WHO’S the authoritarian again, now?

The incomparable John Hayward, a/k/a Doc Zero lays down some more of his usual 120-octane, big-T Truth for us.

For all the howling about Trump’s “authoritarian tendencies,” there is no question whatsoever that Americans were more free during his term, and it’s a safe bet they would become more free if he runs and defeats Joe Biden in 2024.

This is one reason the NeverTrumpers can’t connect with any significant portion of the Republican electorate. They’re getting real authoritarianism shoved down their throats right now. The Dems just stole another trillion dollars from them with a fraud “inflation reduction” bill.

All of the money Democrats stole will be devoted to cracking down on the American people, reducing their freedoms, taking more of their money away, forcibly reducing their “carbon footprints” by making their lives worse, and pushing collectivist ideology.

We’re living in a time when fascist government/corporate speech control partnerships are the order of the day. The ruling party doesn’t even try all that hard to disguise its censorship orders to corporate lackeys. Meanwhile, the bureaucracy is utterly weaponized against us.

A growing number of issues are taken out of our hands. We’re told we’re no longer allowed to vote on matters “settled” by “expert consensus.” The bureaucracy we never get to vote against, which can fight back against even our elected representatives, grows bigger and richer.

Trump didn’t do those things to us. He wasn’t thinking about ways to make the American people smaller by making the State bigger. He wasn’t busy weaponizing every federal office to go after his enemies. Frankly, he didn’t pay *enough* attention to the Permanent State.

It’s a sad commentary on our corrupt system that you have to put a Republican in the White House if you want adversarial media coverage, or bureaucratic checks and balances against executive power. At least the growth of authoritarianism slows a little.

But Trump deserves more credit than just being flummoxed by a system that didn’t want his hand on the levers of authoritarian power. He didn’t devote his administration to attacking and subjugating the American people, like Biden does. He didn’t try to make us smaller.

He didn’t work from the assumption that every problem in America is the fault of its damnable people, the way Dems do. He wasn’t obsessed with creating a punitive State or putting America last on the world stage. He didn’t have the contempt for us that pumps the Left’s blood.

He most certainly didn’t. And that carries a hidden irony along with it. Trump’s unalterable belief in the fundamental righteousness of America and his faith in the essential decency of her people are simultaneously both appealing…and a YUUUGE factor in his downfall.

4

Second look at the Bundy Ranch standoff?

The Bundy family’s take on our awful central government’s true nature was more accurate than they’ve ever been given credit for.

BUNKERVILLE, NEVADA—The Bundy Ranch roundup has understandably stirred thin-stretched emotions as the federal government seizes cattle belonging to the Bundy family. The family settled in the late 1800’s and has ranched in the area since. The federal government allowed Nevada ranchers to graze their cattle on federal tracts of land adjacent to their private properties for generations. The federal government later created the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to administer and “protect” the vast swaths of federal land—including the land the Bundy family’s livelihood was—and still is—dependent upon. The BLM began restricting ranchers’ usage of federal lands to protect various species, and the BLM decided to restrict the Bundy family’s usage of the federal land they historically grazed. The federal government told the Bundy family that a tortoise existed on the land and therefore the land’s usage for cattle would have to decrease—thus creating a scenario where the Bundy family could make fewer resources. A 20-year legal battle ensued.

There exist a number of elements to the story that inject shades of grey into the dominant media narrative. Perhaps hundreds of Bundy supporters have already shown up to the ranch area to “protect” the family and their land—which is federal land—but federal land such usage was promised to the family in the government’s efforts to get people to settle the West after Mexico ceded the land to the U.S. Court documents—discussed later in this article—reveal that the Bundy family decided at some point that the federal government was illegitimate and that they no longer had to give heed to the federal courts. The Bundy family patriarch has openly stated his willingness to use force against federal agents if they take his cattle off of the federal lands; the federal agents stand ready to use force against the family or their supporters if they interfere with the cattle removal. Both sides are armed, both sides are frustrated, and the rhetoric and hyperbole surrounding the entire matter has left many onlookers from around the world confused as to what is actually happening.

In the immediate aftermath of the infamous cattle roundup, Cliven Bundy granted a number of high profile media interviews continuing to deny—to the point of absolutely ignoring family history—what the federal courts have twice told him.

“I believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada,” Bundy recently told a radio reporter. “…I abide by all of Nevada state laws. But, I don’t recognize the United States Government as even existing.”

Oh, it exists right enough, I’m afraid. Cliven and several of his compatriots ended up finding that out the hard way. The thing I remember being struck by more forcefully than anything else at the time was the near-universal condemnation of the Bundys from the Right. Even folks whose ideological inclinations might be taken as suggestive of deep antipathy for FederalGovCo, its minions, and its nefarious works were suddenly tripping over themselves to join [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”hw7r99ujes” question=”Comments? Complaints? Thoughts?” opened=”0″]the mad rush to take the Almighty State’s side[/wpdiscuz-feedback] on this one.

2

Foolin’ around

SO. Been futzing around a bit with the WP posting interface, which I can’t even begin to describe to you how much I despise, when what to my wondering eyes didst appear in the toolbar above the composition textbox a mysterious icon which, when hovered over, describes its function thusly, and I quote: “Select a part of text and ask readers for feedback (inline commenting).”

