Gangster Government

Yeah, naaaaah

Posted on March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 by Mike

I’ve said before that I respect her as one of a miniscule number of relatively sane Democrats, maybe even admire her courageous and honest willingness to push back against the more wild-eyed and bizarre Demonrat proposals. She’s a liberal all right, but she’s also one of a nearly extinct breed that, despite mulishly clinging to many ridiculous and unworkable collectivist ideals, nonetheless remains intellectually supple enough to be at least marginally responsive to archaic and forsaken concepts such as common sense, real-world practicality, and respectful tolerance for dissenting opinion. Practically alone among her Party peers, Gabbard’s integrity and love of country has never been in question, or not that I know of anyway. All in all, I stand behind my assessment of her. For a liberal and a Demonrat, Tulsi is more or less all right with me.

But still.

The political realignment spurred by President Donald Trump’s rise as the undeniable leader of the Republican Party is only just beginning, and it may result in the emergence of a surprising superstar: former U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii.

Gabbard first gained national attention as a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.) who refused to participate in a corrupt DNC process that disenfranchised the far-left presidential candidate. Her stand made her a reviled figure among establishment Democrats, who hated her even more when she refused to buy into anti-Russia hysteria and opposed U.S. bombing campaigns in Syria. Her refreshing candor has resulted in an unexpected cult following on the pro-Trump Right.

While Gabbard’s economic policies vary considerably from the Republican orthodoxy, she brings a much-needed breath of fresh air on civil liberties and American foreign intervention. These are issues that appeal to young people, who are the prime demographic for the meat grinder of war and who often find themselves punished by the state for nonviolently enjoying their lives. Gabbard is an asset whose point of view should not be rejected out of hand in Trump’s GOP. Making the Republican Party into a true MAGA coalition will require the building of bridges and the rejection of failed approaches tried in the past.

Gabbard is a politician that the Republican Party needs to rebuild its shattered credibility among the masses. She has built a brand as a maverick who will say what she believes is right on the issues, no matter the political consequences.

Gabbard would also alienate all of the worst actors still festering within the Republican Party. The annoying free marketeers, who gave the cold shoulder to Trump for his economic nationalism, would naturally be up in arms over Gabbard’s lack of reverence for the sacred deity of gross domestic product. The remnants of the neoconservative war party, including former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, would be the most triggered, and their anguish alone would be worth letting the Gabbardites into the fold.

Could be, could be. The idea of wooing Tulsi in an attempt at persuading her to cross the partisan Rubicon is certainly audacious, bold, and unconventional—attributes I usually respond to positively, whatever the context. To me, they’re features, not bugs.

But no rebellious Maverick needs to wax all ebullient over this prospect. Sadly, the author slams head-on into a familiar obstacle discussed here numerous times: he’s made the killing mistake of accepting the false premise that tinkering, fine-tuning, or fiddling around under the Uniparty hood is still a useful, worthwhile project. Sorry, son, but it ain’t. The American system is dead as a dodo, with the up-front-fraudulent 2020 election as its death certificate, and there is no hope of reanimating the carcass. She was murdered a-purpose; mourn her loss, fine, but don’t kid yourself: she ain’t coming back. Intellectual pud-pulling to insipid fantasies of “retaking Congress in 2024” and all the other feverish wet-dreams whose climax revolves entirely around attaining a fair victory in an honestly-conducted election is worse than a waste of time.

Speculatively blibbering on about just how the treacherous GOPe could be reformed is a mug’s game, nothing more. At this point it’s tiresome, pathetic—a pointless distraction that will hurt far more than it will ever help. The facts are in; it’s time we all grew up and faced them squarely in an adult fashion.

A few dabs of touch-up paint will never suffice to restore the gloss to the rotted, corruption-stained husk of “American democracy.” To properly bring a lasting shine back up on this tattered, battered old bucket o’ bolts will mean more than some el-cheapo patch-job. She’s gonna need a complete body-off-frame restoration. If properly and meticulously done, by someone who knows how and is passionate about his craft, the results are a thing of beauty, damned close to miraculous. But it’s a long, time-eating process. And you just better believe it ain’t cheap.

Days of future past

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Mike

Nightmares really DO come true.

Nearly a year ago, after COVID hit us hard, I spent my endless at-home time online, looking at whatever I could find on pandemics. I found one treatise on possible methods of dealing with a pandemic. One method was presented as a cautionary tale about how not to treat a pandemic — and naturally, it was a template for 2020’s treatment protocols minus (if I remember correctly) developing a vaccine. Although I believe that the article was 10 or 15 years old, I thought at the time that it had been looked at, and someone (Fauci, I’m guessing) said, “Oooh! Let’s try all that! What could go wrong?” Sadly, I didn’t save a copy, and I can’t find it now. I’m not making the same mistake again. Now that I have a platform to write about this pandemic, I am sharing what I read. A friend sent me a link to a 2010 document that the Rockefeller Foundation produced, called “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development.” Take the time to look it over, please. It is based on a workshop on identifying “critical uncertainties” and exploring their potential effects on technology and international development. It specifically examines how mankind would adapt to unanticipated shocks over the next 15–20 years. The authors identify four possible reactions to an event. Two are most relevant: one is called “lockstep,” defined as “a world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.” Another is “hack attack,” an “economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge.” There are two more on page 16. For my purpose here, they are less relevant. Flip, if you would, please, to page 18. The lockstep scenario posits a pandemic. It is virulent and, in the model, kills mostly healthy adults, 8 million people globally in seven months. It describes society coming to a screeching halt, with industries like tourism, travel, local businesses, and offices all closed. In this scenario, the one country that fares best is China, which uses a seemingly admirable totalitarian approach, sealing its country, quarantining all citizens, and swiftly ending its pandemic. It then describes a world with national leaders imposing draconian rules and restrictions, from face masks to temperature checks. “Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified[.]…[L]eaders around the world took a firmer grip on power.”

Anybody who finds that at all surprising is either deep in denial or just an out and out knucklehead. It’s not a difficult or outlandish prediction to make, seeing as it how it’s perfectly in line with what we know about those “leaders” and their unslakable thirst for more power and control.

The scenario posits that at first, people willingly give up privacy and sovereignty to more paternalistic states, in exchange for greater safety. Independence of thought is stifled. In the narrative, it takes 13 years for citizens to weary of this control, which enables rampant cronyism and corruption.

It also provides space for tyranny’s consolidation, entrechment, and expansion, with the added bonus for the Power of a concomitant spread of intimidation and uncertain among an already-cowed populace, for whom the challenge of rising from their knees to do battle with their despotic masters will eventually become insuperable. From the start of the contrived Covid panic I maintained that no matter how threatening THEVIRUSTHEVIRUSTHEVIRUS!!!™ might or might not actually turn out to be, the disaster guaranteed to ensue should Americans docilely yield up their liberty and rights in response would be orders of magnitude worse. As Bill Barr said, there is no pandemic exception to the US Constitution. The past year’s wretched stream of encroachments and abuse provide a yardstick to gauge the depths of irrelevance into which that once-revered document has plummeted, tragic as that is. I repeat once more: if this way-oversold virus was really the extinction-level menace they told us it was, they wouldn’t have needed to repeatedly lie about the damned thing. There’s no way to conceal a disaster of such enormity; there would be no need to prompt or persuade. We’d all be surrounded by the reality of it, which would be inescapable and undeniable. The hospitals wouldn’t have been dangerously overtaxed; they’d have been wrecked, thenm abandoned—those that weren’t actually on fire, that is. I probably WOULD have had to don the humiliating Mask Of Submission—not so much to “do my part to fight this virus and BE SAAAAFE,” but to at least partially fend off the gruesome odor of decaying corpses stacked head-high in the street. We’d all be up to our eyeballs in 53-foot reefer trailers warehousing the overage of deaders; very few of us would have the slightest desire to socialize, closely congregate, or even risk venturing outside their own homes. HIDE such an event? It would be impossible to avoid it. But that’s exactly what they did do: they lied a year ago, they lied all summer long, and they’re still lying today. Full stop, end of story. It’s one reason why the only way they’ll ever get a single drop of their shady “vaccine” in me is to rassle my ass into stout full-body restraints beforehand. FREE ADVICE: better bring help. Admittedly I’m not as young and strong as once I was, but I’m still a reasonably feisty old sumbitch just the same. If it’s a fight you think you want, I promise I’ll do my utmost to give you one. MORE FREE ADVICE: it will NOT be fair. I don’t care how frightened you are, I don’t care how grave the goobermint tells us our situation is, I don’t care what scary numbers the CDC, Praetorian Media, ProPols, or anybody else gin up in order to stampede the herd: you must never, ever, EVER give up essential liberty to purchase temporary security. NEVER. Those who do…well, you know the rest of it. The dismaying spectacle of multitudinous “Americans” quietly allowing themselves to be frightened into lily-livered compliance with blatantly authoritarian edicts, all bereft of Constitutional authority, all based on fraudulent premises, pseudoscience, and naked propaganda, says one hell of a lot about their character, not a bit of it complimentary. Liberty is but a memory, the economy wrecked, uncountable millions of lives ruined—all of that and more a direct product of the shameful refusal to resist—to stand athwart tyranny and yell STOP! Is it too late for Americans to reclaim their rights, restore their dignity, and renew their sacred birthright? Only time will tell…and there’s precious little of it.

