The New Normal
Ladies and gents, may I present what really ought to be our new national anthem.
Against all odds, the vid does have a happy ending after all, so stay tuned for it. Via WRSA, who has also thoughtfully included a transcription of the lyrics in toto for your enjoyment and edification.
The wheels start coming off of the Biden Economic MIRACLE!!™ bus.
A Blip On The Radar Or The Beginning Of The End?
Despite decades of working in financial services, mostly in customer facing roles where I kissed ass and took the heat for the screw-ups of others, I don’t fully understand what happened with Silicon Valley Bank but when a top 20 bank collapses, it is big news.
As others have pointed out, while SVB is a top-20 bank it pales in comparison to the really big players like Chase and Bank of America. Chase alone has something like $3.2 trillion in assets.
Notice that the bank right below them, Fifth Third Bank where I was a branch manager at a couple of locations, has slightly lower total assets but 1,104 branches while SVB only had 16 branches but more in “assets”. This was a very different kind of bank. Still it is a significant event getting little coverage because Sniffy Man Good is President instead of Orange Man Bad. It was also another opportunity to mock The Wrongest Man Alive, CNBC’s Jim Cramer, who is so reliably wrong you could base your investment strategy just off of doing the opposite of what he recommends (not investment advice, etc)
It is amazing that someone as dumb as Jim Cramer still makes a bunch of money being incorrect.
While I would hesitate to go full Zerohedge and declare this is a harbinger of imminent collapse, it does show us again that the financial system we operate under is a Jenga tower. You can pull a piece out here and there but one of these times a critical piece will come out and the whole thing will fall.
Arthur is correct in his hesitation, but it’s a matter not of statistical inevitability but of simple semantics. The collapse is indeed not imminent; it has already started, is ongoing. Things are going to get much, much worse before they get better, and that’s assuming they DO get better, which is by no means guaranteed. It’s unlikely in the extreme that they will within the lifetime of anyone reading this, that’s my belief.
Read the rest of it; Arthur moves on from the end of my excerpt to do some very astute, clear-eyed analysis of the REAL root causes of the ongoing disaster, which are not so much financial and/or political as they are cultural. He’s right about that, too.
Big trouble update! Not good.
Wall Street’s biggest banks took quite a thrashing in the stock market Thursday as investors spooked the turmoil at Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Capital dumped financial shares.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley – the four most valued US lenders – saw $55 billion wiped off their combined market capitalization on Thursday, Refinitiv data show.
JPMorgan, the biggest US bank, alone saw a $22 billion tumble in its market value as its stock slid 5.41% to $130.34. Wall Street heavyweight Bank of America lost $16.16 billion as its share price fell 6.20% to $30.54. Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley saw their market capitalization drop by $10.3 billion and $6.2 billion, respectively.
Among other major US banks, Goldman Sachs and Citi also witnessed significant declines in their share prices.
The selloff came amid heightened fears of contagion effects from financial distress at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Silvergate Capital. SVB’s stock crashed 60% Thursday after the company said it would sell more shares to cover a $1.8 billion loss it incurred after completing a $21 billion fire sale of its bond portfolio.
It’s becoming something of a mantra for me, so maybe I should just go ahead and make it an acronym to save myself some typing from here on out: WBBIEB. That is, Worse Before Better, If EVER Better. Pro tip: You will see this material again. And again, and again, and again. Because, y’know, WBBIEB.
Kunstler demonstrates his prowess as a wordsmith with as masterful a display of writerly chops as I believe I’ve ever seen.
Imagine that on an April evening in 1912, the captain of the RMS Titanic had announced a grand ball at which the male passengers were asked to wear their wives’ clothing and vice-versa…. That was approximately the condition of Western Civ verging on springtime in 2023: preoccupied with silliness while the iceberg awaits.
But who would have thought the sinking of civilization would occur with such fantastic comic ornamentation? Men, in more ways than mere costuming, pretending to be women…incompetence honored, feted, even worshipped…intellect reduced to anti-thinking…anything of value thrown overboard in some weird post-modern potlatch ceremony of twisted moral righteousness…? But the hour is late, the party is near its end, and the iceberg is struck. The rest of the story will be you holding onto a few valuables, including your life, while the lifeboats get lowered.
What can one say, but…
Ain’t it, though. Ain’t it just. But hold onto your personal flotation devices, folks, there’s more where that came from.
Look no further than the fiasco in Ukraine, engineered by geniuses of the US foreign service in some daft exercise to show the world who’s who and what for. And, remind me: what was the basic idea there? To hamstring and hogtie Russia so badly that her people would overthrow the only rational head-of-state in Christendom, a figure who makes the presidents, chancellors, and prime ministers of Western Civ look like a troop of gibbering mandrills, with painted faces and blue butts, the ass-clowns of geopolitics.
Something tells me that this gang will not make it to the lifeboats.
We must hope they don’t, must in fact see to it that they don’t, if only as a matter of seeing justice visited upon them and nothing else. The wreckers, egotists, and purblind fools who sank the ship apurpose deserve no such consideration or forebearance. Let them tread the dark, icy waters until, at last exhausted, they sink all the way down to the very bottom—a most apt retribution for their innumerable crimes against us. They can plead their case for lenience to Davy Jones; there’s no market for it here, I’m afraid.