WELL. [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”ei7ya9rie7″ question=”Any comments on this part?” opened=”0″]Intriguing, no?[/wpdiscuz-feedback] I think it is, and very much so. That being the case, if you should see [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”2lsznmrjyi” question=”Comments? Complaints? Thoughts?” opened=”1″]some bizarre icon in a post[/wpdiscuz-feedback] that you never came across here before, that’s almost certainly what it is. Let me know what y’all think of it.

Update! Well, it seems to work quite nicely. Had to disable several conflicting and/or redundant plugins related to the comments function, which I probably should have done a long time ago anyway.

1

Wheels within wheels

Kuenstler uses a characteristically excellent Sundance deep-dive (a four-parter; part 1 can be found here) concerning, and I quote, “how the original sin of RussiaGate metastasized into the stage-four cancer of institutional necrosis that culminated in this week’s raid on Mar-a-Lago” as the springboard for some seriously intriguing analysis of his own.

The gist is: it turns out that the president does not have sole authority, in practice, to declassify and release government documents. With the rise of the security state, many new procedures have been erected within that massive labyrinth to prevent it or slow-walk it. The most effective has been to make the president himself a target of, or a material witness in, drawn-out investigations. That was the exact purpose of the Mueller exercise. Any exculpatory documents released by Mr. Trump — for instance, the complete unredacted text exchanges of FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — could have been used to hang an obstruction of justice charge on the president.

Mr. Trump adroitly avoided that trap, and many other legal pitfalls the deep state laid for him, and might have won reelection but for the well-organized ballot fraud of 2020. But the epic blunders of “Joe Biden” are giving Mr. Trump, and the movement behind him, a pretty good shot at routing the incumbent regime. Doing so, first in the 2022 midterms and then in the 2024 presidential election, portends a now quite visible effort coming to dismantle that reckless, unelected “fourth branch” of government. So, the intel-and-surveillance agencies are fighting for their lives — and the actual humans in charge must be keenly aware of their criminal liabilities.

Despite all attempts to disable him in office, Mr. Trump, as president, got to see an awful lot of classified material, including all the evidence of Hillary Clinton’s Russia Collusion hoax, abetted by the FBI, the DOJ, CIA, and DOD, plus all the lawless shenanigans that took place in the FISA court. A lot of it was assembled when, late in the game, Mr. Trump was finally able to appoint Directors of National Intelligence he could trust — Ric Grenell and then John Ratcliffe — who wrested many documents out of the foot-dragging agencies. Further maneuvers by artful Attorney General William Barr — the appointment of John Durham as Special Counsel and his drawn-out investigations — kept Mr. Trump from releasing any declassified RussiaGate material ever since. The catch was: he still had bales of that evidence in his possession among the personal papers he took with him from the White House.

Now, it also happens that in March of this year Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in Florida against Hillary Clinton and many entities and persons who abetted the construction of RussiaGate. The person assigned to preside over the case was magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart, a one-time DOJ attorney who had been involved in the 2007 Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking prosecution, and who then mysteriously switched sides in mid-litigation and signed on as a lawyer for Epstein. Epstein was soon let off of serious charges with a wrist-slap, amid suspicions that he was an intel agency operative who required protection. And, of course, now Mr. Epstein is dead, offed under highly mysterious circumstances while in federal custody.

Bruce Reinhart was involved in the 2013 government defense of IRS officer Lois Lerner, who never answered for targeting conservative organizations for tax punishment and “losing” thousands of emails pertaining to the cases. Bruce Reinhart also left a long record of social media posts denouncing Mr. Trump for one thing or another. Yet, he remained as presiding judge over the Trump lawsuit against Hillary, et al., in Florida since March and then suddenly recused himself on June 22 of this year. Naturally, many of the aforesaid unclassified documents in Mr. Trump’s possession would be introduced as evidence in an effort to prove that Hillary Clinton sought to defame and defraud him over the confected Russia Collusion story.

And so it happened that Bruce Reinhart was just the right person for the FBI to seek a warrant from, though the choice looks ludicrous now. And hence, the desperate raid on Mar-a-Lago to get that trove of evidence, especially with an election looming that could transform congress and lead next year to a raft of investigations into the corrupt intel-and-surveillance deep state. Of course, it’s laughable to imagine there aren’t copies of all that material in other places, so it’s not as though the FBI can make the evidence just disappear. But the apparent object of the move is to hastily convict Mr. Trump in a DC federal district court on any Mickey Mouse charge involving his dispute with the National Archives that would, theoretically, prevent him from running again in 2024.

One must wonder if Mr. Trump did not catch the FBI (and DOJ) in a “rope-a-dope” operation of his own.

Well, all I can think to say is that I did NOT see any of that coming. Puts me in mind of a wonderful scene from a wonderful old movie, featuring the wonderful Wilford Brimley in his first major role.

Be sure to go read Sundance’s four-parter also; it’s good, fascinating stuff, and well worth your while.

Update! What, did y’all think I was just winding my watch when I told ya’s Sundance’s deep-dive was fascinating stuff?

