Flotsam and/or Jetsam

Behind the scenes at Limbaugh’s SOTU appearance

Posted on February 7, 2020February 7, 2020 by Mike

Rush explains how another of Trump’s pure-genius victories from the week past actually transpired.

Now, I know many of you want to know the story of the State of the Union address on Tuesday night and how that all happened, and someday I hope to be able to tell you the entire story. I can’t tell you the entire story now without divulging medical details that I, frankly, don’t want to give. I don’t want to give people an opportunity to start investigating and writing about and pronouncing opinions and this kind of thing. People know enough about what I have.

It’s late stage. It’s advanced lung cancer. But there’s good news associated with the diagnosis and the treatment. So we are where I am to have the first procedure that will set up the beginning of treatment. This is Tuesday, and it is scheduled for 5 o’clock in the afternoon. We took no clothes, Kathryn and I. We just… We went Grub City with shorts, T-shirts. I mean, the whole week’s gonna be in the hospital.

There’s no reason to take a coat and tie. There’s no reason to pack a whole bunch of stuff that you’re never gonna use. “Light” was the byword. The procedure was gonna be 5 o’clock in the afternoon. I’d have to show up for it at 12 noon to do the prep, talk to the doctors and so forth. At 9 a.m., the phone rings. I’ve got the number in my address book. So it’s the White House. I answered the phone, and they said, “Can you hold for President Trump?”

I said, “Yes.”

“Rush! Rush! How you doing, buddy? Great to hear from you! Hey, look, what are you doing later today?”

I said, “Well, I have a serious medical procedure that’s gonna start — all this — at 5 o’clock.

“Well, look, what’s the doctor’s name? I want to call him and have him delay it for a couple days ’cause I need you down here tonight.”

I said (chuckles), “Uh… (chuckles) Mr. President, um… I’m stunned.”

He said, “Look, your health comes first; there’s no question. But can’t they just do half of what they’re gonna do and then send you down here? Believe me, you don’t want to miss this. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be great. You don’t want to miss this.”

Well, I don’t know what’s up. He told me he wanted me to be his guest at the State of the Union, that he was gonna mention my name, recognize me. I hung up the phone and for the next hour and a half, I agonized — I literally agonized — over what to do. Kathryn and I are both sitting in the hotel room. As time is marching on, we’re faced with the possibility of having to ask an entire medical team to broom their schedule and reschedule to accommodate this.

An hour and a half later, I called the president back and tried to tell him no. Remember, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I have no idea. I just… He’s told me, by the way… I should say, he has told me that he’s gonna present me with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but a couple weeks from now in the Oval Office. I had no idea at this particular time on Tuesday morning that this was gonna happen at the State of the Union, and he didn’t tell me during all these phone calls.

Which is what makes this another genius Trump move. I read somewhere or other earlier this week that the reason Trump did it this way was that he felt waiting for a small, quiet WH ceremony in a couple of weeks would effectively deny Rush the wider recognition he wanted him to have, that the Fake News media would just ignore it or cover the whole thing up. Which was almost certainly correct, the safest of assumptions.

Given how the rest of the week since has gone, I also strongly suspect that Trump anticipated the explosion of rage and murderous hatred from the rancid Left, a response that has disgusted so many Normals across the nation. Trump handled this the way he did in part as a provocation he knew the frothing, flailing lunatics couldn’t possibly resist. He baited them, they bit down hard, and it ended up hurting them badly.

Again.

So I called him back around 10:30, intending to be as persuasive as I could, to thank him and just say that there was too much here to overcome to get down there, including the medical schedule. The doctors and everything have been scheduled. This story, if I could tell it — and someday, I’m gonna be able to give you every detail here. But for people that do not know Donald Trump, this story will explain him, his essence, his attitude toward life.

There simply is nothing you can’t do. There’s nothing that can’t be done, and there’s not a single obstacle that can’t be dealt with — and it’s not even hard. It’s not even… He didn’t have to stop and think for a moment about this. Now, granted he’s got presidential power. If he wants to clear us into Reagan National, if he wants to send a car for us and get us from the airport to the White House, he can do all of that — and he did, and he was willing.

But the fact was that this is what he wanted, but not for him, you see? It was for me, and he wasn’t going to let me talk myself out of it. Part of me is not wanting to create any problems for him. I mean, he’s got so many more important things to do than deal with logistics, and I told him. He said, “You think I’m gonna do it? I’ve got people here! What do you mean? I’m gonna call a guy here; in an hour, all this will be done. All you gotta do is find a way to get the clothes.”

Lots, lots more to the story at the link, all of it fascinating. We’re fortunate indeed to have these two men. The flipside, unfortunately, is that they’re both damned nigh irreplaceable. The hole created when they exit the national stage will be deep, wide, and difficult if not impossible to fill. It’s probably the only hope the Democommies have left. Somehow, we must see to it that it remains a vain one.

