Kristi, we hardly knew ye!

It’s a damnable shame, I had such high hopes for her up till now. Alas, no longer, although I suppose there’s still barely a ghost of a glimmer of a slim snowball’s shadow of an outside chance that she’s just the latest victim of yet another shitlib con/hit job, career-destroying words put into her mouth by shady malefactors while she wasn’t paying close enough attention. I certainly wouldn’t bet money I couldn’t afford to lose on it, but it’s just possible. Just. Maybe. I guess.

“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights.” – Ronnie Coleman

Writing an interesting and engaging article often requires a significant amount of time and energy.

Writing an entire book, especially one that is insightful and captivating, is truly an incredible accomplishment, because it requires SO MUCH WORK AND TIME to complete the mission.

In the political publishing industry, however, the top “authors” have gamed the system entirely. The entire genre is a fraudulent mess of epic proportions.

I’m only 34, but I’ve been in the media and publishing space for quite some time, having written for pretty much every major right of center publication you could think of. I have no idea how long this massive grift has been occurring, but I can assure you it’s been going on for decades.

One such high profile example of political ghostwriting dates back to 1956, with Profiles In Courage, the 1956 volume that helped to establish the intellectual and political bonafides of John F. Kennedy.

Now, there has been a noticeable distinction between how “insiders” and “outsiders” have interpreted the flaming dumpster fire that is the publicity tour related to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s upcoming book. The general public seems confused about the idea that Noem seemingly didn’t know about so many things that were in *her own book*.

From stories of psychopathically mass-shooting her animals to concocted tales of talking tough to Kim Jong Un, Noem’s answers for her claimed antics, and the repeated falsehoods claimed under her namesake, have gone from bad to worse.

It’s a given that many of us in the space already wrote off the idea Noem would write any of her own book. But she has taken the laziness of politician “publishing” to new heights. She apparently didn’t proofread any of her book either, despite narrating the audiobook. Given the historic botch job, I’m glad that the public is starting to ask more questions about this incredibly sketchy operation.

The Kristi Noem saga has exposed an open secret about the political publishing industry: a tiny percentage of “authors” in the space write their own books. And those real authors are often smothered by fake authors with a machine in place to promote their fake autobiographies, which take time and opportunity away from those who have put in the work.

For politicians, I would estimate that maybe 1 percent write their own books. Some spend occasional time with their ghostwriter in order to best express their personality and ideas. Others, like Noem, just mail it in entirely, and have the ghostwriter rely upon public material from speeches and appearances.

Yeah, well, it’s kinda hard to decide which of the two likely scenarios is worse: that she neither wrote NOR read the thing and is therefore blissfully unaware of the kind of bizarre, godawful stories related therein, or *shudder* that she IS aware of them, because they’re, y’know, TRUE and ACCURATE, and she sees nothing wrong with the material, is perfectly comfortable with it, and frankly just can’t understand what all the uproar is about.

I admit I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about Da Guv before all this, but what little I did know I liked; excepting a few decisions on which she arguably screwed the pooch, her heart during her tenure as Governor has seemed for the most part to be in the right place, Constitutionally-speaking. After getting off on exactly the wrong foot initially, her flat refusal later to exercise dictatorial power over her constituents during the FauxVid psyop/trial run, further fleshed out by some admirably thoughtful, high-minded, and rare-as-hen’s-teeth perorations explicating the specific limits on what she was and was not empowered to do as the Governor of a sovereign State under the US Constitution, I found extremely appealing.

Tough; capable; feisty; determined; far and away the most breathtakingly attractive politician (in the strictly physical sense, which I know I’m not allowed to either notice or mention right out loud, but hey, fuck all y’all) in America today, male or female—Kristi Noem seemed to have the Right Stuff, veritable bucketloads of it. By every indication well on the way to solid renown, respect, and success as a national political figure, all she really had to do was simply not fuck up. Sadly, after this needless, self-inflicted kill shot, I preminisce no return to the salad days for poor Mrs Noem. Stick a fork in her, she is well and truly done. If the woman is as reckless, clueless, weird, and just plain D-M-U-B dumb as this spectacular crash ’n’ burn suggests, could be we dodged a bullet with her. Which makes the Great Noem Flameout of ’24 an occasion not for sadness over what might have been, but for a heavy sigh of relief for being spared in the nick of time.

The grind

Analysis: perfectly, inarguably, one hundred percent TRUE.

Brainwashing campus activists starts long before college
Americans shocked at the aggressive protests on our most elite campuses often imagine these kids have become brainwashed while away at school.

That indoctrination certainly does take place. Yet the process for most starts far earlier, often in the K-12 years — or even before.

What we’re seeing on our campuses is the culmination of many years of leftist activists pushing kids to the forefront to spread their propaganda.

