Hmmm… – Page 55

RINO is as RINO does

Posted on November 4, 2022November 4, 2022 by Mike

What a disappointment this Eyepatch McCain fellow has turned out to be.

Why would Rep. Crenshaw go on a podcast, Hold These Truths, with Nick Troiano for less than a week before the elections to make America First candidates look bad?

Troiano said that most of the Republican nominees for the House “aren’t accepting the results of the 2020 election.”

Troiano asked Crenshaw what that meant for the future and claimed, “this is a, you know, real threat to our ability to keep the republic.”

Crenshaw claimed that people who question election results are attention seekers.

Oh absolutely, Dan. Say, know where else Da Peepul are forbidden to “question elections”? Oh, bastions of liberty like Iran, Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Somalia, garden spots like that. Jesse Kelly puts it quite well, I think.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

By the way, questioning your country’s election is pretty much the BEST barometer you can use to tell whether or not you live in a free country.

Know where they can’t question elections? Iran. pic.twitter.com/51CEkiKA1i

— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) November 2, 2022

Remember, now, Crenshaw still misrepresents himself as a “conservative.” Asshole. “QUESTION” the election? Hell, I’ll just say it straight up: THE 2020 ELECTION WAS FRAUDULENT. And the day I let some professional politician tell me I’m not allowed to say so is…well, it won’t be a good day, let’s just leave it at that. There are two pertinent questions remaining before us, and Aesop ain’t a-skeered to axe ’em.

It seems to me that what folks ought to be pondering about now, are the answers to two related questions:

1) If the 2022 elections follow the same pattern that 2020 did, and you watch it stolen in broad daylight right before your eyes, and the other side gaslights you into thinking you should ignore your lying eyes. AGAIN;

OR

2) If there’s a Red Tsunami, but when the dust settles, and the media pants-wetting is over, nothing changes, because the Stupid Party is unalterably spring-loaded to feckless and studied incompetence, like always, rather than cutting out the civilizational rot with machetes, and burning it all with a flamethrower,

WHAT ARE YOU PREPARED TO DO?

As I said the other day, I’m more and more leaning towards the belief that the Donks will try to bolster confidence in the integrity of American “elections,” now at their lowest ebb in our history, by letting the GOPe win this one, although I will also certainly admit to the possibility that they’ve become so emboldened by win after win that they’ll cheat just as a matter of long-established habit, if nothing else.

As for Question 2, that one’s a lead-pipe cinch, unfortunately. Which leaves us all staring down the barrel of that last one, the only one that truly matters anymore.

A Woke military is worse than no military at all

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Mike

Man, this decline-and-fall business isn’t turning out to be nearly as amusing as it looks like being in all those old movies about the Roman Empire in its final days.

Our Disunity Is a National Security Threat
The military now reflects the selfishness and fragmentation of our culture. Welcome to the looting-the-treasury phase of imperial decline.

In the lawsuit challenging Harvard’s affirmative action practices, a group of senior retired military officers filed an amicus brief, which argued that maintaining affirmative action was a “national security imperative.” Those signing off include four former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, six former superintendents of the service academies, and 17 retired four-star generals, including Wesley Clark and William McRaven.

A ““national security imperative”? SERIOUSLY? Sorry, fellas, but I’m gonna need you to explain to me, in detail, exactly how you arrived at THAT bizarre conclusion.

Recruiting an adequate number of troops and increasing their quality also seems pretty important. But we know that recent efforts at recruiting have been a disaster, amplified by the mass expulsion of troops who refused the COVID vaccine.

While things carried on for a while out of habit, eventually the patriotic, mostly white, rural Americans who formed the backbone of the military started doing an about face. Polls show that fewer veterans now want their kids to follow in their footsteps. Conservative Republicans, once the most stalwart supporters of the military, have lately become more critical and less trusting.

No real mystery about that. Hell, I’ve wondered for a while now what the hell any new enlistee might think he’s signing up to defend with his very life, literally, and what the hell might be keeping career soldiers in the ranks nowadays.

Declining interest in service by conservative and white Americans is not irrational. Why fight for a governing class that hates you, deems you the central political problem, seeks to humiliate you, and disrespects your ancestors at every opportunity? Why serve an American empire that pursues foreign wars like those in Iraq and Ukraine that have almost no relationship to actual national security and explicitly serve a left-wing ideology?

One might respond that military service is good even under these conditions in order to get useful training and make a living. But even under such a self-serving standard, the incentive to do so is declining, as white men within the military are subject to a rigged game, where it is harder to get ahead, and the old standards of excellence no longer matter. This will only get worse without a dramatic reset in the culture of our military and political leaders.

During the War on Terror, lavish praise for military service flowed from a widespread feeling of guilt. After the 9/11 attacks, the country wanted safety and revenge—but, other than service members and their families, very few Americans carried the burdens of war. The civilian-military gap was amplified by the increasing self-perception of servicemembers as “warriors,” rather than mere soldiers. From this romantic view of military service as a superior way of life undertaken by superior people, we see the first seedlings of a warrior aristocracy.

A constitutional republic and a warrior aristocracy are polar opposites. The European aristocracy found its origins in rewards for battlefield merit, where particular acts of bravery led to a title bestowed on the hero and his heirs, as well as land, the right to income from taxes for land-bound peasants, and exemption from taxes otherwise owed to the king.

Since every national military establishment must necessarily be representative of the broader society it both serves and is drawn from, how could anybody find any of this at all shocking? As corruption, venality, and self-absorption have gradually become endemic in American society, its military has declined right along with it, in direct proportion. How could any reasonable, rational person possibly expect otherwise? Thus:

In exchange for the prestige and perquisites of military service, one thing is absolutely essential: loyalty to the country, the Constitution, and the American people. Without patriotism, the military becomes a very sophisticated gang, one that easily can be turned against the American people. Some will scoff that such a prospect is unthinkable, but one would have thought General Mark Milley undermining the commander-in-chief or a Marine selling his services to the Chinese were impossible too.