James carries on from there in like fashion, mining this rich allegorical vein for all it’s worth. It’s a gem—a genuine 24k pleasure to read, for anyone who gives even the limpest, soggiest damn about skillful writing. Best of all, its lustrous sparkle is untarnished by the usual backfilling calls for Voting Harderer At Them™ and bootless Congressional “investigation” meat-beatery at the close. Awestruck kudos to Kunstler for this one.
JJ Sefton’s reliably dead-on Morning Report is rife today with examples confirming the grim success of the Left’s divide & conquer strategery.
Report: Austin Police Officers Quit in Droves, Texas City ‘Hostile Place’ for Conservatives
The leftist-run city of Austin, Texas, is facing a police officer shortage with current and former officers citing hostility toward law enforcement and conservatives as the driving force, the New York Post reported on Friday.
Multiple sources told the Post the city allegedly has more than 300 vacancies and officers are quitting “because they feel disrespected,” according to the report. The Austin Police Association said 77 more officers are expected to retire before the end of March. Lt. Brian Moon, who retired last month after 23 years of service, said Austin has become like Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco “where if you’re at all conservative or in law enforcement, it’s become a hostile place.”
The staffing shortage is leading to later response times and 911 calls are being redirected to the non-emergency number “because there aren’t enough cops to solve the crimes,” according to the report. Senior Police Officer Justin Berry told the publication that the department has taken detectives off of cases to act as patrol officers.
“If you come home and find your home burglarized, calls like that are now going to 311,” said police union president Thomas Villarreal. “You’re not getting a police response to many property crimes if it’s not a violent crime that is currently ongoing.”
The report notes that “entire areas of the city are left unpatrolled” at times if a large incident occurs.
“We’ve pretty much conceded that we’re not going to show up anymore on certain calls,” Moody said. “Eventually it’s going to get to the point where it’s so bad, everyone’s going to realize that something has to be done.”
Rest assured it will be, but you ain’t gonna like it much. It’s commonly known as vigilantism. Even though they’d greatly prefer not to have to resort to it, when things get bad enough and enough people realize they’re entirely on their own and have been forced to live in a lawless society, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of it than civilized, First World nations are accustomed to. At some point, it becomes too much to expect that Normals will just passively sit back and allow themselves and their families to be preyed upon indefinitely, just because that’s what shitlibs want them to do.
Moar D&C:
Critical Race Theory Teaches Kids To Hate Each Other, And The Proof Is On The Playground
Critical race theory lessons are fostering anger and aggression instead of empathy among children. This is most obvious on the playground.In mid-February 2023, administrators at an elementary school in Springfield, Ohio, called the police to intervene in a racially charged incident on the playground. According to the police report, a group of black students forced several white students to say “black lives matter” against their will.
Around the same time in Orlando, Florida, a teacher at Howard Middle School created and posted to his personal social media account a demeaning skit using students from his classroom. In it, white students bowed to their black classmates, feeding them snacks and fanning them. The teacher, now on administrative leave, captioned the video: “Black History Month. The shortest month of the Year.” Critical race theory is permeating public education across the country and aggravating racial hostilities, even among elementary school children.
When people with authority, such as schoolteachers and administrators, tell children that one group is the oppressor and the other is oppressed, children tend to listen. These critical race theory lessons are fostering anger and aggression instead of empathy among children.
Teachers and administrators need to stick to the “three Rs” of education. Social and racial politics must be under the jurisdiction of families, not public education.
And when they refuse to, as most of them will, what then? My personal preference is for pitchforks, torches, tar, and feathers, but then I freely admit I’m an “extremist” like that.
And nearly bursts into tears of OUTRAGE!™ over being called out on his manifest incompetence and indifference.
Biden Transportation Secretary Pete “I’m Taking Some Personal Time” Buttigieg, in an interview with CNN published Sunday, lashed out critics of his handling of the toxic train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio last month, swearing and accusing them of being out of touch East Coast elites as he defended wearing designer dress boots to tour the derailment scene.
Buttigieg singled out President Trump and Fox News Channel prime time host Tucker Carlson in his hissy fit interview with CNN, even swearing at one point (excerpt):
“It’s really rich to see some of these folks – the former president, these Fox hosts – who are literally lifelong card-carrying members of the East Coast elite, whose top economic policy priority has always been tax cuts for the wealthy, and who wouldn’t know their way around a T.J. Maxx if their life depended on it, to be presenting themselves as if they genuinely care about the forgotten middle of the country,” the Transportation Secretary said. “You think Tucker Carlson knows the difference between a T.J. Maxx and a Kohl’s?”
…The secretary visited East Palestine a day after former President Donald Trump went to the town, calling out President Joe Biden for not having made his own visit and slamming the administration’s response.
Trump’s visit, Buttigieg said, was “somewhat maddening – to see someone who did a lot try to gut not just rail safety regulations, but the EPA, which is the number one thing standing between that community and a total loss of accountability for Norfolk Southern and then show up giving out bottled water and campaign swag?”