After many years of granular research about the intelligence apparatus inside our government, in the summer of 2020 I visited Washington DC to ask specific questions. My goal was to go where the influence agents within government actually operate, and to discover the people deep inside the institutions no one elected, and few people pay attention to.

It was during this process when I discovered how information is purposefully put into containment silos; essentially a formal process to block the flow of information between agencies and between the original branches. While frustrating to discover, the silo effect was important because understanding the communication between networks leads to our ability to reconcile conflict between what we perceive and what’s actually taking place.

After days of research and meetings in DC during 2020; amid a town that was serendipitously shut down due to COVID-19; I found a letter slid under the door of my room in a nearly empty hotel with an introduction of sorts. The subsequent discussions were perhaps the most important. After many hours of specific questions and answers on specific examples, I realized why our nation is in this mess. That is when I discovered the fourth and superseding branch of government, the Intelligence Branch.

I am going to explain how the Intelligence Branch works: (1) to control every other branch of government; (2) how it functions as an entirely independent branch of government with no oversight; (3) how and why it was created to be independent from oversight; (4) what is the current mission of the IC Branch, and most importantly (5) who operates it.

The Intelligence Branch is an independent functioning branch of government, it is no longer a subsidiary set of agencies within the Executive Branch as most would think. To understand the Intelligence Branch, we need to drop the elementary school civics class lessons about three coequal branches of government and replace that outlook with the modern system that created itself.

The Intelligence Branch functions much like the State Dept, through a unique set of public-private partnerships that support it. Big Tech industry collaboration with intelligence operatives is part of that functioning, almost like an NGO. However, the process is much more important than most think. In this problematic perspective of a corrupt system of government, the process is the flaw – not the outcome.

There are people making decisions inside this little known, unregulated and out-of-control branch of government that impact every facet of our lives.

None of the people operating deep inside the Intelligence Branch were elected; and our elected representative House members genuinely do not know how the system works. I assert this position affirmatively because I have talked to House and Senate staffers, including the chiefs of staff for multiple House & Senate committee seats. They are not malicious people; however, they are genuinely clueless of things that happen outside their silo. That is part of the purpose of me explaining it, with examples, in full detail with sunlight.

We begin….

And with that, our boy is off and running. Fascinating? What it is is gripping, that’s what; spellbinding, even. At the very, very least, it puts a whole helluva lot of heretofore puzzling shit into an entirely different light. Gonna take me a day or three to go through all this and then digest it for comprehension purposes, something I fully intend to do.

Sundance has for many years now been producing some genuinely awe-inspiring work, earning himself quite a lot of well-deserved respect and admiration for it along the way. But this has the look of being a true magnum opus for him, and I doff my cap most humbly to him. Thanks so much for all you do from Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge, Sundance.

11

Burn it down, salt the earth

Root. Branch. Bough.

The solution to the abuses we now endure is not just to subject the FBI to another fruitless inspector general investigation but to dismantle it completely. The bureau cannot be the focus of yet another congressional hearing. FBI Director Christopher Wray, like his predecessors, is more than happy to sit smirking while a handful of grandstanding congressmen and senators pound the table and yell on C-SPAN. Then he’ll jet off for a holiday vacation on a taxpayer-funded private jet while the same congressmen vote to increase his budget. Again.

No, the FBI must be rendered into component parts and distributed to the four winds.

The bureau has always had its problems and its detractors. Since the days of J. Edgar Hoover keeping his own “private” files on elected politicians and famous persons, the FBI has had a political streak. As an agency it has always been savvy about its reputation, bureaucratically out-dueling federal departments that sought to infringe on the bureau’s perceived preeminence in the fields of federal law enforcement and counterintelligence. But most of the FBI’s politicization had to do with maintaining its own administrative superiority and independence, not serving as muscle for a particular political party.

That’s no longer the case.

The FBI’s actions over the past six years make perfectly clear that the FBI is more than willing to serve as the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party. It serves as its patron’s shield in matters large and small. It exonerated Hillary Clinton for her illicit server. It raided James O’Keefe and Project Veritas when Joe Biden’s daughter lost her diary. It eliminated investigation into Black Lives Matter and other black identity extremists because those pursuits annoyed the Democrats’ Congressional Black Caucus. It refuses even to utter the word “Antifa” while churches and pregnancy centers are fire-bombed. It continues to cover up for Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings with enemy nations, along with his indulgence in criminal prostitution and drug abuse.

But the FBI has also served as the Democrats’ sword as well. It knowingly laundered the Russian collusion hoax, lying in order to secure FISA warrants. It ambushed the president’s sitting national security advisor in a nonsense perjury trap. The FBI hunts down January 6 protesters while dodging congressional inquiries about the role of federal agents in provoking the incident. The FBI ginned up a fake kidnapping plot in Michigan to instill fear of right-wing terrorism, manhandled the former president’s lawyer, and shackled one of his former high-level aides.

And it has now raided the former president’s home under a mere pretext, while the Democrats openly crow on cable news about using a political prosecution to prevent Trump from ever again being able to serve in office.

Other attempts to rein in the FBI short of its abolition have failed. The FBI shows nothing but contempt for those authorized to oversee it. It routinely ignores inspector general investigations. It fails to prosecute or punish those who overtly violate established policies. It refuses to answer legitimate questions from Republican committee members. It doesn’t even respond to congressional letters of inquiry. It punishes FBI whistleblowers and seeks to purge from its midst those agents who aren’t in lockstep with its new praetorian guard role.

