Gangster Government

O Brave New World, that has such fascists in it!

Posted on April 17, 2020April 17, 2020 by Mike

Some folks are shocked and/or angry about CooCooCoomo’s pronouncement, but I think he’s more right than wrong here. Although probably for the worst possible reasons.

(CNSNews.com) – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo predicted “a new normal” when the state’s economy reopens – in the environment, economics, civil rights, and social justice.

“People are restless. We have to talk about the reopening of the economy. How do we do this? We have to build a bridge, from where we are to the reopening of the economy. Well, what does that look like?” he said during a press conference on Wednesday.

“Let’s say that where we’re going it’s not a reopening, in that we are going to reopen what was. We are going to a different place, and we should go to a different place, and we should go to a better place. If we don’t learn the lessons from this situation, that all of this will have been in vain,” Cuomo said.

“So we’re going to a different place, which is a new normal. We talk about the new normal. We’ve been talking about the new normal for years. We are going to have a new normal in public health. By the way, the way we have a new normal in an environment, the new normal in economics, a new normal in civil rights, a new normal and social justice, right? This is the way of the world now,” he said.

We are indeed going to find ourselves saddled with a “new normal” from here on out, pretty much no matter what anybody does. But it isn’t going to be a nice, happy place. Coomo’s statement, though, is one among several that puts the lie to recent Righty crowing about how the coronavirus panic has singlehandedly discredited so many cherished liberal tropes—globalism; densely-packed urban areas over surburbia; mass transit instead of private autos; open borders and unrestricted immigration; the desirability of big, intrusive government, etc—for good, thereby rendering them, shall we say, unsustainable.

Somebody should maybe tell the Left that, though, because from where I sit it sure looks like they fully intend to double down, rather than shamefacedly admitting the error of the Leftist Way and slinking off the national stage to rethink a few things, and current reality be damned. Interestingly enough, it seems some Leftard states are already making bold moves towards this New Normal.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced the Northeastern Directorate will keep all citizens within the region on lock-down through May 15, 2020, with a possible extension depending on an agreement within the Blue State alliance members.

Six other governors from within the Northeastern Directorate form the regional alliance.

Northeast states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Delaware have assembled an authoritarian alliance, without legislative approval and without legal precedent, to block any federal efforts to reopen the economy.

The Blue State leaders have determined it is in the best interests of the Northeastern citizenry for individual rights to be suspended under a post-constitutional framework. The government in this region will determine when the advancement of individual rights will be permitted and will set the parameters of permitted civic, social and economic engagement.

All citizens within the Northeastern Directorate are now captive to arbitrary rules on business ownership, property rights, contract terms, movement and assembly. Under the terms of a regional health emergency, as outlined by the command and control structure, currently citizens within the containment area are quarantined and not permitted to exit their homes, petition government or request redress for grievances.

But the Northeastern Directorate isn’t the only region to kinda-sorta declare its independence from the former Republic:

(Bloomberg Opinion) — California this week declared its independence from the federal government’s feeble efforts to fight Covid-19 — and perhaps from a bit more. The consequences for the fight against the pandemic are almost certainly positive. The implications for the brewing civil war between Trumpism and America’s budding 21st-century majority, embodied by California’s multiracial liberal electorate, are less clear.

Speaking on MSNBC, Governor Gavin Newsom said that he would use the bulk purchasing power of California “as a nation-state” to acquire the hospital supplies that the federal government has failed to provide. If all goes according to plan, Newsom said, California might even “export some of those supplies to states in need.”

“Nation-state.” “Export.”

Hey, fine by me, and don’t let the door etc. Feel free to take some of the other Democrat-Socialist shitholes like, say, Chicago, Portland, and Seattle along with ya when you go, too. We ask not your counsels or your arms. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

Above the fray

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 by Mike

Being “elite” means never having to say you’re sorry.

Take any contentious issue—travel bans, the advantages of masks, the Chinese compromising of WHO, the entire industry of grievance politics infecting criticism of China’s despicable behavior, delayed testing by the Centers for Disease Control and FDA, modeling, the efficacy of antimalarial drugs—and our elite seem unable to admit they were wrong, and wrong with a great deal of costly arrogance.

It is no exaggeration to say that most models that the best and brightest offered the public, from the imported Imperial College in London to those from the University of Washington and many more besides, were not just inaccurate, but quite mistaken in two tragic ways: First, they were accepted as gospel by governments and thus their flawed assumptions became the basis for policies that in many cases may prove counterproductive. Second, the modelers themselves either did not promptly correct their warped inputs, or were not completely forthcoming about their data and methodologies, or blamed their flawed assumptions on others or circumstances beyond imagination, or claimed that their mistakes were in fact salutary—if not sorta, kinda planned—in galvanizing a presumably infantile public to accept draconian measures that it otherwise would not.

I know a plumber and an electrician, both skilled in the pragmatic engineering of pipes and wires, who would not dare to think they could offer a model of plumbing or electrical prediction if they had no idea of the real size of the denominator and were likewise unsure that the numerator was widely accepted as accurate and clearly defined.

When California Governor Gavin Newsom warned that 25.5 million Californians “will” get the virus in the eight weeks following March 18, albeit without his shelter-in-place orders, he was also essentially stating that, at a then 2.6 percent lethality rate for Californians known to have the active virus, about 1 million would die. As I write, 24 days out from his prediction and nearing the half-way point to Doomsday, about 23,000 Californians have tested positive, and either are fighting the disease or have recovered. Since late January, about 650 of 40 million Californians have died from the disease, in a state where well over 700 people die from some cause every day.

If 10 times that number of known positive tests are now actively infected, we legitimately could assume at least 222,000 residents are now active or past carriers. Those who advised Newsom to shut down the world’s sixth-largest economy, including universities like Cal Tech, UC Berkeley, and Stanford, Silicon Valley, and the commerce and livelihoods of 40 million residents, apparently did not factor into their models some possible collective immunity among thousands of Californians who, for months, were on the front lines of arriving flights from China.

Nor did modelers seem to factor in the ability of people to social distance even before the shutdown was ordered, or the fact that a virus that does not kill 95.5 percent of those who are infected, but not frontline health workers or over 60 years old, may be deemed by the public manageable in a way that does not require having multigenerational small businesses ruined, or careers destroyed, or retirement savings accounts wrecked, or key appointments with doctors postponed or canceled.

Elite wisdom, which in its allegiance to the scientific method eventually is likely to find an antidote and vaccination against the virus, still fails us in so many other ways in which it should not, in part also because its high priests rarely face the consequences of their own ideological and scientific pronouncements.

Whatever the end result of this crisis, few at the WHO, CDC or the state health directors are going to lose their jobs in a way the small restaurateurs and Uber drivers most certainly will.

In their boundless “wisdom,” the Ruling Class “elites” seem determined to leave us with pitchforks, torches, and heads on pikes as our only possible recourse.