Again: shocking? Unexpected? Hardly. “Loyalty to the country, the Constitution, and the American people” have all become mighty thin on the ground amongst the general populace, over many decades. In effect, the military amounts to a mirror held up to American faces, no more nor less. If Americans don’t like what they see there, the only people who can change that is…well, guess who.

Publick Notice

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Mike

Season’s greetings, and Happy Holidays to one and all! A couple of random site notes:

The Substack thang: As a few of you know already, I was recently “recruited” (her word, not mine) by a nice lady from Substack to start writing for them. Now as it happens, when Substack was first launched I went ahead and established an account there, not really knowing for sure what it was or why I would bother with it. It’s not as if I have an abundance of free time to do more writing than I already am doing at CF, but what the hey.

That said, I’ve spent the last cpl-three weeks poking around in the Substack CP, trying to make it look the way I want it to look, which appears to be completely impossible near as I can make out. The nice lady told me I might be able to make up to six figures there, which Lord knows I could use now that my one-legged cripple status has forced me into early retirement, dependent entirely on the paltry 700 simoleons per month SSI is netting me. Gonna be chatting tomorrow with my friend TL Davis about all this Substack stuff, we’ll see what he has to say about it.

What I’m thinking of is putting out fresh, original, Substack-only content twice a week, maybe on Tuesday and Friday, say. During my initial flailing and floundering around trying to suss this infernal Substack machine out, I just left the “Subscribe” option in its default price setting; I can’t even remember now how much it was, honestly. Still a ton of prep work to do yet before I’m ready to launch; I’ll definitely keep you fine folks apprised as things develop.

The “Happy Holidays” Thang: Nope, it’s no coincidence I brought up the imminent Christmas/T-day season in the opening line above. The annual appearance of the universally-beloved Scrooge Picard holiday theme being the big, fat, time-eating pain in the ass it is, I’ve already started mucking about with it. My intention was to try not to jump in quite as prematurely as I usually do this year, I had promised myself I’d wait until Thanksgiving to implement the changes.

Which, being the overgrown Christmas-happy kid at heart I still am and will hopefully always remain, I’m confident you CF Lifers already know just how unlikely it is that I’ll be able to stick to such an unworkable resolution. Fact is, I smile every time I see good ol’ Picard up there on the masthead of the blog; I check in just to look at him MUCH more frequently than I normally do, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

But this year may be a different kettle o’ fish, for a very different reason. See, in the Aulden Thymes before Scrooge Picard was even a twinkle in the remoter corners of my warped imagination, I ginned up a Christmas header image featuring the incomparable Bettie Page trimming a Christmas tree dressed in nothing but a Santa Claus hat and her patented innocent-yet-sexy wink—a photo shot by Bunny Yeager, I believe it was, for Playboy magazine way back in 1954-55 or thereabouts.

What I’m thinking is this: if I recall correctly, the current CF theme’s customization settings have an option which allows for header images that swap out at random, between a pre-selected set of ’em.

The problem being, dear old Bettie Claus is definitely NSFW, at least in most business-office environments. Even though the photo is decidedly pre-porn and innocuous compared to even some TV commercials in this far less blushful age, depending on your boss’s—or your wife’s, or your pastor’s, or your kids’—personal tolerance for light-hearted but naughty classic 50s pinup imagery, it could conceivably make trouble for some of you. Which I am quite loath to do.

Tell ya what, let’s try this: I’ll get to work right away on getting this year’s Xmas theme set up, with Bettie up top instead of Scrooge Picard initially. I’ll leave things like that for a cpl-three days, say. With the weekend nigh upon us, I think it less likely for most office-working types to get busted by a boss-head with Nekkid Bettie on the monitor screen. So have a look over the next few days; if enough of you folks are worried about catching serious flak over it, let me know right quick and we’ll just go with old Scrooge exclusively.

Is EVERYBODY involved in the Pelosi bludgeoning a sicko degenerate?

Posted on October 30, 2022October 30, 2022 by Mike

It’s beginning to look that way, yeah.

The nudist ex-lover of the man who attacked Paul Pelosi is a pedophile who attempted to kidnap a 14-year-old boy and allegedly bought sex dolls for her sons to use.

Oxane ‘Gypsy’ Taub, 53, the former lover of David DePape who is charged with attacking Pelosi in his San Francisco home, was convicted in 2021 for child abuse.

Prosecutors said Taub, who once protested naked in front of San Francisco City Hall, had been stalking the boy, sending him emails and messages and trying to lure him to secretly meet with her.

Following his attack on Pelosi, DePape has been accused by his daughter of sexually assaulting his three children when they were kids.

Y’all may remember Paul Pelosi’s arrest a few months back for nearly killing a girl while driving drunk—on which charges this rich-boy child of extreme privilege skated without doing a single day in jail, after not even bothering to show up in court for his “sentencing”—but I bet you didn’t know this carefully-excised part of the story:

It’s been a rumor for years in SF that Paul Pelosi is gay. David Depape is said to be a Castro Nudist. “The lunatic who allegedly assaulted Paul Pelosi is a Berkeley resident and a ‘Former Castro Nudist Protester’ and hemp ‘jewelry maker’ …sounds totally MAGA Republican to me. 🤣🤣” this from Twitter.

When Paul Pelosi was busted for drunk driving accident earlier in the year, he had a young man with him, and that too was covered up by the police and the press.

Bold mine, and every bit as hinky as the rest of this loony-bin shit-circus is. EXPLAINER: this “Castro Nudist” thing is basically a small group of gay male prostitutes with a penchant for parading around the streets of SF wearing nothing but maybe a cock-ring, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So okay, yeah, obviously all of the reprobates in the Pelosi Skull Cracking cast of characters are not merely ordinary, everyday weirdos, but are truly, deeply depraved. Back to the revelations from DePape’s nekkid former lover.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The former partner of the man accused of violently attacking Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their San Francisco home on Friday is revealing new details about the suspect.

“Hello this is Gypsy Taub. I am the ex-life partner of David DePape and the mother of his children,” said Oxane Taub, calling from the Californian Institution For Women in Corona, California.