Shampeachment Round 1 is sent to the showers

Posted on February 6, 2020February 6, 2020 by Mike

Not much more I can really say about it, so instead I’ll use the opportunity to bash contemptible, oily rumpswab Mittens Romeney. Rather, I’ll let Ace do it:

Mitt Romney is a not a conservative, “severe” or otherwise. He’s a Business Class Liberal. Always has been. Yes, he’s very “conservative” on issues like “should the working class always have their wages reduced by constant remorseless labor arbitrage and relocating factories to China,” and “conservative’ on the question “should companies be allowed to take a business expense deduction on their taxes for the costs of moving factories to China,” but on everything else — including, especially, Obamacare, which he fathered — he’s a liberal.

Always has been.

And he’s coward who can’t even stand up to Candy Crowley. Just blinked at her stupidly.

Would not take the fight to Barack Obama.

Oh, but now this soy-based bitch has some fight in him, huh?

Ace then excerpts another takedown of the oxygen thief:

Romney’s Entire Career Has Been About Punishing Republicans For Voting For Him
Yes, he’s different from many others within the GOP in the sense that he has no firm principles upon which to base his political decisions besides self-interest and self-importance. He is vaguely in favor of free markets insofar as he appreciates a pro-business environment, having been a businessman once. But that seems to be the extent of his political personality.

Romney’s efforts to appear above the “lesser” GOP fray in many cases has translated into a repudiation of conservatism. To be clear, Romney may vote however he pleases, but he, along with our media betters, will likely portray his alleged defection as a more principled approach to conservatism. That takeaway is incorrect. Romney has been voting against his own party’s voters for his entire political career, and on core moral issues, not just pragmatic choices such as the level of tax rates or regulation.

…None of these examples are to suggest that Romney must hold the same positions forever and be lambasted if his positions ever change. But as my friend Josh Hammer, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large, suggested to me, Romney is an “inveterate chameleon” whose political opinions are not founded upon any transcendent principles but based solely upon what he perceives as capable of granting him the most approval from DC sycophants.

He attempts to portray himself as a moral bulwark, but as the above shifts in opinion indicate, many of his political leanings seem to be more a product of self-interest than of genuine moral clarity. In the coming days, he will be paraded around by the media as the model Republican for all the reasons GOP voters increasingly dislike him. Contrary to the media’s deification of Romney as the only principled figure within the GOP, it’s ironically all politics to him. No principles.

If there is any single embodiment of why the Founders feared and loathed the very idea of a “professional politician” class, Romeney might just be it. Should the smarmy bastard now endeavor to disgrace himself yet further by begging the Democrat-Socialists on hands and knees for permission to run on the ticket as their Veep nominee, it wouldn’t come as any surprise.

Update! Trump punches back, as always.

President Donald Trump released a devastating video criticizing Mitt Romney after the Utah senator voted to impeach him as president.

“Slick, slippery, stealthy Mitt Romney had us fooled,” the narrator of the anti-Romney video says over images of Mitt Romney in sunglasses.

The video reminded Trump supporters that Romney initially visited the president after he was elected, trying to win Trump’s favor so he could be nominated Secretary of State.

“Posing as a Republican, he tried to infiltrate Trump’s administration as Secretary of State,” the narrator continues. “Now his cover is blown.”

The video calls Romney a “Democrat secret asset” and reminds viewers he failed to beat President Obama in 2012.

Citing his faith, Romney said Wednesday on the Senate floor that he felt that Trump was guilty and deserved to be impeached.

“I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious,” he said. “My faith is at the heart of who I am. I take an oath before God as enormously consequential.”

Don’t look now, but I think God Himself may have just thrown up at that shameless self-justification.

Britain regains independence

Posted on January 31, 2020January 31, 2020 by Mike

I never thought I’d see the day, truly I didn’t.

Britain’s iconic Union Flag was ceremoniously lowered, folded, and taken away in the European Council building in Brussels ahead of Brexit at 11 p.m. on January 31st.

Video of the history-making moment shows a sombre atmosphere as EU functionaries lower the flag of what had been one of the bloc’s top economic and military powers — powerful imagery symbolising the island nation setting out as a free-standing democracy once again and the diminishment of what is now a 27-member confederation.

Might Farage’s and Johnson’s unexpected victory inspire a drive for withdrawal in other dissatisfied member-nations still under the thumb of this decrepit WW2 relic? We’ll see, I guess. But for now, Merrie Olde England has, against all odds and to however slight a degree, reestablished governance in accord with the will of its people. And that’s always something worth celebrating.

Update! EUrocrats, shabby and spiteful to the bitter end—like all bureaucrats everywhere.

Brexit goes through today, and Britain is finally independent, free from the clutches of the European Union. It’s a great event regardless of how it happens, but in this case, it was cool beyond description.

It all ended with a pretty amazing flourish, one that told us a lot about both the European Commission and newly sovereign Britain itself. Chief Brexiteer Nigel Farage made his last speech before the European Commission, which was a great scolding and call to shut down the whole operation altogether, which was subversive enough. But he drove it even farther.

Farage and his buddies ended the whole thing by explicitly waving the British flag of sovereignty right in the faces of all the angry little European Commission eurocrats, even as they sputtered and cut off his mic.

