Rumors and imputations

The plot thickens.

We are investigating a tip that 3 of the 5 officers in the Memphis PD beating of Tyre Nichols were members of the Vice Lords gang and under their direction.

Other gang directed beatings were reportedly found on their phones.

Recordings as proof of carrying out the beating. 

According to our source, they somehow were hired because the standards have dropped since police departments have had a hard time hiring, due to BLM movement. 

All of the cops involved had been with Memphis PD 2-5 years each, which coincides with the exodus of White cops and the city’s stated push to hire majority (exclusively) black officers.

I’ll also seen speculation here and there that Looter-American Nichols was regularly dipping the wick in one of the LEO’s wife/girlfriend/babaymama/whoevenknowswhat, and the beating was payback for that. Hell, I dunno; this is Planet Of The Apes we’re talking about here, so who cares what the actual story might be. All I know is I don’t have anywhere NEAR enough popcorn stockpiled.

9

Unworthy world order

If the over-optimistically misnomered “free world” is no longer anything like free, what about it could possibly be worth striving to save?

Why Preserve a ‘World Order’ Without Freedom?

It has become fashionable now for lawmakers to demand accountability for the social media site TikTok because it is finally being correctly acknowledged as both an intelligence-gathering net and propaganda fire hose for the Chinese Communist Party. The irony, though, is that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google Search provide the U.S. government with identical tools. The D.C. Deep State does not mind if Americans are spied on and psychologically manipulated by government actors; on the contrary, it seeks a total monopoly on such influence operations.

To enjoy personal liberty free from the arbitrary intrusions of government nosy-bodies, you have to get pretty far away from the shadow of State authority. Even then, because the national security surveillance structure is pervasive, an isolated campfire in a remote wood is still most likely being caught by somebody’s overhead satellite for some unknown reason. If you are unable to escape from the watchful eyes of the government’s complex monitoring system, then the inner mind becomes the last refuge for any freethinker — so long as those personal thoughts are not communicated out loud.

So freedom is chased farther and farther away from hubs of government tracking, farther and farther into the recesses of one’s mind, until it can be exercised only in the silence of one’s imagination. Make no mistake: the imposition of “silence” is intentional. Governments understand that the best way to prevent the spread of ideas that might threaten their grip on power is to prevent those ideas from ever being spoken out loud. To silence dissent is to squash opposition. To criminalize thought is to enslave the mind. That’s the “freedom” enjoyed by a prisoner, not a living, breathing citizen of any “free world.” If you have been corralled into a mental prison against your will, though, then the best question to ask is this: what would you be willing to do to escape?

Cameras, computers, artificial intelligence — there’s just no way out! Do you know that every generation of humans confronted with new technological weapons has said the same thing?Their cannon are too powerful! Their ships are too many! It is futile to resist! Yet people do resist, and over time, they realize that it is ultimately not the technology that threatens their freedom, but rather the governments that would choose to use that technology without respect for human rights or natural liberties.

Precisely, indubitably so. Over the course of my life, I’ve heard the exact same bitching and moaning over the advent of color TV, then cable TV, then VCRs, then the Innarnuts, then cell phones, then smart phones and tablets, etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseam. No, no, and oh hell no. No grumpy comment-section Neo-Luddite screaming “we must get rid of (insert name of new tech here), we must get rid of (insert other new tech here)!” is at any real hazard of being enslaved by said new-tech devices. Not as long as they retain the intestinal fortitude to simply put the blasted thing down, they ain’t.

Bottom-line summation: it’s the government, stupid.

To create and sustain a “free world,” citizens actually have to be willing to stand up to their governments and say, “No, you cannot do that; you do not have that power; now go away.” Usually, governments (which exist purely because they assert a monopoly over the legitimate use of force) then load their cannon and surround rebellious ports with an overwhelming number of ships as a demonstration of how their “legitimate” force somehow justifies the theft of others’ freedoms. For the citizenry on the receiving end of such violence, this translates to nothing more than “might makes right.”

What they learn in the process is that government power untethered from principle is neither righteous nor worth preserving. The harsher and more unjust governments become toward their citizens, the more likely movements for freedom take hold. When scrappy underdogs prevail over unbeatable foes and “turn the world upside-down,” they do so with tremendous help from their tormentors’ hubris.

Lindsey Graham is right about this much: the world order is at stake. Freedom around the world is under attack from those governments sworn to protect it, and their betrayal imperils peace. I saw a headline recently that blared, “Rogue Hog Turns Tables, Kills Butcher.” Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the news had nothing to do with politics. Although, given that the homicidal hog had been repeatedly shocked with a stun gun and kept in a tiny enclosure on his way to becoming BBQ, his story could be a prudent allegory after all.