“He is mentally ill. He has been mentally ill for a long time,” said Taub, who last year was found guilty on 20 counts, including the attempted abduction of a 14-year-old boy near his Berkeley high school.

She described a time DePape returned home after disappearing for a year.

“He came back in very bad shape. He thought he was Jesus. He was constantly paranoid, thinking people were after him,” Taub said. “And it took a good year or two to get back to, you know, being halfway normal.”

Tara Campbell: “Did he ever show any aggression towards politicians, were his political beliefs extreme in your opinion?”

Taub: “Well when I met him, he was only 20 years old, and he didn’t have any experience in politics, and he was very much in alignment with my views and I’ve always been very progressive. I absolutely admire Nancy Pelosi.”

Uh oh; there goes the Usual Suspects’ hastily cobbled-together narrative, that DePape was a violent Rightwing Extremist MAGA Nazi, looks like.

The threatening truth

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Mike

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

It is instructive – it is vitally important – that we remember how truths about “masks” and “vaccines” and the actual danger of “the virus” were cat-called as “misinformation,” “anti” Science and, yes, “denialism.” How those who dared to speak the truth were persecuted and punished – and still are (viz, the recent punishing of Dr. Peter McCullough, the eminent cardiologist, for stating truths about “the virus” and the “vaccines”).

That is what comes of tolerating cat-calls in lieu of conversations, no matter how uncomfortable those conversations may be. No matter how wrong some people may be, sometimes.

If a person is antagonistic toward a group of people on account of race or religion or some other such non-specific attribute, that will become clear enough soon enough – and that person’s arguments or statements can be picked apart on the basis of sloppiness, inaccuracy and disingenuousness (after a pattern has been established, after it becomes clear that contrary facts aren’t acknowledged and the person’s arguments and statements change to reflect the chastening effect of truth). That person’s statements and arguments can then be dismissed as wrong, without resorting to cat-calling.

It is easy to cat-call the arguments and statements of those you disagree with – and even easier, if you dislike them, personally.

With good reason.

It is very easy, for example, to dislike the person of someone as personally loathsome as Dr. Fauci – or the CEO of Pfizer, Anthony Bourla. But it is also easy to deflect and dismiss – and even pathologize – any questioning of their actions, their views, their policies, as being “anti” – including, in the case of Bourla, – “semitic” as simply (exactly the right modifier) motivated by dislike of them personally, or on account of their race or religion. And that – if accepted as argument-ending before there is an argument – confers upon their actions, their views and their policies a kind of blanket immunity from being questioned or criticized.

Well, a free society cannot exist without questioning and criticism, whether right or wrong and however uncomfortable certain topics may make some people feel. A free society requires people who can think – and aren’t cat-called for doing so. Even when what they think – and say – is racist or anti-Semitic. Not placed in air-fingers quote marks because it is a fact that there are such people.

But there are also worse people.

They are the people who use those terms to cat-call people who aren’t those things but who make statements or raise questions they’d rather not address, often because they are true and the truth can be very threatening, to falsehood. We’ve had an object lesson about that over the course of the past almost three years now. The lies told us about “the virus,” which were used to further worse lies about “masks” – and then on to “vaccines” – which nearly led to camps – show us what happens when such lies are protected by accusing those who dare to question them as being “anti,” as being “deniers.”

And there is still the road ahead of us, with a fork in it.

Peters explains why this fork is a most perilous one indeed, and why it’s imperative that we choose the right one.

“Suicide by obedience”

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Mike

Adjust to the New Paradigm on the fly, or perish.

The important message I want to relate right now, is this is all a diversion. All of these domestic issues, the insanity of drag queen strip-tease in schools is designed to enrage and distract us from the fact that literally every nation in the world owes more money than can possibly be repaid; it’s a shell game that’s running out of time. It’s the economic monstrosity of the world that’s driving nuclear war, because, like 9/11, there has to be a dramatic and terrifying moment in order to institute an earthquake of new, more-restrictive laws; in this case the great reset by which all government and banking debt will be erased, but not yours, not your car, your home, just theirs and they’ll use your assets to free themselves.

The governing powers are so jealous of our every penny, that soon they’ll just take it. Forget taxes, forget legality, they want it and we have it and they have the forces to take it. There are no principles involved here. To do that, they need a war, they need a crisis and they’ve long ago stopped caring what is right, proper or legal. Everything they’ve done in the past two years proves that point. If they’re willing to kill you, they’ll surely rob you.

Nothing will stop it. Nothing can be done about the entirety of Western civilization committing suicide by obedience, except disobedience. It’s probably too late for that to have much effect, but its a question of dying on your feet or on your knees. No matter what happens, there will be enough leftists/communists left to blame it all on our founders and capitalism. The importance of Nine Principles of Freedom, I think, is a starting point for whoever is left in deciding what sort of society to rebuild after the cataclysmic events to come.

In the chaos of post-nuclear war, there’s a chance to resettle and reorganize, but the globalists will have to be confronted directly. They’re instigating this nuclear exchange to arrive at that chaos to institute their vision. Nothing says that those who understand the principles of the republic can’t exploit that breach just as well as they can.

If we don’t step into that breach and refuse, be willing to lay down our lives to resist that sweeping change, you might as well put a Trump 2024 sign in your yard and wait for the Stasi.

If, by some miracle, all of it can be headed off, there’s the longer, tougher road of disobedience that will take an extraordinary shift in personal dynamics to save anything of the world we knew prior to 2019. Even then, it was a disaster. You have to go further back, much further.

Yep, back to around 1950, at the very least. As TL implies, the fact that you might not win doesn’t by any means excuse one from fighting on anyway. In any such conflict, the outcome is never guaranteed; the one and only absolute certainty is that if you don’t fight, you will definitely lose.

Things that make you go “Hmmmm”

Posted on October 29, 2022October 30, 2022 by Mike

Sketchy as sketchy gets, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Police offer new details in Paul Pelosi assault

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott confirmed that the intruder was specifically targeting the House speaker. “Everyone should be disgusted,” he said.