The Founders would have been shooting already

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Mike

ZMan takes a bike ride in the boonies and has himself way too much fun.

Maryland is one of those strange parts of the country where you can go from the land of suburbanite bug men to old time country living in a few miles. Get far enough away from Lagos itself and the state is quite beautiful, with an aesthetic that is unique. The state has always been a strange confluence of the surrounding regions.

I went over this weird little bridge and saw a couple of soyish looking guys standing by a car pulled over to the side of the road. I approached thinking they were having car trouble, but then I saw one of them was wearing a Reason T-shirt. I stopped and beat them. They knew why. Just in case I also said that Hans Herman-Hoppe spells his name wrong. I may have mentioned some unfortunate things about Ayn Rand’s personal life. You can never be too thorough with these types.

Heh. Stupid neo-hippies. Then we come to the more serious part.

Coming back to my bit of the world, I could not help but think about how easy everyone has gone along with the crackdown. Americans may say they don’t trust their politicians or the media, but in the end, they trusted them completely on this panic. You can be sure the politicians and media are both feeling bold right now, having seen tens of millions dutifully follow their commands. No matter what happens in the near term, the long-term cost of that will far outweigh the threat of the virus.

The empty parks and streets are a good reminder that civilization is people, not the stuff made by people. If a bunch of strangers moved into our empty towns right now, it would not be the same. Soon, they would transform the stuff to reflect their will. Right now, our civilization is full of people ready to cower under their bed when the people in charge come up with a decent ghost story. I half wonder if the people in charge are doing this just to see if there is any fight left in us.

All of this reminds me of a great Joe Sobran quote. “By today’s standards King George III was a very mild tyrant indeed. He taxed his American colonists at a rate of only pennies per annum. His actual impact on their personal lives was trivial. He had arbitrary power over them in law and in principle but in fact it was seldom exercised. If you compare his rule with that of today’s U.S. Government you have to wonder why we celebrate our independence.”

Some folks complain every July 4th about how “Independence Day” has come to mean little more than an excuse for a barbecue and a good drunk, but in our current disgraceful straits I think that’s a hell of a lot more appropriate than We The Sheeple patting themselves on the back and congratulating each other on how “free” they are.

Rain on the parade

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 by Mike

A splash of cold water on that slim hope I was talking about the other day.

Once again, it was goosebumps for diehards when investigative reporter John Solomon told Fox News host Sean Hannity that U.S. Attorney John Durham was issuing subpoenas on behalf of a grand jury. Twitter pulses raced. Former CIA Director John Brennan was closer than ever to a rockpile in prison stripes, wasn’t he? Comey, Ohr, Kramer, Simpson, Clinton were sweating bullets, right?

I will be jubilant if I’m wrong, but I continue to doubt it. I don’t expect the anti-Trump conspirators to be indicted and tried for sedition or treason or any other serious crime by Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice. Nothing we have seen to date points to it.

What should also temper expectations, however, is a hard look at history. When it comes to the Swamp’s subversion of the Republic, issuing subpoenas to bring witnesses before a grand jury means nothing more than issuing subpoenas to bring witnesses before a grand jury. Indictments, trials, and convictions have always been exceedingly rare.

Consider the grand jury convened in the spring of 1947 to hear sensational charges of subversion inside the federal government by Elizabeth Bentley, a key American defector from Soviet intelligence. Ex-KGB courier Bentley would offer testimony against numerous federal government officials, bureaucrats, and others from those early days of the Swamp in connection with espionage rings run inside the U.S. government by Soviet intelligence.

Although the names were completely unknown to the public at the time, the Bentley grand jury witness roster was, as Evans and Romerstein write, “a spectacular line-up, an all-star team of Soviet agents, Communists and close-in fellow travellers.”

As the list demonstrates, this was indeed a Who’s Who of traitors working for Stalin, for the KGB, for communism and globalism inside and around the federal government, including Soviet agents Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. These two top FDR administration officials were instrumental in the creation of the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, helming them both, respectively, in the globalist institutions’ early days.

The most stunning thing about the Bentley grand jury witness list, however, is that no one on it, not even the later-notorious Hiss or White, was indicted for anything.

Why were there no indictments? The reason is quite simple. The government failed to call a witness who could corroborate any of Bentley’s grave charges even though such a witness was already well known to it. That witness was Whittaker Chambers. His testimony about Hiss and White alone would have been crucial to the federal case. “Yet though the FBI was well aware of what Chambers knew and could have told the grand jury,” the authors write, “for over a year prosecutors refused to call him. Hence no second witness in the case—hence no indictments.”

Why didn’t prosecutors call Chambers? FBI records, Evans and Romerstein write, “provide a suggestive picture of attitudes at the Justice Department that guided the grand jury process.”

For example, federal prosecutor Thomas Donegan “was of the opinion Chambers testimony would not be helpful.” Helpful to what?

Oh, I’m pretty sure we can guess the answer to that one easily enough.

Given the FBI’s interview with Chambers to date, it would have been clear that Chambers’ testimony would have been exceedingly “helpful” in pursuit of indictments. Even after Chambers and Hiss sensationally battled in Congress in August of 1948, however, prosecutors refused to call “the former Soviet courier who would become the most famous witness in the Cold War.”

The record indicates that the Department of Justice did not want indictments.

I’m trying real hard to come up with a solid reason to believe that this time around might be different, but I’m coming up empty. Then as now as ever as always, the Deep State looks after its own.

The link I used above is to an archive.is snapshot of the original, which is locked away behind a paywall. As such, it may or may not work for ya, I dunno.

I. Just. Can’t. EVEN

Posted on April 13, 2020April 13, 2020 by Mike

Probably gonna want to sit down for this one, folks.

STUNNING! US Gave Wuhan Lab $3.7 Million Grant to Study Horseshoe Bats that Carry Coronavirus

Well, stunning IS one word for it, I suppose. I can think of a few others.

In late March FOX News host Tucker Carlson reported on a CHINESE study on the origin of the novel coronavirus.

The coronavirus came from either the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention or Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.

The study concluded the deadly virus came out of local laboratories in Hubei Province. The smoking gun in the study is the link to horseshoe bats which are not sold in local markets and not native to Wuhan. In fact the closest colony is 900 kilometers away. There is no evidence horseshoe bats were sold in the Wuhan wet markets. The local labs used this bat specimen and the virus came from a lab in Wuhan.

Reports linking bats to the coronavirus started making the rounds back in January. But a recent paper published in the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention found the source of the coronavirus is a laboratory near the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan.

But that’s not all.

And it isn’t. It really, really isn’t.

According to documents obtained by British media outlet Daily Mail, scientists there experimented on bats as part of a project funded by the US National Institutes of Health, which continues to licence the Wuhan laboratory to receive American money for experiments.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services responsible for biomedical and public health research.