Freedom ain’t free; never has been, never will be. It is not a gift from some benevolent and wise government; no government in history has been willing to even pay lip service for very long, as ours no longer bothers about doing, to “preserving” and/or “defending” it as it grows ever larger and more intrusive. The priceless jewel of freedom can only be seized and then scrupulously maintained, nearly always by force of arms wielded by strong, determined lovers of individual liberty resolutely unwilling to ever take “no” for an answer.

“Violence is not the answer”? The hell you say. It’s the ONLY answer, once a certain line in the sand has been stepped over. Unfortunately for us all, in Amerika v2.0 that grim threshold was crossed long ago.

This essay is depressing as all hell, but it’s also one of the estimable JB Shurk’s very best yet, of which you’ll surely want to read the all.

4

I look forward to the rioting

Just another poor innocent Dindu beaten to death by the cops.

Local Memphis Looter-American Tyre Nichols, who wuz a good boy and dindu nuffin wrong, was nevertheless beset upon by five fellow Looter-American po-leece who engaged in a little pre-trial punitive action, allegedly beating him so badly that he died a few days later.

This be Tyre, the usual smiling face and dressed up picture families always find.

Tyre was apparently pulled over for reckless driving and then took off. At some point all five of the fellas got in some licks on Tyre and he was in critical condition when he was taken to a local hospital where he subsequently died. For good measure two members of the Memphis Fire Department were also fired for reasons I haven’t seen yet.

The video of what happened is set to be released tomorrow night apparently. It seems like a great idea to release a video of a black dude being beaten to death on a Friday night, I am sure that famous self-control will keep a lid on things. A local news report quoting an attorney for the family claims he was beaten for three minutes by the cops, which doesn’t sound like a long time unless you are the one getting beaten by five dudes. The same local news story claims that at least some of the cops involved were part of a special police unit…

Some of the officers involved have been identified as belonging to an MPD unit called SCORPION, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods.

The unit launched in November 2021 and focuses on preventing auto theft and gang-related violence and was structured to have some coordination with the Multi-Agency Gang Unit.

I guess they restored some peace that night. I expect the video is going to show at least five cops going apeshit on this guy, and while there isn’t an excuse for beating someone to death I do hope that the entire video is played to see what led up to his death.

Regardless of what the video shows, you can be sure this is all somehow my fault.

Well, I mean, DUH. Ahh, but there’s something of an unanticipated twist to this particular story, one you’ll want to click on over to Arthur’s place to find out about.

Chimpout update! And so it begins.

WATCH: Tyre Nichols protesters block freeway traffic in Memphis

‘Stand up, fight back,’ Tyre Nichols protesters shout as they block traffic on a freeway bridge

MEMPHIS – Tyre Nichols protesters blocked traffic on a Memphis freeway Friday night after video was released showing police beating the young Black man as they attempted to arrest him.

“Stand up, fight back,” the protesters chanted on the I-55 bridge, video captured by Fox News shows.

Protesters gathered and marched after an hour of video footage was released showing police beat Nichols. The 29-year-old was hospitalized after the encounter, but died three days later.

“We shuttin’ it down,” one protester can be heard shouting.

“By any means necessary,” another said.

Dey be demandin’ jussis ’n’sheeeit, yo. Looting to follow, although the article notes that businesses in downtown Memphis have wisely boarded up their street-level windows in anticipation of the impending conflagration.

Updated chimpout update! Wilder comments thusly, and I quote:

Wow! Nike shoes, 100% off!

Thanks, Tadarrius!

What can one say but: Heh.

Fanning the flames update! Glenn quips:

Here we have a black man, killed by black officers in a majority-black city run by Democrats, the offending police have all been charged and the authorities seem to be taking the crime quite seriously, but everyone expects riots all over because…well, just because.

I don’t suppose the news media have anything to do with that.

No, of course not. Perish the thought.


But…but…but…all the best people have long assured me that it is literally impossible for any black person to be Rayciss™! If the hypocritical jackwagons couldn’t contradict themselves twelve times before lunch every day, they’d be left entirely unable to speak at all.

2

Checking into Hotel USSR

Just emailed Oleg Atbashian to tell him I finished reading his autobiographical tome, Hotel USSR, and am now going through it a second time to make notes for use in my review of it here, which I should have up probably in another week, maybe two. And MAN ALIVE, but this book is powerful indeed! It’s written in a straightforward, matter-of-fact style, which only serves to intensify the impact of the relentless brutality and inhumanity chronicled therein.

I’ve been reading and excerpting Oleg’s People’s Cube humor blog for years now, and never realized that he grew up in the Ukraine, and was born the same year I was. Our upbringing and youthful experience as Children of the 60s and 70s couldn’t have been more different, alas for him.

No matter how well-informed you might be, how carefully and thoroughly you’ve educated yourself about what life might be like under full-bore totalitarian tyranny, Oleg’s story comes at you like a sharp punch in the gut. As far along the same dismal road as the US has come, let me assure you that we have no idea what it was like for the victims of the heartless thuggery and oppression that was simply the stuff of everyday existence in the Soviet Union. It’s monstrous, no more nor less. How people like Oleg managed to get through it all with their souls and spirits still relatively intact and functioning is far beyond my ken.