Sorry, not disgusted, not even a tiny bit. What I actually am is highly, highly amused.

SAN FRANCISCO — Police said Friday evening the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was “intentional.”

No, really? SRSLY? That there’s some top-quality sleuthing there, Depitty Dawg.

The man accused of entering the Pelosi home and attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer specifically targeted the California Democrat, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott confirmed on Friday. That was consistent with the revelation that the assailant, a 42-year-old Berkeley resident, had asked “Where is Nancy?” before his assault.

“This was intentional,” Scott told reporters, adding politicians’ families “don’t sign up for this.”

Oh yes, they do. That is, if the words of one Thomas Jefferson still count for anything.

“It is wrong, and everyone should be disgusted,” he added.

Nope, sorry not sorry; still amused over here, not disgusted. Here’s where things get sketchy.

David DePape forced his way into the home through a back entrance, Scott said. Officers arrived at the house, knocked on the front door and were let inside by an unknown person. They discovered DePape and Pelosi struggling for a hammer, and after they instructed them to drop the weapon, Scott said, DePape took the hammer and “violently attacked” Pelosi.

To recap, then: the cops were let into the palatial PeeLousy crib by who even knows, then stood idly by as two half-nekkid dudes were rasslin’ around. Then, when a verbal request to knock that shit off was ignored by the combatants, they looked on as the vicious skull-cracking went down right in front of their faces. Uhhhh HUH. I can see no problem with any of that perfectly believable narrative, not a-tall I don’t.

The emerging portrait of a politically motivated attack by a man who consumed fringe conspiracy theories has shocked San Francisco and stoked fresh concerns about elected officials facing violence.

Not on MY part they haven’t.

While authorities have not detailed a motive, DePape’s online history indicates that he subscribed to the discredited narrative that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate and espoused a range of bigoted and radical beliefs. He expressed anti-Semitic views and appeared to embrace the QAnon movement, which posits a secret cabal of pedophiles has been protected by people in power.

SO, just another addition to the ever-lengthening litany of politically-motivated Left-wing violence, then. Making it exactly one (1) more of such than we’ve seen to date from us deadly-dangerous Right-wing Nazi radical white supremacist extremists, oddly enough. Gin-soaked hag Nancy’s office issued an unintentionally side-splitting statement regarding the bizarre incident:

Rep. Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office released a statement saying Pelosi, 82, was hospitalized but is expected to make a full recovery. The speaker and her family “requested privacy at this time,” according to the statement.

Yeah, I just bet you did at that, Skeletor. Nothing quite like the healing power of “privacy” to help one get through such a trying ordeal, I’m sure. Rand Paul reeled off a scalpel-sharp riposte in response.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wished Mr. Pelosi a speedy recovery “unlike Nancy Pelosi’s daughter” who mocked the 2017 violent attack on the senator at his home that left him seriously injured. Part of Paul’s lung had to be surgically removed after a neighbor attacked him over his political views.

Heh. Also, OOF. If PeeLousy homme or femme had any capacity to feel shame, they’d be up to their necks in it after that semi-subtle slam.

Shady strategery

Posted on October 29, 2022October 29, 2022 by Mike

Don’t get cocky, but not for the reasons Glenn seems to be thinking of.

If there is anything that we learned from the 2020 election, it was to prove that elections could be rigged. After all, they did it in the open, bragged about it, then Time Magazine even did an article admitting to their part in it. We know that they will do it again. We know that there has been shenanigans in elections for decades. The only question remains: Can and will they do it again?

The election next month will be the test. We are less than a week and a half from finding out if we still live in a Republic where the democratic process chooses our representatives, or if we are living in a country ruled by oligarch fascisti. All of the polls, all of the data, and even history are pointing to a major landslide to the right in this election.

History usually marks a loss for the sitting president‘s party.

Watch each of those races closely. If a pile of them go the other way, start looking for fuckery.

I have to say, I’ve slowly come around to a somewhat different conclusion on this. Seems to me that perhaps it’s more likely that the DemonRats might well content themselves with laying off said fuckery and allowing the GOPe to appear to prevail this time ’round, thus keeping their election-theft powder dry and ready for 2024. With the integrity of American “elections” shredded to hell and gone by hinky “elections” going all the way back to JFK at least, it’s in the Uniparty’s best interests to bolster the voting public’s fading faith in the whole miserable charade now and again, and I’m sure they know that quite well.

Could easily be all wet on this little speculative theory of mine, who the hell knows anymore.

Update! And right on cue, if maybe a little earlier than is typical for them, the shitlibs start in with the usual howling about how “UNFAAAIIIR!!!” it all is.

What happened? Journalists and other Democrats have already started blaming voters for the party’s (likely) defeat in the midterm elections.

Seriously? Yes. As the Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this month, Democrats and their allies have a history of lashing out when American voters decline to validate their preferences at the ballot box. The election is in 12 days, but things aren’t looking great for Democrats. Polls suggest they are going to lose control of the House and possibly the Senate as well. That’s why the voter-blaming is already underway.

What are they saying? What they always say in these situations.

Follows, a representative sampling of the phony weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, of which my personal favorite has to be this one:

“It’s terrifying how many Americans will choose literal fascism, female serfdom, climate collapse, and the reversal of everything from Social Security & Medicare to student loan relief [because] they think giving Republicans the power to investigate Hunter Biden will bring down gas prices.”
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid, MSNBC host

Actually, you shrieking bint, not a single one of those notional transgressions you’re sqwee-sqwee-sqwee-ing so hysterically about has the proverbial snowball’s chance of ever coming to pass. By the numbers:

“Literal fascism” is YOUR side’s thang, not ours
“Female serfdom” doesn’t exist in this country, and never has
“Climate collapse” is likewise total bullshit, whether you’re intelligent enough to know it or not
The chances of the GOPe ever laying a reform-directed finger on SSI, Medicare, and probably even the “student loan relief” swindle as well hovers exactly where it always has: somewhere between None Whatsoever and Don’t Make Me Laugh, You Bastard

As for the spurious notion that any sentient being believes “investigating Hunter Biden will bring down gas prices,” who the fucking fuck do you think you’re fooling with that transparently fatuous codswallop? The only thing a thorough, honest investigation of Hunter Biden is likely to bring down is Hunter Biden, as well as maybe the Big Guy and his ten percent along with him.