US Congressman Matt Gaetz said, “I’m disgusted to learn that for years the US government has been funding dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute, which may have contributed to the global spread of coronavirus, and research at other labs in China that have virtually no oversight from US authorities.”

Well, disgusted IS one word for it, I suppose. I can think of a few others.

Curiouser and curioser

Posted on April 11, 2020April 11, 2020 by Mike

Unpossible, I say!

As of Wednesday (April 8), officials in eight remaining states have yet to issue full stay-at-home orders. Those states are Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. Officials in three other states — Alabama, Missouri, and South Carolina — only issued stay-at-home orders within the last few days after being resistant to enacting such a measure in the weeks prior.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that those states, due to their inaction, would reap the consequences in the form of higher COVID-19 death toll projections. But that has not been the case.

According to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which tracks the coronavirus outbreak in each individual state, predicting its death toll and hospital resource usage, all but one of the states in question have downgraded their death toll projections.

In addition to downgraded death toll projections, the states also saw significant downgrades for their projected hospital resource use, which include intensive care unit beds and ventilators.

The data doesn’t suggest that social distancing as a whole is worthless, or that it isn’t having any effect. But it does raise the question of whether every single state and locality needs to institute the same exact stay-at-home-on-government-orders regime. Many commentators have suggested that such measures might well be necessary in some places, but not necessary in others. The fact that both hospital usage and fatality projections are going down even in states without stay-at-home orders indicates that these people might be right.

I’d say so, yeah. But YMMV—particularly if you’re a Democrat-Socialist apparatchik looking to take advantage of widespread panic to advance your eternal agenda of glomming more power and control while you have the chance. Julie Kelly suggests that it might be time to shitcan the scare-mongers.

Those alarming forecasts were based on a model produced by the University of Washington late last month. Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, assembled a set of graphs to show how COVID-19 would overwhelm the country’s health care system, causing a shortage of hospital beds, intensive care units and ventilators.

Murray also originally calculated that 2,271 people would die on April 15, which would be the peak “death day” in the United States. But that wasn’t the only scary news. Sick people would by dying in the streets and entryways outside of hospitals across the country because no beds would be available.

The Murray model has been fully embraced by the president’s top two health advisors, Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci. The pair presented the doomsday model to President Trump on March 28, which prompted his decision to extend the CDC “social distancing” guidelines until the end of this month. (It bears repeating that the Murray model factored in “full social distancing” such as the shutdown of schools and nonessential businesses as well as stay-at-home orders through the end of May.)

Birx and Fauci also presented Murray’s charts to the White House press corps on March 31. Birx, relying on the model’s most extreme range of total fatalities, warned that upwards of 240,000 people would die of coronavirus in the United States by the beginning of August. The next two weeks, Birx admonished at the time, would be particularly painful. “As sobering as that number is, we need to be prepared for it,” Fauci told the socially distanced reporters in the briefing room. “Is it going to be that much? I hope not.”

But this week’s Pearl Harbor and 9/11 didn’t happen. Widespread death and devastation couldn’t be found.

Aside from two states, the rest of the country escaped terrorist-attack level fatalities this week. Between April 4 and April 9, a little more than 8,000 people in the country reportedly died from COVID-19; more than half of the fatalities occurred in New York and New Jersey. A tragedy no doubt, but certainly not the “hardest and saddest week” for most Americans, as Adams warned.

Only one other state—Michigan—has more than 1,000 recorded deaths so far. Populous states such as California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas have fewer than 500 fatalities. Many states are still in the double-digit range.

Further, the Murray model has been revised dramatically since its publication. An April 2 update predicted more than 93,000 total deaths by August; the April 5 update revised that figure downward to about 82,000. The total number of hospital beds needed dropped drastically between the two updates, from 262,092 beds to 140,823 beds. Predicted demand for ICUs dropped by about 10,000; ventilator demand dropped by nearly 12,000. Some of the model’s state-by-state projections also changed.

Beds and ICUs are aplenty across the country. There are so many ventilators available that we will now supply the machines to other countries in need.

Rather than admit the inherent flaws in the Murray model and confess the doomsday scenarios were completely unwarranted, Fauci, Birx, and Adams are stepping up their demands to keep the country under house arrest while the once-vibrant U.S. economy dives into Depression-era territory.

Curious indeed. Why, it’s almost as if there might be a different agenda at work here than the one they’ve been shrieking about. As if—I dunno, it’s such a crazy, out-there idea I really hate to even think it—as if goobermint bureau-rats and “experts” might possibly be ass-covering, incompetent liars or something.

Ohnononono, that’s just ridiculous. Sorry I mentioned it, folks. Go home, stay home, wait for further instructions from the proper authorities. That is all.

Update! Heard this great old tune on the radio earlier, and it seemed particularly appropriate for a Saturday night house-arrest music selection.

Killed by the cure

Posted on April 11, 2020April 11, 2020 by Mike

So how’s everybody liking their 30-day free trial of Communism?

Over the course of the Coronavirus pandemic and societal shut down (the communist trial run) it should be understood by those communists cheering on the lockdown of humanity and the destruction of the market system, the person most likely to be designated as the new Tsar of America is Donald Trump, someone capable of running a multi-trillion dollar economy, who understands production better than Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, James Comey or whatever communist cut out Washington has to offer.

If we are to be forced into a “climate saving” lockdown and re-tooling of the American economy, of which this fake pandemic is pretext and having seen the American patriots and their terror-filled responses to all other machinations of communist principles overlaid on their capitalist system, then the outcome is already known. So, since communism seems to be undeniable, largely because through the dilution of the American educational system, the slow progression of communist government displacing capitalist government, we ought to at least focus ourselves on determining our tyrant.

I am all for a mass march on Washington to demand capitalism and a release from self-imposed captivity. I am all in on a state by state effort toward the same goal, release, freedom, liberty, etc., but none of my fellow citizens seem to think it is such a situation and even if it is, it is much too dangerous to group ourselves together in such a manner as we might further enrage the communists in charge (as they have proven over the past few weeks that in fact they are) of our lives, our liberty and our persons to the degree that they can fine and imprison us for exerting our individual right of movement and commerce.

Understand the situation we are in. If any Democrat is elected president, this will be the model for fighting climate change. I finally heard this understanding of the situation broached on talk radio. Finally, someone understood that after we had gone this far, any health issue might be used as an excuse to thus confine us. My thoughts went to the amount of lives that could be saved by keeping the majority of us off the roads, except by the communist practice of “travel permits” allowing us to go to work at pre-determined and acceptable jobs or for specific purposes only, but the idea of combating climate change is equally useful to those wishing to impose communism on America.

And if you’re telling yourself “it can’t happen here,” you’re a damned fool.

TL also has a post up on the release of his Lies Of Omission doc, which you can stream for free if you have Amazon Prime. And, of course, you can still donate to the fundraiser for the Belmont Playboys doc if you’re so inclined, too.

Update! I for one welcome our new Green overlords.