Never gonna happen, of course, for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which can be inferred from what I said last night: “At long last, Real Americans must recognize that our FBI problem doesn’t begin and end with the FBI alone; what we have here is, in truth, a big government problem, encompassing the damnable Federal edifice entire.” Even Reagan couldn’t eliminate the Dept of Education way back when, an agency of acutely dubious Constitutional remit which was only two years old at the time, nothing like as securely dug into the FederalGovCo corpus as the FBI is today. All that being so, I still think it’s important that a case be made for killing it off nonetheless, if for nothing more useful than an intellectual exercise, what Heinlein used to call “skull sweat.” Certainly, Shideler has constructed an airtight one here.

A few bad apples update! Panty raid!!!

FBI agents scoured Melania Trump’s wardrobe and spent several hours combing through Donald Trump’s private office, breaking open his safe and rifling through drawers when they raided the former First Family’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida Monday morning.

Oh, I just bet they did at that. Wonder how many sets of Melania’s criminally-dangerous frilly unmentionables wound up taken into Bureau custody strictly for private sniffing-session purposes back at Quantico by these pud-pulling Fibbie scumsacks?

Nice work if you can get it

It might be a big club, but you and me ain’t in it.

Alexandria Ocasio’s Assets
Alexandria Ocasio (AOC) owns over 6 real estate properties, 5 Cars, 2 Luxury Yachts. Alexandria Ocasio’s Assets also includes Cash reserves of over $3 Million. Alexandria Ocasio (AOC) also owns an investment portfolio of 11 stocks that is valued at $15 Million.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) attracts high donations and gifts from wealthy businesses and Wall Street investors. In the past 24 months, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has received over $7 Million in direct and indirect donations from such parties.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s wealth also includes her savings in real estate. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez owns number of prime real estate properties across New York, which brings her monthly income through rent. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s net worth also includes a small portion of Bitcoins.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Liabilities
In order to compute the accurate net worth of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), we need to deduct her liabilities from her total Assets. In order to build her political career, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has borrowed over $2 Million in loans and mortgages from JP Morgan, which is a current outstanding liability.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Cars
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has recently bought a Mercedes-Benz EqC for $140,000 USD. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also owns a BMW X8 that cost her $200,000 USD. A Few other cars owned by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are listed below. Also see Joe Manchin Net Worth.

Mercedes-Benz GLA
Audi Q2
BMW X7

As a Congresscritter, Alex from the Bronx Sandy from Westchester pulls in a comparatively paltry 155k per annum. As a natural-born skeptic, Divemedic has questions.

A person who gets elected to the House of Representatives receives a salary of $155,000 per year. Prior to being elected, they lived with their mother while working as a bartender and were fighting the foreclosure of their home. 29 months after assuming office, they have a net worth of $29 million. This person now owns 6 homes, 5 Cars, 2 Luxury Yachts, has cash reserves of over $3 Million and a stock portfolio that is valued at $15 million.

I am of course talking about AOC. The question I think we should all be asking is- how do you increase your net worth by over $1 million a month when your salary is only $13,000 a month?

She is a self described socialist, yet drives 5 cars with a combined value of half a million dollars: a Mercedes-Benz GLA, an Audi Q2, a BMW X7 ($100,000), a Mercedes-Benz EqC (valued at $140,000), and a BMW X8 ($200,000).

Fairly nice haul after a mere couple of years as a goobermint official, wouldn’t you say? But that’s the way with all these so-called “public servants,” each and every one of them. SOP:

  • Run for office
  • Once you’re in, you’re in for life—consistently, well over 90% of incumbents are reelected again and again and again, until they either retire, die, or, in a vanishingly few extraordinary cases, are indicted, tried, and/or packed off for a brief stay in Club Fed
  • Board the Boeing and get rich, rich, RICH; the graft don’t stop till the casket drops, baby

Think I’m joking, gilding the lily, or in any way exaggerating about elected office being for all intents and purposes a lifetime sinecure? Think again, bub.

The re-election rate for members of Congress is exceptionally high considering how unpopular the institution is in the eyes of the public. If you’re looking for steady work, you might consider running for office yourself; job security is especially strong for members of the House of Representatives even though a significant portion of the electorate supports terms limits.

How often do members of Congress actually lose an election? Not very.

Incumbent members of the House seeking re-election are all but assured re-election. The re-election rate among all 435 members of the House has been as high as 98 percent in modern history, and it’s rarely dipped below 90 percent.

The late Washington Post political columnist David Broder referred to this phenomenon as “incumbent lock” and blamed gerrymandered congressional districts for eliminating any notion of competition in general elections.

But there are other reasons the re-election rate for members of Congress is so high. “With wide name recognition, and usually an insurmountable advantage in campaign cash, House incumbents typically have little trouble holding onto their seats,” explains the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington.

In addition, there are other built-in protections for congressional incumbents: the ability to regularly mail flattering newsletters to constituents at taxpayer expense under the guise of “constituent outreach” and to earmark money for pet projects in their districts. Members of Congress who raise money for their colleagues are also rewarded with large amounts of campaign money for their own campaigns, making (it) even more difficult to unseat incumbents.