Enemies on all sides

Posted on March 22, 2021March 22, 2021 by Mike

This one has been sitting in an open tab waiting for me to get around to posting on it for long enough that I’ve completely forgotten where I originally ran across it, so there’ll be no “Via…” link acknowledging credit, unfortunately. No matter, though; the really important thing is that this story gets read, by as many people as can be reached. Yes, it IS that important, and for more reasons than just one.

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- In Garland, Texas, on 3 May 2015, Gregory Stevens, a veteran police officer with the Garland Police Department, was working off duty as armed security for the “Draw the Prophet” cartoon contest event.

Pamela Geller organized the Draw the Prophet event as a response to Islamic demands that Western Civilization submits to Islamic censorship.

The infamous attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris had occurred just five months earlier, by two Islamists with AK-47 type rifles and Tokarev pistols.

Many will remember the Draw Mohammed event, in the Dallas suburb of Garland, which was attacked by two Isis recruits.

Few know the details of how one prepared gunfighter police officer faced two Islamic riflemen armed with semi-automatic rifles, handguns, plenty of ammunition, soft body armor, and the element of surprise. He fought them at close range and prevailed.

What you might also remember is how Gellar was roundly, viciously condemned as a “right-wing extremist” who was actually to blame for the attack. The usual shitlib suspects—joined by a depressing number of weak-tea “conservative” commentators bleating along in a pattern that has become all too familiar nowadays—accused Geller of acting as a provocateur, motivated not by any desire to proactively defend freedom of speech against jihadi violence but solely by “racist” anti-Moslem bigotry.

Officer Stevens was working extra hours as armed, uniformed security for the event. He would turn 60 in a few days. He had a long experience as a traffic officer. He was a gun guy, who preferred a 1911 .45 Auto.

As a concession to modern pistol design, he had been issued a Glock model 21, chambered in .45 Auto. He was carrying his Glock in his standard duty rig, with a 13 round magazine, a round chambered, and two spare magazines, for a total of 40 rounds of Speer Gold Dot 230 grain hollowpoints.

At the scene with Greg Stevens is Bruce Joiner, an unarmed security guard from Garland Independent School District (ISD). They are in charge of the back entrance to the event, the West entrance coming off of Naaman Forest Blvd, the entrance the VIPs, caterers, and security teams use.

To those scouting for an attack, it appears to be a weak point. There are only two guards. Only one of them is armed. The armed guard (Officer Stevens) only has one pistol and is older than average.

There had been numerous death threats issued about the event. A competent security plan had been created. Greg says he was put at the back entrance because it was viewed as the “easy job”. He joked the idea was to “give the old guy the easy job”. He had a list of the people authorized to use the entrance, and codes they were required to know in order to use it. It was a shortlist.

Pam Geller and Gert Wilder had been passed through. A snafu with a caterer had been cleared up. Gert Wilder and his security team had left.

Just before 7 p.m. in the evening, Greg went to the restroom. A pair of roving armed security took his place. He took his duty car. He returned to his post. The roving team left.

About five minutes after he returned, a small black car pulls up, and stops, abruptly, facing away from the entrance.

Greg’s hair starts standing up on the back of his neck. His “police sense” starts going off. Something is not “right”. The car has out-of-state plates, from Arizona. Immediately, both doors to the car open at the same time.

Gripping stuff so far, no? Ahh, just you wait; trust me, the story is only beginning to get good. Suffice it to say that Stevens—a courageous, conscientious, and thoroughly competent cop—very likely saved a lot of lives with his keen professional instincts, quick reflexes, and the cool-calm-and-collected application of a scrupulously-maintained skillset that day. He represents a vanishing breed—the sort of man society will never have enough of, but cannot prosper long without.

The real kicker, though, comes in at the end of the piece. I won’t go into any of that, other than to note that the FBI is involved, making it another of those anomalies that one might find shocking but is unsurprising nonetheless. Happily, I just now remembered where I saw the above article first, a blog which just happens to be run by a fine young feller who is by no means unknown in this neck of the woods. He fleshes the whole thing out with additional details and some quite disturbing observations of his own.

Never underestimate your enemy

Posted on March 20, 2021March 20, 2021 by Mike

They aren’t haplessly floundering about. They’re working a plan.

For every monstrosity the Democrats drag forth before the public, they are pursuing another hundred out of the spotlight within the labyrinthine administrative state that makes law while no-one is looking. This administration is relentless in pursuing bad policies that hurt Americans and erode further the few constitutional bonds that keep the nation intact.

Which leads to a painful possibility:

I find myself asking the same questions millions of Americans now ask themselves: given this campaign of outright hostility toward the American people and general dereliction of duty to protect and defend the states, is the American government intentionally trying to provoke civil conflict? Are all these horrendous policies leading to armed confrontation against red state holdouts? Has D.C. transformed the Iraq War’s “Preemptive War” Doctrine into a plan of action against its own citizens?

Yes. C’mon, ask me a HARD one, whydon’tcha.

The estimable Sundance at Conservative Treehouse thinks so and recently posted a blunt warning that the Democrats’ overt politicization of the U.S. military (its staged Capitol encampment, ideological purge of Trump voters, and shameful public battles with conservative news pundits and Republican lawmakers) should be seen as part of a larger strategy by the centralized government in D.C. to prepare for the use of military force against individual states and regions of the country that may choose to push back against unconstitutional federal power grabs in the future. Now that the pretext of using troops to put down MAGA “insurrectionists” has been established, it will be ignominiously used to justify military support for confiscating guns, enforcing extended pandemic lockdowns, and identifying Americans too attached to the Bill of Rights. (The fact that Sundance chose the Ides of March to outline the likelihood of such an intimate betrayal by the military against the states is, I suspect, no coincidence for a meticulous writer who enjoys reaching readers on an emotional, as well as an intellectual, level.)

What really caught my eye, though, was the way commenters responded to the article: they almost universally agreed that the U.S. military could no longer be trusted and that it should instead be viewed as yet another institution successfully co-opted by the Democrats to push “woke” socialism, enforce commie cancel culture, and punish conservatives. Just as James Comey’s spying on the Trump campaign and Robert Mueller’s Democrat-led Russia collusion investigation destroyed the reputations of the FBI and DOJ, and just as John Brennan’s public disinformation and propaganda leaks designed to take down President Trump forever politicized the CIA, now Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to go after and eliminate Trump voters in the military’s ranks has dramatically weakened the public’s trust in the military.

If these questions don’t haunt the men and women now holding the reins of government in D.C., then they are monumental fools on at least two levels: (1) they have deceived themselves into believing that some chimerical international government will provide global peace and security in the years to come; and (2) they have forgotten so much of American history that they actually believe American patriots can be subdued and brought to heel without causing much of a stir.

The first failure reflects profound ignorance; the second failure reflects profound hubris.

Ahh, but there’s the rub: do they really? Is that really what either of these reflect? For the matter of it, is it accurate to call them failures at all?

On the first one: Global government, along with eugenics, rule by Expert, and micromanagement over every last aspect of human society, are the founding principles of Progressivism, the Prime Directives of the Left. They’ve doggedly chased the dream of global government for many decades, and are undeniably closer to seeing it realized than ever. Failure? Not while the US is still a member in good standing of the UselessN, hosting its HQ, tolerating its systemic corruption without demur, and paying most of its bills, it ain’t.