…As for any suggestion from Trump or supporters that the former president’s trip to East Palestine pressured him to go: “That’s bull—-,” Buttigieg said. “We were already going to go.”
Suuuure you were, Peter-puffer. Because hey, you care so very, very deeply about the plight of all those hate-filled, homophobic Flyover Country bigots.
These boots are made for stomping. Buttigieg got emotional when his choice of footwear for his visit to East Palestine was mentioned:
The attention to the boots Buttigieg wore when he visited a day later, he said, was also “maddening.”
His voice got tighter.
“Who cares what shoes I was wearing, when I was there to draw attention to an agenda that will save lives on our railroads?” Buttigieg said.
Uh huh. Hey, as everyone knows, the shitlib agenda is all about “saving lives,” right? After all, Leftism, Statism, socialism, communism, however you may choose to label it, has proved to be so very proficient at that over the last hundred years or so.
Eat a bag of dicks, shitheel. You’re no better at lying than you are at being head of the DoT, it seems.
Are America’s big cities ungovernable? And if they are, do those of us who don’t live in them give a shit? SHOULD we? If so, WHY, exactly?
In the wake of the failure of failure Lori Lightfoot to gain admission to the Chicago mayoral runoff, The Atlantic, a left-inclined publication, has decided to salve her wound, though not the wound her mayoralty has inflicted upon Chicago, with an article proclaiming that “Big Cities Are Ungovernable…”
If that thesis were put to a for / against debate among scholars of urban history and dynamics, how do you think the discussion would go? Myself, I expect the participants would squabble endlessly over the definitions of “big,” “cities,” and “ungovernable.” (That would consume them so completely that they’d have nothing left for “are.”) Thus they could evade all discussion of the actual proposition until the last of the audience had drifted away.
Robert A. Heinlein was no fan of the big city:
“As a thumb rule, one can say that any time a planet starts developing cities of more than one million people, it is approaching critical mass. In a century or two it won’t be fit to live on.”
And so my own preference is clear, though it might have a Mae West feel, I shall add this: I’ve been a country dweller and I’ve been a city dweller, and honey, the country is better. But that’s all to the side.
It’s hardly a state secret that America’s largest cities are in bad shape today. They’re overrun with social pathologies, consistently underperform at “public services,” and cost a fortune to live in. Yet that was not always the case. Indeed, during the mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani, New York City returned from an abyss of squalor to a quality and livability it hadn’t known since Fiorello La Guardia. The Di Blasio and Adams mayoralties have dissipated that. Los Angeles during Ronald Reagan’s governorship over California was equally a beautiful, highly livable place. It’s not enough to say sic transit gloria mundi and pass on. We must discover the reasons for the changes and what “governability” or the lack thereof has to do with them.
Large numbers of people cannot be “governed,” in the original sense of the word, by a discrete “government.” (If that statement mystifies you, look up the function and operation of a steam engine’s governor.) They must ultimately “govern” themselves, which destroys the usual interpretation of governable and governability. Moreover, the “large number” doesn’t need to be in the millions, as The Atlantic would have it.
Today, sufficient fractions of the populaces of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and other major cities simply refuse to be governed. They do as they please, aware of the potential consequences but willing to risk them. That has rendered those cities ungovernable, in the sense generally understood by private citizens. But clearly it was not always thus.
The residents of Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Chicago, and other homeless capitals have elected to tolerate the public degradation that their homeless populations impose upon them. Conditions there have made them resemble “closed systems” de facto where homelessness is concerned. They would rather tolerate huge homeless camps and what comes with them than strict code enforcement. The homeless find the results congenial to their filthy and dissolute preferences. What the city governments could do, they will not, for fear of electoral backlash.
And day by day, their entropy increases.
Is this a verdict on whether “Big Cities Are Ungovernable?” I don’t think so. History speaks to the opposite effect. But it does cast an interesting light on whether large groups of left-liberals are governable.
Well, I think the answer to that ever-more-pressing question has been made plain enough by recent history; anyone still in doubt is encouraged to take themselves a nice, long stroll around downtown Detroit late at night for further education, if they dare. Wear full Class-III body armor with ceramic plates, that’s my advice.
Governable or not, the libtards can damned sure be suppressed. Nobody seems much interested in talking about that option right now, even sotto voce. Nevertheless, it’s a conversation we’re going to need to get started on sooner rather than later.
Waitwaitwait, boogs are equestrians now too? My late wife was a professional Hunter-Jumper rider and a trainer as well, and I can’t recollect seeing any of our darker-complected brethren (or, y’know, sistren) at the many events she dragged me off to over the course of our tragically-foreshortened union. I mean, really now: who knew?
New York Times Discovers a New Source of Racism, and This One Could Be the Most Ridiculous Yet
The New York Times, that intrepid warrior for anything and everything that the Left is hysterical about, on Friday published a lengthy piece about a source of systemic racism that no one has ever noticed before: It seems that equestrian helmets are racist because they don’t accommodate the dreadlocks that some black horse riders wear. One black rider’s mother lamented: “Mostly everything in this sport isn’t designed for us.” Well, that’s got to change, and these Jackie Robinsons of the Coiffure, with the Times’ generous help, are leading the way to the Equestrian Helmet Justice that our society so desperately needs.