I’ve made much sport of sleazy, slimy ProPols over lo, these many years for being perfectly willing to eat a mile of fresh, steaming turd at high noon on the public square if they thought it might help them win elective office. Given the richness of the payoff once they’re in, who could blame them? It’s yet another dismal indicator of just how badly broken this country is, that’s what.

6

Of invasion and impeachment

Will the one lead to the other?

Last week, several Texas counties called the illegal-alien invasion across our southwest border what it is: an invasion. They wanted Gov. Greg Abbott to follow suit so that state and local officials can enforce immigration laws because the Biden Regime refuses to do so. Abbott didn’t declare an invasion, but he did authorize state police to send illegal immigrants back to ports of entry. But a foreign enemy is not driving this invasion: instead, our own president and his deputies are encouraging it. The only appropriate response is impeachment—which is why the declaration by the four counties is so important. It aligns with growing calls for the impeachment of President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Texas declaration is not mere rhetoric. It’s an action with actual substance. Its rationale rests on the theory that a state can declare an invasion and use its constitutional war powers to direct the National Guard and law enforcement to stop the invaders; i.e., enforce immigration law. It passes constitutional muster, too. Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 says states cannot usurp federal power on matters such as war or foreign policy “unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit delay” [emphasis added]. The Treason Lobby, of course, would run to the kritarchs. A reasonable court would side with the state, but the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Biden to revoke Remain in Mexico indicates the high court may not be so reasonable.

Nevertheless, states should go ahead. Let the courts say what they wish. Given that Leftists now argue that states can nullify SCOTUS decisions, apropos of the court’s recent rulings, immigration patriot governors should say the same thing.

Texas, by the way, isn’t alone. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich wants Governor Doug Ducey to declare an invasion as well. “Our office concluded that violence by cartels and gangs who have now assumed control of our southern border meets the legal definition for an invasion, but it’s up to the Governor to make that actual determination,“ Brnovich recently wrote to Ducey. Ducey resisted Brnovich’s entreaty in February, but the situation has worsened considerably since then. Arizona counties might follow their Texas counterparts to put more pressure on the governor.

Now, if the Texans are right and the deluge at the border is an invasion, someone must be held responsible. That someone is Joe Biden, whose policies have invited illegals to swarm across the border. As well, he refuses to enforce federal immigration law, a clear violation of his oath of office.

One of a great many other such violations, a patent contravention of the foremost among any president’s responsibilities, perpetrated intentionally and with malice aforethought by so-called ****”president”**** Biden.

2

What’s in a name?

Everything, as it turns out.

It is easy to forget the new XYZ 2.0T – or whatever the alpha-numeric designation of the last transportation appliance you owned was. Who remembers the model number of their last microwave? Who even knows the model number of the microwave in their kitchen, right now?

After all, it’s just an appliance.

And so have cars become.

Not all, not yet. There are still a few – that are new – that have names. Not coincidentally, they are the only ones with personality – and thus deserving of the individuation that comes with naming a thing as opposed to categorizing it.

Mustang, for instance. Say that name and everyone knows what you mean – irrespective of the particular model. The same goes – well, went – for Beetle. Say that name and practically everyone has a story, a memory.

It is hard to remember where you parked your XYZ 2.0T – especially if it is painted appliance white. There are so many just like it. Probably why, at least in part, the push-button key fob was invented. Not so much to unlock your appliance but to help you find it, among all the others.

Naming cars was once a big deal, even though less attention was not infrequently paid to the naming than should have been. Even as regards some of the great names, in terms of the automotive Hall of Fame.

Nova, for instance.

That was the name of Chevy’s new (at the time) compact (mid-sized, by the standards of our time) economy car, which made its debut in 1962 and became as common a sight on American roads back in the ’70s and ’80s as XYZ 2.0Ts are on our roads, today. The problem arose when the Nova was exported to Spanish-speaking countries such as Mexico, because Nova sounds a lot like no va, which means (roughly) it doesn’t go.

Which, at least among the Novas I had any experience with, was perfectly accurate.

Then there was Banshee – a Pontiac that never made its debut, because GM higher-ups weren’t about to let Pontiac offer a two-seater with gull-wing doors that looked a lot like a Corvette take away any Corvette sales. So the Banshee was shelved, which avoided what would have been a big problem if anyone decided to look up the meaning of that name. It means harbinger of death in old Irish idiom.

Some names were just numbers. Z28, for instance. It had emotional mojo as much as Trans-Am, another name almost everyone remembers even though no Trans-Ams have been made in the last 20 years. Both worked because each was individual. Chevy never intended to use “Z28” as a car name. Rather, it was – originally – the ordering code that people in the high-performance know used to spec out a Camaro with an ensemble of road-racing equipment, which was what the original Z28 (in 1967) was all about. As word got out – and lots of orders were being placed – Z28 became a name rather than a number.

Trans-Am was a name that became a car.

One almost inevitably gets attached to things that have names, because by naming them they subtly become something more than just things. This is probably why people who raise animals for food generally don’t name them. It is easier to eat a thing than it is to eat Bessie.