What freedom-loving person couldn’t love it? Breathes there a man with soul so dead…

Metaphor, anyone? It was the mother of all metaphors, a Britain that asserted its sovereignty in waving its symbolic flag as its soulless eurocrat masters got angry and tried to stop it, not on political grounds, not because they were afraid the other member-states might follow, but on petty rules grounds, little administrative state foot-stamping, insisting on cookie-cutter order and obedience, no exceptions, in the face of a newly freed state that just asserted that it can do what it wants.

That last is what REALLY frosts the EU-rats’ withered, desiccated little nuts. Again, like all bureaucrats, all around the world. Seems to me this auspicious, thrilling occasion calls for running the famous Sixth Canto of Sir Walter Scott’s epic poem in its entirety:

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;

For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.

Well said, cousin. Yes, I know Scott was actually a Scotsman, not Ainglish. But I can call him a small-c cousin anyhoo, seeing as how I’m through-and-through Scots-Irish myself, on my mom’s side. So there.

Bat soup, or biowar?

Posted on January 31, 2020January 31, 2020 by Mike

Interesting—and alarming—speculation on the latest mysterious scourge to emerge from Chinese origins and threaten the planetary population:

The biowarfare espionage behind the Chinese government’s Wuhan lab is now coming to light with a federal indictment being unsealed on Tuesday.

Now, the Department of Defense & NIH (National Institute of Health) have indicted Harvard’s Head of the Chemistry Department and two Chinese nationals — one an officer with the Chinese military, the other caught smuggling biological material.

The Harvard professor appears to have been paid an amazing amount of money by the Chinese government to help establish the Wuhan lab and is alleged to have lied to investigators about his activities.

The Harvard espionage indictments follow the discovery of Chinese nationals stealing virulent viruses from Canada’s only Biosafety Level 4 Lab and shipping them to the Wuhan lab.

Disclaimer: the above excerpt is from a subdivision of Alex Jones’s notoriously flaky and unreliable Infowars empire, so who knows. Take it with however large a dollop of salt suits your taste.

A slight difference

Posted on January 31, 2020January 31, 2020 by Mike

Shark takes issue with my characterization of “FOBBITS, staff, S1, S2, S3, and all the rest of the REMFs,” which he calls misguided—a point I will happily admit just may be correct, not having ever been a member of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children my own self, bless their stout, coal-black hearts.

I think the Shark’s take is astute and well-expressed enough to be worth bringing out front here for further discussion in a new post, should any of you CF miscreants be inclined to such. A very large percentage of Ye Olde CF Blogge’s readership has always come from the military, both active duty and retired, so I kinda figured at least some of you might like a chance to chime in yourselves.

I appreciate the heated sentiment, however misguided.

I retired from the USMC in the middle of this past decade. In my experience, it was ALWAYS the warfighters who were coming to US “JAGs” seeking assistance/guidance on the ROE, target selection, and other issues. They were very aware of the risks of creating an international incident and a very prompt criminal investigation that would make a colonoscopy preferable, should they make a mistake. After President Reagan, the staffs were quite aware of the predilection of the administration to cheerfully blame the military for any perceived offense. President Trump’s recent pardons may signal a return to sanity, but it takes time to steer a new path for a military upper echelon that was schooled in the zero-defects insanity.

I/we USMC lawyers were trained to be a combat multiplier by assisting the pointy end of the spear, and not a hindrance. But maybe that’s just the way the Corps was back then.

I’m thinking maybe that “back then” part could just possibly be at the heart of our disagreement, but perhaps not. Like I said, I am not, nor have I ever been, either a Marine or a JAG officer, and therefore could quite easily be full of shit on this one. Either way, my humble thanks to Shark for sounding off. Your contribution to the discussion is much appreciated, my friend.

Meatless makes morons

Posted on January 30, 2020January 30, 2020 by Mike

Well, DUH.

The vegan diet is low in – or, in some cases, entirely devoid of – several important brain nutrients. Could these shortcomings be affecting vegans’ abilities to think?

Hrmmm…let me see…since veg-head types seem to be overwhelmingly liberal/Left, I’m gonna have to go with “Oh HELL yes!” on that one.

The idea that avoiding meat is bad for our brains makes some intuitive sense; anthropologists have been arguing about what our ancestors ate for decades, but many scientists think that there was a lot of bone-crunching and brain-slurping on the road to evolving these remarkable 1.4kg (3lb) organs. Some have even gone so far as to say that meat made us human.

One reason is that intelligence is expensive – the brain devours about 20% of our daily calories, though it accounts for just 2% of our body weight – and what better way to find the enormous array of fats, amino acids, vitamins and minerals these fastidious organs require, than by feasting on animals which have already painstakingly collected or made them.

But though it’s hard to imagine our ancestors choosing turnips over tuna, today it’s a different story. According to the latest statistics, there are around 375 million vegetarians on the planet. In the West, veganism has ditched the hippie stigma to become one of the fastest-growing millennial trends; in the United States, it grew by 600% between 2014 and 2017. Meanwhile in India, meat-free diets have been mainstream since the 6th Century BCE.