Chanel Robbins, the Times tells us solemnly, “has been riding horses most of her life, ever since her grandmother traded a cow from their family’s farm in Ontario for a pony when she was 7.” Horse riding “offered an escape from thoughts that weighed on her,” which included the fact that “she was the only Black girl in the neighborhood.” But when she grew dreadlocks, her helmet didn’t fit anymore, and that, as you must know by now, is racist.
Fighting back tears (really, the Times actually said she was), Robbins said: “I finally freaking feel like myself, and now society is asking me to change. I just want to be able to ride.” How dare Whitey do this! Is there nothing to which he will not stoop? Poor Chanel Robbins can only find relief on the back of a horse from the systemic racism that confronts her every hour in Amerikkka, but now Whitey has taken even that away!
The Times generously ascribes this not to malice, but to callous indifference: “Black equestrians have long felt virtually invisible in a sport that remains overwhelmingly white. For those with natural hair, which for many is a declaration of pride and Black identity, finding a helmet that fits properly can be nearly impossible, creating yet another barrier to full inclusion.” Big Helmet (ah, but not big enough) is just as indifferent to their plight as Whitey in general: “Some are now lobbying for change, mindful that horseback riding is among the leading causes of sports-related traumatic brain injury. The helmet companies say there isn’t a simple fix.”
The second most-dangerous sport in the world, actually, or used to be anyway. Snow-skiing being the first, back when my wife told me about it. Spencer’s next bit is truly sidesplitting, so swallow that mouthful of whatever you’re drinking or eating before reading on.
Well, yeah. What are the helmet companies going to do, make the helmets three feet wide? This most first-world of all first-world problems brings Oscar Gamble to mind. Baseball fans of a certain age will remember Mr. Gamble, who played major league baseball in the 1970s while sporting an Afro of truly awe-inspiring proportions. In my neighborhood, baseball cards featuring Oscar Gamble with his baseball cap stuck on the massive thing, making his head and hair look like three planets of roughly similar size orbiting in close proximity to one another, were a coveted commodity. Many marveled at his hair, some dared to laugh, but Gamble himself took it all in stride. Never once did he demand that the people who manufactured baseball caps fashion one large enough to go around his huge hair. The white kids who played baseball in the 1970s often had long hair also, and got used to having it mashed uncomfortably under the cap. In life, sometimes one must put up with a bit of discomfort, or sacrifice one desired item in order to obtain another. But that was before everything, and I do mean everything, became racist.
A pic of Gamble—who racked up good enough stats over his long and storied career as a power-hitting Major League DH to be able to wear his hair any damned way he liked—and his ludicrous, totally off-the-chain ‘Fro.
Couldn’t say why, exactly, but for some strange reason that photo puts me in mind of the classic Mad magazine parody of Starsky & Hutch—renamed Harsky & Stutch, natch—wherein the Huggy Bear character was rejiggered (ahem) into “Buggy Hair.” Gamble is also remembered among baseball mavens for his brilliant Jive-speak quote referencing the general organizational chaos that plagued the Yankees at the time he was playing for them: “They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.”
Heh. Anyways, onwards.
And so now the Times tells us that Caitlin Gooch, “who wears her hair in locs that fall to her mid-back,” takes her riding helmet along when she gets her hair done, “to ensure it will still fit.” That’s perfectly reasonable and sensible. If someone wants some extravagant hairstyle, it might cause difficulties in other areas. Sometimes one must choose between the two. But Gooch “started teaching riding lessons” and “found herself having to tell children they couldn’t ride if there was no helmet that properly fit them.” This was, once again, perfectly reasonable, but apparently it’s a new and heinously racist offense in the Times’ dizzy and ugly world.
Yeah, well, what ain’t nowadays, according to these determinedly miserable shitlib gimps.
As ever, the Left runs rings around the Truth while the poor, dear old thing is still trying to get its boots on. And that, friends, is but one of several diabolical stratagems that explain how it is they keep winning.
Did You Ever Wonder How and Why the Left Is Able to Push Their Narratives Almost Unhindered?
Aren’t you sick to death of the Current Message? I know I am.If you aren’t concerned about climate change, or whatever name The End of the World is going by this week, it doesn’t matter because you will be made to see or hear it. Or maybe the current message is Pride or Acceptance or Eat Bugs and Like It.
Actually, Eat Bugs and Like It is so January. The Current Message is Your Gas Stove Is Killing You, Your Dog, and Mother Earth, Too.
Did you notice that something that had never been an issue before, gas stoves, suddenly popped up everywhere all at once? That’s how it works. One message is repeated, amplified, repeated again, and reamplified, across every available medium.
Whatever the Current Message is, your favorite TV show will include it in a plotline. The network that airs it bombards you with similar messaging in its promotional spots. The search engine you use — and it doesn’t matter which one — promotes pages selling the same pablum and squelches dissenting views. Social media algorithms void your shares and silence your comments. TikTok, social malware unleashed by the CCP, fuels division and discontent by serving up the most dopamine-friendly content.