Yet more baffling, and infuriating, is our domestic Useful Idiots who continue to this day to lobby hard for a Made In America emulation of this abominable regime. The clueless dolts know not what they wish for, a truth that Hotel Russia makes perfectly clear. God forbid that they should ever get their way. Every last one of them should be forced to read it, with a gun at their heads if need be.

More to come as and when, folks.

2

Puppetmaster switcheroo

Ladies and gents, it appears we have ourselves a new President.

Jeff Zients to replace Ron Klain as President Biden’s chief of staff: report

Former Obama administration official Jeff Zients is reportedly a likely replacement for Ron Klain as President Biden’s chief of staff.

Politico, citing three unnamed sources, reported Sunday that Zients, a close Biden confidant who ran the White House’s COVID-19 response, is widely expected to step into the role.

Klain, 61, is believed to be stepping down from the job, and has apparently been saying he’s been ready to leave since the 2022 midterms.

Zients, 56, would step in as Biden is marred by scandal over classified documents found at the Biden family’s personal residence. On Saturday, a lawyer for Biden announced federal investigators had found more classified docs — some dating back to Biden’s long Senate tenure.

There is no apparent connection between Klain’s impeding departure and the classified docs scandal.

Think so, do ya? Because from where I sit, it sure has the look of rats fleeing a sinking ship as the classified-docs scandal keeps right on getting deeper, broader, and worser.

4

Street justice

Andrea Widburg on a phenomenon that, as Feral lawlessness continues to go unpunished, we’ll be seeing more and more of: vigilantism.

VIDEOS: Americans step up because the police aren’t there

Last week, a video made the rounds showing what happened to a man who entered a restaurant, waved a gun around (later shown to be fake), and demanded people’s valuables. That’s a common enough occurrence nowadays, but this one went viral when one of the customers, recognizing that a criminal pointing a gun at others poses an imminent threat to life, shot the man…again and again and again.

Most people agree that the initial shots were righteous, but there’s debate about the last shot when it appeared that the threat the robber presented had been neutralized. However, we really don’t know whether the robber was still a threat. After all, we’ve all seen videos of bad guys absorbing round after round and still killing or wounding people. (E.g., here.) The law allows citizens to keep defending themselves as long as necessary.

Two more videos of citizens taking action have emerged. One is wonderfully amusing because it shows Guitar Center employees in Phoenix unceremoniously throwing out a would-be thief…

The second video shows people corralling a would-be purse snatcher. When he makes a break for freedom, a woman who had a gun trained on him shoots him in the back as he flees. Under the classic American standard, unless she can colorably claim that he still posed an imminent threat as he fled, she’s in trouble.

The vid:


Another example of what I call a Righteous Shoot™, to my way of thinking. But hey, maybe that’s just me. In practical terms, though, it really isn’t going to matter.

Regardless of the shot’s righteousness, this is another example of what happens when citizens feel they’re on their own. In Houston and El Paso, crime in Texas has run rampant, and the authorities are doing nothing to protect law-abiding citizens. So, again, citizens will protect themselves.

As they should, and in fact must. There is no innate moral obligation that requires decent, law-abiding people to docilely put up with being preyed upon indefinitely. That obligation is instead part of an unwritten, informal charter we used to call the social contract. And when the authorities once entrusted with its enforcement tacitly renege, it can be revoked. And it will be. Gonna be pretty tough on the Dindus, I’m afraid, but here as always the FAFO rules apply. When Normals realize that legal justice is no longer available to them, then street justice will be all they have left.

2

The road to war

Will be paved by KBR contractors.

Along with the comment: “WW3 is a go, KBR is hiring civilian workers for the war zone.”

Unfortunately, from my own personal experience, he’s probably correct. I went to the KBR website and check out the ‘local job hiring’ that’s going on for LOGCAP. LOGCAP stands for LOGistics Civilian Augmentation Program, i.e. using civvies to fill in the blanks that the Army no longer does, shit like cooks, base support (HVAC and AC stuff), Logistics coordination (my old job when I worked for them back in 06 for 6 months in Tallil.) I quit for two reasons…one, a Better job running Gitmo opened and two, I purely hated the company and the shitkickers who were in charge. Now…

A BIG part of what they did was assist in building and maintaining ALL the FOBs in Iraq and Affy.  Forward Operating Bases that is…unless they were waaaaay out in the hostile boonies that is. Wouldn’t want to get kil’t now Aye? But as far as the main bases like Victory and Mortaritaville? KBR baby, ALLLLLL KBR allllll day long.