And it’s not remotely just board books like “A is for Activist” that introduce toddlers to the idea of protest before they even set foot in school.

Teachers push their agenda; whether climate change, gun control or the war in Gaza, they’re focused far less on teaching children how to think than what to think.

The goal is to turn kids into activists, and the sooner the better.

After all, children can be valuable for shutting down debate.

Their youth implies innocence and seems to confer moral authority: How could anyone argue with an innocent child?

Ah yes, but one of these things (youthful innocence) is NOT like the other (moral authority). There is simply no equivalency there, in fact very little relation between the two at all, if any. Quite the opposite, I’d say: if one is present, the other in fact CANNOT be, by definition. It’s by way of being a categorical error—of the sub-type known amongst logicians as an informal fallacy*—a mistake which has unfortunately become commonplace thanks in part to the peculiarly American worship of youth and vigor at the expense of the peculiarly Oriental respect for the wisdom of age and experience.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: there is simply no fixing this without first unfucking the government schools. All our troubles and woe begin there; that rat-bastard Gramsci was truly a fucking diabolical genius, damn his eyes. My own kid has attended those institutions of indoctrination from Grade One, something I’m allowed no say in whatever. Thankfully, my daughter’s native intelligence and/or comprehension are off-the-charts extraordinary; her teachers so far have all been great, rewarding her smarts and eagerness to learn by going well out of their way to nurture and encourage those qualities every chance they get. Even so, I’ve been diligent right along in cautioning her that even the best of them doesn’t know everydamnedthing, and that she must therefore never assume that Teacher is always right, nor take every word she/he says as the Gospel truth.

This is not a young ‘un who has to be dragged kicking and screaming to do her homework, especially if it’s reading. I’ve told her repeatedly to think of her mind not as a sponge, passively soaking up everything thrown at it without discrimination or reflection, but rather as a sieve, sifting the totality to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Instilling and maintaining a healthy skepticism both inside the classroom and out, without lapsing into cynicism, generalized distrust, and despair is a tightrope all attentive parents must walk. So far it’s worked out well, for which felicitous result I consider myself very lucky indeed.

*I took quite a few classes as a college student in logic, philosophy, and rhetoric, for no reason other than that I found the subjects intriguing, so much so that I still have a cpl-three of my logic textbooks to this very day and have had cause to re-consult them plenty of times over lo, these many years; in fact, my poor old Logic 101 text is every bit as battered and dog-eared as any of my cherished military sci-fi paperbacks—its spine broken in several places, its binding loose and flappy, its fabric covers frayed, its yellowed pages liberally spattered with food, beverage, and greasy-fingerprint stains. Like a beat-up old La-Z-Boy recliner, she’s ugly as homemade sin now, but I do love her so anyway

Yet another BM (Biden Moment)

***”President”*** shits self again, women and minorities hardest hit.


Yep, as someone who has raised a toddler my own self, I can definitely say that the sudden halt and semi-squat accompanied by the dreamy-eyed gaze into the far distance is all too familiar.

Sweet home Shithole Chicago

Hog butcher for the world, City of the Sloped Shoulders, to update Sandberg to better reflect modern reality. They tell me you are wicked, and I believe them.

Chicago Mayor Panics, Runs From Reporters Asking About Slain Cop’s Funeral
Mayor Brandon Johnson had another one of his panic attacks Thursday, running away from reporters like NBC Chicago’s Mary Ann Ahern, who just wanted to ask him–among other things– about his administration pressuring the family of slain Chicago Police officer Luis Huesca, to let Johnson attend his funeral. Johnson ultimately did not attend, even though he and other officials spilled their petulant, childish drama over the somber event. To watch him succumb to his panic attacks over questions about the funeral I leave this link: https://x.com/MaryAnnAhernNBC/status/1786118723230707763 “Why do you have to run from us Mr. Mayor?” asked Ahern.

But Ahern knows the answer. He’s a snowflake, a grape who can’t take the pressure of leadership. And there are just about 100 days until the hard left tear up the Democratic National Convention. What a party it will be.

According to reporting by Fran Spielman of the Sun Times, Johnson’s team tried to push the mourning Huesca family into inviting him to the funeral of the slain officer. I’ve never seen anything so despicable in Chicago politics and most of you know I’ve seen a lot.

If there’s anything lower than that, it’s running away like a whipped dog when you get caught.

He has a coward’s built-in excuse though, he might say Huesca’s mother didn’t understand the bad Spanish of his police officials and aides who initially tried to intimidate her by insisting he had to attend her son’s funeral, that it was mandatory. That it was all lost in translation. He’s craven enough, with his panic attacks, to try it. And he’ll always play the race card if it doesn’t work.

It’s John Kass, who as is his usual wont pulls not a single punch throughout, so of course you’ll want to read the whole thing.