Nor is the second presumed “failure” so easily dismissed. With the successful installation of an illegitimate hard-Left US regime after several generations of incremental infiltration of every nook and cranny of both government and culture, we’ll soon be finding out who can and who cannot be “subdued and brought to heel without causing” etc. It ain’t exactly “profound hubris” if you wind up proven right in the end. After a year’s worth of American cattle obediently moo-ing their way right through the doors of the FauxVID19 slaughterhouse, I wouldn’t want to bet real money either way.

And taken together, these Democrat delusions will deliver a profound American tragedy.

“Profound tragedy,” at least, is spot on. THAT became pretty much a fait accompli when Real Americans permitted, over the course of decades, multifarious “Democrat delusions” to be implemented without meaningful resistance. Trusting souls that they were, the poor dears actually believed the GOPe was sincere in their forked-tongue promises to stand firm against such depradations, and to undo those already in place.

I dunno; it’s all kinda funny, in a way. Or would be, if not for the genuine harm inflicted on so many blameless Americans who really didn’t deserve it. But if those victims finally do find and embrace their righteous rage, then perhaps the wanton destruction of their once-admirable nation will be avenged. And the longtime tormentors of America That Was—Vichy GOPe or Demonrat alike—will have justice visited upon them for what they’ve done at long, long last.

Whatever course events may take, whichever side of the national divide you might stand on, profound tragedy is indeed at hand. Perhaps the biggest tragedy of them all, though, is that it’s come to this in the first damned place. It never should have, and didn’t really even have to. Yet somehow, here we all are anyway.

Diversity is our greatest ONLY strength

Posted on March 16, 2021March 16, 2021 by Mike

Judging by the dismal record of the hapless US military over the last few decades, it sure ain’t much of one.

“Press Secretary Smites Fox Host That Dissed Diversity in U.S. Military,” a Department of Defense headline read Thursday.

“I want to be very clear right up front, that the diversity of our military is one of our greatest strengths,” Pentagon press secretary and former CNN commentator John Kirby said during a Thursday briefing. “I’ve seen it for myself in long months at sea and in the combat waged by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve seen it up on Capitol Hill just this past month. And I see it every day here right at the Pentagon.”

Gee, Mr General Kirby sir, are you really sure you want to bring up the twenty-year-long inability to dispense with a few thousand dress-wearing, sub-literate, cave-dwelling goatherds in Afghanistan as evidence supporting the unchallengeable supremacy of Amerika’s shiny new one hundred percent PC military? Or the abject failure to subdue and pacify a band of like yodeling barbarians in Iraq? Or the ongoing ineffectual floundering in who even knows how many other ragged-ass Third World shitrapies across the globe?

Kirby was responding to comments made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who said during his March 9 show that Biden’s Department of Defense is more focused on woke adventurism than winning wars.

Carlson noted that the Department of Defense is creating body armor and flight suits for pregnant women, and is planning to change female hairstyle requirements. He also railed against the Chief of Naval Operations’ addition of the book “How To Be Antiracist,” by American University professor Ibram X. Kendi, to the Navy’s official reading list. Columbia University professor John McWhorter described Kendi’s arguments as “facile and subjective.”

The American military must have “the moral courage to include other perspectives and ideas into our decision making—perspectives that as the secretary himself noted Monday, are based on lived experience,” Kirby continued. “It’s that experience and the professionalism and commitment of our people that has always been our decisive advantage.”

Contra that word-salad of blibbering bafflegab, up until WW2 our true “decisive advantage” was an agglomeration of several real-world factors which are of much more practical combat utility than your specious “moral courage to include other perspectives” will ever be, with America’s astounding ability to ramp up and focus its peerless industrial might on production of wartime necessities including but by no means limited to weapons systems perhaps foremost among ’em.

Sure, experience, professionalism, and commitment are all wonderful things, no doubt. But they’ll never be a match for taking the boundless creative energy capitalism naturally fosters fully off the leash and letting it run wild to take on some perennial thorns in our sides, just to mix multitudinous metaphors here. To wit:

The challenges of R&D
Design and manufacture of materiel and equipment
Stale concepts relating to everything from small-unit tactics to battle rifles to APCs to BDUs &c

Time and time again, it’s been demonstrated that the surest, fastest way of untangling these and other knots is via the magic of capitalist ingenuity. Which, unsurprisingly, is NOT going to meet with the approval of Obamanaut chiggers like Kirby & pals. Their first and foremost priority is Diversity; fielding a combat-ready, well-trained and -equipped soldiery determined to attain victory at any cost just ain’t it with that, man. Not for these namby-pamby Puzzle Palace chuckleheads it ain’t.

One can practically hear the girlish, mortified shrieking from our New Model PC Army: Hey, what ARE you anyway—the kind of bass-ackwards troglodyte who still believes the primary raison d’etre of national armies is to kill people, break shit, and actually WIN WARS or something? After citing a likewise disgraceful verbal assault against Tucker for his impudence launched by the ladies of the USMC PR Dept, Herschel finds himself fed up enough to deal harshly with this patent horseshit.

So aside from the notion of diversity being a strength in, say, mathematics or engineering or computer science or whatever, where physics governs processes, which I don’t think can be proven (but this is a difference discussion), let’s pose a challenge problem to the Marines.

Prove that diversity is a strength in the US Marine Corps? Prove it. Demonstrate categorically that sameness, the one intended end of all of the training my own son went through to ensure common goals, common tactics, techniques and procedures, and common devotion to duty and orders, shouldn’t have really been the goal after all.

Prove categorically that the US Marine Corps, who won multiple world wars, who has served honorably in countless other engagements, and who is the most feared strike and expeditionary force on earth, wasn’t really as good as they could be and would have been better with more diversity.

It isn’t necessary to rehearse the experience of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan where they placed women in combat roles and found a disproportionate number of lower extremity injuries, or the experience of Marine Corps infantry officer’s course at Quantico where every woman thus far has had several hip injuries or pelvic fractures.

We all know the truth regardless of the focus group wording you parrot. Repeat after me: There is no way that a woman can do the same physical things a man does. God designed it that way.

How far the Marine Corps has fallen. Shameful, loathsome and contemptible. I think your future adversaries will think the same thing.

After repeatedly denying the once-peerless US armed forces victory after victory by effectively forcing them to fight with both hands tied behind their backs, I strongly suspect that future adversaries—all of whom, according to the PC nincompoops fully and firmly in charge of things now, are actually just friends we haven’t won over yet—already DO think it, Cap’n. In fact, if you listen closely you can probably hear those future adversaries laughing all the way over here.

Decadence and an unfounded assumption of military dominance creates a societal aimlessness that has brought far mightier empires than our own to their knees. Korea, Vietnam. Beirut. Somalia. The Balkans; Iraq, Afghanistan. US Navy crews incompetent to safely navigate their ships without colliding with other vessels. The ruinously expensive F35 debacle. The USMC, USN, and USAF wholly reliant on a fleet of decrepit fifty-year-old (plus) aircraft. The ever-lengthening list of US military futility establishes a practical guideline going forward, sad as it is. To wit: any conflict that can’t be waged and won using drones operated from the safe, comfy confines of an air-conditioned trailer somewhere in the Arizona desert is probably one the FUSA would do itself a tremendous favor by avoiding.

No wonder those valiant Woke Warriors jumped so eagerly at the chance to do battle with a lone civilian TeeWee personality. They all figured the WoT (War on Tucker™) might just be one they could actually win.

Update! I’m so old I can remember when US military personnel were expected to stay the hell out of politics.

A former military officer friend likes to tell the story of attending a conference during the Jimmy Carter years. At the conference, one of the generals made a negative remark about Jimmy Carter. That general was cashiered by the end of the evening. That was appropriate behavior for a studiously nonpartisan, constitutional military that represented and defended all Americans equally. The military’s current war against Tucker Carlson for insulting it points to the end of that era.

Americans need to understand that this is not their dads’ military. It’s not even the pre-2008 military. Barack Obama purged from the Pentagon anyone who was not with the new Democrat party. This Pentagon trend worsened under Trump, as people in the modern military resented the fact that he was not starting new wars and was drawing down troops. Trump’s peaceful ways may have saved lives and money, but they lessened opportunities for advancement within the military and shut down post-retirement sinecures in the defense industry.

With Biden’s ascension to the White House, the military has become an openly partisan, pro-Democrat, possibly anti-American institution dedicated entirely to turning itself into a social justice avatar for American society while maintaining endless small wars across the globe for the benefit of military officers. George Washington weeps.