Ahh, but therein lies a chicken-or-egg kind of question: do we get attached to them because they have names, or do we give them names because we’re attached to them?

3

The United States Vs America

TL makes a crucial distinction.

I am pro-American, that does not mean pro-United States. America is a different thing from the United States. To whatever degree the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution support my God-given rights as an American, I’m all for it. When the U.S. Government, founded around those principles of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, openly works against those principles, punishes those who seek to comply with those principles, I do not see the United States of America as a viable, working form of government.

The whole and sole purpose of the United States Government, as founded and clearly stated, is to secure individual rights and the principles of freedom. The problem is, the people have been coerced to accept miniscule violations of those principles over a period of time and each insignificant violation, on its own, impact those rights on a similarly miniscule level. However, when that process of requiring miniscule violations become the manner in which government operates, it ceases to be a minor exception and becomes a process of eliminating those rights and principles, delegitimizing the whole. It has done so.

That’s how we got to lockdowns and police enforcing unconstitutional, anti-American dictates from obscure “health officials.” It continues today, just in different ways. Some vaccine mandates have never been lifted. The United States Government is in the process of using all the tools of the federal government to destroy any claim or expectation of those rights and principles. That’s new, that’s revolutionary, that’s treason against that which provides the power to achieve it.

I began to recognize the federal government as illegitimate as far back as 2001 with the passage of the Patriot Act, something that those who participated in the documentary Lies of Omission 2021 (please watch it free on Tubi, our biggest supporter) directly address. Then, in 2008 and 2009 I became politically activated for the way in which it handled the banking crisis with a Republican president at the helm and especially because there was a Republican president at the helm.

All over the world people are coming to their senses and demanding a dissolution of their governments for failing the people, not without a great deal of pain and punishment that we have not felt in America as yet, but the signs are there. The holding of political prisoners, the J6 detainees, should be a much bigger deal than it is. The very idea of it is counter to the principles declared by our judicial system. They called it an insurrection, but only after the feds orchestrated, enabled and coerced it into one by leaving doors unlocked and instigators encouraged peaceful protestors to enter. Many of those who entered were part of the instigation and coercion, but only the innocent rubes that fell for it were apprehended and/or charged. That’s classic entrapment, for which the whole of it should be dismissed, but that would be an American response.

Nothing in the United States works along the lines of its design. Nothing. Your freedom, no matter how much of it you think you retain, is not freedom at all. It’s no more freedom than wandering from the southwest corner of one’s prison cell to the northeast corner is freedom. Your movements from beginning to end of your day are tracked, your phone calls recorded, your emails monitored, blogs like this kept for the day they need to bring me before their tribunals, insanely enough, for un-American activities. I don’t expect to live that long and not because of age.

All of TL’s anquished cri de coeur is tragic, the moreso because it’s all too true. As I’ve long insisted, any “right” you have to get a permit from the goobermint to exercise isn’t really a right at all—by definition, it’s a privilege. Hats off to little Sri Lanka, for showing the rest of us how it’s fucking DONE.

Sri Lanka president captured on video fleeing as protestors storm Colombo residence
Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was captured on video escaping via ship on the day protesters stormed his official Colombo residence.

In the video, President Rajapaksa is seen running and rolling his luggage onto a large navy ship. His escape comes after the storming of his official Colombo residence and the burning of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s home, which occurred on Saturday — now deemed D-Day. The large viral demonstrations took place despite the president’s attempts at a 36-hour state of emergency and ban of social media.

Upon the storming of the residence, Sri Lanka’s 26-member cabinet resigned en masse at midnight. Initially, the exceptions were President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

However, Wickremesinghe resigned soon after, stating on Twitter, “to ensure the continuation of the government including the safety of all citizens I accept the best recommendation for the Party Leaders today, to make way for an All-Party Government. To facilitate this I will resign as Prime Minister.”

The large-scale takeover by the demonstrators comes after months of protests on the streets of Sri Lanka and its worst economic crisis in history. Inflation in Sri Lanka has risen to above 50 percent, leading to crushing food and energy shortages. It led the country to run their foreign currency reserves into the ground and significantly increase foreign debt.

In addition, Sri Lanka police and military have been accused of using violence to push back demonstrations. With at least 55 people injured during protests, there have also been accusations of torture, tear gas use and the application of an “illegal” police curfew.

Further confirmation of my maxim, as if any were needed: At some point, enough is fucking enough.

Putting fossil fuels into perspective

They power a lot more than just our automobiles.

Fossil fuel powers the economic engine of civilization. With a minor disruption in the supply of fossil fuel, crops wither, and supply chains crash. With a major disruption, a humanitarian apocalypse could engulf the world. Events of the past few months have made this clear. Without energy, civilization dies, and in 2020 fossil fuels continued to provide more than 80 percent of all energy consumed worldwide.

This basic fact, that maintaining a reliable supply of affordable fossil fuel is a nonnegotiable condition for the survival of civilization, currently eludes far too many American politicians, including Joe Biden. Observes energy expert and two-time candidate for governor of California Michael Shellenberger: “One month ago, the Biden administration killed a one-million-acre oil and gas lease sale in Alaska, and seven days ago killed new on-shore oil and gas leases in the continental U.S. In fact, at this very moment, the Biden administration is considering a total ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling.”