No, what even the GOPe knows for sure and certain—as most shitlibs do, I strongly suspect; they KNOW it, they just don’t LIKE it, that’s all—is that the one and only way to bring gas prices down over the long haul is simplicity itself: take the US domestic-energy industry off the strangulating leash you shitlib idiots have put around its neck and free them to do their fucking jobs—finding, drilling for, and processing the oil we have in plenty. Y’know, as Trump recently confirmed, to the enduring horror of every Swamp creature currently extant.

There are readily-comprehensible reasons why gas, oil, and diesel prices have soared to record-high levels under the maleficent regency of Pedo Joe Biden and his skulkabout minders. Putin, the Ukraine, and Cracky Hunter’s underpants are assuredly NOT among ’em.

The eternal tease

Posted on October 27, 2022October 27, 2022 by Mike

Never mind the self-driving ones, where the hell is my flying car?

Why Self-Driving Cars Are NOT The Future
Technological hurdles aside, if we could develop the AI that makes self-driving cars as safe as human-driven cars, they’d still have quite a few other hurdles to overcome before going mainstream.

The biggest hurdle, perhaps, is the problem of liability.

Last week, a man in North Carolina was driving at night, following his GPS. The GPS led him to a bridge that the man couldn’t see was unfinished. He then drove off the bridge, crashed upside down in the river below and died. His GPS didn’t show that a portion of the bridge had been washed away – instead it went on mindlessly recommending it as the fastest route. After the man’s death, questions came up about who should be held responsible. Was it all the man’s fault? What about the fault of the city for not repairing the bridge? The state? The bridge manufacturer? What about the GPS technology that got it wrong? Should they pay out? It wasn’t clear where the fault lay and for that reason, all parties involved were vulnerable to lawsuits.

The list of liabilities continues to expand as well. The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) has only demanded more and more accountability from car manufacturers regarding auto safety regulations over the years. According to NHTSA (an arm of the Department of Transportation), all vehicles MUST include specific types of seatbelts, they MUST disclose the locations of where all their parts are assembled (via the Labeling Act), they MUST follow all cybersecurity restrictions, and if a new safety recall should arise, the manufacturer MUST fix them at their own expense. Today, about one in four vehicles on the road have an unresolved safety recall on them which has increased every year since the recall program’s inception.While some may say this is a good thing to have that much oversight around safety, it also does a lot to discourage manufacturers from sticking their necks out for potentially unsafe innovations.

The EPA is also squeezing vehicle manufacturers with new regulations – tightening its emission standards and adding restrictions that car manufacturers find increasingly difficult to abide by. As David Shepardson from Reuters said,

New rules [that] take effect in the 2023 model year… require a 28.3% reduction in vehicle emissions through 2026. The rules will be challenging for automakers to meet, especially for Detroit’s Big Three automakers. General Motors (GM.N), Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Chrysler-parent Stellantis NV (STLA.MI).

With all this red tape, automotive manufacturers are already feeling the weight of big brother pressing on their shoulders and would be reluctant to go all in on self-driving vehicles without all the safety concerns rigorously tested and approved to the point they can be sufficiently indemnified from lawsuits.

Perhaps in another country with a more authoritative government, the liability issues can be overcome.

Perhaps. But you can bet that, in a country with a LESS authoritative government whose citizenry was jealous enough of their liberty to see to it that their central government remained firmly within its Constitutional corral, we’d probably have workable autonomous and flying cars both by now. The lesson: bloated, meddlesome, too-powerful governments stifle creativity and innovation; capitalism and liberty encourages them, and rewards them richly. In Amerika v2.0, unless and until We The People have internalized that lesson fully and put its teachings into full effect, the day of the flying car can never dawn.

Is Pedo Joe lying?

Posted on October 26, 2022October 26, 2022 by Mike

There are just three questions: 1) Is he a politician? 2) Is he a “liberal”? 3) Are his lips moving? Answer those three, and you’ll never be in doubt again.

Speaking at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Biden announced “new actions to lower the cost of everyday living for American families, to put more money in the pockets of middle-income and working-class Americans, to hold big corporations accountable.” Yes, that’s right: more soft Marxism is coming, complete with the politics of envy and bitter invective against the wealthy and successful without which the Democrats would have nothing whatsoever to offer.

Toward the end of his divisive and rambling incitement to class warfare, Biden served up one of the brazen, outright lies that have marred his entire career. The man deserves credit for audacity, for even in his dementia-ridden dotage he is unsurpassed in Washington (a city of politicians, which means a city of liars) in his ability to deliver an absolute falsehood not only with absolute conviction but also with passionate, self-righteous fervor.

“Some airlines,” Joe declared, “if you want six more inches between you and the seat in front, you pay more money. But you don’t know it until you purchase your ticket. Look, folks, these are junk fees. They’re unfair, and they hit marginalized Americans the hardest, especially low-income folks and people of color. They benefit big corporations, not consumers, not working families. And that changes now.”

If “fact-checkers” really actually checked facts instead of just running interference for the far Left, they would give that statement all the Pinocchios they have, for there is simply no truth in it whatsoever.

Biden, contrary to his carefully nurtured Lunchbucket Joe image, has been a member of the Beltway elite for over five decades, and so he likely hasn’t flown commercial in ages. And characteristically, his statement is not entirely clear. He is clearly saying that the airlines are racist and take money illegitimately from their non-white customers, which is viciously false and irresponsible enough in itself, but it’s not clear how exactly he is saying they do it. Is he saying that it’s wrong and racist for airlines to charge more for seats that offer more legroom? Or does he mean that the airlines are tacking charges for more legroom onto the price for a ticket that the customer has already agreed to pay, without the customer’s knowledge?