Blibbering

Yeah, he’s just fine, no Alzheimers issues here, nosireeBOB.


Follows, several more videos confirming Pedo Peter’s total lucidity, clearheadedness, and remarkable facility for quick-wittedness and spontaneous speech, all from the same Medal of Presidential Paralympics in Freeduuhhhh…yeah, you know, the thing.

Little Dutch girl hits it into the cheap seats

No insult intended by that “little Dutch girl” schtick, mind; I was just playing off the old “Little Dutch Boy” cultural meme, that’s all. At any rate, the brilliant, brave, and beautiful Eva Vlaardingerbroek is about as formidable as formidable comes.

Dutch Activist: The Fall of Europe, the Most Important Speech You’ll Hear
Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek spoke at CPAC Hungary and began by talking about the stabbings and a riot in European countries and another church burning down in Europe in just the past two days.

As she said, everyone knows, and the governments know, there is a link between mass migration and crime.

This is one of the most important speeches you will hear. A rushed transcript follows the video.

Boy, is it ever—no punches pulled, no flinches flinched, nothing but the straight dope, like a nine-pound hammer straight to the kisser. Just a smidge from said transcript:

Our new reality in Europe consists of frequent rapes, murders, shootings, and even beheadings, but let me be clear about one thing, this did not used to happen before. This is a newly imported problem.

Samuel B Huntington predicted this over 25 years ago when he wrote, and I quote, “In the New World of mass migration, the most pervasive important and dangerous conflicts will not be between the social classes. They will not be between the rich and the poor. They will be between people belonging to different cultural entities, tribal wars, and ethnic conflicts will occur within civilizations.

Well, boy, was he right, and the worst part is we as a society seem to have become indifferent to it. When another white boy or white girl dies at the hands of an immigrant, we might shake our head; we might let out a sigh; we might even get angry for a minute or two, and then we go on with our lives. We are for the family, thoughts, and prayers, but nothing ever changes.”

What does that say about us?

This is the response of a society that has already given up. A society that has already accepted its defeat. But is this true? Have we given up? Do we really accept the new reality that our globalist leaders have in mind for us? I know one thing for sure, and that if nothing changes, if we don’t fight for our continent, for our religion, for our people, for our countries, then this time that we live in, will go down in history as the time in which western nations no longer had to get invaded by hostile armies to be conquered.

The esteemed and estimable Ms Vlaardingerbroek carries on in like vein from there, and it is some truly heady stuff. Francis calls her “A Voice Of Sanity,” and he couldn’t be righter about that; my sincerest thanks to him for the steer, and to Maura Dowling for the transcript. How pitifully far we’ve fallen, that simple, plainspoken truth like this should come as such a shock to us. If you prefer watching to reading, the vid is available at the link. Speaking of Fran, his closing ‘graph caps things off perfectly.

It’s time, as Eva Vlaardingerbroek has told us, to stand and fight: not for the dominance of the world by the white race, but simply for the right to be left alone in our own lands. Unless we elect to do so – and to scorn the race-hustlers and grievance-peddlers demanding that we accept an endless onslaught of “diversity” – our future will be one of marginalization and eventual extermination. Vermin and savages will enjoy – “appropriate?” – what we leave behind…while it lasts. Our ghosts will have only the bitter satisfaction of watching them turn on one another when our legacy is exhausted.

Indeed so, sir, and very well put, as per usual.

Police story

The great Ken Layne tells it as only he can, a personal reminiscence that provides a bracing look back at the kind of old-time cop we all used to respect, trust implicitly, and admire—a noble breed which has become all too rare in Amerika v2.0, alas. They used to be the norm rather than the exception in America That Was, but tragically for us all, America That Was is no more.

Ripley
Ripley was a Riverbank cop for a good long while until he went to work for the Sheriff’s Department around 1985 or so. He was one of those old skool small town cops, Officer Friendly if you will. Him being called out for something did not mean automatic arrests of everybody involved would be made “to let the courts sort it out”.

He was one of those cops that actually took the time to listen to both sides of a dispute, would pull over to help a motorist make minor repairs rather than just calling a tow truck, and would even give you a ride home instead of automatically arresting you if you had a little too much to drink provided you weren’t so fucked up you were driving on the sidewalk and giving whiney-ass sober citizens a reason to complain. On top of all that, he had a great sense of humor.

That’s not to say he took shit off of anybody. He treated people the way they treated him. 

Real Pancho was drinking at Sanchez’s Cantina one night and shooting the shit with Tony, the owner. Things got a little spirited between a couple of the customers, and the shit spilled out into the street. Rip was either called or was just driving by and stopped to break it up. After he got everything settled and turned to walk back to his patrol car, one of the drunks slapped at the back of his head. Rip spun around and dropped him with a hard right. Real Pancho told us later, “That motherfucker went from Andy Taylor to Buford Pusser in 1.5 seconds flat, homie.”

