Disasters Near and Far

All against all

Posted on March 6, 2023March 6, 2023 by Mike

JJ Sefton’s reliably dead-on Morning Report is rife today with examples confirming the grim success of the Left’s divide & conquer strategery.

Report: Austin Police Officers Quit in Droves, Texas City ‘Hostile Place’ for Conservatives

The leftist-run city of Austin, Texas, is facing a police officer shortage with current and former officers citing hostility toward law enforcement and conservatives as the driving force, the New York Post reported on Friday.

Multiple sources told the Post the city allegedly has more than 300 vacancies and officers are quitting “because they feel disrespected,” according to the report. The Austin Police Association said 77 more officers are expected to retire before the end of March. Lt. Brian Moon, who retired last month after 23 years of service, said Austin has become like Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco “where if you’re at all conservative or in law enforcement, it’s become a hostile place.”

The staffing shortage is leading to later response times and 911 calls are being redirected to the non-emergency number “because there aren’t enough cops to solve the crimes,” according to the report. Senior Police Officer Justin Berry told the publication that the department has taken detectives off of cases to act as patrol officers.

“If you come home and find your home burglarized, calls like that are now going to 311,” said police union president Thomas Villarreal. “You’re not getting a police response to many property crimes if it’s not a violent crime that is currently ongoing.”

The report notes that “entire areas of the city are left unpatrolled” at times if a large incident occurs.

“We’ve pretty much conceded that we’re not going to show up anymore on certain calls,” Moody said. “Eventually it’s going to get to the point where it’s so bad, everyone’s going to realize that something has to be done.”

Rest assured it will be, but you ain’t gonna like it much. It’s commonly known as vigilantism. Even though they’d greatly prefer not to have to resort to it, when things get bad enough and enough people realize they’re entirely on their own and have been forced to live in a lawless society, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of it than civilized, First World nations are accustomed to. At some point, it becomes too much to expect that Normals will just passively sit back and allow themselves and their families to be preyed upon indefinitely, just because that’s what shitlibs want them to do.

Moar D&C:

Critical Race Theory Teaches Kids To Hate Each Other, And The Proof Is On The Playground
Critical race theory lessons are fostering anger and aggression instead of empathy among children. This is most obvious on the playground.

In mid-February 2023, administrators at an elementary school in Springfield, Ohio, called the police to intervene in a racially charged incident on the playground. According to the police report, a group of black students forced several white students to say “black lives matter” against their will.

Around the same time in Orlando, Florida, a teacher at Howard Middle School created and posted to his personal social media account a demeaning skit using students from his classroom. In it, white students bowed to their black classmates, feeding them snacks and fanning them. The teacher, now on administrative leave, captioned the video: “Black History Month. The shortest month of the Year.” Critical race theory is permeating public education across the country and aggravating racial hostilities, even among elementary school children.

When people with authority, such as schoolteachers and administrators, tell children that one group is the oppressor and the other is oppressed, children tend to listen. These critical race theory lessons are fostering anger and aggression instead of empathy among children.

Teachers and administrators need to stick to the “three Rs” of education. Social and racial politics must be under the jurisdiction of families, not public education.

And when they refuse to, as most of them will, what then? My personal preference is for pitchforks, torches, tar, and feathers, but then I freely admit I’m an “extremist” like that.

Buttplug blasted—again

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Mike

And nearly bursts into tears of OUTRAGE!™ over being called out on his manifest incompetence and indifference.

Potty-Mouthed Buttigieg Has Hissy Fit Over East Palestine Critics: “You think Tucker Carlson knows the difference between a T.J. Maxx and a Kohl’s?”

Biden Transportation Secretary Pete “I’m Taking Some Personal Time” Buttigieg, in an interview with CNN published Sunday, lashed out critics of his handling of the toxic train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio last month, swearing and accusing them of being out of touch East Coast elites as he defended wearing designer dress boots to tour the derailment scene.

Buttigieg singled out President Trump and Fox News Channel prime time host Tucker Carlson in his hissy fit interview with CNN, even swearing at one point (excerpt):

“It’s really rich to see some of these folks – the former president, these Fox hosts – who are literally lifelong card-carrying members of the East Coast elite, whose top economic policy priority has always been tax cuts for the wealthy, and who wouldn’t know their way around a T.J. Maxx if their life depended on it, to be presenting themselves as if they genuinely care about the forgotten middle of the country,” the Transportation Secretary said. “You think Tucker Carlson knows the difference between a T.J. Maxx and a Kohl’s?”

…The secretary visited East Palestine a day after former President Donald Trump went to the town, calling out President Joe Biden for not having made his own visit and slamming the administration’s response.

Trump’s visit, Buttigieg said, was “somewhat maddening – to see someone who did a lot try to gut not just rail safety regulations, but the EPA, which is the number one thing standing between that community and a total loss of accountability for Norfolk Southern and then show up giving out bottled water and campaign swag?”

…As for any suggestion from Trump or supporters that the former president’s trip to East Palestine pressured him to go: “That’s bull—-,” Buttigieg said. “We were already going to go.”

Suuuure you were, Peter-puffer. Because hey, you care so very, very deeply about the plight of all those hate-filled, homophobic Flyover Country bigots.

These boots are made for stomping. Buttigieg got emotional when his choice of footwear for his visit to East Palestine was mentioned:

The attention to the boots Buttigieg wore when he visited a day later, he said, was also “maddening.”

His voice got tighter.

“Who cares what shoes I was wearing, when I was there to draw attention to an agenda that will save lives on our railroads?” Buttigieg said.

Uh huh. Hey, as everyone knows, the shitlib agenda is all about “saving lives,” right? After all, Leftism, Statism, socialism, communism, however you may choose to label it, has proved to be so very proficient at that over the last hundred years or so.

Eat a bag of dicks, shitheel. You’re no better at lying than you are at being head of the DoT, it seems.

Whither “governable”?

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

Are America’s big cities ungovernable? And if they are, do those of us who don’t live in them give a shit? SHOULD we? If so, WHY, exactly?

In the wake of the failure of failure Lori Lightfoot to gain admission to the Chicago mayoral runoff, The Atlantic, a left-inclined publication, has decided to salve her wound, though not the wound her mayoralty has inflicted upon Chicago, with an article proclaiming that “Big Cities Are Ungovernable…”

If that thesis were put to a for / against debate among scholars of urban history and dynamics, how do you think the discussion would go? Myself, I expect the participants would squabble endlessly over the definitions of “big,” “cities,” and “ungovernable.” (That would consume them so completely that they’d have nothing left for “are.”) Thus they could evade all discussion of the actual proposition until the last of the audience had drifted away.