None of the above. No, what’s really going on here is that Gropey is laying the groundwork for eventual FederalGovCo control of the airline industry entire, that’s all. Spencer reels off a good ‘un to kick off the next ‘graph:

Either way, Biden’s claim here is rancid hogwash of the most fetid variety.

Heh. Well said, Robert. I love it.

Update! This story reminded me of something from the Aulden Thymes I’d all but forgotten: any of y’all rogues, rapscallions, and reprobates out there old enough to remember a budget airline called People Express, perchance?

People Express Airlines, stylized as PEOPLExpress, was an American low-cost airline that operated from 1981 to 1987, when it was merged into Continental Airlines. The airline’s headquarters was in the North Terminal (later Terminal C) of Newark International Airport (EWR) in Newark, New Jersey.

People Express was about as no-frills as no-frills can get, and I availed myself of their services quite a few times back in my callow youth. A nonstop, direct-flight ticket from CLT to Newark could be had for a footling 29 smackeroos, which was a real bargain even back then—inexpensive enough to make jet-setting it up to NYC for a day just to see a rock ‘n’ roll show perfectly feasible, if that was your thing. Which, it absotively, posilutely was mine.

(Un)Righteous retribution

Posted on October 23, 2022October 23, 2022 by Mike

Is it civilizational self-defense, or state-sanctioned murder?

Here’s the thing – a civilization that cannot come up with the moral testicularity to execute a creature who murders over a dozen of its children is a civilization in serious trouble. The minimum standard for any culture that intends on surviving – and surviving means dealing with the barbarians within and without – is to take its own side in the fight for survival. Eventually, there will be a backlash. The only question is how ugly it will be.

This injustice in the Sunshine State – appropriately deplored by Governor DeSantis – is a symptom of the larger problem. You see it manifested across our culture – suicidal tolerance and performative forgiveness. In places like Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other blue cities – it is always blue cities – the inhabitants murder each other with glee. But more than that, they generally act like savages. We have all seen the videos. Random creeps menacing citizens on the subways, packs of thugs raiding convenience stores or shopping malls, pitched battles between groups of aspiring Einsteins in Walmarts, animals cold-cocking citizens who are simply minding their own business. But no one stops them. No one holds them to account. The cops’ shrug, because the blue politicians have told them to stand down. The answer to those of us who protest is always the same – shut up, racist, and also give us your guns so that you cannot defend yourself from what the government refuses to suppress.

And then there is the spectacle of family members of murder victims “forgiving” the criminals as if forgiveness was a simple act and not a process that demands action by the person being forgiven. This bizarre misunderstanding of Christianity is mixed with what seems to be a desire to front to the world as somehow enlightened – “I want to announce that I forgive the barbarians who raped and murdered my daughter. They did not repent, they did not seek forgiveness, and they have not yet been punished, but I’ll do it now anyway. Look at me.” Not that you want to take theological hints from a guy who grew up a Californian Methodist, but the forgiveness of God does not just manifest out of the blue; the one receiving grace needs to take steps to obtain it. These moral posers – and it is posing, sad and horrifying, but posing nonetheless – demand nothing to obtain forgiveness, so the forgiveness they offer is meaningless narcissism.

Yes, in case you are wondering, I am criticizing the family members of rape and murder victims who refuse to demand justice. Their moral voguing is perpetuating a paradigm where more people’s kids die. Forgive those who seek forgiveness; don’t hand it out as moral welfare and be shocked to find a society full of moral welfare bums.

Oh, and forgiveness does not mean letting them out of jail.

I must confess to being of two minds regarding the death penalty issue, and have always been. On the one hand, yes, there are certainly people who need killing among us, and I do get Schlichter’s strong conviction that civilization cannot long survive without defending itself against the wanton brutality of such ogres. Then again, though, I also have serious reservations about the State’s ability to handle this most grave of matters responsibly, competently, and correctly. As Divemedic concisely says:

This story is why I remain opposed to the death penalty in practice. You can’t trust anyone in our “justice system.” Even with a confession.

The guy spent 35 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit before his conviction was overturned. The cop who got his conviction was using questionable tactics to secure confessions for years.

And this is but a single case, out of literally hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of them. It’s been estimated that anywhere between 46,000 and 230,000 innocent people have been incarcerated due to a wrongful-conviction rate which hovers between 2 to 10 percent. Given what we all already know about how incompetent, ruthless, and untrustworthy government, at any level, all too often is—much less how thoroughly tainted and dysfunctional the American “justice” system has proven itself to be just in recent years—can any of us be too terribly comfortable with granting it the power of life and death over us? Can we AFFORD to be?

The risks that must be taken

Posted on October 23, 2022 by Mike

TL contends that the first crucial step on the long road back has to be attitude adjustment.

Recently, where I work, because nothing I’ve written has ever been a commercial success and I like work, I ran into a Covid questionnaire at a customer’s business that I recognized as corporate required nonsense and for a while, not wanting to intervene in the relationship between these businesses, just sort of filled it out without divulging any information to which they had no right to obtain, basically, no, no, no, no, to get on with work. Sometimes I just wouldn’t, but every time I did, it grated on me. I resented it and finally, with a representative of that business standing there, expecting it to be filled out, having noticed that unless someone was there, I wouldn’t, I told him I resented it and he told me to leave. I expected to get fired over it. It was a big customer, a large part of our company’s income was derived from that source. I was grilled on why I didn’t just shut my mouth, fill it out and get on with work. My explanation was that I just couldn’t, it was wrong and if they had to fire me, then to get on with it.

Later, having kept my job, I was sent back. I refused, admitting that I hadn’t changed my mind and wouldn’t and sending me back there was just going to start it all up again. They did a work-around so I didn’t have to, but later still, they sent me to another facility for the same company. Braced for the clash, I entered and was quickly informed that those performing my task only had to sign one sheet and that was all job-related safety information, JSA to those who do them regularly. (don’t get me started on that)

None of us want to lose our jobs over this stupid, inane bs, but we have to be willing to risk it. This is how our successful society has been destroyed to replace it with the irrational, illogical commands of some quasi-authority, by failing to take these risks. Others have, the military washed a bunch of them out over it.