Hey, that’s nothing new; I’m sure he’s been weeping for many years now. He’s certainly had plenty of reason to.

True colors

Posted on March 14, 2021March 14, 2021 by Mike

Even in the great Repubic of Texas, RINOs gotta RINO.

Tonight Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a “Republican,” issued a despicable and false statement smearing Gab as an “anti-semitic platform that quote “has no place in Texas.” This is the same Gov. Abbott who just five days ago said he was “taking a stand against Big Tech censorship.”

Gov. Abbott’s statement will likely not sit well with the nearly 800,000 Texans who have visited Gab.com in the past 24 hours alone. What is even more strange is that the Texas GOP itself is on Gab with a verified account.

Gab is not an “anti-semitic” platform. We protect the political speech of all Americans, regardless of viewpoint, because in this age of cancel culture nobody else will. That means unpopular viewpoints may be found on the site.

The enemies of freedom smear us with every name in the book because they hate America and they hate free speech. It’s a shame to see a GOP politician fall for this trap when conservative values are under sustained attack all over the country.

People smear Gab for the kinds of people we host. They never smear Gab for the kinds of people we ban. That’s because we don’t have political tests for our users. Ban decisions are made on an individual basis. Our test for political speech is whether it is legal or not. Pretty simple rule.

My own rule of thumb is even simpler: anything that can be expressed verbally, in print, typed, or scratched into the face of a rock—no matter how distasteful, obnoxious, or offensive—is protected speech, and shall remain strictly unmolested by official authority. Any government that fails to live up to that standard is one that has no claim on being a bastion of freedom of speech. Period, full stop, end of story.

On the other hand, I must admit that my longtime free-speech absolutism has been sorely tested in recent years. In fact, I now find myself in favor of at least two exceptions to my own rule, having concluded that Islam and Communism ought to be proscribed in any society otherwise dedicated to liberty purely as a matter of self-preservation. It’s a painful bind to be in intellectually, but in light of the existential destruction to the garden of liberty wrought by these noxious weeds in every time and place they’re permitted to flourish, I can see no better option than to throttle them early, before they fully take root.

There are many Jewish Gab users and customers, whose lawful speech we protect with just as much zeal as we would protect the lawful speech of any person of any faith, ethnicity, or creed.

This is what America used to be like: a place where The People could speak freely regardless of their faith, ethnic background, or beliefs. This is the America Gab is fighting to preserve.

Apparently Gov. Abbott doesn’t agree.

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
March 10th, 2021
Jesus is King

Apparently he does not, which comes as a disappointment after his announcement lifting all state Fauxvid19 restrictions. Sadly, his duplicitous attack against GAB comes as no real surprise either, considering several other dubious things he’s said and done as governor. Nobody’s perfect, of course, and to expect anything even approaching perfection from any professional politician is the mark of a purblind fool. Even so, support for freedom of speech is about as fundamental as it gets, a complete gimme for anyone claiming to be a conservative.

With this maladroit betrayal of core principle Abbott has let the mask slip pretty badly, exposing his two faces in all their self-serving, double-dealing ugliness. Texans ought to see to it that he pays dearly for it, lest venomous belly-crawlers like Mitt Romeny begin to feel entirely too at home there and infest the place completely.

Saying the quiet part out loud

Posted on March 13, 2021March 13, 2021 by Mike

Cadaver Joe staggered out to mumble and slur his way through a speech of some kind or other, apparently. No longer giving the slightest toss about anything shat from any FederalGovCo sphincter myself, I wasted not a moment of my time or attention on it. Hearing it discussed on the car radio today, though, parts of it seem to have been of some moment after all.

On Thursday night, a masked Biden tottered down a long, empty hall to a podium. He then gave the most bizarre presidential address in American history. After a grim recital of “facts” about the last year, Biden emphasized multiple times that Americans had better take the vaccine — and be grateful to him for his amazing ability to get the vaccine to Americans. He also insisted that, vaccines or not, the government’s in control and can lock all of us up all over again.

Here, in no particular order, are the points that struck me:

1. Biden was more alert than he’s been in many months. Given how frail and confused Biden’s been lately, well, let’s just say his verve was suspicious. Even his eyes, which are usually tightly squinted as he struggles to stay alert and read his teleprompter, were wide open, almost scarily so. Still, he got visibly tired near the end, slurring his words and seeming lost.

3. Biden kept saying he was going to tell the truth. He quoted a woman he allegedly met who told him her heart’s desire: “‘I just want the truth. The truth. Just tell me the truth.'”

“Tell the truth,” Biden said again.

“My fellow Americans,” he said, “you’re owed nothing less than the truth.”

Later, he added, “I will tell you the truth.”

And then he said, “In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be traveling along with the first lady” and a whole host of others “to tell you the truth.”

Do you know who says things like that? Someone who’s lying.

Well, D’UH. Naturally, the speech was as packed stem to stern with outrageous lies as any other Demonrat exhalation reliably is. As pluperfect an old grifter as we know the pRetend pResident to be from his half-century spent rooting in the DC hog-trough, how could any sentient being expect something other than misdirection, hypocrisy, and calculated, self-serving falsehood from the senile old kiddie-diddler? Even so, there were some telling tidbits inadvertently revealed. More delicate, Pollyanna-ish types still locked in denial about what kind of country they live in might need to fortify themselves with a swallow or three of something strong.

7. The main thrust of the speech was that everyone must get the vaccine (the wonderful Biden vaccine). However, Biden conceded that even with the vaccine, masks and social distancing must continue. Even with everyone vaccinated, by July 4, maybe we can gather with small groups outdoors. In other words, even as we’re all pumped full of a vaccine, nothing will change. But we should trust Biden and remember that we’re all in this together.

8. Here’s the scariest thing Biden said, although he slipped it in so quickly many may not have noticed (emphasis mine): “Fourth, in the coming weeks, we will issue further guidance on what you can and cannot do once fully vaccinated to lessen the confusion, to keep people safe, and encourage more people to get vaccinated.”

The vaccine, rather than freeing us, will bring us even more tightly under government control as the federal government mandates what we can and cannot do.

It’s just beautiful, innit? Now you all be good little boys and girls and get your “vaccination,” then maybe Mommy and Daddy will think about letting you celebrate your “freedom” on “Independence Day” just a little this year, mmmmkay?

Naturally, Praetorian Media “journalists” wet themselves with delirious joy over Biden’s grim unveiling of how our Deep State masters really perceive the current state of play in Amerika v2.0.

“Biden Tells Nation There Is Hope After a Devastating Year.”

“Hopeful Biden Says, ‘I Need You.’”

“Biden Sets Vaccine Goal That Would Allow Americans To Gather By July 4.”

These headlines, from the covers of the printed New York Times, LA Times, and Boston Globe, greeted Americans Friday morning, 51 days into the Biden presidency and a full year into the beginnings of America’s long lockdown experiment.

“Seven Takeaways From Biden’s Prime-Time Address” topped CNN’s site. Chris Cillizza’s first two “takeaways”? “Donald Trump dug the hole” was number one. Number two? “A return to empathy.” Chris Cillizza, it’s worth noting, is a 45-year-old man and does not work for the White House.

“Last night is why Joe Biden won the presidency,” Politico Playbook opened with a straight face.

If you hadn’t watched the president’s prime-time address, you might think it was something — anything — other than the most depressing, defeated, and resigned speech since President Jimmy Carter held the office. You might think he hadn’t devoted his third sentence to a baseless attack on his predecessor, and the entire rest of his address to death, sadness, loneliness, and despair. You might think he hadn’t literally threatened the American people, warning, “We may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track, please, we don’t want to do that again.”

Yeah, and you might also have trouble feeding yourself, tying your shoelaces, or finding your own ass with both hands and a compass, too.

But even in so deep and dark a night as this, there are glimmers of light to be seen here and there. For instance, earlier today I was on the phone with a friend of mine as he drove along McConnells Highway in South Cackalacky. Mid-conversation, he began mumbling a slow count-off, getting up to eleven before bursting into raucous laughter. See, along a certain stretch near his place there are a lot of homes flying the now-desecrated Stars and Stripes out front. Turns out that my friend was totting up the number of folks he passed who had suddenly decided to fly their US flag upside down. This, mind, on the day after Bai-Ding puked forth the most profoundly un-American speech by a *president* in our history.