Robert A. Heinlein was no fan of the big city:

“As a thumb rule, one can say that any time a planet starts developing cities of more than one million people, it is approaching critical mass. In a century or two it won’t be fit to live on.”

And so my own preference is clear, though it might have a Mae West feel, I shall add this: I’ve been a country dweller and I’ve been a city dweller, and honey, the country is better. But that’s all to the side.

It’s hardly a state secret that America’s largest cities are in bad shape today. They’re overrun with social pathologies, consistently underperform at “public services,” and cost a fortune to live in. Yet that was not always the case. Indeed, during the mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani, New York City returned from an abyss of squalor to a quality and livability it hadn’t known since Fiorello La Guardia. The Di Blasio and Adams mayoralties have dissipated that. Los Angeles during Ronald Reagan’s governorship over California was equally a beautiful, highly livable place. It’s not enough to say sic transit gloria mundi and pass on. We must discover the reasons for the changes and what “governability” or the lack thereof has to do with them.

Large numbers of people cannot be “governed,” in the original sense of the word, by a discrete “government.” (If that statement mystifies you, look up the function and operation of a steam engine’s governor.) They must ultimately “govern” themselves, which destroys the usual interpretation of governable and governability. Moreover, the “large number” doesn’t need to be in the millions, as The Atlantic would have it.

Today, sufficient fractions of the populaces of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and other major cities simply refuse to be governed. They do as they please, aware of the potential consequences but willing to risk them. That has rendered those cities ungovernable, in the sense generally understood by private citizens. But clearly it was not always thus.

The residents of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Chicago, and other homeless capitals have elected to tolerate the public degradation that their homeless populations impose upon them. Conditions there have made them resemble “closed systems” de facto where homelessness is concerned. They would rather tolerate huge homeless camps and what comes with them than strict code enforcement. The homeless find the results congenial to their filthy and dissolute preferences. What the city governments could do, they will not, for fear of electoral backlash.

And day by day, their entropy increases.

Is this a verdict on whether “Big Cities Are Ungovernable?” I don’t think so. History speaks to the opposite effect. But it does cast an interesting light on whether large groups of left-liberals are governable.

Well, I think the answer to that ever-more-pressing question has been made plain enough by recent history; anyone still in doubt is encouraged to take themselves a nice, long stroll around downtown Detroit late at night for further education, if they dare. Wear full Class-III body armor with ceramic plates, that’s my advice.

Governable or not, the libtards can damned sure be suppressed. Nobody seems much interested in talking about that option right now, even sotto voce. Nevertheless, it’s a conversation we’re going to need to get started on sooner rather than later.

State of (perpetual un)readiness

Posted on March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Mike

PopMech takes a look at yet another disastrous multi-billion-dollar boondoggle from the once-mighty US military—a bigger one, probably, than even the F35 Turducken.

How the World’s Greatest Aircraft Carrier Became a $13 Billion Fiasco

Can the military save the USS Gerald R. Ford?

Wrong question. The real question is: should it?

The late 20th century was a time of supreme American confidence and rapid innovation. The Cold War was drawing to a close, the digital age was around the corner, and the Pentagon saw an opportunity to capitalize on peacetime and begin preparing for future conflict. With few diplomatic or military distractions, the United States ushered in a revolution in military technology.

Out of that boom period came ambitions for a new class of aircraft carrier headlined by the transformational USS Gerald R. Ford, a ship featuring an expanded flight deck, a boosted power plant, and support for almost two dozen emergent technologies. Expectations were high. The Ford’s nuclear reactor and propulsion system would triple the electrical power of the preceding Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. Its state-of-the-art weapons elevators would move 20,000 pounds of munitions at speeds of 150 feet per minute compared with the Nimitz‘s speed of 100 feet per minute. Its new launch-and-recovery system would be able to handle 270 planes in a single day. From bow to stern, the ship’s innovations—designed to save time, costs, and crew—would revolutionize the way the U.S. military built and used carriers. The Ford would be a symbol of American superiority, one that would project power to American adversaries for five decades of dependable service.

Well, they got the “transformational” bit right, anyway; the Ford definitely IS that. It’s just that it’s part of a decidedly wrong-way transformation: from a capable, powerful military—along with fighters that can’t fight; tanks that can’t tank; rifles more prone to jamming than a pimply, teenaged Stevie Vai wannabe at Sam Ash on a Saturday afternoon; and battalions of mincing, simpering dick-choppers who only signed up so they could get their bulbous naughty parts lopped off by an Army surgeon for free—into a hapless, bumbling, incompetent one.

“There was this thinking of, ‘We are so far ahead of everyone else that we can afford to take a strategic pause and take risks on our acquisition and try new and untested technology,’” says Eric Wertheim, a defense analyst and expert with the U.S. Naval Institute, of the nation’s mindset after the Cold War. “And there was this feeling that the rest of the world is at least 20 years behind us.”

But after two decades of development and delays, the audacity that conceived the Ford seemed to usher its doom. Expected to save the military $4 billion during its life span, the Ford has actually cost billions more than initial estimates. First expected to deploy in 2018, it has been projected to deploy as far out as 2024. When the ship reached the Navy after construction, it was already two years behind schedule, with work outstanding on thousands of items. In 2015, Sen. John McCain, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Navy aviator, called packing all that tech onto the Ford “the original sin” that damaged the program.

Even the Navy’s top officer acknowledged the problems that have plagued the carrier. “We had 23 new technologies on [the USS Gerald R. Ford] which, quite frankly, increased the risk of delivery on time and cost right from the get-go,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday at a virtual talk before the Navy League’s 2021 Sea Air Space exposition. “And I think industry’s in full agreement with this: We really shouldn’t introduce more than maybe one or two new technologies on any complex platform like that, in order to keep risk at a manageable level.”

Meanwhile, naval advances by U.S. adversaries have added urgency to the Ford’s troubleshooting. The ship’s critics point to its expanding budget and timetable as evidence that the U.S. military should reconsider developing massive nuclear carriers as a foundational element of its naval program. Military advisor Norman Polmar points out that America’s most recent conflicts in the Middle East didn’t even use the Nimitz class to full capacity. “Look what we did in Iraq,” he says. “We launched [just] 20 or 30 strikes a day from a carrier that has 70 airplanes.” And Rep. Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, has questioned whether the Ford’s price tag justifies its utility. During a 2021 Brookings Institution discussion, Smith asked if there are other ways “to get unmanned systems closer to the fight that don’t cost $12 billion.”