Now that it’s been revealed how deep the rot is, how it’s creeped into every corner of our world, it’s time to start being much more aggressive in defending one’s own rights. Question your doctor to find out how much of the pandemic he actually believes in; ask how much money he’s received from Pfizer or others. These are legitimate questions from someone asked to place their lives, literally, in another’s hands. Take the same aggressive belligerence they demonstrate into these interactions. If we want a free nation where individuals have rights, it’s obvious that we’re going to have to fight for them.

As emotionally and mentally draining as confrontations can be, I understand that few will want to take this advice, but it’s the only way. Maybe not every instance all at the same time, but something, somewhere. I’ve been lucky, I haven’t had to go through any of this before, because if they demanded I wear a mask, I refused to go there. If they got in my face over it, like they did at the post office one time, I got back in theirs citing that they were just following “advice” and that there was no law that required it. They promptly lost the package I mailed, the only one they’d ever lost. Forcing them to resort to that cowardice, that inability to do their job with integrity, was enough for me. Plus, we moved.

It’s in these battles that we must fight, until the great volcano, that’s currently building across the globe, erupts. When it finally does, all of this will be inconsequential, mere survival will be on everyone’s mind. One highly-connected and brilliant commenter recently remarked, “we will be counting our wealth, not in dollars, but ounces.”

All through the FauxVid scam, I refused to wear a mask, period. Even when I had to make a delivery inside the main hospital branch in CLT, I flatly told the security guy at the front door who tried to deny me entry unless I wore the Mask Of Cowardice And Submission, I didn’t; after a few minutes of arguing back and forth, the guy eventually handed me the stupid, grimy germ-catcher and told me to just carry it with me, so as to cover his own ass if anybody inside called me on it. They didn’t.

In fact, the one and only time I’ve ever come close to donning the MOCAS happened only a few days ago, as I was trying to pick up my insulin and other ‘scrips from the pharmacy I use for the purpose. I raised such a loud, intense ruckus with the lady at the front desk over their mask requirement that she actually went so far as to call the cops on the scary, one-legged, crippled old man. When the Gaston County Sheriff’s Deputy walked in the front door and over to me, I looped the thing over one ear and announced to those duly assembled that this was as far as I was willing to bend over for them. Whereupon Offissa Pupp laughed himself sick, slapped a thigh so great was his mirth, told me hey, that’s fine, and walked right back out again without saying a single word to front-desk bint.

From conformable to confrontational? Yeah, I believe I’m good with all that. In fact, I highly recommend it.

Is there really NOTHING they won’t try to meddle with?

Posted on October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 by Mike

Never mind, no need to answer that one.

I’ve written for years and years about how the Climate Temperature Models seem hopelessly broken. So just how broken are they? This broken:

A major survey into the accuracy of climate models has found that almost all the past temperature forecasts between 1980-2021 were excessive compared with accurate satellite measurements. The findings were recently published by Professor Nicola Scafetta, a physicist from the University of Naples. He attributes the inaccuracies to a limited understanding of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), the number of degrees centigrade the Earth’s temperature will rise with a doubling of carbon dioxide.

File this under “prediction is hard, especially about the future”. Gosh, it almost seems like the climate system is massively chaotic and difficult to understand, or something…

The black lines are the actual temperatures; the yellow bands are the model’s predicted temperatures. Notice that the actual temperatures have diverged outside the yellow predicted ranges (i.e. recorded actual temperatures are lower than predicted for all temperature data bases and all model groups). Long time readers know that I prefer the UAH satellite temperature record because (a) it is truly global and (b) it is only minimally adjusted. I have been vocal for a long time that adjustments to the other temperature records are excessive, and may be wildly excessive.

Let me emphasize here that the models have been wrong for 40 years.

Of course they have. “Models” are the bunk, “consensus” is the bunk, and unfortunately, so is the Watermelon scam masquerading as contemporary “climate science.” As I said in the comments section: “How arrogant must we humans be–well, SOME humans, that is–that we can assume our knowledge of how the planetary ecology functions is so complete that we can launch reflecting chaff into space to deflect the sun’s rays, in the name of ‘fixing’ climate change?”

Dictators is dictators

Posted on October 20, 2022October 20, 2022 by Mike

Gabbard Goes There.

Former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard compared President Biden to Adolf Hitler at a rally in New Hampshire and claimed the two men appear to share a “mindset” about how to lead a country.

Gabbard, who announced last week that she was leaving the Democratic Party, made the comparison while blasting Biden for his speech last month in Philadelphia on former President Donald Trump and anti-democratic extremism, according to audio obtained by the Daily Beast.

“And this is something that is, you know, throughout history, we look at authoritarian leaders and dictators in other countries,” she said while campaigning alongside New Hampshire GOP Senate hopeful Don Bolduc in Manchester on Sunday.

“I’m pretty sure they all believe they’re doing what’s best,” she said. “Even Hitler thought he was doing what was best for Germany, right? For the German race. In his own mind, he found a way to justify the means to meet his end.”

The remarks came less than a week after the former 2020 presidential candidate declared that she was leaving the Democratic Party, citing “anti-white racism” and “cowardly wokeness” on the left.

“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers … who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms that are enshrined in our Constitution,” she said in a blistering Twitter video.

Gabbard, who previously endorsed Biden’s presidential candidacy, urged “fellow common-sense, independent-minded Democrats” to abandon the party as well.

Gabbard announced her plans to stump alongside Buldoc, the retired brigadier general and occasional election denier challenging incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan, last Wednesday.

“[Tulsi Gabbard] is a fellow change agent and independent-minded outsider willing to speak truth to power,” Buldoc tweeted last week.

Sadly, when it comes to Gen Bolduc, I has questions.