Which is actually, literally illegal unless done as a distress signal in circumstances of extreme danger to life or property, if I remember right. I figure those people needn’t worry overmuch about being arrested or jailed, though. Our current national predicament makes a pretty good argument against it.

Fight the Power!

Posted on March 12, 2021March 12, 2021 by Mike

Pegging away at the insidious Eye in the Sky.

Kinda small and fuzzy-looking, I know. Hopefully you greybeards will be able to read it okay, but for anyone whose eyes just can’t get that squinty, here’s what it says:

***Attention Wayne Hills Residents***

Please stop throwing beer bottles at the drones. They are property of Portsmouth Police Department and they run surveillance on the property for your protection. We repeat, STOP KNOCKING DOWN OUR ANTI-DRUG ACTIVITY DRONES!

Heh. Yeh, yeh, yeh; suck it, espionage-boy.

However “too little, too late” in coming it may be, as far as I’m concerned there can never be a bad time to start cocking the snook at the surveillance/police state Authority, any way one can come up with to do it. These two are sterling examples of that good old red-blooded American FUCK YOU! spirit—the spirit of for-real resistance, a thing we don’t see anywhere close to enough of these dark days—and the CF chapeau is humbly doffed to ’em for this inspiring display of it. Verily, this anonymous couple is an example to us all.

Plus, as Glasser says in his caption: beer bottles are cheaper than shotgun shells.

VOTE SECEDE HARDERER!

Posted on March 7, 2021March 7, 2021 by Mike

Fond as I am of at least some of those calling for it, secession is a non-starter. Big fat caveat: I’ve already declared myself all in for the nullification idea, and I still feel that way. But that doesn’t mean I have high hopes that it will work. Ultimately, the roadblock obstructing secession is simple: FederalGovCo absitively, posolutely WILL NOT let it happen without a fight. Ask somebody from the Confederate States of Americans how it worked out last time around. I see no reason to think that FederalGovCo’s position towards secession has mellowed; the roadblock still stands, as impassable as it ever was.

With nullification the same roadblock looms, but it is at least conceivable that a way could be found for the several states to pull it off without sparking a violent response. It’s a remote possibility to be sure, but a possibility nonetheless. I don’t have a whole lot of faith in it, but it does exist.

Secession, though? Not a chance.

Secede where? From whom?

You live in a purple state, in a purple country, and in which no legitimate election can ever be expected from now on. Times 50 states.

You want to oppose the illegitimate government, product of a wholly fraudulent election?

Bravo. So do I, and so do millions more.

But this isn’t 1861, and you have no safe space to retreat to where your values hold sway, nor where you are and will be in the majority, nor will such ever be left alone by the other side. They never have, they never will, and they don’t care about the inevitable consequence of that course of action.

Ask Georgians how that plan worked out for them in January.

Secession is a myth, based on a delusion. The idea is laughably ridiculous, doubly so given how it worked out the last time it was attempted.

Aesop is specifically flensing TL Davis’s mention of the secession fantasy in his most recent piece, but seems to me that maybe TL isn’t necessarily all that dreamy-eyed and damp about its chances for success himself. To wit:

The question of secession arises simply because there is no other resort. It is not something arrived at easily and it doesn’t solve all problems. There is still a virulent strain of communism running through all of our institutions that would have to be dealt with, many of which are easily corrected if the Constitution were adhered to, something each state can enforce individually, even without secession, but where is the will to do that?

People who will not carry their torches and pitchforks to their state capitols will not force those political bodies to defend their rights. Trust me, I am with the resistance. I will stand with any who stand with me. It is now, or never.

YMMV, as always, but that sounds less to me like 1) enthusiastic endorsement from a naive fever-dreamer of a course of action he is confident will resolve our conundrum satisfactorily, and more like B) a patriot casting desperately about for an option, ANY option, that might possibly lead to a relatively peaceful way out of this. Unfortunately for all red-blooded Americans, the questions TL poses next all have the same answer.

If it is to be a peaceful resistance, let me know which road to take that leads us toward faithful public servants. Which road leads to undeniable and unmodified rights? Which road leads to fiscally responsible government? Which road leads to quality education for our children? Which road leads to reliable power supply and energy independence? Which road leads to unencumbered commerce? Which road leads to more employment? Which road leads to prosperity? Which road leads to a secure border? Which road leads to a military focused on defense of the nation?

Difficult questions, although from this side of the Great Divide they’re more likely to be viewed as basic, elementary—the stuff of grade-school civics and history classes, I mean c’mon DUH. A huge complexifying factor in treating such questions as something other than idle woolgathering, with little real-world relevance, is that The Enemy has no desire whatsoever to travel those roads in the first place. To them, not one of the destinations suggested by TL is appealing. I doubt you’d even been able to get them into the car at all, without either some elaborate trickery or a physical struggle.

To boil it down, then, TL is seeking a route to peaceful coexistence, as a free and properly-governed people, with Communists. Alas, no such route exists, or ever really has. Due to the nature of both Communism and its adherents, no such route CAN exist. We’re stalled at a dead-end, and Aesop knows there’s only one way out.

This isn’t going to be won at ballot boxes, protests, strongly-worded letters, nor brilliant legal opinions.

No one you’re talking to in those forums cares.

Write that on your hand, lest ye forget.

This is going to be a cage match to the death, and it isn’t over until there’s only one side left standing. And that’s true whether you fight, or surrender. All giving up changes is how fast you get on the boxcars.

And if you choose to fight, it’s going to be fought house to house, floor to floor, and in some families, room to room. In every town and city in every state. Some will be easier than others, but no place is 100% anything. For now.

When that penny drops, and the range goes hot in both directions, you’ll be at the starting line.

The finish line is a long, long way off, even at that point.

But at least people will be in the right event.

S’truth. And, as I keep saying, nobody has to like it. I most certainly don’t. Personally, I would much prefer to live out my remaining days in a nation NOT riven by strife, deprivation, and calamity—grubbing for meager sustenance to fend off starvation; constantly sidestepping a ruthlessly despotic government as best I can; completely surrounded by bleating nitwits accepting of their own subjugation, in blissful ignorance of their ignominy.

I had hoped to die gently in my sleep, my loved ones close at hand to see me on my way. But NOOOOOO. LIKE it? RUFKM?!? Man, I am too old for this shit.

Trust me, I absolutely HATE that this conflict has been forced upon on us. But forced upon us it has been. We all knew this day would come. Now that it has, facts must be squarely and honestly faced. There are tough choices to be made. What do I truly, deeply believe in? Am I willing to fight for my beliefs—to die in defense of them, if I must? What is my duty—to myself, to my family, to my neighbor, to my country? What does duty, what does honor, require of me? When should I act, how will I know the time is right to act, and what actions should I take?

War is coming. It won’t be pretty, or easy, or brief. Victory for Truth, Justice, and the American Way is by no means assured. It is entirely possible (if not damned likely) that it will not end well, for anybody.

Gird your loins.

“Hypocrisy” is the LEAST of our problems with them

Posted on March 6, 2021March 6, 2021 by Mike

Physically, politically, and ideologically, location determines perception: where you stand determines what you see. If the biggest worry you see coming from the Left is their hypocrisy, you are either wilfully blind or cripplingly obtuse.

Calling today’s Leftists hypocrites requires endless contortions. It is simpler and scarier to see that the Left has rejected the standards of common citizenship. The Left is rejecting equal protection, equal treatment of the laws, and the rule of equal laws and opportunities for all. Its principle of justice is to help friends and relatives while harming enemies.

Double standards sown into law enforcement and culture, with the rulers defining the boundaries between the two standards, is the hallmark of oligarchy. Oligarchy is not just the rule of the rich, though that is part of it. Oligarchy is the rule of the few for their own interest. Oligarchic justice demands that unequals be treated unequally, as Aristotle writes, and it extends the idea of human inequality way beyond its legitimate scope. Friends of the oligarchy are treated one way because they are presumed better. Enemies or non-friends of the oligarchy are treated another way because they are presumed worse.

The Left is not hypocritical to its standards: help friends, harm enemies, unequal justice. So, the Left can practice what was hypocrisy openly and without shame. What, from the standpoint of common citizenship, amounts to hypocrisy is, for today’s Left, an edge of their attempt to transform the regime from a republic of equal citizenship to a woke oligarchy.