Now, not for nothing, I checked to see if this was a legit thing. Went to KBR’s website and pulled the following by doing a search for Germany first (only two job openings there) and then Poland, ‘cos IF we’re going to be staging and running a full period fucking dot war in the Kraine, the staging area’s going to be like Kuwait was for Iraq in 2003.

Link HERE

Sure as fuck:

They started back, near as I can tell, setting this up in August by some of the job posting dates.

Breaking it down:
Construction Services: They’re the ones who build base infrastructure. 44 jobs.
Logistics and Gov Services: Warehouse/Supply guys…Cooks and shit, HVAC guys, support services. Truckers too….Those are the BIG ones, and to start with, they want 57.
The rest listed above are your basic ass’n trash jobs, with leadership and planners included.

Doesn’t sound like much, but considering a couple of months ago, the grand sum total of jobs for and by KBR was in the single digits? There’s something coming. Poland doesn’t need a whole hell of a lot of initial support as they -are- either a second world or maybe a first world country that as of yet hasn’t been blow’d dafuq up.

Stress on the word YET

So, Komplete Bumbling Retards is now ramping up.

This is a thing of badness.

I’d have to say so, yeah. As Big Country goes on to say, KBR wouldn’t be doing this in the first place if there wasn’t, and I quote, “literally a metric fuckton in weight of money to be made.” Given that pRetend “pResident” Joey Bags has so magnanimously sent his co-conspirators in the government of the Ukraine D卐M☭CRAT Party ATM™ what, over a hundred billion-with-a-“b” US smackeroos since the Rooskie invasion, they aren’t wrong in that no-brainer assessment, either.

1

Theater of government

Protecting the bureacRats is an old, old tradition in Mordor On The Potomac, going all the way back to Andrew Jackson’s day.

Republicans Are Failing Unless They Are Disrupting, Discrediting, And Destroying The Bureaucracy
For well over a century, we’ve all been told the progressives’ folk tale about the Jacksonian revolution: that he didn’t really get rid of any of the bureaucracy, but what he did do was he brought in a rabble, and created the spoils system. In this telling, the nation is essentially held captive by the crooks, by the cronies, until the heroes arrive: when the progressives ransom democracy for the passage of this little statute called the Pendleton Act.

The Pendleton Act (and all of its progeny that follow up through Jimmy Carter’s 1978 civil service reform), had essentially one goal, which was to insulate the civil bureaucracy from political accountability — to “protect” civil servants. Now, I think in fairness we would all agree that Jackson’s idea did fail. He had a novel concept: what he called a rotation in office, essentially term limits for civil bureaucrats.

We’ve never really come back to that concept. We want to terminate the actual democratically accountable leaders of the nation and leave the permanent Mandarin class (which some folks in this room belong to here in Washington) as an occupying army. The idea was good, and Jackson would say, “I don’t want the civil bureaucracy to remain a species of property for these people.”

But even by the numbers, Jackson only took out about 10 percent of the then-existent civil service, which by even the modest standards of 19th-century America, 10 percent was insufficiently small.

Priority No. 1: Take Out the Bureaucracy
The last thing I’ll just say really quick is for those of you who actually advise members of Congress or senators. There was a recent celebration at the institution which is still called publicly the University of California at Berkeley (which is not really much of a university anymore). Professors Lee Raiford and Ula Taylor gave a presentation on Berkeley’s purchase of a whole tranche of documents from J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure as director of the FBI. The documents are largely focused on the counterintelligence program, which was known as “cointelpro.”

The presentation from the professors in why Berkeley was interested in this tranche of documents was that it supposedly was confirmation of the systemic racism of the FBI from its inception through the duration of Director Hoover’s tenure. For my purposes, I think what’s fascinating is how they highlighted this line from an internal memo that Hoover authored to field agents where he said, “The obligation you have is to disrupt, discredit, and destroy the Black Panther movement.”

The advice I would give any of you who are advising members of Congress when you go to stage what are otherwise meaningless Kabuki-theater hearings [is this]. When you want to exercise oversight by asking the bureaucracy to provide the information that will then allow you to exercise your oversight authorities — unpack that one: The very people you’re supposed to be controlling are the ones you’re dependent upon for information — when all that’s happening, the mantra that you should have in mind is: We are failing unless we are disrupting, discrediting, and destroying these people.

Precisely, indubitably so. Unless and until that happens, it’s all just posturing, preening, and pissing into the wind.

2

Speaker Trump?

Highly speculative, certainly. But highly amusing just the same.

Meet the New House Speaker: President Donald J. Trump…Running Congress Direct From Maralago
I told you so. My plan worked. It just worked in a way I never imagined.

Like Martin Luther King, I had a dream. My dream was Trump as House Speaker. I was the first in America to propose the idea in a commentary on 1/30/21. Then I talked about it nonstop for months on my nationally-syndicated radio show. I personally lobbied President Trump in numerous appearances on my radio and TV shows.