“I tried to get words like compassion, empathy, and humanity in the dialogue of leadership traits in the military, but they were considered by the leadership as being too soft terms,” Buldoc told the New Hampshire Union Leader after Sunday’s campaign stop.

Oof. That touchy-feely twaddle could easily have been lifted, word for word, from the Woke 101 crib notes. Ah well, baby steps, I suppose.

Update! Sounds like Wayne Allyn Root is all in for Team Tulsi.

My hope is that Tulsi is the canary in the coal mine. She is the model. She has started a trend. She has started a tsunami away from the radical, insane, extreme, America-hating Democrat Party.

Tulsi then backed up her words by immediately endorsing four MAGA, America-First, Republican candidates- Joe Kent for Congress in Washington; GOP Senate candidate Dan Bolduc in New Hampshire; Kari Lake for Arizona Governor and Blake Masters for US Senate from Arizona. I don’t know if Tulsi is officially joining the GOP, but even if she chooses to remain an independent, this is certainly a great start!

Tulsi, it’s great to have you on my team. Welcome to “Wayne’s World.” You may have just changed the direction of America. You may have just saved the GOP with your raw truth. God bless you.

Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Krysten Sinema, are you listening? If you’re not radical traitors; intent on destroying America; hating white people; supporting criminals and pedophiles; killing free speech; and intent on starting a nuclear war; Tulsi says it’s time to leave the Democrat Party. I whole-heartedly second that motion. America needs you.

Oh, I dunno if I’d go so far as all THAT, now. She’s a refreshing departure from the usual insane-Left ranting, and for that I do like her, but I just can’t see that America “needs” her or her former DemonRat Party colleagues quite yet.

Don’t do it, Gov!

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Mike

The historical quote I’d most like to hear DeSantis The Barbarian cite: “If nominate, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.”

Why DeSantis Should Not Run in 2024
Last week at American Greatness, Brandon Weichert explained why, in his estimation, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis should run for president in 2024. His main argument is that DeSantis is excellent in every way—and I agree.

But I reach the opposite conclusion from Weichert. Here is why DeSantis should not run in 2024.

Among many DeSantis boosters, there is an undercurrent of nervous dissatisfaction with Donald Trump. Weichert avoids a direct comparison, but his view is nonetheless clear when he says, for example, that DeSantis is the pinnacle of professionalism and “will not rage tweet his rivals.” At the very bottom of that is an error many still cling to: If we could find someone who does what Trump does but is nicer and more professional about it, then maybe that someone would have an easier time in Washington.

Not going to happen.

I hate to break it to my friends on this side of the aisle, but the total, mind-exploding, apocalyptic hatred of Trump never had and still has nothing whatever to do with Trump’s “rage tweets.” It has everything to do with his actions in office: He fights the established, corrupt-uniparty way of doing things. He makes it clear that a peaceful and prosperous nation is good for everyone except professional politicians.

If you replace Trump with someone who takes his same anti-establishment tack, that someone will get the same Orange Man Bad treatment, just in a different flavor. Maybe they won’t go after DeSantis for tweets, but it will be something else. One way or another, they’ll make him out to be the second coming of Adolf Hitler. And then, four years from now, the media will have you saying “OK, we need a new DeSantis—someone who has the same policy views but is just a little less controversial.”

For heavens’ sake, stop! Stop playing their game. Stop trying to find a candidate America and Washington both like, because it’s not just undesirable—it’s impossible.

If you think that by switching to DeSantis you’ll get the best features of Trump without the drawbacks, you’re just playing into the Left’s hands. You may think this is clever tactical maneuvering. In reality, you’re reading the part of “Fourth Plebeian” in Shakespeare’s Roman forum scene: “Caesar’s better parts shall be crown’d in Brutus!” In case you haven’t read the play, this genius logical fallacy doesn’t work too well for the plebeians—or for Brutus.

This is not the only time for DeSantis to run. We’ll need him in 2028 and beyond. And in the meantime, Florida needs him now. In the battle for American liberty, states are the only real counterbalance against federal power. If you remove DeSantis, the only genuinely pro-freedom governor, from that office now, you’ll have killed two birds with one stone—for the Left.

A perceptive, insightful article overall, and I particularly enjoyed Gelernter’s grateful appreciation regarding what Trump really represented to his supporters, and why he mattered. Nonetheless, I do have a quibble or two, especially the penultimate ‘graph.

Only the political class is afraid of Trump and his mean tweets. Voters will back him in the next cycle as never before, even beyond 2020 election levels. We understand this is a showdown, and it has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats: This is people versus government. This is America versus politics. Don’t lose sight of that. And don’t try to out-clever the professional political manipulators. You already know who they fear the most: Trump terrifies them. The thought of Trump being president again scares them silly. That alone should tell you who our best candidate is.

Would that it were so. Alas, I still discern no sign whatever that they’re “scared silly” of anybody. They despise Trump, as they despise MAGA Americans, certainly. But seriously, now—”terrified”? Nope, just can’t see it. They managed to hogtie Trump handily enough the first time out, and from where I sit they seem to expect no more difficulty than they had then—not with Trump, not with DeSantis, not with anybody else you could name. Could be they’re mistaken about that; their arrogance might easily be luring them into the type of Pride that usually Goeth Before a very bad Fall, which is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

As you all know by now, I very much hope that DeSantis holds fast in Florida. As I told the redoubtable Christina Pushaw in our recent email exchange, we need him much more there rather than besieged in the White House, victimized by the selfsame Power that did for Trump.

As Gelernter so astutely puts it, this is now people versus government. In such a struggle, the sovereign States will necessarily have a vital role, being the obvious governing entity around which any Resistance movement will assemble, as our Founders intended and foresaw. DeSantis can be a key player in that conflict, whatever shape it eventually assumes, and can accomplish so much more there than he could as just another figurehead POTUS fronting for the real Power behind the throne.

I DO very much hope that both Trump and DeSantis are smart enough to see through the recent efforts to sow discord and division betwixt the two of them, another manipulation launched by the Men Behind The Curtain for their own quite obvious purposes.

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