TSM Kevin agrees:

No, they aren’t hypocrites. They’re engaged in a war and there are two sets of rules. Yes, they’re revolutionaries. They’re running a revolution to immanentize the eschaton, and that has driven them insane, but even the insane know that blowback will eventually come. They must do everything in their (extensive) power to delay, deflect, diminish that blowback. The attempt to control the flow of information is critical component. (Can you imagine the outrage if, under the Trump administration, a similar letter had been issued pointing out the lies and falsehoods put forth by the “mainstream” media, asking why they were still being carried?)

First we’re “The Other.” Then we’re “Deplorables.” Finally, we’re DANGEROUS. Have you noticed how the Left is treating the events of January 6? It was called “1000 times worse than 9/11” and “it became clear that the United States is involved in a generational struggle to save our democracy.” Not our Republic, our Democracy. The “mostly peaceful” riot in the Capital has been called an “armed insurrection,” except nobody apparently was armed. We were told that the plan was to “capture and kill” members of Congress. Apparently not. We were told that a Capitol Hill police officer died after being “hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.” Apparently not. But there’s going to be a witch-hun… an independent investigation of the events of that day, events that by all evidence were made possible by the (in)action of certain members of the Ruling Party.

Anyone not of the Blue Church, especially gun owners, are dangerous reactionary maniacs waiting for the right time to rise up in counter-revolution! AND MANY OF THE LEFT BELIEVE IT. When you’re asked how you could believe the election was stolen, they’re asking you how crazy you are.

So how crazy, how dangerous, are you?

They want us to be violent. They need us to be violent. They have to have an excuse to crack down and violate the Second Amendment with the blessings of the populace and the full cooperation of the police and the military. They actually think they can pull it off.

Keep fucking around and they’ll find out.

They should—in fact, they must, or else Team Liberty will wake up one fine morning to see that they HAVE pulled it off—completely, all liberty and individual rights stolen from us with nary a shot fired in defense of our precious inheritance. We’re already much too close to that state of affairs for comfort. Follow-up no-shitter from Peter at BRM:

I’ve written several articles pointing out that we can’t vote our way out of this mess. When the November 2020 elections were stolen – literally, through electoral fraud – the conservative side of US politics was (rightly) furious; but they’re talking in terms of winning the next election, and undoing the damage. That’s not going to happen. The electoral legislation that the Democratic Party is right now ramming through Congress is designed to ensure that it alone wins elections from now on. Anyone else won’t get a look-in unless the powers that be decide to throw the other side a bone or two, to satisfy those they consider dangerous or obsessive.

This has led several commenters to talk (in so many words) in terms of civil war, armed resistance, and the like. I’ve said on more than one occasion that I’ve seen it happen too often in other parts of the world, and it doesn’t solve the problem. It merely compounds the misery for the survivors. However, I fear greatly that it’ll be inevitable sooner or later, because those who’ve seized power are adamant that they’ll never give it up.

Conservatives may believe that the restoration of our constitutional republic is of overriding importance (and, from a political perspective, I agree with them): but, in terms of that same constitution, the progressive Left has committed high treason. They’ve subverted and undermined the US political process to steal power from the legitimately elected candidate. They know that if they ever lose power, those who take the reins from them will want criminal investigation and prosecution of all those involved in that electoral fraud – and one of the penalties for high treason is death. For the left to allow the right to win would be to commit at least political, if not a very physical suicide. This they will never do voluntarily.

So, when you talk politics in the USA today, bear in mind that it’s not just politics. It’s a conflict for survival. If we all come to our senses and seek mutual accommodation, that can be mutual survival…but that’s no longer likely. The progressive left has gone all-in on seizing and maintaining control, at any cost. They’re maintaining a puppet President in power, a man mentally incompetent to and incapable of exercising that office, because they can manipulate him to achieve their ends. They’ve shut off the capital city of our nation from its people, and are protecting themselves and their institutions behind barbed wire and military guards, to keep the people out and keep themselves in power. Those realities alone should illustrate that they’re not going to give up, and they’re not going to go away.

There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This.

Our Founding Fathers had an answer for that. I fear we may have to follow their example.

Peter is correct in every particular; I do believe he’ll be right at home in Ye Olde CF Blogrolle, in which his acute insight and unflinching analysis just landed him a too-belated place. Which reminds me that I really need to do some rearranging and refreshing of the tired ol’ place.

Although I know he wasn’t being literal there, it feels somewhat imprecise for folks to say they “fear” following the Founders’ admirable example. It might be more apropos for one to say he “dreads” that we may have to etc, or “regrets” that we etc, or is “saddened” that etc. But fear? Not so much.

Oh, they might think they want us to be violent; it is imperative, then, that they be schooled in the awful things that can sometimes happen when a misguided or inadequately-considered wish comes true. What THEY want or need is no longer of any concern to us, undeserving of a moment’s attention. Having now openly declared themselves our enemy, our sole concern is our own needs, and how we might go about fulfilling them. The thing WE want THEM to be, the thing we NEED them to be, is mortally terrified of ever fucking with us again. Beyond that, not one damned thing, thanks.

The Left has committed treason all right, but it didn’t begin yesterday, nor even four years ago. They crossed that Rubicon long years ago, incrementally ratcheting up the depredation after being emboldened by the indolent, lackadaisical shrug of the Real American shoulder that was the only response to their heinous offenses. Which only goes to show that, although they may fear us to some extent, they don’t fear us nearly enough. Not yet. Our disgraceful lapse on that count was extremely dangerous—to freedom, to our national birthright, to our future collectively and individually—and must be seen to without further delay.

(Via WRSA)

Overdue awakening

Posted on March 4, 2021March 4, 2021 by Mike

Welcome to the party, pal.

Can We Reform a FBI that Behaves Like a Gestapo?

Talk about a question that answers itself.

Short answer–I doubt it. But it is a legitimate question to raise because there are still some patriots serving within the ranks of the FBI who are beyond distraught over the gross politicization of their once proud, respected organization.

Name three. Take your time, I’ll wait.

Some of the men and women with 20 years in are simply counting days and hours until they can punch out. There is genuine, deep seated hatred for Christopher Wray and his coterie of lackeys eager to suckle on the teat of the Deep State.

I never imagined the day would come where I would be serious about comparing the FBI to the GESTAPO. But that day has come. We already have clear evidence of their criminal conduct in the cases of General Michael Flynn, Carter Page, George Papadopolous and Roger Stone. Now we learn that the FBI, without a court order, is seizing the phone records of private citizens and members of Congress without a court order. It is an organization out of control and must be reined-in.

It has been out of control since its very inception. It cannot, will not, be “reined in.” It’s a strictly binary choice: it can be either endured or dismantled. Sorry, but there is no Third Way here.

But that requires some legislators and judges with spine–a trait sorely lacking in Washington, DC at the moment.

Actually, it would require legislators and judges who weren’t fully-paid-up partners in the whole Deep State enterprise. As the USSC seems to be making a disgusting habit of confirming lately, those are mighty, mighty thin on the ground these days—avises most rara indeed.

When you have Republican Leaders like Liz Cheney endorsing this outrage and fueling the lie that Trump supporters are white supremacists that must be extirpated, how can you expect any Democrat to step forward and protest.

I leave you with one simple recommendation–if the FBI contacts you and asks to talk tell them “NO.” Refuse to cooperate in any way. The FBI is no longer your friend.

Always sage advice, but I must reiterate: the FBI NEVER WAS your “friend.” Since the days of J Edgar Hoover, it has been a wholly corrupt, massively overpowered and inadequately overseen agency. I’ve been saying so for many years now.

In fact, some of you greybeards may recall the shocked—SHOCKED!—reaction to the NRA’s fundraising letter accurately describing them as “jackbooted thugs,” among other things, in ’95:

A month after the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured 680, the Wilmington Star-News published the following:

“The explosion brought out the best in many Americans. It brought out the worst traits in the NRA, especially its hotheaded hype.

“The most ill-timed screed was an NRA fund-raising letter slamming federal agents as “armed terrorists dressed in Ninja black…jack-booted thugs armed to the teeth who break down doors, open fire with automatic weapons and kill law-abiding citizens.”

Can anyone please tell me just what part of all that ISN’T true? Just asking for a friend.