A bunch of us were sitting around drinking beer one Friday evening and his name came up, then everybody started throwing out theories on why he was so damned lenient, everything from compassion and understanding to being a local boy to whatever. George burped and said, “Y’all are overthinking this. Rip just hates paperwork with a passion, is all. He’d rather drive around in his patrol car than sitting in the station filling out arrest reports.”

Rip had a soft spot for anybody that worked out at the ammo plant, having worked there himself during the Vietnam war before enlisting in the Marines to go kill commies. As a matter of fact, on my very first day at work, the line boss I was working for told me to keep my work badge in my wallet with my driver’s license and if Officer Ripley pulled me over, hand him both and I’d probably get off with just a warning.

He wasn’t lying, either. A couple weeks after I started there, I rolled through a stop sign at about 10 mph and was pulled over by Rip, the first time I had ever laid eyes on him. As I was digging my license out of my wallet, he saw my work badge and forgot all about my traffic infraction. We spent the next 15-20 minutes talking about the plant and the mutual friends and acquaintances we had.

That’s not to say he didn’t write us tickets if we pushed it. We got a couple warnings but if we continued to misbehave, we got a ticket with him bitching about it so much we almost felt bad for putting him on the spot. “Now here I am trying to do my damnedest to be a decent human being by not holding y’all to the literal letter of the law, but do you appreciate my kindness and good will? Oh nooooo, you test my patience time and time again. I gave you a warning for speeding, then not a week later I see you blasting through town endangering law-abiding citizens and Mexicans. I’m gonna introduce you to my Maglight if you keep this shit up. Sign here.” It was hard to hold a straight face while he was ranting.

He was welcome out at my place and showed up quite a few times with his wife Jeri and sons. They fit in well anyway with about half my friends knowing him their entire lives. He wasn’t Rip the cop when he was there, he was just Rip the local guy. He left his job at work.

People smoking weed wasn’t an issue because he was usually gone by dusk along with others that brought their kids, and back then we didn’t smoke dope around kids. I doubt anybody would’ve put him on the spot by firing up a doobie anyway even if there were no kids around.

His youngest son pulled a trigger on a real gun for the first time out at my place, and him and his boys came out fairly regularly to hunt pheasant or dove when the seasons were open.

Rip’s story is a long ‘un, and also one of the best damned reads you’re ever going to see. It pains me no end to see my daughter’s terror and dread at every interaction I’ve had with po-lice in her presence—there’s been a fair few, none of them at all adversarial and/or confrontational, all of them relaxed, casual, even cordial.

True story: once, when we were pulled over for some piffling infraction or other (a busted taillight bulb, I believe it was), the poor kid actually burst into tears as I was talking with the cop—gasping for breath, shoulders heaving, great sobs racking her little body. The cop was horrified, and tried his dead-level best to calm her down, speaking directly to her in soothing Daddy-voice tones to assure her she didn’t need to be afraid, that he’d never dream of harming a beautiful little girl like her in any way, that his job was to help people like us, not to hurt them. Finally, he gave the effort up as a lost cause, apologized profusely to me, and we all went our separate ways. I felt sooo bad for the poor guy, I really did; it was perfectly obvious to me that he was a loving parent himself, the thought of any child actually being terrified of him just absolutely wrecked the man.

A few days later, I went so far as to go to the Belmont PD HQ and ask to see Officer Whateverhisnamewas (I had caught his name from his shield and jotted it down afterwards so’s I wouldn’t forget), whereupon the SGT on front-desk duty that day brought him out and I offered my thanks for his going so far above and beyond the call etc to be such a sweet, caring guy with my distraught daughter. He blushed to his roots at that, saying t’was nothing, he meant what he said about helping people like us being part of his job, the part he himself found most satisfying of all.

I then told him I honestly had no earthly inkling as to where her reflexive fear of cops might’ve come from, that I was working diligently to teach her otherwise. In my considered opinion, the blame for Madeleine’s mystifying breakdown couldn’t fairly be laid at his doorstep, I said, reassuring him that I bore him no ill will whatsoever over the episode.

After that, we chit-chatted idly about this, that, and the other for a few more minutes—turns out he was a drawling, born-and-bred scion of good ol’ Gaston County like I was, a natural kinship which gave us plenty to discuss—then shook hands warmly and again went our separate ways with a smile on our faces, a skip in our steps, and a song in our hearts.

I have this longtime habit, see, of going out of my way to talk to cops I cross paths with in my daily round, having had many friends, neighbors, and family members who served on one force or another since I was but a wee bairn. I’ve tried to instill in her from early on the idea that cops are not too terribly different from the rest of us workaday schlubs: some of them fine folks, some of them obnoxious pricks, but in the main just regular people who have a difficult job to do, about like anybody else is/does.