Last month, we were wondering whether the cure could be worse than the disease; this month, it seems clear that the cure and the disease were always the same thing. Rely on Chinese communists to produce your medicines and fill your supply lines with breakable crap, and this is what happens. Rely on globalist socialist flimflammers to remedy the situation with “calm expertise,” and they will instead send in an army of anti-American boffins to complain, arrest fathers playing catch with their daughters, and find ways to blame the whole out-of-control exercise in petit-tyranny on Christians and Southerners. For the first time since the James Younger Gang was roaming these parts, grown men are walking around with bandanas covering their faces, but their eyes are telling a whole other story. There’s only so much despotism that free people will endure, and if the price for life is the surrender of everything that makes life worth living, then those bandanas begin to feel like something else entirely. If all these municipal Napoleons-in-aspiration getting fitted for shiny hobnailed jackboots right now can’t control their shared impulse to rule over other men, then these bandanas might become a more permanent fixture. If there’s one thing Americans have always understood, it’s this: where speech and religion and personal defense are all outlawed, be an outlaw.

I, for one, welcome this grand display of government intrusion from coast to coast. Unlike the invisible Chinese virus hunting us surreptitiously, this overbearing application of government force is right out in the open for all to see. The more unscrupulous Democrat mayors openly brag about shutting down private businesses, banning gun ownership, and ripping congregants from church pews. They’re closing every house of worship in sight until their constituents learn to supplicate at the steps of City Hall and nowhere else! Democrats are always gravely warning about creeping fascism from others, but they insist we ignore the rank smell of authoritarianism emanating from their every local executive order. Lone drivers are pulled over for no other reason than to remind the riffraff that they are powerless before their local lords; neighbors are enticed by official favor and bounty to snitch on isolated joggers running through their streets; married nonagenarians are forcibly separated “for their own good.” Only the Democrats could follow the examples of Boko Haram and the Chinese Communist Party in taking advantage of human misery for their own gain. There is no need to imagine the historical totalitarianism of the ’30s and ’40s when it is now bursting forth before us with a vulture’s plumage for all to see. And for that, I am thankful.

Well, now that we’re getting an awful peek behind the socialists’ GND curtain with this partial shutdown of the economy. Does it feel as if the American people are jumping up and down with excitement that “revolutionary change” on an “epic scale” has finally begun? Does it seem as if we’re “committed” to this path? Millions of Americans out of work. GDP contraction. Stock market and retirement savings up in smoke. A Constitution left in tatters. All to decrease electricity usage in the United States by five to ten percent and slash the demand for gasoline in half. If this is what it feels like to destroy capitalism and usher in a new era of universal misery, please stop teasing me with the amuse-bouche of collapsing just part of the economy. I can hardly wait until we are allowed to indulge ourselves with the gluttonous feast of shutting down the whole thing. What a world Biden has promised us! It is as one anti-fracking Greenie declared online: “We now see the ‘glorious vision’ of a world free of fossil fuels.” Except the Green New Deal requires twenty times the effort and sacrifice and many more orders of magnitude in national debt to finally free ourselves of the dastardly hydrocarbons they abhor. Imagine the bliss we will discover from our future of permanent social lockdown. Thank goodness China Joe and the Green tyrants have such grand vision to go with their good intentions. We can save the planet by destroying ourselves over and over again!

Or maybe enough Americans will find this depressing glimpse into the future the Democrats promise us more than enough for one lifetime. Perhaps America will wake up to the reality that the Green New Deal and the Chinese virus share an identical life force. Maybe we won’t have to fight the war to come because enough of the great-grandchildren of the last generation to fight state-sponsored evil will finally recognize the Democrats’ counterfeit promises of unobtainable perfection here on Earth. Either way, at least we can finally see for ourselves what the Democrats have in mind. This miserable police state is the only future they desire.

It was always that way. It was always obvious too, for anyone with eyes to see, although it’s true that they’ve been more up-front and brazen than ever before with this Chink-N-Pox shinola. Yet half the electorate votes for them nonetheless. Again:

There’s the REAL problem.

Priorities

Posted on April 11, 2020April 11, 2020 by Mike

Ted Cruz lays ’em out, in another of his trademark bursts of unleavened awesomeness.

The Ayatollah leads chants of “death to America.” He pledges to destroy America, which he calls “the Great Satan.” And Senate Dems want to send him millions??? At the EXACT SAME TIME, Senate Dems are blocking desperately need relief to small businesses in America. ? #Priorities https://t.co/o44wqG9bOm

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 10, 2020

Backstory:

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz unloaded on his Democratic colleagues on Friday in response to Sen. Dianne Feinstein sending a letter to President Trump declaring that she is “disappointed” in his administration’s plan to block funding to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. The Democrats’ demand of Trump to help Iran get $5 billion in aid, Cruz noted, comes “at the exact same time” that they are “blocking desperately need relief to small businesses in America.”

“The coronavirus has hit Iran hard, with the potential for even greater spread in the region,” the high-ranking Democratic senator tweeted Thursday along with a copy of her letter. “In the interest of international security, President Trump should support Iran’s request to the IMF for emergency funds to contain this virus.”

“I am disappointed to see reports that your administration intends to block Iran from receiving $5 billion in humanitarian aid from the IMF to combat the coronavirus pandemic,” the letter begins. “Providing these funds to Iran would help it respond more effectively to the disease and mitigate the risk of further destabilization in the region.” She goes on to urge Trump to reconsider so that the infamously tyrannical regime can receive the billions in aid from the IMF.

Feinstein’s letter was issued the same day that Senate Democrats blocked an urgent request from Sec. Mnuchin to increase the amount of cash in the emergency small business loan program recently established by Congress from $350 billion to $600 billion.

As the New York Post’s editorial board explains, instead of agreeing to the desperately needed increase in cash on Thursday, the Democrats “issued partisan demands”: “They insisted the new money include $60 billion for ‘community-based lenders’ that serve minorities, women, nonprofits and other groups. And the bill also had to OK an immediate $250 billion for cities, states, hospitals, food stamps and other needs.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) explained in response that “everything is an opportunity.” This was an “opportunity” to address “disparities” she suggested are plaguing the country.

“And if they don’t get their way, no one gets a dime more,” the Post’s editorial board noted. “Never mind that businesses face bankruptcy or that 17 million people filed for jobless benefits in recent weeks.”

Now, if you’re a Real American and not a despicable Commie toe-rag, you’d read that last sentence just as it is. But Pelosi and her fellow Democrat-Socialists see something more like this:

Never mind that evil capitalist running-dog exploiters face social justice or that 17 million people are now permanent wards of the State and reliably dependent Democrat-Socialist voters.

See? Easy peasy. As Cruz says, it’s all a matter of perspective.

Willingly to the slaughter

Posted on April 11, 2020April 11, 2020 by Mike

When we decide to hang the Americans, they will sell us the rope.

