Hard times in the land of plenty

Anatomy of a Great Schism, v2.0

Posted on March 21, 2023March 21, 2023 by Mike

ZMan has a look in on all this Trump/DeSantis nonsense.

Ron Versus Don
The basic argument from the DeSantis partisans is that he has a chance to win the general election, while Trump has no chance. More important, DeSantis knows how to govern, which he has proven in Florida. There is no doubt that he has been a great governor for Florida. He also has a very friendly state legislature, which makes it simple for him to get things done. There is no data to suggest he has a better shot against Biden than Trump, but that is the claim.

The truth is electability has never been a factor in these races. Most voters are not like most Republican politicians in that they do not negotiate with themselves. They vote for the candidate they like, not the candidate that a conservative commentator swears will be acceptable to the Democrats. Even if their preferred option has no chance in the general, most voters will go for the guy who speaks to them. It turns out that most people are decent and honest, not scheming weasels.

That is the argument for Trump. Despite his faults, and he has many, he represents those decent and honest people. He is a symbol, more than a candidate. Supporting Trump is about opposing the people who rule over us. It is as close as we get in America to class warfare. Trump’s voters are the great unwashed, the forgotten Americans who hate what has happened to their country. Trump is not the solution, but he makes noise on their behalf. That is enough.

Both camps are right in the same way that two people who have different favorite ice creams are right, even though they disagree. There is no empirical argument in favor of either guy as it is purely a matter of opinion. Pedro Gonzales is mad at Trump for not being the savior he hoped for in 2016, so he is has jumped on the DeSantis side, while Scott Greer still loves Trump and now hates DeSantis. Their arguments in favor of their guy are cognitively meaningless.

That said, we can assess the electability claim. The place to start is the 2020 election broken out by electoral votes. All of those national polls that people wave around are meaningless as we pick presidents by indirect election. In the last election, Biden won 303 electoral votes, while Trump got 235. The threshold to win is 270. There were a lot of shenanigans in the 2020 election, but they were repeated in 2022, so we have to treat them as a feature, rather than a bug.

He goes on to do some juggling with the state-by-state math of the thing, and the sum of the equation is necessarily neither pretty nor reassuring.

What this tells us is the odds for a Republican win are awfully long. They have to win states that are mostly in the other camp by default. Then they have to defend their own states, some of which are trending the wrong way. The Yankee invasion of North Carolina is turning the state into Virginia. Texas is slowly becoming California as those weirdos arrive in droves. Barring some sort of black swan event, Joe Biden will cruise to victory in 2024 no matter his opponent.

What this says is that the choice for Republicans is not centered on electability, but who they prefer to see lose in 2024. The neocons and conservatives prefer to see Trump lose, but they are so full of hatred of white people now, they will root against him in the primary, even if it works against their interests. The DeSantis fans are coming around to the same view, thinking that Trump is some sort of bad juju that must be exorcised in order to return to the 1980’s.

For dissidents, it is a different question. DeSantis is a good governor and it would be better if he finished the job and set an example for others. We do not need another too nice to win loser presidential candidate. Trump is a crazy man who sends the bad guys into paroxysms of vengeful hysteria. He was a lousy president, but he has proven to be a great wrecking ball. His revenge tour, especially if he is indicted, will be the mother of all crap shows. A good time will be had by all.

I’m with him on that. Read on to the very end; Z’s conclusion—“there is no path forward in the current system”—is dead accurate, as well as damned unsettling. I wish there was a credible counterargument to be made, but honestly, there isn’t. No honest, genuine candidate intent on real reform will ever again be “elected” President. Should one somehow manage an end-run against the rigged process and prevail, against all odds, he will be thwarted by the Shadow State apparat entire right from Day One. If you want Unity, well, you’ll certainly see some then—all you ever wanted to see of it, and then some.

Update! Bill is slightly more optimistic—at least, this is what passes for optimism in these dark, parlous days.