Might at least partially explain why most of India is such a horrid, back-asswards dump, no? And why average IQ scores are declining, abruptly reversing a steady, 3-points-per-decade increase throughout the 20th century?

Ideally, to test the impact of the vegan diet on the brain, you would take a randomly selected group of people, ask half to stop eating animal products – then see what happens. But there isn’t a single study like this.

Instead, the only research that comes close involved the reverse. It was conducted on 555 Kenyan schoolchildren, who were fed one of three different types of soup – one with meat, one with milk, and one with oil – or no soup at all, as a snack over seven school terms. They were tested before and after, to see how their intelligence compared. Because of their economic circumstances, the majority of the children were de facto vegetarians at the start of the study.

Surprisingly, the children who were given the soup containing meat each day seemed to have a significant edge. By the end of the study, they outperformed all the other children on a test for non-verbal reasoning. Along with the children who received soup with added oil, they also did the best on a test of arithmetic ability. Of course, more research is needed to verify if this effect is real, and if it would also apply to adults in developed countries, too. But it does raise intriguing questions about whether veganism could be holding some people back.

In fact, there are several important brain nutrients that simply do not exist in plants or fungi. Creatine, carnosine, taurine, omega-3, haem iron and vitamins B12 and D3 generally only occur naturally in foods derived from animal products, though they can be synthesised in the lab or extracted from non-animal sources such as algae, bacteria or lichen, and added to supplements.

Others are found in vegan foods, but only in meagre amounts; to get the minimum amount of vitamin B6 required each day (1.3 mg) from one of the richest plant sources, potatoes, you’d have to eat about five cups’ worth (equivalent to roughly 750g or 1.6lb). Delicious, but not particularly practical.

And though the body can make some of these vital brain compounds from other ingredients in our diets, this ability isn’t usually enough to make up for these dietary cracks. For all of the nutrients listed above, vegetarians and vegans have been shown to have lower quantities in their bodies. In some cases, deficiency isn’t the exception – it’s completely normal.

For now, the impact these shortcomings are having on the lives of vegans is largely a mystery. But a trickle of recent studies have provided some clues – and they make for unsettling reading.

Well, unsettling if you’re a vegan, that is. Seeing as how there isn’t the slightest chance of me ever willingly making that switch, pas de sweat over here, thanks.

All my snark aside, this is actually a pretty interesting read.

The final nail

Posted on January 29, 2020January 29, 2020 by Mike

Well, THIS oughta bring those eager hordes of LGBTQ football fans fully out of the closet and into the stands. I mean, you just KNOW they’re out there.

FOX Sports apparently has no problem airing controversial ads during the 2020 Super Bowl — just not a pro-life commercial.

According to NBC News, this year’s big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers will include a commercial featuring drag queens/LGBTQ activists.

Meanwhile, pro-life advocates with the new Faces of Choice organization said they have been waiting at least six months for an answer from FOX about their ad.

The drag queen ad from Sabra hummus already is stirring up controversy. It features drag queens Kim Chi and Miz Cracker from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

LGBTQ marketing strategist Bob Witeck celebrated the significance of the ad, telling NBC:

“For queer audiences, it is an art form and an ‘outsiders’ language,” Witek said of drag. “Reaching the Super Bowl means taking our language into every home in the nation and millions around the world.”

Myself, I’m hoping and praying for a full-on, butt-nekkid “transgender” halftime show featuring a long chorus line (circle jerk?) of self-proclaimed “ladies” joyously flapping their puds for football fans on Super Bowl Sunday, then bending over and spreading those hairy cheeks to wink a little browneye at all the folks watching at home. The Grand Finale could be Colin Cankerdink “taking a knee” at midfield to crack a semi-solid turd on the 50-yard line, wiping his ass with a large American flag before setting the whole obscene mess ablaze. Then he’ll start turning a slow pirouette—with a grace only achievable by a truly world-beating athlete of his Olympian stature and skill—whilst waving the Hawaiian Good Luck Sign at one and all with both hands.

Next, the trannies will charge the stands to afflict heterosexual male attendees with “free” lapdances, while Copperdink and his fellow multimillionaire thugs all adjourn to the parking lot to steal cars and violently mug passersby.

If a halftime extravaganza like that can’t kill off the godawful NFL once and for all, I can’t imagine what else might do the trick.

Everything not forbidden is mandatory

Posted on January 29, 2020January 29, 2020 by Mike

Okay, I couldn’t keep myself from laughing out loud at this one.

Here is a story that shows progressive policies to be not only destructive, but also depressingly stupid. New York State recently passed a law requiring citizens to obtain a permit if they wish to gaze at the stars in public parks. No, really. You read that right. In New York, you must pay for a license to look at the freaking stars.

The Free Thought Project first reported on the story, explaining that “If citizens of the state wish to look up at the sky and view the stars at one of New York’s public parks, they will first have to obtain a ‘Stargazing permit.’” The site pointed out that pollution in the sky makes it more difficult for New Yorkers in “highly populated areas” to see the sky at night, so they travel to remote areas, many of which are located in state parks.