I want Madeleine not to shy from the police quaking with fright as if they were the Loch Ness Monster, Nosferatu, or the Wolfman with a badge and a gun, but to treat them just as she would anyone else, taking them as they come, reserving judgment unless and until they give cause to dislike and shun them as toxic assholes. In my extensive experience with them, act as if cops are actually, y’know, human beings and they’ll usually respond positively, granting you the same small courtesy in return.

This is just another of many thorny parental dilemmas every caring Mom and Dad worthy of the name must carefully consider, then choose the course of action that seems best for their child based on the information at hand, which is usually incomplete. As such, it greatly disturbs me to think that—what with today’s militarized police kitted out as soldiers in full combat gear including Level IV body armor, automatic battle rifles, and even tanks (!!!), faces concealed robot-like behind Next Generation Integrated Head Protection System helmets, NOD goggles, and opaque face shields, champing at the bit to engage their Enemy (to wit, US) and vanquish him utterly—by urging my kid not to fear, distrust, or abhor cops I might be doing her a serious disservice at best, possibly putting her in real danger at worst.

As I’ve said so many times, when we passively allowed marauding Lefty wreckers to take our country from us, many fine things were lost in the suicidal shuffle that were very much worth holding onto. Compassionate, dedicated cops of Ripley’s stripe who deem personal integrity, selflessness, and strict attentiveness to duty to be sacrosanct would definitely be one of those things. LESSON TO BE LEARNED: In the next iteration (if any) of the Former USA, after the grassroots uprising I call the Coming Unpleasantness© has concluded and the dust has settled, perhaps We The People will be more willing—better prepared mentally, physically, and materially—to fight, truly fight, to keep them.

Yes, that of necessity means violence, bloodshed, and war, and what of it? Real Americans realize that our freedom, our heritage, our traditions, our very society itself are all worth paying any price to maintain them. The simpering, pusillanimous wretches who preemptively foreswear violent action in defense of our unique American birthright have in effect surrendered already, mewling shamefully in favor of lawsuits, Congressional investigations, higher court decisions, and “elections” as if there was any credible hope in all that endless, proven-futile meat-beatery. So to hell with them then, sayeth I.

Capsule summary

A Sarcastica sum-up.

The Repubs continue to threaten us with a loss in November to a senile clown with their circular firing squad and other antics ………3 Soros backed Negroes with a combined integrity of a street corner heroin dealer are prosecuting persecuting (like him or not) our former President like third world shitholes do, while the media cheers them on for ratings and future lucrative book deals…………our coward-and- chief, who spends more time at home (where not subject to official call and visitor logs) than he does in the oval office, can’t regularly make it past 12 noon without a visit from Dr. Feelgood (yeah I said it) shits his pants and lies his ass off and has gone to shouting like a South American dictator about his opposition on the campaign trail………..we are being reassured of the fact throwing $80K a year at an elite institution of higher learning can produce just as many idiots as intelligent people…………and let’s not forget 185 pound trannies beating up 15 year old girls in their own school restrooms. But if all that doesn’t make you want to drink yourself into a stupor, Taylor Swift’s new album is being criticized for being poorly written……….OH THE HUMANITY!

BUT, on the upside, congress agreed to throw away send out more of your tax money and the Ukrainian civil service employees are assured of their 4 weeks of paid vacation and Zelinsky’s ol’ lady can take her regular summer Paris shopping trips.

That about covers it, I believe.

SitRep for Amerika v2.0

Situation Normal: ALLLL Fucked Up.

The citizens of the United States of America are in deep trouble. Why? I’ll tell you why.

The following are objectively true statements about the United States of America in 2024. These statements are not in any way hyperbolic, and they represent a stark reality that not even the most rabid Fascist Democrat can deny. Here they are:

1. The leader of the nation’s opposition party is currently defending himself in a series of contrived #lawfare criminal and civil suits reminiscent of fascist Hitlerian/Stalinesque show trials of the 20th Century, for the primary purpose of making it extremely difficult for him to be elected as President of the nation.

2. On campuses throughout the nation, Jewish students are being persecuted and attacked in a manner reminiscent of the German Nazi Party’s Kristallnacht of November 9 and 10, 1938.

3. In many states across the nation there are no voting laws enforced that effectively verify that ballots come from qualified citizen voters.

4. Individuals who peacefully protested the matter of #3 have been imprisoned by the federal government in inhumane conditions for literally years without trial.

5. The nation’s Southern Border is wide open to the point where any person who is capable of walking can cross into the nation AND receive free money and support necessary to survive. There is no mechanism to ensure that criminals and terrorists are not taking advantage of such situation.