I think this is probably right, at least for America right now. But I don’t think the current situation will maintain for that much longer. There are too many systemic, technological, and generational forces at work reshaping our nation, and it is by no means certain that the nation as presently constituted will survive them, especially since they will be coming to a head over the next six years or so.

Which means that we may have only one more “normal” election cycle before all hell breaks loose. So don’t place any long-term bets on what that red and blue map says today. It may not even exist for the 2026 and 2028 elections. And although we can’t see them clearly (yet), I have to assume there is a whole flock of black swans flapping around out there, looking for places to come home to roost.

Yep. In times like this, the one and only thing we can know for sure is that we won’t know for sure until we find ourselves right smack in the middle of it. Not a particularly cheering thought, but it’s the best we’re going to get. As all the cool kids like to say nowadays, it is what it is.

If that isn’t what the cool kids say, please don’t tell me, aiight? Ahem.

6

Auguring in

Posted on March 18, 2023March 18, 2023 by Mike

Trump underestimated the nature and scope of the evil he’s up against, severely, and now they’re finally going to get him.

Trump’s Attorney: Trump Will Surrender To Authorities If He Is Criminally Charged
Former President Donald Trump will surrender to law enforcement officials if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment he allegedly made to porn actress Stormy Daniels, according to Trump’s attorney.

The remarks from attorney Joseph Tacopina come in response to a report from NBC News that said federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies were analyzing security assessments and making plans to prepare for the possibility that Trump will be indicted as early as next week.

Fox News reported that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office asked for a meeting with law enforcement officials to “discuss logistics for some time next week, which would mean that they are anticipating an indictment next week.”

Tacopina told the New York Daily News that if Trump is indicted, “there won’t be a standoff at Mar-a-Lago with Secret Service and the Manhattan DA’s office.”

Tacopina later told CNBC that they “will follow normal procedures if it gets to that point.”

“Normal procedures”—BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Thou fool. From Trump’s Truth Social feed, via Barry (no direct link, since I don’t have an account there and have no interest in signing up for one, so the link is to Barry’s comment—thanks, Bar!):

OUR NATION IS NOW THIRD WORLD & DYING. THE AMERICAN DREAM IS DEAD! THE RADICAL LEFT ANARCHISTS HAVE STOLLEN OUR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, AND WITH IT, THE HEART OF OUR OUR COUNTRY. AMERICAN PATRIOTS ARE BEING ARRESTED & HELD IN CAPTIVITY LIKE ANIMALS, WHILE CRIMINALS & LEFTIST THUGS ARE ALLOWED TO ROAM THE STREETS, KILLING & BURNING WITH NO RETRIBUTION. MILLIONS ARE FLOODING THROUGH OUR OPEN BOARDERS, MANY FROM PRISONS & MENTAL INSTITUTIONS. CRIME & INFLATION ARE DESTROYING OUR VERY WAY OF LIFE…

Page 2: NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!

Which, without violence, is simply not on the table. When Trump goes to prison, I don’t expect him to last very long before somebody Epsteins his ass. Next, Melania, Don Jr, and the rest of his family need to be continually checking six, because you can be sure they’re next in line for the exact same treatment from the Überstadt.

And then…well, we shall see what we shall see, I suppose.

The evidence is all in, a surfeit and then some of it, the case closed once and for all. This is yet another reminder that, just as I’ve said over and over: clearly, they do NOT fear us. They need to be reminded—forcefully, explicitly, and beyond all doubt or debate—that there might still be good reason for them to. Until such time, it’s only going to get worse.

Update! Another reminder, for Trump, his family, and pretty much everybody else.

‘Nuff said.

Updated update! Dave Renegade sums it up quite well.

The lines are still being drawn in terms of a civil war but only as action is concerned. The lines defined by the division sowed by the other side to weaken and take over the Republic are entrenched. Once the first shot is fired, the people who have been marginalized, have had their country, rights and Liberty stolen, and their health attacked will not stop. This is not a call to action; this is just reality. How do you feel about this illegal government and out of control justice system? This is no longer a rhetorical question.