All part and parcel of the truism that generals and admirals are always preparing to fight the last war, in this case WW2. Out of the myriad mistakes, flaws, and failures of the Ford, this one remains the most jaw-dropping to me.

One standout feature of the Ford—albeit a troublesome one—is its state-of-the-art Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG). Prior to Ford, American carriers used a hydraulic arresting system to slow and stop landing aircraft, but the AAG uses an electric engine and a water twister to accommodate a broader range of aircraft—including unmanned aerial vehicles. Engineering and manufacturing of the AAG began in 2005, with 2009 the targeted end date. But a 2016 Pentagon Inspector General report noted that developmental testing for the AAG would continue through 2018; the system still hadn’t proved capable or safe enough to test on the Ford. Between 2009 and 2012, the AAG’s power conditioning system failed across multiple tests, and both its inverter system and cable shock absorber required redesigns. The setbacks ballooned the AAG’s development cost from $143 million to more than $1 billion, according to a report from Sen. McCain’s office.

(Now-retired Navy captain Talbot) Manvel says he resisted AAG on the Ford as early as 1998, wanting to push it onto the subsequent ships in the class after its design had matured. He had his way until Rumsfeld stepped in with his transformational vision. “This was transformation run amok,” Manvel says.

That it surely was, sir. Which, once the temptation of it is yielded to, is what usually tends to happen.

It all makes for a depressing read for anyone who grew up believing that the American war machine was nigh-invincible, without Earthly peer or parallel amongst its adversary nation-states. That’s simply no longer the case, if it ever really was. Which, given certain harsh realities of life on this here planet, it almost certainly wasn’t.

The final straw

Posted on March 1, 2023March 1, 2023 by Mike

It’s now official: Trump really IS a moron. Either that, or he’s a damned liar, a useful idiot playing right into the hands of the Evil Left, willingly acting as their cat’s paw in his completely futile, vainglorious quest for the US Presidency. Either way, another thing is now official: I’m all done with him, and will neither endorse nor support him in said fore-doomed quest.

For God’s sake, Soros did not “endorse” Ron DeSantis
George Soros wants to destroy the Republican Party. He’s made that very clear many times. So when Trump loyalists started spreading a video of remarks he made recently purporting to show Soros endorsing Ron DeSantis over Trump for the Republican nomination I knew there was something very fishy going on.

Soros did express hope that DeSantis is the Republican nominee, but not because he thought the governor would make a good president.

He hates DeSantis just as he hates Trump. What he wants is a 3-way race for president, which would guarantee a Democrat victory.

He is convinced that if DeSantis wins the Republican nomination that Donald Trump will jump into the race as a third-party candidate and lead to a Democrat landslide in the 2024 election.

Seems obvious enough, doesn’t it? Ace spells it out even more directly:

I really do not like this level of low dishonesty. Superficially the lie works — you watch the video, you see Soros say the words.

But then two days later you see the full clip and you see you’ve been duped. Now you know the guy who put the video together is a liar, and you have a bad taste in your mouth about the candidate he’s supporting.

It’s just so stupid and it winds up boomeranging back against the candidate it’s supposed to be helping. People remember when other people try to trick them, and when other people act as if they’re fools.

Treating people as if they’re fools to be duped is treating them with disrespect.

And no, that doesn’t mean Trump is treating people with disrespect. He didn’t create this meme. (I assume.) He has nothing to do with it…unless he retweets it.

I hope he doesn’t retweet it.

Sadly, that hope turned out to be every bit as vain as Trump’s “Presidential” ones, because the idiot Trump did precisely that:

Actually, it ought to have told you something, genius. As Rand Paul once famously put it: “THEY endorsed ME, but I didn’t endorse THEM.”

But who even knows anymore, maybe the fucking stupe is just hoping we’re all too blind and/or stupid to catch onto the grift, as his newest bestest buddy Soros does. Umpty-bazillion-dimensional chess, anyone? Meh. Whatevs.

Back to Ace.

Well, I was hoping that Donald Trump wouldn’t retweet the stupid lie that George Soros had endorsed Ron DeSantis, because that would just force his supporters to defend this lie, but of course he did just that today. Of course. How could he not?

Ah, I’m sure he’ll do the right and honorable thing and retract when he finds out it’s bogus.

(LOL.)

T’ain’t funny, McGee. I’m with BCE, fully and firmly.

Art makes a good point that they’re setting (“Nikki” Haley) up for the 2028 run, as it’s looking like (for now) Orangemanbad vs Floridaman. Personally, I just want Orangemanbad to go the fuck away. He makes me tired… weary…his ‘flash in the pan’ moment is OVER and he dropped the fucking ball on ‘cleaning up the town’ like a motherfucker. He’s also too fucking old and a member of the Geriatric Brigade that seems incapable of stepping aside and enjoying all that “me!me!me” money that they sucked out of the system. If there ever was anyone who symbolizes the Degenerate Yuppie/Boomer Scum, it’s “The Donald”.

DeSantis, man I pray that he’s not running.

He needs to stay in situ, and become Dictator of GeorgiFloriBama when the wheels come fully off.

Yes indeedy, right down the line.

As I’ve said here before, when I was living in NYC I considered Trump to be little more than a tiresome annoyance, what with his constant appearances on the TeeWee, promoting himself and his various endeavors, pimping for the Clintons ceaselessly as he did back then. I changed my mind about the guy when he started saying all the right things in 2015 as a long-odds-against candidate for Prexy, and was behind him all the way even when, as President, he reneged on his oft-repeated campaign vows to “drain the Swamp” by “hiring only the best people” (*coughcough ComeyPenceSessionsBarrMattisGarlandetcetc ad infinitum ad nauseam coughcough*).

“So much winning you’ll get tired of all the winning”? Yeah, about all that…

No longer. Enough, at long last, is enough. At least, for me it is. YMMV, of course and as always.

In sum, then, to hell with Trump. And, even though he’s accomplished more of real, lasting import in his tenure as Governor than Trump managed in his one and only term as PoTUS, should DeSantis go back on his previous declaration that he wouldn’t be running, to hell with him too. NeverTrump, OnlyTrump, whatthefuckever—a pox on ALL their houses, I say.