6. The current President constantly displays symptoms of advanced elder dementia.

7. The current President has repeatedly labeled the opposition party as a “threat to democracy,” often alongside visual imagery similar to that used by Hitler and other fascist leaders of the 20th Century.

8. The nation’s debt equals over 120% of its annual GDP.

9. As a consequence of inflation and interest rates, most middle class citizens of the nation cannot afford to purchase a home.

10. The political party that controls the Presidency and the Senate has actively supported sending tens of billions of dollars to foreign governments who are credibly accused of money laundering funds provided to such party members, while not providing remotely similar assistance to the residents of the State of Hawaii who were burned out of their homes.

11. The nation’s military has equipment readiness rates making it incapable of fighting effectively, while instead focusing on “diversity” initiatives that promote race/gender/sexuality over war fighting skills and competency.

12. The overwhelming majority of the nation’s mass media refuses to report on any of the above matters, and in most cases the people running such mass media have close familial and personal connections to the people directly responsible for the above matters.

These are symptoms of a nation on the verge of disintegration. Moreover, these are qualities consistent with failed fascist regimes of the 20th Century.

What are we going to do about it, Patriots?

Ahh, the eternal question. The eternal answer: I don’t know.

This time out, I decided to just cut to the C&P chase without doing the usual Tweet embed. For that, head on over to the Place de la Renegade.

Boeing: What happened?

From a half-century as one of the world’s premier, most respected aircraft manufacturers to…well…

Meme purloined from the awesome Ken Lane. Now to the who, what, how, and why of it.

Suicide Mission
What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

John Barnett had one of those bosses who seemed to spend most of his waking hours scheming to inflict humiliation upon him. He mocked him in weekly meetings whenever he dared contribute a thought, assigned a fellow manager to spy on him and spread rumors that he did not play nicely with others, and disciplined him for things like “using email to communicate” and pushing for flaws he found on planes to be fixed.

“John is very knowledgeable almost to a fault, as it gets in the way at times when issues arise,” the boss wrote in one of his withering performance reviews, downgrading Barnett’s rating from a 40 all the way to a 15 in an assessment that cast the 26-year quality manager, who was known as “Swampy” for his easy Louisiana drawl, as an anal-retentive prick whose pedantry was antagonizing his colleagues. The truth, by contrast, was self-evident to anyone who spent five minutes in his presence: John Barnett, who raced cars in his spare time and seemed “high on life” according to one former colleague, was a “great, fun boss that loved Boeing and was willing to share his knowledge with everyone,” as one of his former quality technicians would later recall.

But Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing. Like most neoliberal institutions, Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement.

“Prince Jim”—as some long-timers used to call him—repeatedly invoked a slur for longtime engineers and skilled machinists in the obligatory vanity “leadership” book he co-wrote. Those who cared too much about the integrity of the planes and not enough about the stock price were “phenomenally talented assholes,” and he encouraged his deputies to ostracize them into leaving the company. He initially refused to let nearly any of these talented assholes work on the 787 Dreamliner, instead outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which lacked engineering departments. The plan would save money while busting unions, a win-win, he promised investors. Instead, McNerney’s plan burned some $50 billion in excess of its budget and went three and a half years behind schedule.

Swampy belonged to one of the cleanup crews that Boeing detailed to McNerney’s disaster area. The supplier to which Boeing had outsourced part of the 787 fuselage had in turn outsourced the design to an Israeli firm that had botched the job, leaving the supplier strapped for cash in the midst of a global credit crunch. Boeing would have to bail out—and buy out—the private equity firm that controlled the supplier. In 2009, Boeing began recruiting managers from Washington state to move east to the supplier’s non-union plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to train the workforce to properly put together a plane.

That move, also, didn’t work out so well for the now-floundering aerospace company. The story details a toxic mish-mash of Wokesterism, the rise of a know-nothing MBA class, and a creeping, not-my-problem/not-my-fault corporate blame-shifting culture that replaced the former all-American can-do, git-er-done spirit which may well prove fatal to the once-mighty Boeing…and probably should, frankly.

It’s a sign o’ the times in Amerika v2.0, by no means unique but an increasingly commonplace story—and an extremely sad one.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

The Biden Economic MIRACLE!© continues apace

Our ol’ buddy Stephen illustrates how it works with a, err, distasteful anecdote.

BIDENFLATION: Now Is When We Sit in the Dark and Eat the Canned Meats
So how bad are things, really, here in the real world?

Let me tell you another patented VodkaPundit True Story™.

The details are all correct and I haven’t even bothered to change the names because none of us were all that innocent.

Thirty-mumble years ago, I might have made a drunken 2 a.m. munchies run to the Safeway in Arcata, Calif., with my best friend, RJ, and the college girl roommates we were dating. RJ, for reasons best left unexplored, picked up a can of Libby’s Potted Meat Food Product — and then dared me to read the label.