Normal people — that excludes you and me, gentle reader — who get their news the way normal people do, are suddenly questioning their gas cooktops. Because the ever present Current Message pounded it into their heads.
Throw in near-total control of the Shadow State bureaucratic apparatus, and…well, hey, there’s a reason I started calling it the shitlib/Progressivist Megalith a good while back, y’know.
Buttplug shits, falls back in it, blames Trump, natch.
Remarks From Buttigieg in East Palestine on His Late Visit Just Make Things Worse
I wrote earlier about how the visit of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was not going well. He refused to answer questions from reporters, and his press secretary had the temerity to claim reporters wanting him to respond was “too aggressive.” The citizens indicated that they were upset that he was coming so late to the table.Now, there are more remarks from Buttigieg during his visit–and they only made matters worse.
All the people there want is for people to come, care, and help out. That’s exactly what Trump did. Meanwhile, Buttigieg showed up, empty-handed, claiming he wasn’t there for the politics–but then immediately attacked Trump and blamed him for what happened on Buttigieg and Biden’s watch.
REPORTER: “How can [Trump] help?”
PETE BUTTIGIEG: “Express support for reversing the deregulation that happened on his watch.”
That was a pretty slimy effort–to blame Trump–when the facts so far don’t support that any deregulation that happened under Trump had anything to do with the derailment. Reports are now that the derailment was due to an overheated bearing.
So, on top of everything else, here’s Pete trying to mislead people about what happened. It happened on your watch, Pete, Trump hasn’t been in office in two years. And Trump wasn’t standing in your way, preventing you from responding to what happened. Trump also didn’t make Joe Biden go to Ukraine and not East Palestine. It’s disgusting how Buttigieg wouldn’t take responsibility for his actions and those of Joe Biden.
Buttigieg had another moment that summed him up in one sentence, as he ranted about “misinformation.” Criticism of him and Biden is now “misinformation.”
“Sorry, I lost my train of thought,” he said, in an ironic Freudian slip.
What a way to comment on a train derailment. He’s lost more than that, as has the Biden team over their reaction to all this.
What else would one expect from this nest of slimery, slithery sewer-crawlers. I repeat: couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of assholes.
And, as African expat Kim DuToit always says: Africa wins again.
Sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, I had the opportunity to work in Senegal for several months. My very first experience in-country was that the rental vehicle wouldn’t start. While the friendly and talkative mechanic repaired the jeep, he inquired if this was my first trip to Africa. “No,” I replied. “Ahhh!” he said, “then I don’t have to explain the meaning of ‘TIA’ to you.”
But I’d never heard that term or what it meant. When I asked, he explained, saying, “This is Africa; nothing works!” Indeed, in my travels, it was much the same in Latin America and other places I have lived, worked, or visited back in the day. When I returned to the U.S. it was a joy to drop a quarter into a payphone and hear a dial tone, or find that the nearest toilet always had toilet paper at hand.
But, in 2023, in Biden’s America, the acronym takes on a whole new meaning. Last week my wife’s car wouldn’t start, and after several return visits to the dealership, the problem remained undiagnosed. The service tech apologized and said, “it’s TIA.” I asked him what that meant, and he said, “This is America; no one knows how to fix things anymore.” Talk about a reflective moment.
Yep. And as I always say: that’s neither accident, nor coincidence, nor happenstance. It’s part of a plan.
A little theorizing on how it all might go down, and what it might look like if/when it does.
The 1860s US Civil War was primarily an economic paradigm war. The Southern agrarian plutocrats backed the Black manned slave labor system. The Northern industrialist plutocrats favored debt-wage slavery powered by European mass immigration.
Given that the first US civil war was an oligarchic conflict, what would today’s US-based oligarchs fight over in a 2.0 civil war? Slices of cherry pie. Control of population centers. What would the hoi polloi fight over? Trans bathrooms. Abortion. Race issues. School prayer. Whatever else oligarchs don’t care about.
Any civil war discussion needs to factor in the Pentagon. They control the soldiers and weapon systems. If the MIC split into two factions, I imagine we’d see something like “woke” Pentagon vs “family values” Pentagon, with Raytheon owning both sides.
I don’t see any intentional Battle of Antietam mega-army fighting mega-army scenes. Unlike Springfield rifles and Gatling guns—F35 fighter jets, stealth bombers, and ICBMs cause serious damage to infrastructure and oligarch holdings. Mushroom clouds spouting up across America is bad for business. The rules of engagement would need to be carefully controlled. An internecine US nuclear war is scarier than Black Jesus.
Like ancient Rome, the US is a multicultural empire. To keep Rome’s diverse groups from splintering, Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official state religion. In America, Whites, Latinos, and Blacks make up the bulk of the population. All are predominantly Christian- at least by birth. America’s remaining unifiers are football, smartphones, Google, and the threat of state violence. Mushroom Cloud Jesus might be the empire’s last bottle of Elmer’s Glue. I prefer Hippie Jesus over Mushroom Cloud Jesus.
Restoring school prayer, filling up prosperity gospel mega-churches, and outlawing “gayness” won’t restore America’s manufacturing base, rebuild its decayed infrastructure, or clean up the poisoned rivers. Nor will it prevent the upward transfer of wealth that comes from corporate governance, endless MIC war, and a Fed owned by 8 banking families.