We may not be able to stop what is coming but we surely do not have to submit to an evil tyranny.

Amen to that, brother.

Wheels within wheels within wheels update! Might this be what it’s really all about? Twitchy says it’s right on cue.

Did somebody in the Biden network decide to give Rob Reiner and the anti-Trump Resistance an early Christmas gift? Also this could indicate that Biden and the “justice” department (with help from New York libs) really want Trump to be the GOP nominee. However, the Left’s narrative has gone from “Trump committed treason by colluding with Russia to steal a U.S. election” to “OK, maybe not but he did pay some hush money to a former adult film star.”

The economy is in shambles, we’re literally being invaded on the Southern border, inflation is so high people can’t afford groceries, Americans are tired of sending billions to Ukraine when they can’t afford to buy gas so definitely it’s time to arrest Trump for something. https://t.co/cEqmUS2eG0

— The Dank Knight 🦇 (@capeandcowell)

March 18, 2023

Could be, could be. The one thing we know with absolute certainty about these filthy swine is that we can put nothing whatsoever past them. There is no trifling, petty skullduggery to which they will not stoop, no low too low for them to sink to. Anyone still kidding themselves that, “Oh, they wouldn’t DARE do this or that,” for any conceivable value of “this or that,” is hereby formally urged to just wake the fuck up already.

5

Judgment Day

Posted on March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 by Mike

Tal Bachman suggests something I’ve been wondering a lot about myself in recent years: so exactly where the hell is the God of the Old Testament, He of the smiting and the scourging and the Great Floods, anyway? What, is He asleep or something?

Dear Old Testament God, Maybe It’s Time For A Comeback Tour

Maybe it’s age, but I’m starting to warm up to the God of the Old Testament big-time.

That’s the one you’re not supposed to like. The one you’re supposed to feel embarrassed by. Even outraged. To hear religion-hater Richard Dawkins (and his tedious hordes of mini-mes) tell it, the Old Testament God is the personification of all cosmic vice. In Dawkins’ words, he is “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction”.

Let’s see what the Bible says.

God’s first genocide was his biggest and most spectacular: the flood. He created mankind, and—well, it just didn’t work out. “Every intent of the thoughts of (man’s) heart was only evil continually”, Genesis reports. But it was the ensuing evil human action which really sealed the deal for God. In a nutshell, “the earth was filled with violence”. That means, I assume, colossal rates of murder, beating, rape, child molesting, brutal slavery, and more. Human beings had taken an Edenic paradise and turned it into hell on earth. God wanted a do-over. A hard reset.

So, yeah, God killed everyone, minus Noah and his family. Wouldn’t you, if things were that bad? After all, you’d be delivering justice to the wicked, and maybe even mercy to their long-suffering victims. Just thinking out loud here.

As it happens, God covenanted after the flood to “never again destroy every living thing, as I have done”. But—thankfully—his covenant didn’t rule out more selective massacres.

Sodom and Gomorrah, for example, were cesspools of horror. The town fathers had institutionalized the gang rape of male city visitors, normalized rank sexual depravity in general (which I assume included sexual abuse of children), and topped it all off with pride, gluttony, and abominable selfishness. Even surrounding towns began crying out to God to do something. I feel sick just thinking about it.

And obviously, God did too, because he killed the entire populations of both gang-raping, probably child-molesting cities with the Bronze Age equivalent of Fat Man (fire and brimstone raining down from heaven). Why would I feel bad about that?

The common thread in all these stories is that the people God kills are incorrigibly evil. They’re a scourge to humanity. They commit murder, rape, child abuse, enslavement, cruelest tyranny, random beatings—you name the atrocity, they’re committing it. And they’re not changing their ways. They’re committed to doing the wrong thing even after multiple warnings and chances to improve. These are the reprobate types Paul refers to in Romans 1—people who know they’re doing evil, and delight in it. They hate God, they murder, they violate every innocence and trust. And for God, when things get bad enough, there’s just nothing else to do with them but say goodbye.