Comrades, the ministry of coronavirus compliance is making it easy to be a good state citizen. If you spot a non-compliant citizen participating in life without adhering to the dictates of the state, there’s now mobile APP’s for quick snitching.

Comrade citizens are now able to take a picture of the non-compliant behavior (citizen spotted outdoors, not wearing a mask, unauthorized gatherings etc), upload the picture to the state ministry, and the state compliance division will dispatch local enforcement teams to correct the non-compliant behavior, or remove the citizen.

Elsewhere, Sundance provides a quick rundown of another tyrannical decree:

In the latest round of edicts from the Michigan Ministry of Coronavirus Compliance, Governor Getchen Whitmer extends the citizen home arrests through the end of the month. Additionally forbidding any travel between state residences.

Subversive citizens, acting against the interests of the state, will be captured and fined.

Additionally, the state-defined list of approved “non-essential” products is further restrained to forbid the purchase of any home gardening, private food growing or other subversive and regulated activities.

However, Michigan citizens may purchase Lotto tickets as they are deemed essential to the state ministry of compliance monitoring.

The first-term democrat dictator issued a new order that continues to require residents to stay under home confinement unless they seek to: engage in approved forms of isolated exercise; travel for a job essential to the administration of the state; care for a loved one (as defined by the state which does not include contact with a person to whom you do not have a direct familial relationship as defined by legal connection); or pick up pre-approved “necessary” supplies including approved/regulated food products and/or medicine.

COMRADES! Think it might be a good idea, in light of the Great(er) Depression despotic governors, mayors, and city managers have now made inevitable with the over-reaction to the over-ballyhooed Chink-N-Pox “crisis,” to maybe plant yourself a garden so as to keep your family from going hungry? Better rethink that.

Crazed Democrat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer prohibited big box retailers from in-person sale of seeds because according to her, food is non-essential.

Whitmer also called on Home Depot and Lowes to shut down to close certain sections like flooring, garden centers and plant nurseries.

In the immortal words of another pissant dimestore dictator:

Kommissar Whitmer says you can eat cake, Michiganders. But hey, you voted for her, you got her, now you get to enjoy her.

Update! Welcome signs of a backlash against Kommissar Whitmerova.

A Change.org petition demanding the recall of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) went viral on Saturday, quickly shooting well past 80,000 signatures.

The online petition had about 60,000 names in the morning and, by the afternoon, had surpassed 80,000.

Just one small caveat:

Legally, the petition is meaningless, but it may indicate an appetite on the part of some Michiganders to remove their governor.

Oh well, back to the good old stout-rope-and-a-hanging-tree option it must be, then. That one is most definitely NOT “meaningless.”

“Michigan’s typical small business owners obey laws, but they may not notice the progressive agenda being pushed by our radical leftist Governor Whitmer,” said Rosanne Ponkowski, president of the Michigan Conservative Coalition.

“Dope shops are open, while cigar shops are closed.”

Dope smokers matter. Cigar smokers don’t. Beginning to get it now?

National disgrace

Posted on April 11, 2020April 11, 2020 by Mike

Weird Dave goes the fuck OFF.

People, what the fuck are we doing? More to the point, what the fuck are we allowing to be done to us? Why in the hell are we putting up with this police state that is being imposed upon us in the name of “saving lives”?

Look, I expect lefties to take advantage of any crisis, real or imagined, to grab more power and control. That’s what they do. That’s their bag. I mean, this is deep blue Philadelphia.

He mentions Philadelphia in the context of the implementation there of something called the “Anti-COVID-19 drone task force,” and large teams of Philly cops now bodily removing anyone not wearing a mask from mass-transit buses and trains.

No, really, it’s true. There’s video. Onwards.

And Colorado? Well, the state is suffering from an infestation of Californians, so it’s at best purple. These things happen. Dad handcuffed and led away by cops in front of 6-year-old daughter for violating social distancing. They were playing tee ball at a park. And Virginia is suffering from the same infestation from NOVA and Gov. Blackface. Police fine VA church $2,500 for holding service with 16 people spaced far apart

Still, we can rely on red states to show a little more fealty to the Constitution, right? States like…Kentucky? Kentucky to record license plates of those attending services this weekend and require them to quarantine for 14 days.

or…Mississippi? States don’t get much redder than Mississippi. Mississippi churchgoers fined $500 while attending drive-in service

Funny how it seems to only be Christians who are being hauled off, fined, and/or generally harrassed for attending church services, even if they’re observing the rules and have been extremely careful to cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Why, it begins to appear as if the whole point might be something other than merely limiting the spread of the murderous, planet-depopulating Chink-N-Pox, don’t it?

Apologies, by the way, for daring to insult Red China with that outrageous racist slur. Because along with being Christian and attending worship services, daring to imply any connection between the NothingtodowithChinavirus and…uhhh…Voldemort Nation is one of those things you Just Don’t Do here in the land of the “free” and home of the “brave.”

Next up, a now-depressing Reagan quote.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
― Ronald Reagan

This thread wanders into conspiracy theory territory, but woven in there is a good point about the bulwark of liberty that is the 2A. We say that being armed will protect our liberties, but look at just how many of them we have surrendered voluntarily. We’re still armed. To the teeth. And yet our liberties are being taken one by one, and all we do is schedule some range time while muttering Molon Labe.

As the guy says in the Twitter thread Dave links, “We’ll be the first dictatorship with an armed population.” Begins to look that way, sure enough. Conspiracy theorizing or not, there’s some good stuff therein, however bitter the taste, and it’s well worth a look. Dave closes his rant out with this:

Is this something?

Posted on April 10, 2020April 11, 2020 by Mike

I remain skeptical, but my skepticism felt a mite woozy for a sec just now.

AND I LOVE IT.

Laura Ingraham broadcasts the second part of her interview with AG Bill Barr (majority transcribed below). In this segment we can get a sense of where the DOJ is going with the ongoing investigations by U.S. Attorney John Durham into spygate and the current status of FISA against the backdrop of the prior administration abuse.

BARR – “I think the president did the right thing in removing Atkinson. From the vantage point of the Dept. of Justice, he had interpreted his statute; which is a fairly narrow statute that gave him jurisdiction over wrong-doing by intelligence people; and tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government, and immediately report it to congress without letting the executive branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem. He was told this in a letter from the department of justice, and he is obliged to follow the interpretation of the department of justice, and he ignored it. So I think the President was correct in firing him.”

INGRAHAM – What can you tell us about the state of John Durham’s investigation? People have been waiting for the, the final report, on what happened with this, what can you tell us?

BARR – “Well I think a report y’know, may be, and probably will be, a by-product of his activity; but his primary focus isn’t to prepare a report, he is looking to bring to justice people who were engaged in abuses if he can show that there were criminal violations; and that’s what the focus is on. And, uh, as you know, being a lawyer yourself, building these cases, especially the sprawling case we have between us that went on for two or three years here, uh…, it takes some time, it takes some time to build the case.”

