without them. I have only called them a few times, and each time they did nothing more than write a report. It was a waste of time.

I have said before: the police need to clean up their ranks. I don’t think you can, because I believe that the bad cops far outnumber the good ones. The police have become just another group of criminals who prey on the people in this nation who actually produce wealth. They are a street gang with badges and qualified immunity.

He was writing in regards to another matter altogether, yes, but the core principle holds across contexts.

Updated update! More Matt Strickland, who knows all too well what the fuck time it is.

The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC) on Friday raided a popular bar and grill that violated the state’s COVID-19  guidelines early in the pandemic. Matt Strickland, the owner of Gourmeltz in Fredericksburg, is an Army veteran who says it’s important to stand up to tyrannical government edicts, so the next generation doesn’t have to.

“You’re part of the problem, I want you to know that,” Strickland told an ABC officer during the raid. “Every one of you is part of the problem.” The Army vet argued that “just doing my job” is not an excuse for “shutting down a man’s livelihood” over mandates “that didn’t do anything to prevent COVID” and were “detrimental to the community.”

Strickland told the ABC officers that the mandates were also detrimental to the nation’s children. “It set our kids back so many years, it set small businesses back so many years,” he lamented. “It destroyed small businesses, it destroyed families, it destroyed our community,” he added, as the officers stood around, stone-faced and silent.

“What the state of Virginia just did is they took my livelihood away from me right before Christmas,”  Strickland later told Fox 5 DC.

In a video posted on YouTube at the time, he told customers that he would not close down his place of business.

“Bottom line is the governor said so – so you have to comply with these mandates,” Strickland said in the video. “I told him politely – I said I’m not in the military anymore, I’m not gonna do something just because you tell me to do it. I’m a civilian now and if you want me to do something it needs to make sense and it needs to not infringe on my constitutional rights and it needs to be lawful.”

“I’m not paying any fine. I’m not serving any suspension, and the reason for that is because I did nothing wrong,” said Strickland, who is planning to run for State Senate in 2023.

“I’m not concerned whatsoever,” Strickland replied when asked if he was worried the state could take further action against his business. “I’ve been ready to die for my country since I was 17 years old, and I’m willing to fight as long and as hard as it takes to make sure that this fight that I’m in right now, this fight that we’re all in right now, doesn’t get passed down to the next generation.”

Good on ya, Matt. Nothing but best wishes and good thoughts to you from here.

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John Adams

"The limits of tyranny are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglass

"Give me the media and I will make of any nation a herd of swine."
Joseph Goebbels

“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan

"Ain't no misunderstanding this war. They want to rule us and aim to do it. We aim not to allow it. All there is to it."
NC Reed, from Parno's Peril

"I just want a government that fits in the box it originally came in."
Bill Whittle

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