But Trump made it clear he never really wanted it. Trump is always number one. The Chairman of the Board. The 5 Star General. He doesn’t take orders from anyone. I think he always looked at Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan and John Boehner (the last 3 House Speakers) as errand boys and girls. Order takers. So, Trump never wanted the job. Not enough star power for him.

And who can blame him? Look at Trump’s life. Trump had the greatest life on earth. He became not only a billionaire, but the most famous billionaire on earth. The celebrity of all celebrities. With the most famous celebrity estate- Maralago. And the most famous reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Who’d give that life up? 

Trump did. To save America and the forgotten middle class. To fight the DC Swamp and the Deep State. To make America great again. He gave up his one-in-a-billion life for you and me!

Now he wants to be president again. Trump never saw House Speaker as his calling. He was flattered by my idea. But he never wanted the job. House Speaker takes up too much time. Trump needs to be free to run for president again.

Trump plays chess at much higher level. My idea was a good one. Trump just made it happen in a different way. You see, Trump is the newly elected House Speaker. Just not in name. In name, the title goes to Kevin McCarthy.

But guess who got McCarthy elected? Trump. And guess who controls McCarthy’s every move as House Speaker? The MAGA, America First, loyal Trump members of the Freedom Caucus.

MAGA has McCarthy by the short hairs. McCarthy can’t take a bathroom break without asking the Freedom Caucus for permission. So, guess who’s actually running Congress? De-facto House Speaker Donald J. Trump.

Few understood why Congressman Matt Gaetz and his band of merry Trump warriors embarrassed McCarthy for 15 excruciating rounds. It was all about extracting every last conservative MAGA concession from McCarthy. To make sure McCarthy understood that MAGA was his master.

Well, possibly, I guess. Certainly, that would be the only credible explanation for Trump fellating McCarthy during the Speaker-selection process I’ve heard proposed, especially after McCarthy had so egregiously stabbed Da Donald in the back over J6. Nonetheless, it’s all just a bit too much of the old Q-style “eleventy-D chess” wishful thinking for me to just gulp down whole. But t’is a consummation devoutly to be wished. In the final analysis, one can only shrug and mutter, “Hey, who the hell knows?”

4

Unintentional (?) hilarity

The Revolver author takes it as satire, but after looking the thing over a cpl-three times, I ain’t so sure about that myself.

With our coverage of Ray Epps, Scaffold Commander, and the ever-elusive MAGA Pipe Bomber, we at Revolver have done our part to thoroughly discredit the mainstream narrative of January 6.

Most of America, of course, has moved on from January 6, regardless of how it voted in 2020. But then, there are the diehards: The collection of people for whom a few hooligans in the Capitol was the most psychologically traumatizing event of their entire lives.

And now, they have a comic book. Fresh from OneSix Comics, it’s…“1/6: The Graphic Novel”!

My bolded bit below would seem to be a dead giveaway as to satirical intent and authenticity:

1/6: The Graphic Novel asks and answers the question: what if the January 6, 2021 Insurrection had been successful? In an entertaining, chilling, and sometimes humorous form, 1/6 illustrates how close we came to authoritarian rule in the United States, demonstrating how strategic disinformation, racial and religious bigotry, and cynical political ambition convinced millions of ordinary Americans to reject cherished constitutional values and support violent sedition.

Harvard Law School Professor Alan Jenkins and New York Times bestselling graphic novelist Gan Golan have teamed up with veteran comic book artist Will Rosado to depict, in chilling detail, what the Insurrectionists and their allies had planned on that day, the threats to our democracy that remain, and what can be done about it.

Ayup, NOT satire. Still hilarious though, if only in a dark way.

For now, here are Revolver’s nine favorite details from Volume 1. 

1. The story opens with a team of special forces storming a CNN-esque news station, and executing the staff without a trial.

2. The murdered news anchor is replaced with a new one, and apparently, the new anchor is supposed to be Tucker Carlson. Only problem is, he looks more like Mitch McConnell in a toupee.

I’m digging it already. My personal fave from the unfortunately notional MAGAmerica? This one.

5. The old Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building has been renamed in honor of a far better black Supreme Court justice…and also his wife, for some reason.

The building’s courtyard is dominated by a massive statue of Clarence Thomas and Donald Trump both waving gavels.

Heh. Yep, totes digging it. ¡Viva la MEGA-MAGA revolucion!

1
1
1

Plan of action

Secure in its supreme arrogance and behind its walls, fences, and armed Palace guards, the Power doesn’t realize this—or just doesn’t care, perhaps—but it’s a long-established truism of guerrilla warfare that guile and relentless determination can, and quite often does, trump sheer weight of numbers.

Shock the system
Just one example of how the government could lose a civil conflict

I keep reading comments from arrogant progressives who delight in the assault on gun rights led by their elected and appointed allies in the recent weeks since a madman gunned down innocent children in a school in Newtown, CT.