“So he’s diligently pursuing it, uh.. My own view is that, uh, the evidence shows that we’re not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness, there was something far more troubling here; and we’re going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law, and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted.”

INGRAHAM – “The president is very frustrated, I think you, you obviously know that; about Andrew McCabe, uh, he believes that people like McCabe and others just were able to basically flout the laws, and so far with impunity.”

BARR – “I think the president has every right to be frustrated, because I think what happened to him was one of the greatest travesties in American history. Without any basis uh, they, uh, they started this investigation of his campaign; and even more concerning actually, is what happened after the campaign; a whole pattern of events while he was President. uh, So I, to sabotage the presidency; and I think that, uh, or at least had the effect of sabotaging the presidency.”

As I said, I remain skeptical, and will hold to my previous assertions that my faith that justice might be served will only be restored by seeing higher-level Deep State weasels frogmarched off for a stint in the greybar hotel wearing those pretty chrome bracelets with the short chain connecting them around their wrists, helped along on their journey by a close-packed phalanx of burly, unsmiling gentlemen in dark suits and sunglasses.

Admittedly, though, Barr made all the right noises in this interview, and he has been all along. Maybe it’s all just some sort of bait-and-switch, hide-the-sausage connivance or something, a ploy to keep stringing us all along for a while longer. But those are some pretty strong words, the parts I boldfaced especially, and they’re enough to keep hope a-flickering even yet. We’ll see, I guess.

Update! More support for cautious optimism.

First of all, it seems apparent that the Durham investigation has completed most of its evidence gathering–whether documentary or through interviews. That doesn’t mean the investigation is finished. There is also the question of putting together a prosecutive case, and that will probably involve complicated negotiations with the lawyers for the persons being investigated. That, in turn, could lead to further substantive investigation. But the bottom line is that at this point Barr appears confident that he knows what happened and, most likely, who was behind it. As Barr says, this is a “sprawling” case.

Second, Barr several times refers to things that “they” did. Not things that “were done.” So, multiple human perpetrators. That points toward the strong likelihood that a conspiracy case is being pursued that will encompass an attempt to “sabotage the presidency.” As Barr says, this is a “sprawling” case. And this case is very much focused on developing a criminal prosecution of the conspirators.

Third, Barr says that, while Durham’s “primary focus” is not on preparing a report, a report will “probably” result from Durham’s investigation. That’s important. IMO, the American people deserve a report that lays out the narrative of how a group of highly placed federal government operatives conspired to “sabotage the presidency.” Such a report would be unusual coming from a prosecutor, but this is an unusual case that goes to the heart of our constitutional order. The American people deserve to have a report that they can read and readily understand, rather than having to glean the narrative from complicated testimony, court proceedings, and documents written in bureacratic language and, possibly, released without full context. The release of the Papadopoulos interview is a down payment, as are no doubt the firings of corrupt Deep State operatives such as Dan Coats, Michael Atkinson, and others.

We can but hope. And then, should our hope prove vain, we can but head to Mordor On The Potomac en masse with pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers, and plenty of good, stout rope.

Without a shot

Posted on April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 by Mike

When it comes to government, always assume the worst.

Back in 1913, if you had predicted the brand new Federal Reserve would steadily debase the currency and exacerbate rather than dampen the business cycle, you were dead right. You would have gotten more points if you predicted its creation was the first step towards abandoning the gold standard and that it would eventually finance government deficits.

Similarly, back in that unlucky year if you predicted the new Constitutional amendment allowing the government to levy an income tax would lead to massive confiscation of incomes and fund gargantuan welfare and warfare states—the blob—you hit it on the screws.

Later, if you predicted that the New Deal wouldn’t reverse the economic contraction that the government had already transformed from a garden variety financial crash and recession into a Great Depression, you were right again. More points for those who foresaw both the abandonment of any effective Constitutional constraints on the federal government, and the fiscal consequence of welfare state collectivism—a spiraling and uncontrollable national debt.

Fast forward to the aftermath of September 11, 2001: if you said that when the US went into the Middle East it would never get out, that “emergency” measures like TSA screening and the Patriot Act would never be rescinded and clearly advanced a police state agenda, and that the George W. Bush administration’s new standard of fiscal and monetary recklessness would soon be surpassed, you were right again.

Fast forward to now. If you predict that governments’ response to the coronavirus outbreak will reveal not so hidden agendas of globalist power and domination (Why do you think they keep saying, “The world will never go back to the way it was”?), terminate the last vestiges of freedom, destroy the economy and financial markets, kill far more people than the virus itself, and set precedents for everything from enforced confinement to martial law to mandatory vaccinations to electronic money to compelled microchipped identification and surveillance whenever a group of experts makes scary projections about lethal microbes—which from now on will be almost always—you’re well on your way to being proved right on all counts.

Anyone who thinks that “emergency” measures will be rescinded or will not serve as future precedents is referred to Draconian Emergency Measures Enacted By Governments Throughout History That Have Been Rescinded and Not Served as Precedents. It’s available for free on Amazon and takes only four seconds to read; the title is longer than the book.

Perhaps the most distressing aspect of this whole ordeal is that Americans have surrendered to panic and propaganda without a shot. Molon labe and They’ll take my gun when they pry it from my cold, lifeless fingers patriots—bumper-sticker freedom fighters—are cowering in place, living off their 3, 6, 12, 24, or 60 months of provisions, lest they encounter a germ. Neighbors are reporting on neighbors who leave their houses, take a walk, clear their throats, or other heretofore legal activities (they would still be legal if the Constitution had any remaining relevance). Apps have been developed to monitor and report people’s locations, coughs, sneezes, sniffles, and runny noses. Can one that monitors and reports social distances be far behind? If only one life is saved…

With a few noteworthy exceptions (lewrockwell.com takes the gold medal), the alternative media has been a disappointment. Bloggers who would normally cast darkly skeptical doubts if the government announced the sun will rise tomorrow have accepted official statistics, projections, propaganda, and draconian measures without a peep of skepticism or doubt.

That’s what baffles and irritates me. If there’s anything we’ve known for years—hell, decades—now, it’s that Enemedia, professional politicians, and Deep State bureauweasels are all outrageous, audacious liars. As my grandma used to say, they’re the kind of people who would much rather climb a tree and tell you a lie than stand on the ground and tell you the truth. We also know full well that they’re utterly incompetent, entirely out of touch with how life is actually lived by ordinary Joe Lunchbox-types, and just generally bass-ackwards ign’ernt about so many of the topics they are nevertheless arrogant enough to pontificate at their presumed inferiors about, at wearisome length.