Christian (Zionist) Nationalism might keep the dying empire on life support for a little while longer, but collapse is inevitable. All empires crash—pathologically corrupt ones sooner than later. If Christian Nationalism failed to keep the food rations above starvation level, WW3 seems like the next logical play. If the international bankers remained on top and human civilization stayed intact after WW3, I suppose the next phase would be One World Government dystopian dictatorship.
If oligarch-managed civil war could prolong the empire’s lifespan, it also holds the potential to shorten it. As demonstrated by Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine, neocon/neoliberal ventures turn into massive clusterf*cks. What if a civil war went sideways and started whipping around like a live electric cable in a windstorm? A case of controlled chaos turning into uncontrolled chaos.
Where a civil war gone sideways winds up is hard to say. I suppose it could turn out really good or really bad. Anything from a new and improved American republic to Mad Max.
The above-excerpted analysis is certainly, well, different, to say the least. That said, it seems to me that the latter option might be a safer bet. But I’ve never been the betting type, so what the hell do I know. The history of human warfare shows that the one safe assumption we can make, in all times and all places, is that we can’t possibly know beforehand what will happen, nor how the thing will all shake out, until it actually, y’know, does shake out.
Throughout the duration of the actual conflict itself, we can reliably count on widespread horror, misery, and deprivation as the stuff of everyday life, carrying on far longer after the war’s outcome has been decided than is generally expected. As Gen Wellesley lamented after the Battle of Waterloo: Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
War can be conclusive or inconclusive; destructive or productive; justified or not; those things, and many more besides. It is a cruel, ravening beast with many faces, all of them terrible to those caught up in its toils. War is also a permanent fixture of the human landscape, as unpredictable as it is inevitable. Wracking and painful as it surely is, human nature itself mandates nonetheless that the awful scourge of war will be with us always.
Oddly enough, though, war can sometimes be a good thing, even a desirable thing when the sole alternative is submission, slavery, and degradation at the hands of a ruthless despot. It has been described as a crucible in which irrelevancy is burned away, leaving only personal honor intact. It should never be rushed recklessly into; likewise, it should not be rejected out of hand when it has become obviously necessary. Just as war can be the plaything of greedy, over-ambitious potentates, it can also be the last desperate resort of men too long preyed upon by them.
In the somber, cautionary words of a wise and noble warrior who certainly knew whereof he spoke: it is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.
(Via Wes Renegade)
A stark contrast with the Biden Affliction.
BREAKING: Donald Trump greeted by crowds of supporters in East Palestine, slams Biden for prioritizing Ukraine over America
“If you were in office right now, what would you have done to help the people of East Palestine?” Hernandez asked, to which Trump said, “FEMA would have been here a long time ago.”Donald Trump landed in East Palestine, Ohio on Wednesday, where he met with local officials and citizens of the small town still trying to bounce back from the ecological disaster caused by a train derailment and subsequent controlled burn.
The Biden regime recently denied FEMA aid to East Palestine, saying that it did not meet the criteria. “What East Palestine needs is much more expansive than what FEMA can provide,” the official continued. “FEMA is on the frontlines when there is a hurricane or tornado. This situation is different.”
Which you would know HOW, exactly? Certainly not firsthand.
Trump would go on to deliver some remarks thanking police, firefighters, and first responders while assuring that those who have been impacted would not be left behind. “It’s an honor to be here. It’s an incredible place,” Trump said, “we’re here today in East Palestine to show our love and support for our fellow Americans in this hour of need…They’ve done some incredible work in a short period of time.”
“To the people of East Palestine and nearby communities in Ohio and Pennsylvania, we have told you loud and clear, ‘you are not forgotten.’ We stand with you, pray for you, and we will stand with you in your fight to help answer and the accountability you deserve… will all be out there, very clearly,” said Trump.
Trump said that the community needs “answers and results,” and that Norfolk Southern needs to “fulfill its obligations.”
“The people of East Palestine are going to be taken care of… When your representatives and all of your politicians get here, including Biden, get back from touring Ukraine, that he’s got some money left over as we’re now at $117 billion, and as you probably know, Europe when you add it all up has added $10 billion. That’s a big difference… They’re at it again, they’re very good negotiators those people in Europe. When you add it all up, it’s about the same size as the United States’ [contributions] the economy of the different European countries, and they’re at a very small number compared to us… That’s a massive difference, it’s a very small fraction of what we’ve put up and it affects them more than us. They have to do what they have to do.”
Trump would then go to a nearby McDonald’s restaurant, where he would continue to answer questions.
Mo’ bettah Trump:
Trump Overrules Pete Buttigieg, Delivers Truckloads of Water to East Palestine, Ohio
President Donald Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio where he delivered truckloads of bottled water following a toxic train derailment earlier this month.The disaster has left the small town reeling, with Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration showing little interest in the crisis.
Government officials at both the state and federal levels have not risen up to the challenge, leaving the people of East Palestine furious.
After being snubbed by the Biden admin, Trump scheduled a visit to the town to show them support.
After Trump’s Wednesday visits, Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg scheduled a trip to see the disaster firsthand, almost three weeks after the train derailed on February 4.