They seem to think they can impose any indignity and infringment they want without repercussion, because the President of the United States is one of them, he’s the leader of the nation’s military, and he can therefore win any battle against America’s freedom fighters who might rise up to restore their constitutional rights currently under assault.

They don’t understand asymmetrical warfare in the slightest, much less how it would be waged here. Let me give you just one small example of how lone wolves or small teams can strike well beyond their size against a near defenseless leviathan.

After the Dot Com bubble burst in the early 2000s, I took a job in upstate New York for a subcontractor of Central Hudson Gas and Electric. I was part of a crew sent out to map electrical transmission line power poles and towers via GPS, check the tower footings for integrity, check the best routes for access, etc.

It meant I rode quads (ATVs) through mountains, swamps, forests, neighborhoods and farms all over southern New York, in winter’s icy chill and blowing snow, and in summer’s melting heat. It was exhausting work, often in beautiful scenery.

We probably averaged 20 miles of line a day, and that over the course of the contract I easily rode a thousand miles. I can tell you stories of flipping quads, sinking quads, going down a mountain without brakes, almost hitting deer at top speed, and parking on the remains of an electrocuted bear, but that isn’t really what I remember most about the job.

No, what I remember most about the job were the days we spent up near the Rondout Reservoir. What I remember in specific was discovering how powerless the government was to protect key utilities.

In a post-9/11 New York, where terrorism was foremost on the minds of many, you simply didn’t mess around near New York City’s water supply, and Roundout was part of that equation.

The thought that we could be viewed as a threat as we rode the hills around the reservoir for several days never crossed our minds, because we were focused on our jobs minding the electrical transmission lines, not the waters flowing nearby.

It wasn’t until late on the second day, where we parked right beside the dam’s offices, that law enforcement caught up to us. Apparently we’d been the on again, off again suspects in a low intensity chase for two days, with the law enforcement agency that was in charge of providing security for the reservoir (NYDNR, maybe?) trying to chase us down, without any luck. They didn’t catch us until we parked the truck beside their HQ on the afternoon of the second day and began unloading our gear right under their windows.

That it took them 14 hours of time “on the run” in the area (30 hours total time) to “catch” us was a little unsettling. Then I started thinking about the much more fragile structures we were working beside routinely.

You see, we’d ridden up to edge of the Danskammer and Roseton power generating stations, and a dozen or more unattended substations during the course of this contract, without being challenged at all.

Substations like the one above could be accessed not just from surface roads, but from access trails under the power lines by people with UTVs, ATVs, and motorcycles.

Just like the residential transformers in your neighborhood, the transformers in substations are cooled with a form of mineral oil. If someone decides to blast a transformer at its base as prepper Bryan Smith did, and the oil drains out, then the transformer either burns out catastrophically, or if the utility is lucky, a software routine notices the problem and shuts the substation (or at least the affected portion) down. The power must then be rerouted through the remaining grid until that transformer can be replaced and any other resulting damage can be repaired.

That’s from a 2013 piece by the late, great Bob Owens, which reads today like prophecy. As we’ve seen lately, not just in upstate NY but all across the nation, little if anything has changed since then.



5

The past is prologue

The imminent fall of the rusty, rickety, ramshackle New Roman Empire.

Every. Single. Thing. about out Centralized DotGov and its DotMil is Bullshit.
Recruiting is Down, if not entirely nonexistent these days.  The Imperial Untied Staatz is going to go the way of Ancient Rome at this rate…what’s next? Offering citizenship to all these Mexicans crossing the border IF they do a stint in the Imperial DotMil? Currently the status of an Illegal:

Can an illegal immigrant serve in the US military?

Undocumented immigrants are generally barred from serving in the military, though occasionally (especially in times of military need) an undocumented person might be allowed to join the armed forces in spite of this rule.

Military Membership – Curran, Berger & Kludt

Search for: Can an illegal immigrant serve in the US military?

So, key words: especially in times of military need
I’d say that that time is rapidly approaching
Seeings that ‘Heritage ‘Murican’ i.e. Southern boys and Midwesterners who typically form the backbone of the US DotMil across the board are, for the most part actively avoiding the Imperial Legion due to The Pozz and all it’s indoctrination.  Recruiters can’t and haven’t made their markers.  Last time things  were this bad was back in 2006 when the Iraq shitshow was entering year two point five…

That’s when we heard about literal retarded kids, autistic kids and downs syndrome kids being recruited just to fill in the numbers… I actually met one of those kids who was, no joke a Learning Disabled country boy from Alabama who was a functional (or non functional?) illiterate. He literally couldn’t read. I helped him quite a bit, as I had MomUnit send me some learn-to-read books and I worked with him to get him to a 2nd grade level. He was a fast learner, and a hell of a Combat soldier, but should he have been recruited?