Then all of a sudden a panic is manufactured out of: A) wildly inflated statistics and projections; B) unreliable, incomplete, and/or contradictory information; and C) completely worthless computer modeling…and that inspires a dismaying number of erstwhile skeptics to shed their hard-shell cynicism about politicians, government, and media—cynicism which has been proven eminently justified over and over again—to join the hysterics in a frenzied stampede to the waiting boxcars? To re-embrace the old naive faith in The Powers That Be they remember from childhood and meekly hand over the last battered, tattered shreds of their liberty without demur? To unquestioningly “Go Home, Stay Home” merely because that’s what Big Daddy told ’em to do?

I dunno, does this fail to compute for anybody out there besides me?

The iron curtain descends

Posted on April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 by Mike

Soooo, how’s everybody liking their shiny new Police State, eh?

On Saturday, police in Kansas City “intervened” to shut down a parade of elementary school teachers. The staff of John Fiske Elementary School decided to organize the parade as a way to boost the morale of their students and encourage them in their new distance learning adventure. All of the teachers and administrators were in their own cars. There was literally no chance whatsoever of any virus being transmitted from car to car. But a spokeswoman for the police later explained, after the elicit gathering was descended upon by law enforcement, that the celebration of learning was not “necessary” or “essential.”

Two days before the Kansas City community was saved from the threat of cheerful elementary school teachers waving to children from their sedans, police in Malibu arrested a man who was caught paddle boarding in the ocean. Two boats and three additional deputies in vehicles were called to the scene of the non-essential joyride. How could a man out by himself in the Pacific possibly contract or spread the coronavirus? Nobody knows. But orders are orders, after all. And so the man was pulled out of the ocean and hauled away in handcuffs.

Uh huh. Kinda makes one wonder how well those all-important “social distancing” rules were maintained in that patrol car, as well as at the jailhouse. Best not to think too much about that stuff, I suppose.

Officials in other parts of the nation have banned essential retailers from selling non-essential items like mosquito repellent. I suppose the prevention of West Nile and malaria are no longer considered essential. The mayor of Port Isabel, Texas, has decided, for whatever reason, that residents may not travel with more than two people in their vehicles. What if you’re a single parent with two kids? Well, sorry, one of your kids is out of luck. It’s not clear how this rule will be enforced, but some states have made that easier on themselves by setting up checkpoints to stop and question every car that passes through. A driver from New York who gets caught in Florida might face 60 days in jail. I should stop here to remind you that Florida and New York are places in the United States of America, not Soviet Russia.

Sorry, Matt, but that’s become a very difficult proposition to support of late. A distinction without a difference, one might say.

Apologists for our newly established police state will tell me that states and localities have the authority to impose restrictions in an emergency. That is true, but the question of how far their authority actually goes is complicated, and in this case made even more complicated by the fact that these stay-at-home orders, in many cases, are based not on a current medical emergency in the respective state, but on models that forecast the possibility of an emergency in the future. For example, Minnesota is under a stay-at-home order despite having only 29 coronavirus deaths among a population of over 5 million. Perhaps the situation will get worse. Perhaps not. The point is that there is no current emergency in Minnesota or many of the other states currently under lockdown. There is, rather, a model that projects an emergency. And if projected emergencies can justify the effective nullification of the Bill of Rights, where is the limit? Haven’t we now granted the government the power to seize near-total control on the basis of any real or phantom threat?

I would argue that nothing could ever justify such a thing. Indeed, the First and Fourth Amendments — the provisions of the Bill of Rights that seem to be having the worst time of it, recently — serve no purpose and have no reason to exist if they can be canceled or overridden whenever the government might have a specially compelling reason to do so. It is only when the government has a specially compelling reason to violate the amendments that the amendments have any function. After all, we really don’t need them during the times that the government has no interest in infringing on them. It seems that if we toss aside our right to assembly, our right to practice our religion, our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, etc., whenever the government insists that such protections are hazardous to our health, then we might as well not have the rights in the first place. It’s like locking a criminal in a cell but giving him the key to open it along with a stern warning to only use the key if he has a very good reason. Doesn’t the key make the cell a rather pointless accessory? Sure he might remain in it sometimes, but only when he wants to. And it’s precisely when he wants to be behind bars that you don’t need the bars at all.

Funniest thing about it might be that, while we were all keeping a wary eye on FederalGovCo in expectation of the Big Clampdown being launched from Mordor On The Potomac, it turned out to be the states and localities who were the true threat.

But do tell me again all about how the government “fears” an armed populace, as is appropriate and right; that most cops will resist enforcing blatantly unconstitutional edicts; that the 2A is enough all by itself to protect our “unalienable” rights; that all those eleventy bajillion guns out there (kept unloaded and securely locked away as the law requires, of course) will somehow keep us “free” just by their very existence. As bedtime fairytales go, that one’s my favorite.

What we’ve learned

Posted on April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 by Mike

Another fine missive from Skeptic. A lot of this echoes things I’ve said here many times in my darker moments, so it should all seem familiar to you by now.

First – we are learning that, despite the prattlings of hammerheads like Wittle Benny Shapiro and Hannity, we are not in fact “a nation of laws.” We are a nation of MEN – and at the moment, we are a nation whose elected officials are avaricious, tyrannical men. What is being done right now – the quarantines, the lockdowns – are plainly unconstitutional. The phrase “except for” appears nowhere in the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights. So, by whose authority do these mayors and governors acquire the power to lock down their domains? Why, by their own – they are signing their own executive orders giving them that power! Isn’t that convenient?

We have learned that the American people will, in fact, submit meekly. After all the talk about 70 million gun owners, nary a single shot has been fired. Screw the shots – in the country that has half of the world’s lawyers, not one lawyer has filed a lawsuit or filed for an injunction. We are reduced to debating the “when” of when they will deign to allow us to live a normal life again, rather than rising up and proclaiming, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” We have accepted that they CAN – and we are begging them NOT to. They have taken power that would make Stalin blush and we have said, “yes, sir.”

One of the most chilling aspects of all this has been seeing how very many “Americans” are out there clamoring for even more of it.

For all of those little tyrants, there’s no incentive to open back up. They get to do what they always wanted to do – push people around. They continue to get paid; they are spectators to the economic devastation, not participants. And there will be no pushback from the voters because they get to say they Did Something.

We have learned that – again – our President has precious little control. Trump has, in fact, screwed himself on this thing. Even if Trump were to proclaim that the country will “open up” on, say, April 15, he will simply be disregarded by the governors and mayors, who insist that “their” lockdown must be longer because reasons. The only thing Trump would do is the thing he won’t – demand that the Constitution be returned to full effect, and enforce that using the National Guard if necessary.

We have learned that our side (those discontented with the lockdowns) refuses to engage in civil disobedience. There are no rallies, no protests. We sit at home, making sure not to be around 10 people.

We have learned that a majority of “the people” will seize on the stampeding of civil liberties not as an opportunity to stand up for themselves, but instead to scold others who do stand up, and to virtue-signal with the various “stay home” memes. In fact, the divide seems to be between “getting paid and scolding everyone else” and “unpaid and pissed off.”