Woke kills

Posted on February 25, 2023February 25, 2023 by Mike

Wait, you mean to tell me “diversity” might NOT be a strength after all?

A recent epidemic of airline near-misses deserves both attention and reflection.

In mid-December, a San Francisco-bound United Airlines Boeing 777-200 airliner, just a little over a minute after taking off from Maui, Hawaii, suddenly dived. It lost more than half its altitude and came within 800 feet of crashing into the Pacific Ocean before pulling up.

About a month later, an American Airlines jet crossed the runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport just as a Delta Air Lines plane was accelerating for takeoff. The two aircraft nearly collided.

Then in February, a FedEx cargo jet at the Austin, Texas, airport missed crashing into a Southwest Airlines airliner by a mere 100 feet.

The same month, an American Airlines Airbus A321 was being towed out of the gate at Los Angeles International Airport and smashed into a bus carrying passengers between terminals, injuring five.

These near and actual accidents come amid a general landscape of aviation chaos.

Gee, wonder if this story has anything at all to do with it—or rather, might be emblematic of the REAL issue here.

Tucker Carlson tells the sad tale of one Conrad Jules Aska from back in 2019. Conrad is a pilot of color as you can see…

Born in Antigua he was quite the pilot….

….except for the whole “grossly unqualified and unsuited to be a pilot” thing.

“The first officer in this accident deliberately concealed his history of performance deficiencies, which limited Atlas Air’s ability to fully evaluate his aptitude and competency as a pilot,” said NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt.

The report said Aska’s “tendency to respond impulsively and inappropriately when faced with an unexpected event during training scenarios at multiple employers suggest an inability to remain calm during stressful situations.

Acted impulsively you say? Of course his family tried to sue…

They claimed maintenance and poor pilot training was to blame although even at this point the NTSB realized it was pilot incompetence and error. Of course had Conrad Aska being fired for incompetence, his family likely still would have sued because of racial discrimination.

As I said in yesterday’s post, America Has Too Many Qualified Doctors And Pilots!, if you have an incompetent toll booth attendant, perhaps you get back incorrect change but an incompetent pilot? Your plane goes into the ground.

Yep. VDH sums it all up:

Many of the major airlines have established racial and gender quotas for government pilot training programs. United Airlines has set quotas to ensure half of its trainees will be minorities or women. Since 2013, the FAA has been lowering standards for air traffic control qualifications to achieve de facto race and gender quotas.

In sum, our government is playing with our lives as it prefers diversity, equity and inclusion over ensuring the best-qualified employees are hired on the basis of racially and gender-blind competitive tests and experience.

Again: Yep. In Amerika v2.0, it’s Wokeism über alles; Leftard dogma trumps all other considerations, every time, no matter what. Thus, the FederalGovCo megalith doesn’t give a toss about how many of their hapless subjects they have to kill off in order to establish that Politically Correct is, so to speak, the only way to fly.

Stop helping!

Posted on February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 by Mike

Buttplug shits, falls back in it, blames Trump, natch.

Remarks From Buttigieg in East Palestine on His Late Visit Just Make Things Worse
I wrote earlier about how the visit of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was not going well. He refused to answer questions from reporters, and his press secretary had the temerity to claim reporters wanting him to respond was “too aggressive.” The citizens indicated that they were upset that he was coming so late to the table.

Now, there are more remarks from Buttigieg during his visit–and they only made matters worse.

All the people there want is for people to come, care, and help out. That’s exactly what Trump did. Meanwhile, Buttigieg showed up, empty-handed, claiming he wasn’t there for the politics–but then immediately attacked Trump and blamed him for what happened on Buttigieg and Biden’s watch.

REPORTER: “How can [Trump] help?”

PETE BUTTIGIEG: “Express support for reversing the deregulation that happened on his watch.”

That was a pretty slimy effort–to blame Trump–when the facts so far don’t support that any deregulation that happened under Trump had anything to do with the derailment. Reports are now that the derailment was due to an overheated bearing.

So, on top of everything else, here’s Pete trying to mislead people about what happened. It happened on your watch, Pete, Trump hasn’t been in office in two years. And Trump wasn’t standing in your way, preventing you from responding to what happened. Trump also didn’t make Joe Biden go to Ukraine and not East Palestine. It’s disgusting how Buttigieg wouldn’t take responsibility for his actions and those of Joe Biden.

Buttigieg had another moment that summed him up in one sentence, as he ranted about “misinformation.” Criticism of him and Biden is now “misinformation.”

“Sorry, I lost my train of thought,” he said, in an ironic Freudian slip.

What a way to comment on a train derailment. He’s lost more than that, as has the Biden team over their reaction to all this.

What else would one expect from this nest of slimery, slithery sewer-crawlers. I repeat: couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of assholes.

The results are in: masks and lockdowns are the BUNK

Posted on February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 by Mike

Don Surber’s title really says it all.

Masks worked. They just didn’t stop covid
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens pointed out what was obvious three years ago: masks don’t stop viruses. Nothing short of a hazmat suit does. Viruses make their rounds every few years, eventually deteriorating into a strand of the common cold. They are deadly at first. Indeed, this manmade concoction has killed 1.12 million Americans.

But that is less than 1% of the population; in fact it is 1/3rd of 1% of the population.

And even that “1.12 million Americans” number is the bunk as well, grossly inflated to include as it does deaths by gunshot wound, traffic accident, cancer, flu, random misadventure, and anything else the lying liars of FederalGovCo could misattribute to FauxVid and hope gullible panic-ninnies would gulp down whole.

I was sanguine about the virus. The masks and social distancing were medical theater just as TSA is security theater. Both make the public feel safer, and as an added bonus they give the Karens on the left a reason to feel morally superior to those of us who realize it is all for show.

At the height of the mask hysteria, Kyle D. Killian wrote in Psychology Today, “This week, on social media, I reposted a photo of a white woman carrying a sign that reads ‘I’d Rather Bury My Family From COVID Than See Them Enslaved to the Fear of It.’ Why? I was curious about others’ thoughts on it.”

He wrote, “Highly educated intellectuals—people literally paid to type and talk—must resist the urge to make fun of this person or to lecture down to them about virology, science, etc. What is key, crucial in fact, is not dismissing or mocking this person, but interpreting the signage as an indicator of a fear-based response.