Follows, Bachman’s appeal to God His Own Self for a return to the old-fashioned, tried and true ways of dealing with such things. To wit:

Hello, God.

I’m just going to come right out and say it: How about a comeback tour?

You fried the sickos in Sodom and Gomorrah. You drowned all those Egyptian slavers. You even wiped out the entire population of the earth, minus Noah and his family. So how about you help us out right now with a special new demographic reset?

I use the word “reset” on purpose. You see, I want to propose you begin your comeback tour by focusing on all the control freak politicians and bureaucrats who exploited a global panic (which they themselves had cynically manufactured) in order to effect a “Great Reset”. These people make Max Robespierre look like Russell Kirk in a coma. They are—even as I type this—still busying themselves trying to destroy every single salutary aspect of human life and community. And while they’ve done all their damage in the name of public health, they’re actually doing it all in service to themselves. For in their false, pagan morality—the kind you always used to say you hated —they are the gods. Not you. They are the ones who will improve us, heal us, bless us, save us. Not you. They are the ones who will rule heaven and earth. Not you. And their moral code, such as it is, is a putrescent stew of all the most noxious, even demonic, ideas imaginable. I can send you a detailed list in a follow-up note, if you’d like.

In any case, the price these control freaks are now extracting for the patronizing, self-serving, technocratic megalomaniac globalist totalitarian “beneficence” we never asked them for, and don’t want, and which they’re imposing on us against our will, is our sovereignty, our most basic freedoms, our humanity, our families, our traditions, our beliefs, our obligations, our identities, our nations, our allegiance, our worship. In short, these people are your enemies. And ours. We’re in this together, God. We’re on the same team.

I could list many more of the most tyrannical, unconscionable impositions. But I’m going to pause here, and just say, once again, that now would be a great time for you to do a comeback tour. Boy, would it ever. These people wanted a Great Reset. How about you “great reset” them all into, shall we say, “outer darkness”? I don’t really care what you do with them (if you catch my drift) as long as we never have to see them, hear them, or be tyrannized by them ever again.

A most hearty amen to all that.

4

1

Of sowing, and of reaping

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Mike

Bitter fruits of a poisoned tree.

The predictable economic fallout of lockdown policy
The decision to lockdown the world had consequences and we’ll continue to see them unfold for some time. Can we really expect those who caused these problems to save us from them?

Lockdowns caused unprecedented disruption to the world’s economy and global supply chain, and the largest upward transfer of wealth in history.

Widespread business closures due to lockdowns caused mass layoffs of, primarily, hourly wage workers with little to no savings. Then the government spent money that we did not have so people could pay their rent and not starve. And then they did it again.

Of course, this caused inflation. Then the Fed raised interest rates to halt the inflation.

And now we are experiencing the ensuing disaster that is unfolding in real time. And the little guy is left holding the bag whether through exorbitant pricing of basic necessities like milk and eggs or small business investors wondering when and if they’ll be able to extract their money from SVB to pay their employees and vendors.

No, I’m not a banker. But it’s easy to see what happened and that’s the rough outline in the simplest possible terms.

You can’t shut the world down and think there will not be consequences. You just can’t.

As some pitiful handful of us warned at the time, no, you most certainly can NOT. Contra the vainglory of our über-arrogant Ruling Class dolts, an incomprehensibly complex, first-world economy can’t be simply turned off and then back on again, like a light switch. Why, whodathunkit? Those shouting-at-a-brick-wall warnings went all unheeded, when we who issued them weren’t being vilified outright, by the selfsame panic-ninny pissants now mewling for “amnesty” for themselves from those of us who had the right of it all along.