This is vintage Trump at his very best, making a unique contribution which in the long view will amount to much more than he’ll ever be able to accomplish anywhere else. I do wish he’d focus his considerable attention more on things like this, along with mass rallies and speeches to inspire and reinforce Real Americans in their long fight against The Enemy, rather than vainly chasing after an office he’ll never be allowed to accede to anyway.
He was already re-elected once, and when the “election”-fraud dust settled what we wound up with instead was a senescent, corrupt kiddie-diddler so old and feeble he can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without busting his damned-fool ass right out in front of God and everybody roosting in the Oval Office as pRetend “pResident.” So how’s all that working out for ya’s, anyway? There’s a lesson in there somewheres, and one would think Trump of all people might have learned it by now.
Dave Renegade has a few most (im)pertinent ones to ask.
I will confess that I do not like “Presidents’ Day”. Coupling George Washington with Abraham Lincoln is secular blasphemy (although we are told that this day celebrates “all” US Presidents).
So the questions on this auspicious day are:
1. Is the valid President of the United States in East Palestine, Ohio or is he in Kiev, Ukraine?
2. Is the valid President working to help US citizens who are in the midst of a chemical crisis or is he in Ukraine trying to initiate WWIII?
3. Is the valid President sapient or is he cognitively impaired?
4. Do you want a President who puts America first or one who puts America last?
The office of the Presidency has become the seat for global terrorism. Many would disagree but the pandemic, J6 political prisoner incarcerations, Nord Stream bombing, election theft of political offices at every level and the bankruptcy of the nation to fund their power and slush funds are a few examples.
Not even a tithe of ‘em, alas for us all. As for Question #4, it’s not as if it matters a single whit what we might want, seeing as how we have no real say in that anymore. Assuming we ever really did, that is.
Update! About that above-referenced Real Presidential visit to East Palestine.
Trump to visit East Palestine in wake of train derailment
Former President Trump plans to visit the town of East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailment led to the release of toxic chemicals, next week.
Trump posted on Truth Social in response to a report that he was planning to make the trip that the residents of East Palestine are “Great people who need help, NOW!” He later posted that he will visit on Wednesday.
The 2024 presidential candidate’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted on Twitter that his father will visit the town.
“If our ‘leaders’ are too afraid to actually lead real leaders will step up and fill the void,” Trump Jr. said.
Heh. Well said, young feller. But don’t think for a moment that our “leaders” are afraid of it, or much of anything else. They just don’t give a moist fart, that’s all, and want us all to know they don’t too. Unless and until they’ve been forcefully reminded that there’s a damned good reason that they ought to be, their disdainful contempt for the wishes of We The People will continue as before. Worst part of all is, that contempt will be justified.
“Ace” Biden pays a visit to genuflect before one of the many malefactors who own him body and soul, thanks to their having the goods on his visceral penchant for corruption, graft, and greed.
Secret Agent Man “Joe Biden” turned up in Kiev Monday morning after landing in Poland and riding an overnight choo-choo train across the Ukraine frontier to avoid the hazardous pomp of landing Air Force One in a war zone. One might try to guess the message Victoria Nuland sent her errand boy to deliver. My guess is that “JB” was there to tell Wolodymyr Zelensky the USA stands behind him one hundred percent — an obvious whopper — being exactly the opposite of the developing reality that, short of setting off nuclear Armageddon, there is really nothing the USA can do to prevent Russia from concluding our ill-conceived project on its own terms. Who better to deliver an arrant falsehood than the master, “Scranton Joe,” he who once battled and vanquished the tyrant Corn-Pop!
The heroic Biden actually flew his alternate fighter aircraft (ie, not the one he famously splashed that Zipperhead “weather” balloon with) straight into Kiev Aerodrome, executing his usual flawless three-point landing there:
Good show, Jaux! Back over to Kuenstler for the rest of the story.
Remember, last week Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, speaking out of the aperture between his butt cheeks, announced that Russia had lost “strategically, operationally and tactically” in Ukraine. This was after NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg announced rather clumsily that Ukraine’s army was out of ammo, especially artillery shells, and the only remedy for that was for Europe to rebuild an armaments industry — which was a sideways-and-backwards way of saying… fuggeddabowdit.
Yeah, umm, about those artillery shells…
Whew! Thank goodness the US isn’t tens of trillions in debt and can thus afford to indefinitely support the grifter currently in charge of the D卐M☭CRAT Party ATM™ in the style to which he has become accustomed, thereby guaranteeing Zelensky’s continued silence regarding all past and future endeavors with the Biden Crime Family. Onwards.
One might also suppose that, behind all this cognitive dissonance, the US would be engaged in secret talks with Russia to arrive at some face-saving device for getting out of this mess. But really, what is our leverage for that? Can we threaten to put US boots-on-the-Ground in Ukraine? That would be a little like channeling Gen. George Armstrong Custer, don’t you think? Apparently, all we’re left with is a game of pretend, using the Pretender-in-Chief as the front.