“In this case, masking requirements have been equated in this person’s mind to a fundamental loss of freedom or liberty.”

ANALYSIS: True. Because that is EXACTLY what they were, and ALL that they were. The real problem for Killian and his ilk is that a small handful of us still give a damn about that, rather than being not just willing but eager to surrender essential liberty in exchange for a false sense of security and safety, like the vast majority of gutless pussies here in the Land of the Skeer’d and the Home of the Slave.

…”Fear has clouded this person’s thinking; instead of seeing social distancing and masks as a way of caring for others, putting the Golden Rule into action, or acknowledging that some folks feel just fine but are actually asymptomatic carriers of coronavirus, she sees them as a threat.”

Fuck you and your ersatz Golden Rule all to death, pusnuts. Quite the contrary, in truth: fear has clouded panic-ninny thinking, to the extent that it has made THEM a threat—a credible and serious one, which is going to have be dealt with mercilessly because better men and women than your kind will ever be have permitted you to get away with this creeping paternalistic incrementalism for far too long.

Which brings me to Mister Stephens, who occasionally is an isle of sanity in that Sea of Craziness that calls itself the New York Times. He has taken shots at the Pandemic Panic amid the screeching of the baboons who run that zoo.

On April 24, 2020, barely a month into the two weeks to flatten the curve, he wrote, “America Shouldn’t Have to Play by New York Rules. A national lockdown is bad medicine and worse politics.”

He was half-right on the second line. It was bad medicine, but it was excellent politics for the opponents of Making America Great Again who wanted to get rid of President Trump. Stephens’s heart was in the right place in 2020.

He wrote, “I write this from New York, so it’s an argument against my personal interest. But I don’t see why people living in a Nashville suburb should not be allowed to return to their jobs because people like me choose to live, travel and work in urban sardine cans.”

Okay, then. I’m in no wise a huge fan of Bret Stephens myself, but I do have to admit that last bit was damned well-reasoned and -expressed.

The lesson learned is never trust Washington. The American people can be fooled — but only once. It is time to live the words of General Stark, who fought for the freedoms we have. There are worse things than covid. One is masks. Another is suffering the self-righteousness of the ignoramuses who pushed masks.

Annnnd whoot, there it is. As some of us said from the very beginning of this shameful, endless fiasco, the primary issue was never about masks, (anti-)social distancing, or even public health in general. It was about liberty, no more nor less. And once you’ve traded that priceless jewel away for a mess of “safety” pottage, there’s one and only one way you’ll ever get it back again. However many of their despicable progeny have long since either forgotten, willfully abandoned, or outright rejected that fundamental truth, our Founding Fathers knew it well enough, and some few of us still do today.

So be it, then.

THIS is Africa

Posted on February 24, 2023 by Mike

And, as African expat Kim DuToit always says: Africa wins again.

Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, I had the opportunity to work in Senegal for several months. My very first experience in-country was that the rental vehicle wouldn’t start. While the friendly and talkative mechanic repaired the jeep, he inquired if this was my first trip to Africa. “No,” I replied. “Ahhh!” he said, “then I don’t have to explain the meaning of ‘TIA’ to you.”

But I’d never heard that term or what it meant. When I asked, he explained, saying, “This is Africa; nothing works!” Indeed, in my travels, it was much the same in Latin America and other places I have lived, worked, or visited back in the day. When I returned to the U.S. it was a joy to drop a quarter into a payphone and hear a dial tone, or find that the nearest toilet always had toilet paper at hand.

But, in 2023, in Biden’s America, the acronym takes on a whole new meaning. Last week my wife’s car wouldn’t start, and after several return visits to the dealership, the problem remained undiagnosed. The service tech apologized and said, “it’s TIA.” I asked him what that meant, and he said, “This is America; no one knows how to fix things anymore.” Talk about a reflective moment.

Yep. And as I always say: that’s neither accident, nor coincidence, nor happenstance. It’s part of a plan.

Wargaming Civil War v2.0

Posted on February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Mike

A little theorizing on how it all might go down, and what it might look like if/when it does.

The 1860s US Civil War was primarily an economic paradigm war. The Southern agrarian plutocrats backed the Black manned slave labor system. The Northern industrialist plutocrats favored debt-wage slavery powered by European mass immigration.

Given that the first US civil war was an oligarchic conflict, what would today’s US-based oligarchs fight over in a 2.0 civil war? Slices of cherry pie. Control of population centers. What would the hoi polloi fight over? Trans bathrooms. Abortion. Race issues. School prayer. Whatever else oligarchs don’t care about.

Any civil war discussion needs to factor in the Pentagon. They control the soldiers and weapon systems. If the MIC split into two factions, I imagine we’d see something like “woke” Pentagon vs “family values” Pentagon, with Raytheon owning both sides.

I don’t see any intentional Battle of Antietam mega-army fighting mega-army scenes. Unlike Springfield rifles and Gatling guns—F35 fighter jets, stealth bombers, and ICBMs cause serious damage to infrastructure and oligarch holdings. Mushroom clouds spouting up across America is bad for business. The rules of engagement would need to be carefully controlled. An internecine US nuclear war is scarier than Black Jesus.

Like ancient Rome, the US is a multicultural empire. To keep Rome’s diverse groups from splintering, Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official state religion. In America, Whites, Latinos, and Blacks make up the bulk of the population. All are predominantly Christian- at least by birth. America’s remaining unifiers are football, smartphones, Google, and the threat of state violence. Mushroom Cloud Jesus might be the empire’s last bottle of Elmer’s Glue. I prefer Hippie Jesus over Mushroom Cloud Jesus.

Restoring school prayer, filling up prosperity gospel mega-churches, and outlawing “gayness” won’t restore America’s manufacturing base, rebuild its decayed infrastructure, or clean up the poisoned rivers. Nor will it prevent the upward transfer of wealth that comes from corporate governance, endless MIC war, and a Fed owned by 8 banking families.

Christian (Zionist) Nationalism might keep the dying empire on life support for a little while longer, but collapse is inevitable. All empires crash—pathologically corrupt ones sooner than later. If Christian Nationalism failed to keep the food rations above starvation level, WW3 seems like the next logical play. If the international bankers remained on top and human civilization stayed intact after WW3, I suppose the next phase would be One World Government dystopian dictatorship.