Anyways, so high was the general dudgeon in the wake of that infamous NRA mail-out that Preznit George HW Bush himself felt compelled to very publicly denounce the NRA, resigning his lifetime membership to demonstrate horror most abject at the abominable “slur.” But I felt then, and still do, that the NRA mailing, if arguably ill-advised or impolitely expressed, did nothing more than restate self-evident realities with which too many Americans were already unpleasantly familiar. However uncomfortable they might be, however deep our reluctance to confront them, facts is still facts. By avoiding or—even worse, FAR worse—denying harsh truths, we grant a dangerous authority to falsehood and diminish ourselves in the bargain. No good can ever come from it.

“What steamed Mr. Bush was NRA President Tom Washington’s calling the 1993 Waco, Texas, raid an example of “black-suited, masked, massively armed mobs of screaming, swearing agents invading homes of innocents.”

And then incinerating the lot of them, to the last man, woman, and child. YMMV, but as far as I’m concerned jackbooted thuggery just doesn’t come a whole lot more thuggish than that. But Waco is hardly the only demonstration of the FBI’s soulless, wholly un-American corporate character in action. I’ve mentioned here before my long, deeply disturbing conversation with poor Randy Weaver at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot years ago. For any of you youngsters in need of a refresher on that:

Weaver bought an 8-acre piece of land in Ruby Ridge and began building his cabin. The family started learning how to live without electricity and would live on a more survival basis.

The children were all homeschooled, and soon the family moved to their cabin.

The Weaver’s neighbor, Terry Kinnison, and the family got into a $3,000 land dispute, which Kinnison lost and was to pay an extra $2,100 in damages and court costs.

He was the one who informed the FBI that Weaver had threatened to kill the President, the Pope, and the governor of Idaho.

In 1985, Weaver and his wife were interviewed by the FBI about belonging to the Aryan Nations, a white supremacist religious organization.

Weaver had previously attended some rallies of the Aryan Nations, which led the FBI to believe he attended the Aryan Nations World Congresses and the Aryan Nations Church.

The FBI then began probing further into the family and their whereabouts, to ultimately survey the cabin and prepare for a standoff.

On August 21, 1992, U.S. Marshals were sent to the cabin and were under strict orders to avoid all contact with the Weaver family. But the marshals were detected by the Weaver family dog, and the barking attracted their attention.

Weaver’s son, Samuel, and a family friend named Kevin Harris, both took guns and went out to see what the issue was.

The marshals began retreating, but eventually took defensive positions behind the trees. In later reports, the question of who fired first is still disputed, as Harris and Weaver said that the marshals fired first without identifying themselves.

The standoff began, and the family and the marshals exchanged crossfire. The Weaver dog and 14-year-old Sam were fatally shot, and a federal agent named Bill Degan was also shot dead.

Incredibly, the story gets even more appalling from there, after the FBI’s over-ballyhooed HRT was called in. Murderous (and, of course, highly decorated) FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi wound up being lauded in the more demonic quarters of government as a “hero” for “courageously” shooting Weaver’s unarmed wife Vicki in the head from a safe distance. Bonus government Hero™ points were awarded for cold-bloodedly executing the guiltless woman while she held her 10 month old daughter in her arms.

All this, mind, after FBI goons had spent many months harrassing Weaver, tirelessly insisting that he procure illegal sawed-off shotguns for them in hopes of entrapping him. After Weaver had steadfastly refused their demands again and again, they finally wore their chosen victim down enough that he arranged an introduction to an acquaintance who could possibly supply the goons with the contraband they dishonestly claimed, as a subterfuge, to be seeking.

Weaver was indicted and tried on the grossly-inflated litany of charges now typical of the Amerikan “justice” system, later being acquitted on all but a minor bail violation and failure to appear in court—a “crime” not intentionally committed but due to a scheduling mistake. Weaver went on to sue the evil US government, which sulfurous entity quietly settled out of court for $3.1 million—inadequate compensation for the persecution he suffered, in my opinion. His profligately unjust ordeal cost him several loved ones and transformed Weaver into the quite obviously tormented shell of a man I spoke with at Knob Creek.

The pain in Weaver’s eyes as he told me his story was all too evident. Trust me, it was an awful thing to see. My longtime loathing for the FBI in particular and FederalGovCo generally grew immeasurably that afternoon. Certainly, I’ve seen no justification for moderating or reconsidering that opinion since. The only positive thing I can come up with to say about all this: the FBI will always be a bellwether, a handy way of evaluating the state of the nation. As long as the agency still exists, the US government will be out of all compliance with its Constitution—a tyrannous affront to liberty, the rule of law, and the Founding principles it has betrayed.

Update! More details on the Ruby Ridge atrocity can be found here.

Make it so

Posted on March 3, 2021March 3, 2021 by Mike

I love it.

Fence update: The Architect of the Capitol’s office says the razor wire is NOT coming down. They are replacing the current fencing with different anti-climb fencing, and then the razor wire will go back up on the new fences once those are in place, per @EleanorNorton office. https://t.co/oFILgPT728

— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) March 1, 2021

Good. There should be a fireteam in full battle-rattle on every DC streetcorner, loaded rifles kept at the low ready. Razor wire, Jersey barriers, and ten-foot security fencing as far as the eye can see. I want every federal orc in DC facing a Checkpoint Chickie every third block or so on his way to work, featuring full body-scans, thorough wandings and pat-downs, with random individuals also pulled aside for a public strip-search. There should be twice or thrice as many Cougars, Brads, and Dragoons to be seen prowling the streets as there are private vehicles, with all civilian vehicular traffic strictly prohibited within, say, half a mile of any USG facility.

No tourists, sightseers, looky-loos whatsoever allowed in Mordor OTP proper—in fact, no uncredentialed visitors of any kind, without having been most scrupulously vetted and investigated before permission is granted. Any person not wearing plainly-visible ID at all times authorizing their presence shall be considered an imminent threat, therefore subject to immediate arrest and indefinite detention without benefit of legal representation or communication with the outside world. Should a detainee be judged uncooperative or otherwise evince anything short of total submission to the authorities, he may be shot at the sole discretion of Imperial Defense Force personnel.

The scuttling insects whose insatiable craving for unchecked power drove them to the seat of federal tyranny should, at the very least, suffer non-trivial daily inconvenience and hassle as the price to be paid for their ill-gotten privilege. So let them pay it, then. With the disenfrachisement of fully half the population via the recent fraudulent election the Ruling Class, secure in its arrogance, audaciously removed the demos from democracy. The illegitimate junta ruling this land from Mordor OTP is, de facto, an Occupation Government. It by God ought to look like one, if only to prevent any misunderstandings. May every hapless Amerikan subject to the capricious cruelty of the Imperial Capital get a good, long look at exactly what kind of government they live under.

Let freedom ring

Posted on March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 by Mike

God bless the great Repubic of Texas. Now do Texit, ‘kay?

Gov. Abbott ends statewide mask mandate, Tyler-area leaders react to latest announcement
Following Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement on Tuesday afternoon, East Texans can choose if they want to wear a face mask beginning on March 10 once the statewide mandate is lifted.

“It is now time to open Texas 100%,” he said. “Every business that wants to be open should be open.”

Through Abbott’s Executive Order 34, most of his previous orders related to COVID-19 have been rescinded and all businesses may open back to 100%.
He said business owners can limit their capacity or implement additional safety measures at their own discretion.

After hearing of the changes, Tyler Mayor Don Warren said Tuesday he was surprised that the lifting of the order happened so rapidly. He plans to read over the order and evaluate its details.

While he’s “100% behind businesses being open,” Warren said it’s important to continue to be smart and safe.

Point: missed, by a fucking mile. What’s important is the restoration of American liberty to its rightful holders, after it was illegally stolen from them. It’s ever possible to justify tyrannical, un-Constitutional edicts in the first damned place, good intentions be damned. But it seems the lockdowns, fag-rags, and other panic-ninny accoutrements were actually counterproductive:

Jeffrey Tucker and his colleagues at the American Institute of Economic Research have been working overtime exposing both the horrific costs as well as the utter lack of any compensatory benefits of the economic carnage and spirit-crushing isolation that somehow became America’s go-to public health strategy against COVID-19 since this awful nightmare first began.

Today on Twitter, however, Tucker posted an image compiled by a businessman named Keith Anderson that couldn’t possibly better exemplify that old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words.

It’s a simple bar-graph of the total number of COVID-19 fatalities each U.S. state has reported as of February 24, in ascending order, which was posted this morning at the invaluable website, Lockdown Skeptics.