Um, yeah, NO. Sorry, not fucking happening; not from here it ain’t, not now, not ever. As a practical alternative, may I suggest that you all go take yourselves a flying fuck at a plate glass window instead. I do SO look forward to seeing how well that works out for you, truly I do.

All of this happened — lockdowns forcing small business closures — while corporate employees worked from home and screeched “we’re all in this together” while ordering Uber Eats, watching Netflix and working kinda, sorta sometimes. And of course, while continuing to take their salaries and bonuses and stock payouts. And continuing to do so to this day.

No company dared speak out against lockdowns. I can’t think of a single one. Instead, they laid people off with “empathy”, gave them two weeks salary and continued advocating in support of lockdowns — or at the very least going along with them, staying silent — knowing that the bill was coming.

Why didn’t ANY companies say anything against lockdowns when they knew what was inevitably coming?

Because the “woke” view — the this is what good people do view — was: lockdown forever until no covid. That was caring. Anything else was “only caring about money,” being greedy, racist, eugenicist, evil. And companies, whether they agreed with lockdowns or not, were burnishing their image as good and caring.

But in reality, the actual empathetic position would have been to challenge the logic and efficacy (or better said: assert the illogic and ineffectiveness) of lockdowns. And to advocate for opening. To let people work. To allow everyday people to earn a living, just as those in corporate were, as C-suiters were. Executives and corporate leaders shouted Stay home save lives! while staying home where they could carry on with their jobs and doing nothing to ensure that others could actually carry on with theirs.

And now the FauxVid-hoax chickens are coming home to roost, heavily settling, claws-out, onto the shoulders of the just and the unjust alike. As was always inevitable—a fact which bestows not even the coldest of comfort upon those of us who saw it all coming, right from the very beginning.

And so here we are. Millions were pushed into poverty globally, all in pursuit of zero covid, or at the very least avoidance of a respiratory virus as the only thing that mattered. It’s the insane myopia that got us here, and now there’s a panicked scrambling to ensure that it doesn’t get even worse for regular folks than it’s already been.

And still, the lockdown-ers insist, we just didn’t lockdown hard enough. And some, like Forbes, are making the case that we need rolling lockdowns from here on out.

When will we learn? The predictable economic fallout of locking down the world had consequences and we’ll continue to see them unfold for some time. It seems unlikely that the ones who created these problems are the ones who will be able to solve them.

As I’ve also insisted from the start, the lockdowns, the masks, the “social distancing”—We Duh Peepul having so readily, even eagerly, submitted to them once already—will be with us forever, to be dusted off and trotted out as and when, under whatever contrived justification, until such time as we decisively and unequivocally reject them en masse. They proved far too useful a suite of tools for the dimestore dictators, tinhorn tyrants, and midwit Mussolinis who would lord over us to just blithely discard without a real fight. Which makes the truly apposite question here not “WHEN will we learn,” but IF.

1

Jump you fuckers!

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Mike

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.

1

It begins

Posted on March 11, 2023March 11, 2023 by Mike

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.

1

Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

Posted on March 7, 2023March 7, 2023 by Mike

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.

3

All against all

Posted on March 6, 2023March 6, 2023 by Mike

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.

Buttplug blasted—again

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Mike

And nearly bursts into tears of OUTRAGE!™ over being called out on his manifest incompetence and indifference.

Potty-Mouthed Buttigieg Has Hissy Fit Over East Palestine Critics: “You think Tucker Carlson knows the difference between a T.J. Maxx and a Kohl’s?”

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.

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Whither “governable”?

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

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.

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No justice, no peace

Posted on March 4, 2023March 4, 2023 by Mike

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.

OscarGambleFro

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.

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Mad messaging skillz

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Mike

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.

Stop helping!

Posted on February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 by Mike

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.

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THIS is Africa

Posted on February 24, 2023 by Mike

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.

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Wargaming Civil War v2.0

Posted on February 22, 2023February 22, 2023 by Mike

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)

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