If oligarch-managed civil war could prolong the empire’s lifespan, it also holds the potential to shorten it. As demonstrated by Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine, neocon/neoliberal ventures turn into massive clusterf*cks. What if a civil war went sideways and started whipping around like a live electric cable in a windstorm? A case of controlled chaos turning into uncontrolled chaos.

Where a civil war gone sideways winds up is hard to say. I suppose it could turn out really good or really bad. Anything from a new and improved American republic to Mad Max.

The above-excerpted analysis is certainly, well, different, to say the least. That said, it seems to me that the latter option might be a safer bet. But I’ve never been the betting type, so what the hell do I know. The history of human warfare shows that the one safe assumption we can make, in all times and all places, is that we can’t possibly know beforehand what will happen, nor how the thing will all shake out, until it actually, y’know, does shake out.

Throughout the duration of the actual conflict itself, we can reliably count on widespread horror, misery, and deprivation as the stuff of everyday life, carrying on far longer after the war’s outcome has been decided than is generally expected. As Gen Wellesley lamented after the Battle of Waterloo: Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.

War can be conclusive or inconclusive; destructive or productive; justified or not; those things, and many more besides. It is a cruel, ravening beast with many faces, all of them terrible to those caught up in its toils. War is also a permanent fixture of the human landscape, as unpredictable as it is inevitable. Wracking and painful as it surely is, human nature itself mandates nonetheless that the awful scourge of war will be with us always.

Oddly enough, though, war can sometimes be a good thing, even a desirable thing when the sole alternative is submission, slavery, and degradation at the hands of a ruthless despot. It has been described as a crucible in which irrelevancy is burned away, leaving only personal honor intact. It should never be rushed recklessly into; likewise, it should not be rejected out of hand when it has become obviously necessary. Just as war can be the plaything of greedy, over-ambitious potentates, it can also be the last desperate resort of men too long preyed upon by them.

In the somber, cautionary words of a wise and noble warrior who certainly knew whereof he spoke: it is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.

(Via Wes Renegade)

One of these things is not like the other

Posted on February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Mike

In his state-of-the-nation address, Putin was a helluva lot more honest and accurate than Pedo Joe was in his. Which, by now, can’t come as any great surprise to anyone.

Putin Says He Suspended Russia’s Participation in START Treaty, Blasts Western Decadence in Address to Nation
The first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is this Friday.

“We aren’t fighting the Ukrainian people,” Putin said in the speech broadcast on all state TV channels. “The Ukrainian people have become hostages of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country.”

He told his audience of lawmakers, state officials, religious leaders and soldiers that Western sanctions hadn’t “achieved anything and will not achieve anything.”

The Russian president also blasted “western elites,” who have been open about their goal “to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ to Russia,” adding, “they intend to transform the local conflict into a global confrontation.”

Putin also accused the West (of) targeting Russia’s culture, religion and values because it is aware that “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.”

“See what they do with their own peoples—the destruction of the family, cultural and national identity, perversion, mockery of children, and pedophilia are declared the norm,” Putin said.

The Russian leader said adults have the right to live as they want, and Russia has no interest in invading private lives, but advised people to “look at the Holy Scriptures,” and the sacred books of other major religions. “Everything is said there,” he declared, “including that the family is the union of a man and a woman.” This pronouncement drew applause from the audience.

“Millions of people in the West understand that they are leading to a real spiritual disaster,” Putin added.

True, dat. They just haven’t decided yet how far they’re willing to go, how drastic the measures they’re willing to take, in order to head it off, assuming it isn’t already way too late. However sincere Putin may or may not have been with the soaring rhetoric above, just compare & contrast with Phony Jaux’s incoherent blibbering in Poland.

Biden boasted that NATO is “more united and more unified than ever before” to fight Russia, setting the stage for a prolonged war.

“Putin is confronted with something today that he didn’t think was possible a year ago — the democracies around the world have grown stronger, not weaker; but the autocrats around the world have grown weaker, not stronger,” Biden said.

Throughout his boilerplate, cliché-ridden speech, Biden frequently slurred his words including during the “rousing” close to the speech. Biden, whose policies forced masks and experimental vaccines on Americans against their will during the pandemic, began loudly shouting about “freedom.”

“There is no sweeter word than freedom,” Biden said. “There is no nobler goal than freedom. There’s no higher aspiration than freedom. Americans know that and you know it,” he added.

“Freedom. The enemy of the tyrant and the hope of the brave and the truth of the ages is freedom!” Biden declared.

We can only hope it is at that, you stupid jackass. But if it does prove to be so, that won’t bode at all well for you and the other behind-the-scenes tyrants who run you.

How bitter the irony, that the day should come when a Russian despot sounds so much more like our Founders than our own fork-tongued notional “President” does, and that Putin’s invocation of the themes of faith, family, and rectitude should ring in the American ear more clearly than Biden’s empty, vapid gasbaggery regarding “freedom,” a concept he neither cares for nor comprehends—a sacred ideal which, in reality, he has spent the entirety of his five miserable decades occupying high government office constantly seeking to undermine, overthrow, and obliterate.

Trump the Comforter

Posted on February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Mike

A stark contrast with the Biden Affliction.

BREAKING: Donald Trump greeted by crowds of supporters in East Palestine, slams Biden for prioritizing Ukraine over America
“If you were in office right now, what would you have done to help the people of East Palestine?” Hernandez asked, to which Trump said, “FEMA would have been here a long time ago.”

Donald Trump landed in East Palestine, Ohio on Wednesday, where he met with local officials and citizens of the small town still trying to bounce back from the ecological disaster caused by a train derailment and subsequent controlled burn.

The Biden regime recently denied FEMA aid to East Palestine, saying that it did not meet the criteria. “What East Palestine needs is much more expansive than what FEMA can provide,” the official continued. “FEMA is on the frontlines when there is a hurricane or tornado. This situation is different.”

Which you would know HOW, exactly? Certainly not firsthand.

Trump would go on to deliver some remarks thanking police, firefighters, and first responders while assuring that those who have been impacted would not be left behind. “It’s an honor to be here. It’s an incredible place,” Trump said, “we’re here today in East Palestine to show our love and support for our fellow Americans in this hour of need…They’ve done some incredible work in a short period of time.”

“To the people of East Palestine and nearby communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania, we have told you loud and clear, ‘you are not forgotten.’ We stand with you, pray for you, and we will stand with you in your fight to help answer and the accountability you deserve… will all be out there, very clearly,” said Trump.

Trump said that the community needs “answers and results,” and that Norfolk Southern needs to “fulfill its obligations.”