I’d also venture to say that American voters are not so enthused about this Ukraine pageant as they seemed to be last summer when the yellow and blue flags popped up on front porches at every Woked-up clam-bake from Edgartown to Bar Harbor. Our Ukrainian proxies sure seemed to be giving those Ruskies what-for along the front lines in Donbas, payback, you understand, for helping Donald Trump steal the 2016 election from She Whose Turn It Was Supposed to Be…America’s Amazonian Caesar-in-a-pants-suit, HRC.
The fall offensive by Ukraine was an illusion, alas, setting up its army for methodical decimation, now nearly complete. So, too, is all the talk of sending tanks in to save the day. And so, too, is the very existence of NATO as anything other than window-dressing on an empty storefront. If blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, as recently alleged by independent reporter Seymour Hersh, smells like an attack on our supposed ally, Germany, then how was it not an attack on NATO, in which Germany is the centerpiece? And, finally, why would Germany not be engaging in secret talks of its own with Russia, behind America’s back?
Why indeed, and who the fuck cares anyhow. Say, anybody remember back when Trump, as actual as opposed to ostensible US President, suggested extricating ourselves from the steely clutches of the long-obsolete and entirely-dysfunctional NATO—whereupon the Usual Suspects threw the Usual Hissy Fit about the outrageousness of any such “radical” notion? Good times, good times. Or, if not altogether good, at least a damned sight better than the sweat-soaked fever dream we’re unable to wake up from now.
Intrigue must be rife now throughout Europe, and Americans will not hear anything about it from its Deep State-owned news media. Is there any reason why Europe could not live with a neutralized Ukraine? Of course not. Ukraine is in uproar now simply because geniuses in the US State Department thought it would be a good way to annoy and antagonize Russia. The project was insane from inception. The main result is that Europe will no longer have the natural gas it needs at a rational price to continue being an industrial society.
One must conclude that NATO is looking for a way out of this. But there is no way out except to declare by word or deed, directly or otherwise, that NATO has outlived the reason for its existence. Any sane analysis by Europeans would arrive at the unnerving realization that the USA has become the enemy of NATO, not Russia. If all that is so, then a seismic shift is underway that will leave America hung out to dry on the Ukraine project. Germany will have to make a deal with Russia to rebuild the Nord Streams. What could the US do about that? Impose sanctions on Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the rest of the bunch? Where does that leave Western Civ?
I’ll tell you: it leaves Western Civ diminished. It leaves our country to stew in its own rancid economic and financial juices in abject isolation from, basically, the rest of the world. (Fare-thee-well hegemonic dream; hello multi-polarity!) It leaves Ukraine neutralized and no longer a problem…It leaves Russia able to feel secure in its borders and free to get on with being a normal nation…and it leaves Europe the hope that it can resume modern life a while longer with the familiar comforts and conveniences.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of assholes, if you ask me.
Errata update! I have been reliably informed, by a source who wishes to remain anonymous, that the photo of “Ace” Biden ostensibly setting down in Kiev is factually incorrect—disinformation, as the cognoscenti like to say. As it happens, Jaux doesn’t even own a Spad XIII at all, although I’m certain that, being a man of taste and discernment, he’d surely love to. This is the true and accurate pic of America’s Heroic Savior taxiing his DR1 to a secure undisclosed revetment at Kiev Aerodrome, after dogfighting his way across all of Europe to get there.
What a man, eh? Americans are fortunate indeed to have such a one to lead their nation through these parlous times.
Apparently, what’s sauce for the goose is decidedly unappetizing for the gander.
Quebec tells Eric Adams to stop buying NY migrants bus tickets
The government of Canada’s second-most populated province is demanding that Mayor Eric Adams “immediately” stop helping migrants illegally enter the Great White North, as recently revealed by The Post.
“Any form of assistance to migrants crossing the border where it is strictly forbidden to do so should stop immediately,” a spokesperson for Quebec Premier Francois Legault said.
“We understand that the situation of migrants in New York poses major challenges, but the situation in Quebec and particularly in Montreal is even worse and constitutes an important humanitarian issue.”
Earlier this month, The Post exclusively reported that Adams was using taxpayer funds to get bus tickets for migrants in the Big Apple to travel upstate to Plattsburgh.
From there, migrants take taxis and vans to a cul-de-sac at the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, where they walk across the border and surrender to Canadian Mounties to seek asylum, as The Post documented on Feb. 5.
Why, that’s just INHUMAN! SAVAGE!! CRUEL!!! I am gobsmacked by the callous indifference displayed by Adams towards these poor, put-upon fellow hoo-monz. As the mayor of a proudly self-declared Sanctuary City, surely he must realize that No Human Being Is Illegal.
I note also, with intense amusement, that the number of illegals Adams is bitching and moaning about as having “overwhelmed” NYC’s resources over the course of the past several months is probably about the same as the onslaught being dealt with in tiny Texas border towns on a daily basis. And now here he is, in typical smarmy-shitlib fashion, foisting the problem he literally asked for, in so many words, off on much-smaller Montreal.
But while the Big Apple’s population is nearly 8.5 million, Montreal’s is just 1.7 million.
As the saying goes, Eric, one of these things is NOT like the other. Think about it, kwitcherbitchin’, and just suck it UP, buttercup. Mmmmkay?
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