The state is charging residents $35 to become a fully-licensed stargazer allowed to view the stars between January and December of the year. If you are not lucky enough to be a New York resident and you are just visiting, you will have to fork over $60 for the privilege of admiring your favorite constellation in the night sky.

“Lucky”? For certain values of the word lucky, I suppose. The more ironic ones.

The other problem is that there does not seem to be any real rationale behind the policy. Stargazing isn’t exactly known to be a dangerous pastime. Moreover, it does not cause any discernible inconvenience for anyone else. So why would they enact such a measure? The answer is simple: It is nothing more than a brazen money grab designed to separate New York residents from more of their hard-earned cash.

In other words, New York’s government is needlessly restricting the liberty of its citizens to make a quick buck. The same folks who claim capitalists are evil are willing to use cynical political means to amass funds. Of course, requiring silly permits for activities that do not warrant them is the progressives’ bread and butter. It’s become an ingenious way for local and state governments run by far leftists to raise money while asserting their dominance over the populace.

That last is the one that really matters. Granted, the Left does love itself some money-grabbin’. But even their blatant thievery is in service to an all-encompassing desire to control absolutely everything. Which, in turn, makes it necessary to constantly remind the serfs of just who is in charge around here, lest they begin to get…ideas about certain things.

Know what, though? I can’t really find it in me to get too exercised about this. Such demeaning, grubby nonsense is precisely the sort of thing one must expect from absolute Democrat-Socialist rule, which liberal New Yorkers have endorsed with their votes a bazillion times over, for decades. So now let those “lucky” New Yorkers enjoy the inevitable, predictable fruits of their own stubborn idiocy. Let them crawl on their knees to their masters to beg official permission to raise their heads and look up, ferchrissakes. Let them waste their hard-earned money to purchase this extravagantly generous boon from the Noble Ones upon whom they themselves foolishly bestowed such excessive power.

Maybe someday they’ll learn.

FUD with words

Posted on January 28, 2020January 28, 2020 by Mike

Tangentially related to that last post, another example of how the Left rewrites history to suit its own nefarious purposes.

Serious problems exist with some of the narrative spun about (Martin Luther) King, in particular, and the civil rights struggle, in general. Part of the problem, of course, is that King died young, enabling others, as with the two Kennedy brothers, to fill in the rest of the story and use it to further certain political agendas. King died short of his fortieth birthday; had he lived longer, presumably he would have evolved and, possibly, become a very different man than he was when he died–we will never know. What we do know is that the Democratic Party and their “progressive” media and education machines have rewritten the history of the civil rights struggle. This was driven home to me some years ago while visiting a college campus. The students assumed King was a Democrat, and the segregationists confronting the peaceful marchers, and using fire hoses, snarling police dogs, and truncheons, and wearing white hoods were Republicans. They assume a Republican killed King–today’s college kids probably believe the Tea Party had him killed. That the exact opposite is true, shocks many. King came from a staunchly Republican family–his father, a prominent leader in his own right–openly endorsed Richard Nixon against JFK in the 1960 presidential election. The Democrats had a one-party lock on the South. The party of slave owners and secessionists, had become the party of Jim Crow, school segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, poll taxes, and on and on.

Many Americans, not to mention foreigners, do not realize not only that the Republican party was formed in opposition to slavery and that Lincoln was a Republican, but that the famous Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, whose rulings dismantled the legal basis for segregation and put serious limitations on the power of police, was a former Republican Governor of California. It was, furthermore, war hero and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who sent troops to Arkansas to enforce court-ordered desegregation at Little Rock Central High School. Congressional Republicans were the main supporters of civil rights legislation; their votes ensured passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, over the opposition of a significant bloc of Democrats–let us also not forget that Congressional Democrats for years blocked Republican efforts to pass federal anti-lynching legislation. All this, of course, is history, but an important chunk of American history that is being lost, distorted, or otherwise flushed down the memory sewer–along with the fact that anti-leftist J. Edgar Hoover proved the most formidable foe of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), an organization founded and staffed by Democrats, such as long-time Democratic Senator Robert Byrd.

Before I get back to King, let me address another issue that has been badly distorted and become something of a meme among the quasi-literate left. I refer to the idea that the parties have “switched places.” This is something I have heard from some lefties who, knowing the true history of the Democratic and Republican Parties when it comes to race and civil rights, try to argue that that was then, and this is now. Since FDR or so, they argue the Democratic and the Republican Parties “switched” places on the race issue, with Republicans taking the role of protecting white privilege and keeping minorities, especially blacks, down. The truth is quite different. What happened was that the old party of slavers, segregationists, lynch mobs, and secessionists figured out that government programs and intervention were the means to deprive Republicans of a significant voter bloc. The aim was to keep black Americans dependent on the largesse of government and Democrat-run urban political machines. Anyone who doubts that should read the crude comment in which President Johnson revealed the real purpose underlying his massive social program expansion, i.e., to keep black Americans voting Democratic. The Democrats have succeeded admirably at this objective.