Oh Hells Noes
The Roman Empires fall was directly due to the fact that “Heritage Romans” were no longer serving in the Legion.  They started recruiting from the ‘provinces’ and that led to the eventual dissolution of the Empire, as instead of Roman, the Legion was a diverse mishmash of “others”
Sounds familiar donitnow Aye?

All too, my brother. All too. Lots of things do nowadays, way too many of ’em for comfort.
4
2

Let it be

No, the federal G isn’t remotely likely to stand idly by and let it happen. But hey, a man can dream, right?

BOMBSHELL POLL: 66% of Texas Voters Want TEXIT

According to a newly released poll by SurveyUSA, a top-rated pollster, 66% of likely Texas voters want Texas to withdraw from the union and “become an independent country.”

The bombshell poll was conducted in eight states, including Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, and Hawaii. Support for exiting the union polled highest in Texas, with regular voters showing 66% support and voters who vote only in presidential elections showing 63%.

The poll results shouldn’t surprise supporters of the Texas Nationalist Movement. TNM President Daniel Miller has publicly stated that he believes a TEXIT referendum result would be 60%-65% in favor of Texas reclaiming its status as an independent nation.

69% of Texas voters who expressed an opinion want Texas to hold a referendum on separating from the US, including 81% of Republicans. These numbers support the recent vote by delegates to the Republican Party of Texas Convention, who voted 90.08% in favor of a platform plank that calls for putting the TEXIT question to the people of Texas.

With or without a vote, 60% of Texas voters who expressed an opinion want Texas to set a date for a complete withdrawal from the union. 70% of Texas Republican adults who expressed an opinion agreed.

They can want it all they like, but wanting ain’t getting, alas. Lest anyone forget, we already fought one war over this sort of thing, and FederalGovCo has only gotten bigger, greedier, more powerful, and more tyrannical since then. If Texans truly do want their freedom and independence…well, there’s only ever been just the one way of achieving that, really. Thomas Jefferson knew it well enough.

What country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them.

And that’s the long and the short of it.

1

Banana republics gotta banana republic

What the J6 “insurrection” probably SHOULD have looked like. At least, in the early going.

Chaos in Brazil: Protesters Storm Capital, Destroying Supreme Court and Congress

Thousands of opponents of socialist convicted felon President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stormed his offices and the headquarters of the Congress and Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) of Brazil on Sunday, reportedly demolishing the facades of two of the three buildings and causing “irreparable” damage to priceless artifacts in the chambers.

The riot in Brasilia occurred while Lula himself was in Sao Paulo state assessing the damage of recent floods. Lula, in a public statement following police action to subdue the protesters, announced an official “federal intervention” in Brasilia – consolidating the public security powers of several agencies into the hands of a hand-picked, top-level official – and accused police of acting in “bad faith” in failing to prevent the protesters from storming the buildings.

The incident is an offshoot of months of protests following the October presidential election that saw Lula narrowly defeat then-incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in two rounds of voting. Most protesters support Bolsonaro but, more broadly, oppose Lula’s victory as illegitimate on several grounds, including his multiple convictions on charges of corrupt acts occurring during his first two terms as president. An audit of the 2022 runoff presidential election, which featured only Bolsonaro and Lula as candidates, by the Armed Forces of Brazil concluded that no guarantee could be made of the absence of fraud or irregularities.

Protesters also accuse the STF, particularly its head justice Alexandre de Moraes, of intervening in the election by censoring mentions of Lula’s corruption case and silencing Bolsonaro supporters through fines and police raids.

Well, gee, that last bit doesn’t sound AT ALL like how we found ourselves stuck with dear old Pedo Joe as pRetend “pResident,” now does it?

Lula’s inauguration on January 1 occurred without major incident and Lula used his powers to immediately begin undoing Bolsonaro policies, most notably sharply limiting civilian access to firearms.

Proving yet again that gun-grabbing shitlibs are the same the world over.

Last month, Lula’s pick for justice minister, Flavio Dino, referred to anti-Lula protest groups as “incubators of terrorism.”

Nope, still not ringing any bells for me. Don’t know about you guys.

Many of the protesters convening in Brasilia on Sunday are part of a movement demanding that the nation’s military oust Lula. They insist that their demand is not for a coup d’etat, but for a “military intervention” they say the Brazilian constitution provides for in the event of an illegitimate election.

Some protesters shared videos on social media during the event on Sunday urging the military to “save us from communism.”

Sorry to be the wet blanket here, but I’m afraid that’s on y’all, same as it is here in the US. Vote your way in, shoot your way out, all that jazz.

All in all, I can only agree with JJ.

With that, fresh off the two-year anniversary of “the most devastating attack on our precious democracy (*vomits*) than the Civil War, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined,” the brave citizenry of Brazil have a few things to say about Socialist/Globalist rigged elections. And I’d be lying to you if I said what’s happening down South American way isn’t making my mouth water.

Ditto, brother. Mega-MAGA dittos, you might even say.