“The people of East Palestine are going to be taken care of… When your representatives and all of your politicians get here, including Biden, get back from touring Ukraine, that he’s got some money left over as we’re now at $117 billion, and as you probably know, Europe when you add it all up has added $10 billion. That’s a big difference… They’re at it again, they’re very good negotiators those people in Europe. When you add it all up, it’s about the same size as the United States’ [contributions] the economy of the different European countries, and they’re at a very small number compared to us… That’s a massive difference, it’s a very small fraction of what we’ve put up and it affects them more than us. They have to do what they have to do.”

Trump would then go to a nearby McDonald’s restaurant, where he would continue to answer questions.

Mo’ bettah Trump:

Trump Overrules Pete Buttigieg, Delivers Truckloads of Water to East Palestine, Ohio
President Donald Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio where he delivered truckloads of bottled water following a toxic train derailment earlier this month.

The disaster has left the small town reeling, with Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration showing little interest in the crisis.

Government officials at both the state and federal levels have not risen up to the challenge, leaving the people of East Palestine furious.

After being snubbed by the Biden admin, Trump scheduled a visit to the town to show them support.

After Trump’s Wednesday visits, Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg scheduled a trip to see the disaster firsthand, almost three weeks after the train derailed on February 4.

This is vintage Trump at his very best, making a unique contribution which in the long view will amount to much more than he’ll ever be able to accomplish anywhere else. I do wish he’d focus his considerable attention more on things like this, along with mass rallies and speeches to inspire and reinforce Real Americans in their long fight against The Enemy, rather than vainly chasing after an office he’ll never be allowed to accede to anyway.

He was already re-elected once, and when the “election”-fraud dust settled what we wound up with instead was a senescent, corrupt kiddie-diddler so old and feeble he can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without busting his damned-fool ass right out in front of God and everybody roosting in the Oval Office as pRetend “pResident.” So how’s all that working out for ya’s, anyway? There’s a lesson in there somewheres, and one would think Trump of all people might have learned it by now.

Road trippin’

Posted on February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Mike

“Ace” Biden pays a visit to genuflect before one of the many malefactors who own him body and soul, thanks to their having the goods on his visceral penchant for corruption, graft, and greed.

Secret Agent Man “Joe Biden” turned up in Kiev Monday morning after landing in Poland and riding an overnight choo-choo train across the Ukraine frontier to avoid the hazardous pomp of landing Air Force One in a war zone. One might try to guess the message Victoria Nuland sent her errand boy to deliver. My guess is that “JB” was there to tell Wolodymyr Zelensky the USA stands behind him one hundred percent — an obvious whopper — being exactly the opposite of the developing reality that, short of setting off nuclear Armageddon, there is really nothing the USA can do to prevent Russia from concluding our ill-conceived project on its own terms. Who better to deliver an arrant falsehood than the master, “Scranton Joe,” he who once battled and vanquished the tyrant Corn-Pop!

The heroic Biden actually flew his alternate fighter aircraft (ie, not the one he famously splashed that Zipperhead “weather” balloon with) straight into Kiev Aerodrome, executing his usual flawless three-point landing there:

SpadXVIII

Good show, Jaux! Back over to Kuenstler for the rest of the story.

Remember, last week Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, speaking out of the aperture between his butt cheeks, announced that Russia had lost “strategically, operationally and tactically” in Ukraine. This was after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg announced rather clumsily that Ukraine’s army was out of ammo, especially artillery shells, and the only remedy for that was for Europe to rebuild an armaments industry — which was a sideways-and-backwards way of saying… fuggeddabowdit.

Yeah, umm, about those artillery shells…

CranmerUkeArty

Whew! Thank goodness the US isn’t tens of trillions in debt and can thus afford to indefinitely support the grifter currently in charge of the D卐M☭CRAT Party ATM™ in the style to which he has become accustomed, thereby guaranteeing Zelensky’s continued silence regarding all past and future endeavors with the Biden Crime Family. Onwards.

One might also suppose that, behind all this cognitive dissonance, the US would be engaged in secret talks with Russia to arrive at some face-saving device for getting out of this mess. But really, what is our leverage for that? Can we threaten to put US boots-on-the-Ground in Ukraine? That would be a little like channeling Gen. George Armstrong Custer, don’t you think? Apparently, all we’re left with is a game of pretend, using the Pretender-in-Chief as the front.

I’d also venture to say that American voters are not so enthused about this Ukraine pageant as they seemed to be last summer when the yellow and blue flags popped up on front porches at every Woked-up clam-bake from Edgartown to Bar Harbor. Our Ukrainian proxies sure seemed to be giving those Ruskies what-for along the front lines in Donbas, payback, you understand, for helping Donald Trump steal the 2016 election from She Whose Turn It Was Supposed to Be…America’s Amazonian Caesar-in-a-pants-suit, HRC.

The fall offensive by Ukraine was an illusion, alas, setting up its army for methodical decimation, now nearly complete. So, too, is all the talk of sending tanks in to save the day. And so, too, is the very existence of NATO as anything other than window-dressing on an empty storefront. If blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, as recently alleged by independent reporter Seymour Hersh, smells like an attack on our supposed ally, Germany, then how was it not an attack on NATO, in which Germany is the centerpiece? And, finally, why would Germany not be engaging in secret talks of its own with Russia, behind America’s back?

Why indeed, and who the fuck cares anyhow. Say, anybody remember back when Trump, as actual as opposed to ostensible US President, suggested extricating ourselves from the steely clutches of the long-obsolete and entirely-dysfunctional NATO—whereupon the Usual Suspects threw the Usual Hissy Fit about the outrageousness of any such “radical” notion? Good times, good times. Or, if not altogether good, at least a damned sight better than the sweat-soaked fever dream we’re unable to wake up from now.

Intrigue must be rife now throughout Europe, and Americans will not hear anything about it from its Deep State-owned news media. Is there any reason why Europe could not live with a neutralized Ukraine? Of course not. Ukraine is in uproar now simply because geniuses in the US State Department thought it would be a good way to annoy and antagonize Russia. The project was insane from inception. The main result is that Europe will no longer have the natural gas it needs at a rational price to continue being an industrial society.