I can never resist a dare but, this once, I wish I had because “Partially defatted beef fatty tissue” are words seared into my brain to this day.

No, we did not buy or eat any of Libby’s Potted Meat Food Product. We weren’t that drunk. At 22 and working only part-time, we weren’t even that broke.

But in Presidentish Joe Biden’s America, canned meats are flying off the shelves like rarely before.

While the New York Post didn’t mention Libby’s Potted Meat Food Product by name, the paper did report on Tuesday that “demand for cheap canned meats like Spam and Vienna Sausages is surging,” according to grocery chain execs.

“Spam is a regular item again,” Bronx grocery store owner Miguel Garcia told The Post. “I’m selling them at a discount now because I’m buying more.” He’s even set up showcases at his Foodtown, Keyfood, and Met Foodmarket locations for inexpensive items like Spam, Libby’s Corned Beef, and Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs because demand is up 10%.

Garcia said his average sale is now $15, down from $20 at the end of last year because customers are choosing cheaper items.

These are the expectations baked into the shopping habits of everyday Americans after three years of Bidenomics.

And Zee Bugz, too, Steve, don’t forget Zee Deeelishious Bugz!

What a world we’ve let them make for us, eh?

Damn fools about it

As Wellington said after Waterloo: “They came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way.” Or, as WC Fields said: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Then quit. There’s no use in being a damn fool about it.”

S’truth. And yet.

Woke Extremist Minneapolis City Council Demands $30.60/Hour Minimum Wage for Uber and Lyft Drivers; Uber and Lyft Both Announce They Will Abandon Minneapolis
Faced with public anger about driving out the popular ride-share services, the woke extremists of the city council say they may delay when the order goes into effect.

But they’re only doing that to allow other ride-share companies — are there any? — to enter the Minneapolis market.

By the way, I base the headline claim of a $30.60 per hour minimum wage on the city council’s demand that drivers be paid a minimum 51 cents per minute when ferrying passengers.

California recently imposed a $20/hour minimum wage for fast food workers. There’s now a $16/hour minimum wage for all other jobs.

Companies immediately began firing workers and closing down stores.

A pizza chain announced the closure of five stores in California.

Analysts forecast that this law will gift California with increased unemployment for years.

That’s putting it in the best possible light.

And there you have it. As Billy Pilgrim said: “All this happened, more or less.” And so it goes.

The FauxVid fraud

Rand Paul nails ‘em to the wall AGAIN.

The Great COVID Cover-up: Shocking truth about Wuhan and 15 federal agencies
Shame on all the federal employees who covered up these facts about COVID-19

How vast was the Great COVID Cover-up? Well, my investigation has recently discovered government officials from 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19.   

These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any information concerning this alarming and dangerous research.

Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Read all of it; penned by the highly esteemed Sen Paul himself, the man knows whereof he speaks and takes it all the way down to the nuts and bolts of the issue. Bottom line: 1) FauxVid was actually not “Chinese CoVid,” but “US Covid,” bought and paid for entirely by FederalGovCo; and 2) Fauci is, as some of us have said all along, the most prolific mass-murderer in human history—willfully so, as is definitionally required for the charge of murder to apply.

It is not merely “unfortunate” or “regrettable” that none of the truly evil blackguards responsible will ever pay a price for their myriad crimes against humanity, it’s an atrocity.

Fast food holocaust

I repeat: WHO COULD POSSIBLY HAVE FORESEEN…

California’s new $20-an-hour fast food minimum wage law poses headaches for school districts: ‘Harder to hire’
California’s new $20-an-hour minimum wage for fast food workers won’t just impact consumers who have to pay higher prices for menu items, but it could also make it more difficult for some public schools to retain low-paid cafeteria staffers.

Cash-strapped school districts in the Golden State could be forced to compete with billion-dollar corporations such as McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Pizza Hut parent company Yum! Brands for food service workers who are badly needed in California.

The state – which became the first in the country to guarantee free meals for all students regardless of income – will distribute 70 million more meals this year compared to 2018, according to education officials in Sacramento.

Actually, the lunch-line-ladies angle I hadn’t consider myself before—but then, I ain’t the one in charge of decreeing absurd minimum-wage hikes for low-to-no-skill-required jobs, either. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest:

Mod Pizza closes 5 California locations as $20-an-hour minimum wage law takes effect
A popular West Coast pizza chain shuttered five of its California locations shortly before the state enacted its new minimum wage law this month that raises fast-food workers’ pay from $16 an hour to $20.

Mod Pizza — which has 500 locations across the US and Canada and has been dubbed “the Chipotle of pizza” — abruptly closed up shop at its location in Clovis, near Fresno, two weeks ago, according to former employees.