Update! Kunstler tots up some of the striking similarities between thither banana republic and yon one.

A great mob of many thousands went apeshit in Brazil over the weekend in that country’s weird, geographically isolated capital, Brasilia, a horror of 1960s-style Modernist city planning. They stormed the national congress and trashed the offices within to protest the fishy election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over the former incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. As in our own country, the quarrel was over the mysterious behavior of voting machines and the unwillingness of election officials or courts to verify the results. The New York Times offered a thumbnail of Mr. Bolsonaro, who is sitting out the current action in Florida:

The resulting picture showed an elected leader, first as a congressman and then as president, who has built a narrative of fraudulent elections based on inaccuracies, out-of-context reports, circumstantial evidence, conspiracy theories and downright falsehoods — much like former President Donald J. Trump.”

Get it? There’s no way fraud could have happened, just like in our country. And Bolsonaro is another Trump. It explains everything. All complaints are “baseless,” “false,” and “conspiracy theories.” End-of-story…. Are these shopworn tropes maybe losing their mojo? And is The New York Times embarrassing itself, a little bit, to trot them out as if they are actually arguments against anything?

The truth is more that Mr. Lula is another Hugo Chavez, poised to wreck Brazil with a fresh attempt at nationalizing all enterprise, ramping up a Marxist police state, and inviting China to partner-up in the action, including new Chinese military bases in the western hemisphere — an interesting challenge to the Monroe Doctrine (if anyone remembers what it says). And so, Mr. Lula has arrested hundreds of protesters and declared a national emergency.

Don’t expect it to stop there. The protesters are asking the army to intervene, as Brazil’s constitution actually obligates them to do in election disputes. Also, unlike the USA, Brazil has plenty of prior experience with the army removing elected leaders. Sometimes, electing yourself into tyranny is not the best way to solve economic problems. For the moment, Mr. Lula borrows a page from the American Left’s playbook for destroying a society. It will matter a lot if he doesn’t get away with it. That’s why the US political Swamp, and its errand boys in the news media, look on the action in Brazil with alarm. Unlike the January 6 protest in Washington, the Brasilia mob represents a genuine insurrection aimed at overthrowing a communist seizure of power.

All well and good, until we go off the rails entirely, in the usual fashion.

Before long, the House is going to impeach Mr. Biden over this fiasco and quite a few other matters. He may not be convicted in the Senate, with its slim Democratic Party majority, but they will be compelled to hold a trial, at least, where a lot of dirty laundry will get aired, and pressure will mount for the old grifter to resign.

Hoooooo-KAY, then. Don’t let’s anybody be holding their etc waiting for THAT Skittles-pooting unicorn to turn up, that’s my advice.

1

Irreparable, irreformable, irredeemable

Plus a whole bunch of other adjectives I can think of right offhand, many of them unsuitable for politer company than moi.

Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House Proves DC Cannot Be Fixed From Within
DC is irreparable.

Kevin McCarthy as de facto leader of the GOP is all the evidence necessary to realize the Uniparty Swamp is in complete political control. Pockets of opposition that occasionally pop up get burnt and discarded faster than a Hunter Biden crack pipe.

The GOP is the marginally-less-horrible wing of the Uniparty Swamp. This political cabal owns DC, or to be more accurate, they manage DC and do whatever they’re told when they get calls from Beijing, Davos, or Hell.

American people have absolutely zero influence over DC today.

The election system is completely corrupted. Legislation is bloated to thousands of pages so politicians can “earn” their payoffs from special interest groups by sneaking in the taxpayer-funded pork. The bureaucratic state is a cesspool.

The McCarthy-run GOP bathes in all this.

Only God can save this nation.

Alas for us all, so far He seems entirely disinclined to do so.

Few in DC deserve our support and even fewer deserve our respect. Unless we can somehow break free from the system, we will always be slaves to it. The system is worse than corrupt. It’s irreparably broken. And that’s the point. They WANT it broken to cover up their ineptitude.

Nah, they don’t much care about that, as long as the moolah keeps flowing their way and their power remains effectively unchallenged by us lowly Proles. Alternate view: it isn’t  so much the system that’s broken, at least not the original one envisioned by the Founders; the grubby, grasping swine who perverted that one into the misbegotten mess we now suffer under are what’s broken here. THEY’RE the ones that can’t be fixed, which means they need to broken for real—into little bitty pieces, so badly that the mere thought of ever trying to fuck with us again causes them actual physical pain.

JD is correct, though; Swampy McCarthy is almost certainly going to wind up as SOTH, and he’s going to get cracking right away on breaking every false promise and reneging on every shady deal he used to maneuver himself into the position of power he so desperately lusts after. That indeed does put the writing on the damned wall for all with eyes to see, all the proof anyone should ever need about the true nature of the federal Leviathan-state, and that there really is no voting our way out of this.

1

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