We have learned that there will be no consequences to China. Even with what amounts to a WMD attack on the United States, there is a vocal minority (majority?) who will proclaim any anti-China conversation as “racist.”

This is perhaps the thing I find most disgusting of all. By allowing our elites to relocate all American industry to China, combined with Clinton’s ill-advised flip-flop to grant the ChiComs MFN trade status, we weakened our position and limited our options in our dealings with Red China to basically just one: sit back, suck on it, and learn to like the taste.

China is neither a friend nor a trustworthy partner. It is a backwards, primitive dictatorship run by a council of wholly evil megalomaniacs who dream of global domination, and do not lack the will or the means to make it so. For the government of any relatively free nation to allow its greedhead corporatists to relocate so much as one damned factory to a hostile, dangerous adversary-nation without penalizing them harshly for it is the very definition of madness.

But here we all are.

My own business – the one I’ve spent fifteen years building – is in ruins; I’m “nonessential,” so therefore my business is illegal. Maybe I can rebuild after our masters decide to allow me to do business again – but what’s the point? They can – and will – do this again. In a month, in a year, in a decade, who cares? It’ll happen again and I will again be destroyed. Maybe I will rebuild, because I need to make a living, but I will never feel the same way about the business I loved, or the country I loved, again. I do not love the United States anymore.

Nor do I. Nor am I sure I ever really did. In fact, the America I loved—the America I still DO love—had ceased to exist before I ever came of age as anything more concrete than an idea, a historical artifact which I usually refer to here as America That Was. Amerika That IS, FUSA, the USSA, on the other hand, can go hang.

I see idiots like Hannity (again) crowing about Trump’s approval ratings, and how he will win in November. Seriously – who cares? Trump is powerless. He’s weak. He’s letting Fauci run the goddamned country. I always thought he was a fighter, but he’s not. Would we be any worse off with Crazy Bernie as President? I can’t imagine how.

Oh, don’t kid yourself, my friend. It could ALWAYS be worse. And one thing you can count on for sure with an avowed Commie like Bolshevik Bernie is that he will always find a way to make damned sure that it is.

Another thing I’ve said many times here: I don’t think so much that Trump’s greatest flaw is that he isn’t really a fighter. It’s that he still truly does believe in this country—that it remains the America of old, that even though the system has been abused, perverted, and betrayed, it is still salvageable. His manifestly obvious love for his country is so deep and passionate that it appears to have rendered him blind to certain unpleasant realities.

And the bastards who are doing this aren’t missing a paycheck. Are you seeing any news about government workers being furloughed without pay? Me neither.

We’re done, Mike. There will be no Civil War. America has been lost without firing a single shot. Eric Swallwell will not need to nuke us. We’ve done it to ourselves.

The evil bastards have won. Fuck them and fuck this country.

Actually, they won a good while back. All they’re doing now is re-confirming their victory, and testing its bounds for a reference as to what further depredations they’ll be able to get away with next time. And you can be assured there WILL be a next time.

Trump FINALLY cleaning house?

Posted on April 9, 2020April 9, 2020 by Mike

Mucking out the stalls in the Deep State stables.

President Trump often refers to government waste as part of the Washington “swamp” he has vowed to drain – but the phrase has also become shorthand for bureaucratic resistance to his agenda and policies. Putting inspectors general, or IGs, under the microscope is the latest push in Trump’s post-impeachment purge of government officials whom the president and his conservative supporters say have worked to undermine his agenda and sabotage political appointees’ efforts to carry it out, several sources familiar with the discussions have told RealClearPolitics.

Heightened monitoring of IG investigations and their findings has yet to lead to anyone’s ouster, but key administration officials and Trump allies are urging the president to do some housecleaning and get rid of Obama-era watchdogs sprinkled throughout the administration. Several acting inspectors general appointed during the Obama administration are still operating at key government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Treasury Department.

“The federal bureaucracy has gone to war with the Trump administration, and their people have targeted and taken out many Trump’s officials,” a former White House official told RCP. “Those who are naturally responsible are the IGs, and they are complicit in their inaction.”

“The IGs, many put in place by the Obama administration, empower the deep state to go after the administration. … It’s absolutely nuts,” the former official added. “If [officials] were scared of the consequences of breaking the law, they wouldn’t go after the Trump administration like they do. That’s why you have the deep state gone wild. No one is watching the watchdogs.”

Note that this article is from March 10th. Now let’s have the author bring us up to date:

Breaking: Trump is firing 7 IGs in one fail swoop, sources confirm to @RealClearNews. Most likely will be the IGs that were appointed by Pres. Obama or beforehand. He wants his own people in those positions now. Trump during his briefing said he has "put in 7 names" for IGs.

— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) April 7, 2020

Good. At the risk of sounding like a broken record here, I’ll say it yet again: By now, there should not be so much as a single Obama stay-behind left in place anywhere in the Executive branch. Period. Hopefully, Trump is thinking of this as nothing more than a good, if way overdue, start.

Trump’s biggest blunder has been to let these ill-intentioned saboteurs keep their jobs; he shouldn’t have, and that mistake has proven very expensive indeed—not just for him and his agenda, but for the entire nation. Cristina reminds us that Reagan, at least, wasn’t suckered by the nefarious Deep State weasels:

Flashback: On day one of his administration president Ronald Reagan fired all IGs. The usual suspects were up in arms but the Reagan presidency went on just fine. Hiring or firing IGs is the president’s prerogative.

On Inauguration Day, Mr. Reagan sent notice to Congress that he had removed 13 inspectors general and two acting inspectors general in 15 agencies.

He said that the discovery of fraud, waste and mismanagement of Federal funds was an ”important priority” of his Administration and that it was essential for him to have the ”fullest confidence” in the ability and integrity of each inspector general.

Why, it’s almost as if the President thinks he might have some kind of influence over the Executive Branch or something, innit? But we know that’s a purely preposterous notion, risible on its very face. After all, no less an expert on the Constitution’s explicit separation-of-powers mandate than Adam Schitt says so.

Schiff: President Trump’s decision to fire Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson is yet another blatant attempt by the President to gut the independence of the Intelligence Community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing.

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) April 4, 2020

Quick civics lesson for partisan-axe-grinding shitlib ignorami: the “intelligence community” isn’t supposed to be “independent,” actually. It is but one subdivision of what is known as the Executive Branch. Its personnel serve at the pleasure of their boss—the President—one of whose job titles is Chief Executive. So in other words, Trump can fire any of ’em; he can fire none of ’em; or he can fire every single gott-damned one of ’em, entirely at his own discretion or whim. For any reason, or for no reason at all. And whichever route he chooses to go, the Congress has not one single gott-damned thing to say about it. Period, full stop, end of fucking story.

Or, cutting right to the chase: Fuck off and die, Shitthead. Five minutes ago wouldn’t be soon enough to suit me.

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