“It just kind of seemed like the right timing, two weeks before all of the fast food locations in California got that increase that we closed,” one fired worker, who was among 15 that were let go, told Fox 26 TV on Tuesday.

The law, which went into effect on April 1, has been blamed for ballooning menu prices at major fast-food chains like Burger King, as The Post reported.

The ex-worker said that while he initially supported the idea of an increase in the minimum wage, it may have come at too steep of a cost.

“For the extra money, yeah,” he said. “I mean, nobody is going to turn down a raise, but at the end of the day, with repercussions like this, was it worth it?”

I dunno, you tell me: was it?

Tabloid hijinks

Proving once and for all that the New York Post remains the greatest newspaper EVAR.

Heh. Not quite up to the lofty standard established by the NYP’s immortal “HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR” screamin’ splash, perhaps, but still damned good. In my long-past days as a NYC resident, the Post was the only paper I bothered to buy…and it, I tried not to miss.

(Via Joe Jackson)

CF Archives

Categories

Comments policy

NOTE: In order to comment, you must be registered and approved as a CF user. Since so many user-registrations are attempted by spam-bots for their own nefarious purposes, YOUR REGISTRATION MAY BE ERRONEOUSLY DENIED.

If you are in fact a legit hooman bean desirous of registering yourself a CF user name so as to be able to comment only to find yourself caught up as collateral damage in one of my irregularly (un)scheduled sweeps for hinky registration attempts, please shoot me a kite at the email addy over in the right sidebar and let me know so’s I can get ya fixed up manually.

ALSO NOTE: You MUST use a valid, legit email address in order to successfully register, the new anti-spam software I installed last night requires it. My thanks to Barry for all his help sorting this mess out last night.

Comments appear entirely at the whim of the guy who pays the bills for this site and may be deleted, ridiculed, maliciously edited for purposes of mockery, or otherwise pissed over as he in his capricious fancy sees fit. The CF comments section is pretty free-form and rough and tumble; tolerance level for rowdiness and misbehavior is fairly high here, but is NOT without limit.

Management is under no obligation whatever to allow the comments section to be taken over and ruined by trolls, Leftists, and/or other oxygen thieves, and will take any measures deemed necessary to prevent such. Conduct yourself with the merest modicum of decorum, courtesy, and respect and you'll be fine. Pick pointless squabbles with other commenters, fling provocative personal insults, issue threats, or annoy the host (me) and...you won't.

Should you find yourself sanctioned after running afoul of the CF comments policy as stated and feel you have been wronged, please download and complete the Butthurt Report form below in quadruplicate; retain one copy for your personal records and send the others to the email address posted in the right sidebar.

Please refrain from whining, sniveling, and/or bursting into tears and waving your chubby fists around in frustrated rage, lest you suffer an aneurysm or stroke unnecessarily. Your completed form will be reviewed and your complaint addressed whenever management feels like getting around to it. Thank you.

CF Glossary

ProPol: Professional Politician

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

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

Mordor On The Potomac: Washington, DC

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

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

pAntiFa: an alternative spelling of "fascist scum"

"Mike Hendrix is, without a doubt, the greatest one-legged blogger in the world." ‐Henry Chinaski

Subscribe to CF!

Support options

Shameless begging

If you enjoy the site, please consider donating:

Correspondence

Email addy: mike-at-this-url dot etc

All e-mails assumed to be legitimate fodder for publication, scorn, ridicule, or other public mockery unless specified as private by the sender

Allied territory

Alternatives to shitlib social media: A few people worth following on Gab:

Fuck you

Kill one for mommy today! Click to embiggen

Notable Quotes

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution

Claire's Cabal—The Freedom Forums

FREEDOM!!!

"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
Daniel Webster

“When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill.”
Charles Bukowski

“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
Ezra Pound

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Frank Zappa

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.”
John Adams

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
Bertrand de Jouvenel

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."
GK Chesterton

"I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free."
Donald Sensing

"The only way to live free is to live unobserved."
Etienne de la Boiete

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"To put it simply, the Left is the stupid and the insane, led by the evil. You can’t persuade the stupid or the insane and you had damn well better fight the evil."
Skeptic

"There is no better way to stamp your power on people than through the dead hand of bureaucracy. You cannot reason with paperwork."
David Black, from Turn Left For Gibraltar

"If the laws of God and men, are therefore of no effect, when the magistracy is left at liberty to break them; and if the lusts of those who are too strong for the tribunals of justice, cannot be otherwise restrained than by sedition, tumults and war, those seditions, tumults and wars, are justified by the laws of God and man."
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

Best of the best

Finest hosting service

Image swiped from The Last Refuge

2016 Fabulous 50 Blog Awards

RSS feed

RSS - entries - Entries
RSS - entries - Comments

Boycott the New York Times -- Read the Real News at Larwyn's Linx

Copyright © 2026