The truth is ALWAYS “quite different” when the Democrat-Socialists are the ones telling it. This is NOT a coinkydink, I assure you. Folding, spindling, and mutilating the very language we speak is an age-old tactic of theirs, beginning with their hijacking of the term “liberal” its very self to mean the exact opposite of the original definition. Bejamin Dierker calls it “linguistic activism,” but I prefer the more direct and concise “lying” as a descriptor, myself.

This isn’t innocent linguistic drift or slang; it is a conscious effort to reshape society. The schemes include redefining words for personal gain, using modifiers to alter the meaning of a word, replacing technical words with colloquial ones, and creating new words. Each of these is a bullying tactic, which distort effective discourse.

It starts with misusing words or defining them based on circumstance rather than objective meaning. The entire purpose of defined language is to hold constant meaning so others can understand. Situational use starts to condition how people feel about words, building up a new connotation.

The classic example is the word “liberal,” which the far-left co-opted. It was adopted because of its positive connotation, and used as a cover for imposing greater leftist control under the guise of liberty. In reality, there is nothing liberal about failing to protect life, burdening individuals with regulations and taxes, or forcing individuals to provide services to others. This is no accidental misnomer, but strategic messaging to influence people. Who doesn’t want to support a policy that is “progressive,” “pro-choice,” or “affordable”?

When they use a word it means just what they choose it to mean, neither more nor less—but the meaning is always subject to change without notice. The question is, which is to be master—that’s all.

Exile for a reason

Posted on January 26, 2020January 26, 2020 by Mike

Telling the inconvenient truths.

Michele Antaki—a former UN interpreter, journalist, and translator—has written and sent me the following exclusive summary of a recent speech given in French by Ernest Tigori, an Ivorian intellectual and political activist, exiled in France, and winner of the 2017 Nelson Mandela Prize for Literature. In his new book “L’Afrique à désintoxiquer” (“Detoxifying Africa”), he explains why it is crucial to lead Europe out of repentance for its alleged crimes in Africa, and lead Africa out of infantilization. He presented it to great acclaim at a recent patriotic forum in Paris. Antaki’s write-up begins:

Since the 1990s, Tigori has vigorously denounced the political class ruining his country, and the general lack of prospects compelling Africans to leave their countries in droves, in search of a better future.

Regarding Europe, Tigori warns that uncontrolled migration from the South to the North shore of the Mediterranean may destabilize it beyond repair and that ethnic wars could well be looming on the horizon.

“It saddens me”, he says,” to see the white man beating his breast over and over, too emasculated to put up any resistance to people who’ve come to threaten him on his own doorstep”. He believes that a toxic mix of guilt, “human rightsism”, political naivety and crass ignorance of History have a debilitating effect on Europeans’ capacity to fight the invasion.

He accuses the corrupt African leaders of destroying the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings in all impunity, but is equally critical of the ideologues who are paving the way for them. They should stop blaming it all – slavery, the slave trade, colonialism, neocolonialism and racism – on a forever repentant Europe, who now has to carry the burden of this mass immigration to atone for its supposed sins against Africa.

Tigori explains how the History of black Africa from the 15th to the 20th centuries has intentionally been falsified in the 1940s by Stalinist strategists and their Communist followers, whose covert aim it was to tarnish the image of Western European nations, in order to drive them out of their colonial possessions and take their place. Up until now, that is 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lies have stuck.

The myth the author debunks is twofold. No, Europe is not responsible for the practice of slavery in black Africa, nor is it guilty of colonial crimes. And, no, Africans did not allow themselves to be enslaved or colonized as “poor hapless victims”.

He goes on to explain how the myth of Europe’s debt towards Africa is perpetuated by certain powers that have a stake in keeping it alive. This myth, born out of Cold War Soviet anti-Western propaganda, is now serving another variety of the same agenda.

I have nothing to add except: read every word of it.

(Via WRSA)

Quickie restoration report

Posted on January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 by Mike

All the Greatest Hits and Leatherballs archives are now back up and running, as well as the first of the other Outlaw Biker feature-article additions to the Leatherballs section: my interview with rocker Joan Jett. There’ll be more of those coming as and when etc; for now, I’m going to shift focus to restoring the CF post archives. Work on Ye Olde Blogrolle will continue intermittently, also as/when. I’m not too sure how much work remains to be done there, since I’m now leaning towards keeping it kind of lean and mean, you might say. Thanks for your patience in this trying time, y’all!

The US Space Force is NOT a joke?

Posted on January 20, 2020January 20, 2020 by Mike

Saying it doesn’t make it so, I’m afraid.

Last month, not long before boarding a plane to Mar-a-Lago for Christmas, President Donald Trump signed legislation that created the newest military branch in the United States in more than 70 years: the Space Force.