Another basic fact, easily confirmed by consulting the 2021 edition of the BP Statistical Review of Global Energy, is that if every person living on Earth were to consume half as much energy per year as the average American currently consumes, global energy production would need to nearly double. Instead of producing 547 exajoules (the mega unit of energy currently favored by economists) per year, energy producers worldwide would need to come up with just over 1,000 exajoules. How exactly will “renewables,” currently delivering 32 exajoules per year, or six percent of global energy, expand by a factor of 30 to deliver 1,000 exajoules?

The short answer is, it can’t. Despite the fanatical, powerful group-think that calls for the abolition of not only fossil fuels but also most hydroelectric power and all nuclear power, the reality is that most nations of the world are going to continue to develop every source of energy they can, and they’re going to do it as fast as they can.

Well, the smart ones will. Sadly, that would seem to exclude any of them currently being misruled by Senile Joe Biden and/or his shadowy Deep State handlers.

“At a time of war,” Biden wrote in an open letter to the industry on June 15, “high refinery profit margins being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable… companies must take immediate actions to increase the supply of gasoline, diesel, and other refined product.”

But US refineries are already operating at 94 percent of their capacity, with US refineries in the Gulf of Mexico running at 98 percent, which is the highest rate in 30 years. Running refineries at a higher capacity than that risks damaging the equipment. As such, Biden isn’t just wrong, he insulted some of the hardest working people operating in one of the most dangerous industries in America.

If Biden wants more American fuel, then he should allow the building of new refineries, right?

That’s the last thing FJB wants, as is evidenced by his actions, which as always speak louder than words.

But, on May 12, Biden’s Interior Department blocked a proposal to open up more than one million acres of land in Alaska for oil and gas drilling. Two days later, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency blocked plans to expand an oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands.

Biden and his defenders said he had to block the expansion of the Virgin Islands refinery, given how polluting it was.

But had Biden’s EPA allowed the Virgin Island refinery to expand, the owners would have poured nearly $3 billion into retrofitting the plant so it produced gasoline and other products more cleanly, while significantly increasing production at the same time.

In truth, there are many things Biden could have done, and still should do, to lower energy prices. He could invoke the National Defense Act to accelerate the rate of oil and gas permits. He could set a floor of $80/barrel for re-filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which would be a powerful incentive for the industry, because it would prevent prices from falling to unprofitable levels. Biden could announce trade agreements with American allies to supply them with liquified natural gas, which would incentivize more natural gas production and lower prices.

If Biden got America on a wartime footing, as he should be given Russia’s aggression in Europe, we would see the lowering of oil, gas and petroleum prices in less than one year.

Why won’t Biden do it? Because he has declared war on fossil fuels. “I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel,” Biden promised a student climate activist in 2019. “I am not going to cooperate with them,” he said, referring to the oil and gas industry.

And indeed, he hasn’t. When oil and gas executives visited the White House in June, Biden snubbed them by refusing to attend the meeting. Instead, at the very same moment, he met with wind industry executives. A few days earlier, Biden administration officials signaled they may support a large new tax on the oil industry proposed by a Senator from Oregon.

All of this has soured the oil and gas industry on investing in production. “If you were an oil company,” a senior executive at a major US bank told me, why would you invest hundreds of millions of dollars into expanding refining capacity if you thought the federal government or investors would shut you down in the next few years? The narrative coming from the administration is absolutely insane.”

Of course it is. Leaving Biden’s personal cognitive impairment out of it, as the venerable old truism has it: liberalism delenda est. It just floors me that, with Biden-caused disaster on every front, the clod’s approval numbers nonetheless remain in the 30-40 percent range, instead of around 10 or 12 percent where they truly belong. Back to the first article for our thrilling conclusion.

According to the most authoritative source on energy in the world, total proven reserves of fossil fuel currently total 49,023 exajoules. This means that just with proven reserves, and if only fossil fuel were used, and if global energy consumption were doubled to 1,000 exajoules per year, there would still be a 50-year supply of energy. How much more fossil fuel can be extracted from unproven reserves is anybody’s guess, but it is a safe bet that twice as much more is available, meaning there’s at least another century’s worth of fossil fuel even if we used nothing else to power civilization.

The benefits of abundant cheap energy are obvious: prosperity and voluntary population stabilization. In the decades to come, other forms of energy will be further developed. If hydroelectric power doubles, while nuclear power and renewables both go up by an order of magnitude, the three together would provide 636 exajoules of power per year. Under that scenario, fossil-fuel use could remain near current levels, and total global energy production would still double to 1,000 exajoules.

What is impossible, however, is for renewables alone to achieve this level of growth. More than half of renewable energy today comes from biofuel and biomass, which—ironically—is already wreaking havoc across the tropics as hundreds of thousands of square miles of rainforest are incinerated to make room for cane ethanol and palm oil plantations. And then there are the minerals required for the wind turbine towers, the silicon photovoltaics, and the billions of megawatt-hours of battery farm capacity. Where are the Malthusians when you need them?