One must conclude that NATO is looking for a way out of this. But there is no way out except to declare by word or deed, directly or otherwise, that NATO has outlived the reason for its existence. Any sane analysis by Europeans would arrive at the unnerving realization that the USA has become the enemy of NATO, not Russia. If all that is so, then a seismic shift is underway that will leave America hung out to dry on the Ukraine project. Germany will have to make a deal with Russia to rebuild the Nord Streams. What could the US do about that? Impose sanctions on Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the rest of the bunch? Where does that leave Western Civ?

I’ll tell you: it leaves Western Civ diminished. It leaves our country to stew in its own rancid economic and financial juices in abject isolation from, basically, the rest of the world. (Fare-thee-well hegemonic dream; hello multi-polarity!) It leaves Ukraine neutralized and no longer a problem…It leaves Russia able to feel secure in its borders and free to get on with being a normal nation…and it leaves Europe the hope that it can resume modern life a while longer with the familiar comforts and conveniences.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of assholes, if you ask me.

Errata update! I have been reliably informed, by a source who wishes to remain anonymous, that the photo of “Ace” Biden ostensibly setting down in Kiev is factually incorrect—disinformation, as the cognoscenti like to say. As it happens, Jaux doesn’t even own a Spad XIII at all, although I’m certain that, being a man of taste and discernment, he’d surely love to. This is the true and accurate pic of America’s Heroic Savior taxiing his DR1 to a secure undisclosed revetment at Kiev Aerodrome, after dogfighting his way across all of Europe to get there.

What a man, eh? Americans are fortunate indeed to have such a one to lead their nation through these parlous times.

Buttplug in absentia

Posted on February 19, 2023February 19, 2023 by Mike

Gee, who woulda ever thunk that two disastrous terms as the fumbling, bumbling mayor of a small-ish Indiana town might not turn out to be preparation aplenty for the job of US Secretary of Transportation?

Pete Buttigieg fails the Woody Allen test

He’s been called the future of the Democratic Party, and the smartest man in the swamp. Pete Buttigieg serves as transportation secretary in the Biden Administration. And one could argue that, outside of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, there isn’t anyone in the administration who has performed as poorly as the former mayor of South Bend, Ind.

This perspective comes after Buttigieg was once again several days late and many dollars short in his response to a 50-car train derailment on Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, that resulted in four kinds of cancer-causing chemicals being released into the area’s air and water. Fish and poultry have died as a result, while frightened residents are complaining of nausea, headaches and respiratory issues.

During any catastrophe, leaders must get out of their offices and travel to the disaster site to assess the damage, weigh what resources can be utilized and show solidarity with the affected people.

Buttigieg has done no such thing, perhaps taking his cues from President Biden, who also has avoided any public acknowledgment of the situation. It’s a head-in-the-sand approach that has many Ohio residents angry.

“Where’s Pete Buttigieg? Where’s he at?” one resident asked East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway.

Now on the defensive, Buttigieg has resorted to blaming (you guessed it) former President Trump for what is happening in Ohio.

“We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe,” Buttigieg tweeted. “And of course, I’m always ready to work with Congress on furthering (or in some cases, restoring) our capacity to address rail safety issues.”

So, despite Democrats having controlled the House, Senate and White House for two years, Buttigieg claims his hands are tied because of the administration that has been gone for 25 months.

A supply chain crisis; baby formula shortages; a U.S. commercial airline industry in chaos. And now evacuations, a federal investigation and a cancer-causing chemical scare that continues to stress residents in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Woody Allen said that 90 percent of success in life is just showing up. On that front, Pete Buttigieg continues to fail.

If he wants to be president one day, Buttigieg must show more effort, urgency and competency than what the country has witnessed so far.

He won’t, and nobody with a lick of sense ought to be expecting he ever will. Truth is, being an incompetent boob cut from the same raggedy, moldy cloth as his (titular) boss, he CAN’T. He was manifestly a Bribem junta diversity-hire, brought in exclusively due to being a loud-and-proud homosexual and no other reason whatsoever. As they say in Texas, Pete Buttplug is all hat, no cattle. If Affirmative Action were ever to be put on trial, he’d be Exhibit A for the prosecution.

Introductory Shithole Construction 101: If you build it, they will run

Posted on February 19, 2023February 19, 2023 by Mike

As with professional politicians, nobody you’d actually want in the job would be the least bit interested in taking it. In the case of law enforcement specifically, that’s purely intentional, done with malice aforethought—a nefarious plan greatly accelerated by the Ogabe junta’s militarize-the-police program, although its origins date back to well before that.

Why Would Anyone Want to Be a Cop in Los Angeles Today?

Having retired from the Los Angeles Police Department some years ago, I often look at the day’s news and ask, “How can anyone be expected to do that job today?” The latest inspiration for this question came Friday with the news that two Los Angeles city councilmen are trying to make it easier for the LAPD chief to fire officers accused of misconduct.

LAPD chiefs are now selected by the five-member civilian police commission, whose members are selected by the mayor. In recent years, the selection criteria for commissioner would not appear to include any expertise in law enforcement, but rather merely how each member can be said to represent some segment on the all-important “diversity” spectrum. A chief is appointed to a five-year term, with the police commission having the option of reappointing him to a second term if a majority so chooses.

The result is that what LAPD officers have leading their department is a politician in uniform, one who was selected by politicians initially and who is beholden to them for his recent reappointment to the position, for which his total compensation comes to $494,615.05.

So the question arises: What would Michel Moore, or any police chief, be willing to do to maintain that well-paid position? If some police encounter were to arouse the ire of the anti-cop mob, would he be willing to summarily fire a cop or two so as to appease that mob? The prudent bettor says, yes, he would.

And keep in mind that the upper ranks of the LAPD are largely populated by people who achieved their positions by demonstrating their willingness to please the chief and thereby please his political masters. If the Board of Rights system is maintained but returned to the hands of LAPD brass, how many of them would be willing to go against the chief’s expressed desires and acquit an officer, or impose some penalty less than termination on one who has been found guilty? Not many.

Which brings us to the cops on the street, not a single one of whom today goes through his 10- or 12-hour shift without fearing that he, should an arrest go wrong and rouse the mob, will become the next YouTube villain and be put through the kind of Kafka-esque ordeal already endured by others.

The streets of Los Angeles are already in chaos. It will only get worse if the cops are made even more fearful of doing their job.

Gee, second look at perpetually electing and re-electing D卐M☭CRATs and nothing but to every local, county, and/or state-wide office, perchance? Naaaw, that’s just crazy talk right there, you fascist, Ultra-Mega-MAGA™ lunatic, you.

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