The new Space Force instead exists inside the Department of the Air Force, in an arrangement similar to that of the Marine Corps and the Navy, which both operate under the Department of the Navy. There will be no secretary of space: As space-ops chief, (General Jay) Raymond now holds the organization’s highest position. The law also stipulates that the Space Force must be built from existing personnel in the Air Force, and does not have the authority to hire new people. The Space Force has simply absorbed the Air Force unit that focuses on space operations, the Air Force Space Command, which was established in 1982. Its members will remain Air Force officers, but those with space-related roles will become Space Force officers in the next year and a half.

Uh oh— with the Space Force under USAF purview instead of being a Space Navy, pretty much the entire output of every SF/space opera writer since Heinlein just went kaput. I bet David Weber, for one, just about had himself a mild stroke when he heard the news.

The prospect of a Space Force has been hazy since Trump first mentioned it, mostly because the proposal seemed to be a passing thought. “I was saying it the other day—’cause we’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space—I said, ‘Maybe we need a new force. We’ll call it the Space Force,’” Trump said back in 2018, to an audience of marines. “And I was not really serious. And then I said, ‘What a great idea. Maybe we’ll have to do that.’”

Your biggest official mistake so far, Mr Preznit sir, maybe even an unforgivable one. Why the obvious and totally spectacular name—Star Fleet, dammit!—didn’t occur to you is beyond my ken. Star Fleet already has the uniforms, rank structure, mission profile, and a cool logo ready to go.

On the other hand, though, maybe Trump prefers to wait for the United Federation of Planets to come into existence for that, perhaps as a matter of good taste. But such deference isn’t necessary according to the Star Trek canon itself, for cryin’ out loud:

Starfleet predates the Federation, having originally been an Earth organization, as shown by the television series Star Trek: Enterprise.

So there. Onwards.

The immediate future of the Space Force involves a lot of paperwork and a dash of symbolism, rather than new uniforms and fight songs. Raymond will join the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military officials who advise the president directly, and the service must come up with and submit an organization plan to Congress in February.

While the Space Force is now official, a slight disconnect in reality remains.

I’d say so, yeah, only a goodish bit more than merely “slight.” How could it be otherwise, when the sad shell of the once-great NASA now lacks the hardware and wherewithal to boost humans into high Earth orbit anymore, and American astronauts are reduced to begging a lift to the ISS from the Russians, Indians, Chinese, Ethiopians, or whatever other third-rater out there might have a working rocket handy?

Jeez, even the Air Farce’s mainstay atmospheric platforms are creaky, leaky, and geriatric at fifty to seventy years young, while our supposedly latest and greatest design is looking like more of an albatross (or an apteryx) than an eagle. And just how do we regain our national mojo as doughty explorers of the Final Frontier when we’ve become such trembling ninnies about safety and risk-avoidance that we wet ourselves in fright at the thought of letting our kids play outside?

Maybe the creation of a Space Force with no readily usable spacefaring vehicles at hand could turn out to be a boost for nascent private outfits like SpaceX, and a lift to the spirits for those of us cake-eating civilians who still care about these things. But I can’t help but feel it’s a mildly embarrassing bit of hubris as well. Who knows, maybe we’ll live up to it someday. If we don’t, it’s a dead cert that somebody else will.

Truth hurts

Posted on January 18, 2020January 18, 2020 by Mike

Suck it up, buttercups.

Republican Arizona Sen. Martha McSally ripped into CNN Capitol Hill reporter Manu Raju on Thursday, calling him a “liberal hack” after he asked a question about President Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial.

“Sen. Martha McSally, a Republican facing a difficult election race, lashed out when I asked if she would consider new evidence as part of the Senate trial,” Raju, a University of Wisconsin graduate tweeted Thursday.

That would be treacherous, double-dealing John McStain’s old seat, in case you didn’t know already.

The freshman Arizona senator then responded by posting a video of the exchange to her Twitter account, doubling down on her contention that Raju is a “liberal hack.”

Then she started selling “liberal hack” merchandise, bless her stout, very un-McCain-like heart. Which most edifying sequence of events, naturally, drove the liberal hacks of Enemedia right into quivering paroxysms of terror at such a vicious, brutal “assault.”

Anchor Wolf Blitzer said on Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room” that Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) calling CNN senior congressional correspondent Manu Raju a “liberal hack” was “disgusting.”

Blitzer said, “Manu, I want to ask you something that happened today with you up on Capitol Hill when you attempted to air a very fair, serious, important question to Republican Senator Martha McSally of Arizona. A question about the upcoming trial in the Senate.”

Blitzer said, “Yeah, it’s awful. I take it, she or her staff, no one has reached out to apologize to you, have they?”
Raju said, “I have not heard from them at all.”

Blitzer said, “If they did the right thing, she would personally call you and say, ‘I’m sorry.’ It was an awful, awful thing that she did.”

LOLgetfucked, you sniveling, gutless pussies. Right in the liver, with a rusty railroad spike.

Getting what you voted for

Posted on January 16, 2020January 16, 2020 by Mike

My heart bleeds.

California has overreached in its effort to address the challenges in today’s tech platform gig-work economy.