The average number of fatalities suffered by states that imposed lockdowns last spring vs those that didn’t is also represented. And one important piece of information here is that states which locked down wound up with more reported COVID-19 fatalities on average than states that remained free.

Average COVID-19 Fatalities per million as of February 24, 2021:
Lockdown States: 1558
Free States: 1475

Hence, the utter pointlessness of all the damage we caused to ourselves by defiling America’s founding commitment to individual liberty couldn’t possibly be more clear.

Somebody ought to refresh Mayor Warren’s faulty memory regarding the definitions of “smart” and “safe.” Because, according to those numbers, the FauxVid19 power-grab was neither one of those things. And, as science tells us, numbers don’t lie. Follow the science, dude. Elsewhere, a related question is posed:

They say everything is bigger in Texas, but everything is just better in Florida. I was lucky enough to snag a speaking invitation for this year’s CPAC and, eager to escape the lockdowns and wintry winds of DC, hopped on a plane to sunny and free Orlando, Florida.

Whereas refusing to wear a mask outdoors in DC is an act of resistance, in Florida it’s expected. Some businesses have their own indoor mask mandates, but they are often loosely enforced if at all. At first, mingling and schmoozing in a crowded bar without a mask felt naughty. By my second night in town, I reveled in the freedom. No flimsy piece of cloth would slow down my ability to slam old fashioneds and inhale jumbo shrimp.

New Yorkers love to express disgust and horror at videos of the pool parties and clubs in the south. They ignore the awkward truth that their own state and neighboring New Jersey have the highest COVID-19 death rates despite strict lockdown measures. Free Florida sits comfortably below average. I suspect the NY outrage at pina colada-sipping Sunshine Staters is more down to jealousy.

Not so, not so. Don’t listen to this crazy lady, y’all. Life is absolutely horrible down South. It’s hot, it’s humid, the food sucks, and there are guns everyplace you look. We talk funny. There’s no theater, art, or nightlife of any kind. In fact, all we have for entertainment ’round h’yar is humpin’ our cousins and draggin’ Nigras from the back of our clapped-out old pickemup trucks. What we DO have an overabundance of is cockroaches the size of small dogs; swarms of the most persistent mosquitos on the planet, all bearing exotic and incurable diseases; drawling waitresses too busy working a jawful of gum (or, Gawd help us, Skoal Wintergreen or even Red Man) to bother getting your order straight; and bearded, big-bellied yahoos walking around everyplace without their shirts on.

In January.

Lotta folks don’t realize it, but Deliverance was a documentary, not fiction. Tarpaper shacks and trailer parks are still a thing. If WalMart ain’t got it, you don’t need it noways. We’re all slackjawed white supremacists with a violent streak a mile wide here in Dixieland. And now, since we’re too stupid to take it seriously enough, we’re all gonna die of Covid.

Yep, you Yankees are definitely better off staying right where you’re at.

Trust me.

Talking turkey

Posted on March 1, 2021March 1, 2021 by Mike

Bless our esteemed chum Aesop’s coal-black heart, sez I. That boy still hasn’t learned to pull any punches, and seems commendably disinterested in trying to learn how.

I’ve posted links to military manuals any half-dozen times for a reason, dammit, and it isn’t nostalgia.

Most of you (95%, by all polling data, though the blog stats here may skew a wee bit higher) never got any closer to a military formation than lining up outside for phys ed classes in school. And that was great in a free country but not so much for a burgeoning banana republic, with all the trimmings, which is what we are, right this minute.

So let’s talk turkey:

There are three undeniable truths operating right now in America.

I. Elections are pointless, worthless, and futile.
If you didn’t get that memo despite what happened in November, and again in GA in January, sorry to break it to you, but it’s nevertheless gospel truth.

Anyone yakking about “We’ll get ’em next time!”, “Vote Harder!”, or any variation on “MOAR Elections!” is an unredeemed delusional jackass suffering a psychotic break from reality. They should be placed in a room in a quiet glen, featuring soft music, soft lighting, soft food, and soft walls. They’re fucking nuts. Don’t waste any further breath on them until they wake up, if ever.

TINVOWOOT: There Is No Voting Our Way Out Of This.

Learn it, Live it, Love it.

Should you still pull a lever ever again? Hell yes. Enjoy whatever simulacrum of freedom you can, and maximize the time and minimize the gradient of the decline, if such be within your power. Primary out RINOs. Use it as a weed-out for whom to ever listen to, and whom to discount, forever. And a platform to shitpost, meme, rabblerouse, and generally send raspberries at TPTB, while you can. But minimize the time, energy, and funds you spend waste on electoral activities going forward, knowing the entire process is as fake as TV News and pro wrestling.

The other two are just as undeniable as the first, and Aesop lays ’em down just as straightforwardly, unabashedly, and plainspokenly as he did Numero Uno, with nary a flinch to be discerned throughout. After that, a compendium of recommended next steps, the aggregate of which definitely meets all qualifications for what military types of yore used to refer to as a Real No-Shitter. It ought to be required reading for anyone given to A) hopeful and/or naive overconfidence; B) obstreperous blowhardery; or C) half-baked or downright ign’ernt online strategerizing. The kind of unsupported assumptions, egotism, and lack of either practicality or any acquaintance with harsh reality that occlude the vision of people like this has landed way more functional, stable societies than this one deep in the soup, way more than just once.

Ready for “pResident” Kumala?

Posted on February 28, 2021February 28, 2021 by Mike

Because ready or not, we’ve got her.

There have been a lot of questions about Joe Biden’s cognitive condition, him putting off doing any one on one presser with the media and him not doing the traditional address to the joint session of Congress that he himself said he would be doing this month.

Then came the reports that some Democrats didn’t want him to have the sole control of the nuclear codes.

On top of all that, people are now noticing the Kamala Harris is being asked to do things that would normally be the responsibility of Biden, such as talking on the phone with and meeting with foreign leaders.

Politico framed it as Biden trying to help her catch up in an area she doesn’t have a lot of experience in and wants to concentrate on as a specialty.

So Harris was involved in Biden’s meeting with the Canadians, Biden’s first bilateral meeting, something Biden himself didn’t get to do, according to Politico. Harris also called the director-general of the World Health Organization to talk about the Wuhan coronavirus response and she’s held solo calls with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron.

But some folks, like Sean Hannity, are looking at it more as helping Harris take over such responsibilities.

As deeply cynical an old rapscallion as I’ve come to be in recent years, even I’m on record as having figured they’d keep Cadaver Joe propped up until March or April—if only for the sake of keeping up appearances—before spiking his morning reanimator injection with cyanide and subsequently installing Willie’s Li’l Sidepiece on the throne of the Forever Junta. Gropey must be in even worse shape than was previously suspected, I guess. The shambolically-delicious Texas collapse suffered by Seatwarmer Joe ain’t something even the most mulishly delusional shitlib would be brazen enough to call confidence-inspiring. Not with a straight face, anyway.

"What am I doing here?"

This is a national embarrassment. Joe Biden is not mentally fit to lead our country.pic.twitter.com/qbVlCQLVQz

— Cassandra (@CassyWearsHeels) February 26, 2021

Yeesh. It’s not even arguable at this point that the Vegetable In Thief remains competent enough to organize a circle-jerk in a Tijuana whorehouse, assuming that he ever had been. Bonchie nutshells it:

There’s a reason his wife has to do joint interviews with him at an unheard-of rate. There’s a reason he wasn’t able to get down to Texas until the disaster was well over. There’s also a reason why a man who is ostensibly president hasn’t done a single press conference since taking office. Joe Biden does not appear to be well, and because of that, he isn’t showing an ability to execute even the nominal duties of his office. That’s become so painfully obvious that it’s not really funny anymore. It’s actually scary.

Scary? Naaaah, I think it’s hilarious. The genuinely scary thing is pondering the lengths to which the guys with their arms up the back of Faux Jaux’s shirt making his mouth move seem willing to go in order to keep this faltering Democracy Theater Productions™ shitshow staggering along…and what they have planned for their captive audience when the curtain finally drops, the actors trot offstage to huddle in their secure green-room cloisters, and the house lights come back up. One thing’s for sure: the cleanup crew is going to have their work cut out for them knocking the theater back into presentable shape again the morning after, because the venerable old place has been well and truly TRASHED.

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