The live music sector, the progenitor of the term “gig” work, is being swept up by this law. The irony would be comical if it were not such a serious problem.

There are some worthy arguments to be made for Assembly Bill 5 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, San Diego Democrat.

Like hell. There really is only the one argument, explicitly made by some Cali congresswoman or other when, in a rare burst of accidental candor, she complained that the state wasn’t glomming enough in tax dough off of rideshare drivers. Despite the property tax they pay on their cars, the fees for their license plates, the tax on every set of tires or quart of oil they buy, the tax on every gallon of gasoline, and their own yearly income taxes, they weren’t paying “their fair share,” see.

Funnily enough, though that revealing statement was fairly prominent in the reportage I saw at the time, it now seems to have vanished down the ol’ memory hole for some reason. I can’t imagine why.

Anyways, the writer quoted above is a California musician who feels “there are some worthy arguments to be made” for letting goobermint’s grubby thumbs dig deeper into any and everything it wishes, as long as they just leave him alone. His evident shock over this bit says it all:

However, the law has created a tangle of red-tape and administrative expense for large portions of California’s cultural sector.

NOOOO! Why, I can’t believe it! I WON’T believe it! Fret not, though; I’m sure things can all be ironed out with even more legislation, right? Right?!?

Under AB 5, we will be required to inform all U.S.-based musicians that they must now become employees of San Jose Jazz, or incorporate themselves before they will be allowed to perform for us.

If band leaders choose to pursue incorporation, they will then need to take on the responsibility of payroll and HR administration for the rest of their band.

In many performing arts disciplines, such as jazz, musicians are constantly reconfiguring line ups, performing as sidemen in various bands, and as one-time special guests for specific performances.

We will now be obliged to devote tremendous time and resources to constantly hiring, managing and tracking of musicians through this cumbersome process.

AB 5 unnecessarily complicates other work arrangements found in community cultural programming such as small festivals, neighborhood street fairs, parades and summer music series in our local parks.

San Jose Jazz is best known for producing our large Summer Fest which brings tens of thousands of visitors and requires hundreds of temporary roles to execute.

The vast majority of previously contract work roles will now be required to be employees.

Tough noogies, pal. You voted for it, by electing nothing but Democrat-Socialists in your state for years and years. As the old saw has it, sooner or later they always get around to something you DO care about. And now they have. More SHOCKING yet:

Typical of such legislation, AB 5 comes with a hefty list of exempted categories that are a Who’s Who of the politically connected and well-funded: lawyers, doctors, accountants, brokers, builders, and others.

Actors, choreographers, dancers, directors, producers, and musicians are among numerous roles in the performing arts that exhibit a multitude of contract work arrangements. None of these are exempt from AB 5’s rules.

So? If there are indeed “worthy arguments to be made” for handing government the power to make workplace rules of all sorts, why should performing artists be exempt from them, pray tell? Why should ANYBODY be? And can you really be so impenetrably naive as to find it surprising that the wealthy, powerful, and connected exempted themselves from the wonderful benefits of the law? Y’know, just like US Congresscritters routinely exempt themselves from having to comply with any and every piece of burdensome bushwa they roll downhill onto the rest of us?

Personally, after reading this whiny, clueless twaddle it would be a-okay with me if every last theater, concert hall, arena, neighborhood dive bar, and neo-hippie coffee house featuring annoying solo-acoustic singer/songwriters on the Left Coast closed up shop for good tomorrow as a result of this law. Voting the most intrusive, power-hungry nanny-staters extant into office again and again ought to be painful—not just for Uber and Lyft drivers struggling to eke out their meager living, but for everybody, right down the damned line. The lesson will be learned only after the misery is spread around widely enough for all to suffer. Let elections have consequences at last, I say.

Demented pedophile transvestite, aflame with testosterone-drenched ‘roid rage, clouts reporter upside his haid

Posted on January 15, 2020 by Mike

Wax my goddamned BALLS, bitchez.

Jonathan Yaniv, the trans activist who goes by “Jessica” and became famous for suing beauticians who would not wax his male genitalia, is making headlines again. Yaniv is on trial for two weapons charges for owning a stun gun and brandishing it on YouTube. Stun guns are illegal in Canada. On Monday, Keean Bexte with Rebel News was covering the trial when Yaniv, on exiting the courthouse, charged at him. Bexte says Yaniv punched him in the head. The camera footage seems to back that up.

A commenter pointed out that Yaniv was mysterious without the famous scooter he normally rides around on claiming he is disabled. He doesn’t appear to be disabled as he is attacking Bexte. Normally when Yaniv attacks reporters he does it with his cane or while on a scooter.

My, how very womanly of you, Jonathan. The assaultee offered Jonny-boy a respectful tip o’ the cap for throwing a pretty hefty punch, adding “I need an Advil!” Maybe not all that big a surprise, I suppose, given Yaniv’s weight class and deep, seething hostility.

You read it here first, folks: sometime over the next year, this violent degenerate attempts suicide. And most likely fails. Not all that precarious a limb to crawl out onto, I admit. But still.

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