Same place they always were—everywhere you look, for as far as the eye can see—in the bodily posture typical of their kind: with their heads jammed so far up their flues they have to yawn to see daylight. There’s a good reason why the ceaseless warnings of impending disaster issued by such as they never quite come to fruition: the purblind boobs arrive at their dire conclusions by projecting current conditions into the future unaltered, never taking technological advancement, human ingenuity and adaptability, and the ineluctable flux and churn of life on this planet into account.

Doomsday predictions can make for moderately interesting reading now and then, but ought to be taken no more seriously than you do your daily horoscope, the extended weather forecast, or your chances of winning gazillions playing the Powerball. Harmless entertainment, if that’s your bag, but not necessarily reliable indicators of what tomorrow will bring.

Update! Don’t let FJB’s play-acting at being “concerned” by the suffering his hideously expensive gas prices is inflicting on ordinary Americans fool you. This is exactly what he and his fellow shitlibs have dreamed of for years and years.

If you had the unpleasant experience this July Fourth weekend of paying close to $5 for a gallon of gas, you can always comfort yourself with the idea that your pain is for a good cause: the “liberal world order.” 

So said Brian Deese, White House director of the National Economic Council, when he was asked on CNN: “What do you say to those families who say, ‘Listen, we can’t afford to pay $4.85 a gallon for months, if not years. This is just not sustainable’?”

Deese, like his boss Joe Biden, is unmoved by the suffering of ordinary Americans, more than two-thirds of whom say gas-price increases are causing them hardship, according to a recent Gallup poll.

“This is about the future of the liberal world order, and we have to stand firm” until Ukraine defeats Russia, declared Deese.
He was echoing the president, who had referenced the Ukraine war a few hours earlier in Madrid, when he dismissed a similar question: “The war has pushed prices up. [Oil] could go as high as $200 a barrel…How long is it fair to expect American drivers and drivers around the world to pay that premium for this war?”

Biden responded with cold indifference: “As long as it takes,” he said.

If only there was some way Real Americans could properly thank him for it.

6

Will Russia take on the job Americans just won’t do?

That would be the job of taking down a tyrannical, frankly illegitimate US goobermint. The real question, though, is: why on earth would they bother?

WHY RUSSIA WILL DEFEAT THE UNITED STATES
Like many boys in the 1980s, I dreamed of being a “Wolverine.” If you hail from Generation X or you are a late-stage Millennial, you know that is not a reference to a Marvel superhero with retractable metal claws. It is a reference to the teenaged freedom fighters in the movie Red Dawn. Raised on a steady diet of American patriotic zeal and a hatred for communism, boys my age fantasized of killing Russian invaders. Those days are long gone. The United States is no longer the “good guy,” and Russia is no longer the “bad guy.” We are the Marxists, now.

If we go to war with Russia, which I suspect will likely happen, Russia will win. The reason is simple: ideologies never defeat national identity. This has been true throughout time. Whenever an ideological army attempted to conquer a defined people, the defined people have always won. Even within the ideological proxy wars of the 20th Century, fighting was defined as contests between peoples. Communist North Vietnam framed its war with South Vietnam as one in which Vietnamese patriots fought European-American imperialism and manipulation. The Soviet Union was trounced in the early years of World War II for a multitude of reasons, but one of those reasons was that early propaganda tried to frame the struggle as one between fascism and communism. Soviet peasants could care less about the global proletariat. When the political messaging was re-framed within the context of a “Great Patriotic War,” Russians galvanized and hardened their resolve. Many such examples exist.

Today, there is no American people. The United States has been intentionally redefined. American identity is rooted in post-nationalism.  It is ideologically globalist, combining the totality of the economic coin – Marxist on one side, free market capitalist on the other. In so doing, American political and cultural leaders have created an ideology that supplants God with Cultural Marxist societal elements – from homosexuality and transgenderism to subjectivity versus objectivity in all facets of decision making (e.g., “Common Core” math). Simultaneously, free market capitalism has been weaponized as a democratization process, creating a world of consumers addicted to cheap trinkets and material comforts that transcends sacrifice for one’s national best interests. This is evident from outsourcing manufacturing to the importation of cheap labor en masse. The United States that you once knew is dead. The guardians of this new American dystopia – the DOJ, FBI, IRS, and DOD – will target those who question the paradigm shift. Consequently, J6 protestors are hunted with impunity while the antifa – i.e., those who fight most violently for this new ideological state – are protected from prosecution.

Russia, generally speaking, has none of these problems. Russians know they are Russian. Russians are not seeking a globalist new world order. Russians prefer a world order led by Russians, but in the absence of that power, they would be happy to have a regional hegemony that protects Russian interests. In other words, unlike the globalist ideologues that lead Americans and their Western allies, Russians are nationalists. In a war, you need nationalism to win. If you think I am wrong, consider the U.S. military’s current struggles to recruit. It dovetails with a drop in patriotism. It turns out that the U.S. DOD never realized that transgender black dancers with a victim mentality do not volunteer to fight for a country they perceive to have oppressed them; misguided patriotic Southern White boys do – and less of them now want to be part of it. Putin’s military leadership enjoys no such confusion.

The US military having been reduced to a mincing, dress-clad paper tiger of indeterminate gender thanks to Woke leadership, I have little to no doubt the Rooskies could defeat it handily, all else being equal and assuming the Ukrainiain thorn had been removed from the Bear’s paw. But the US domestic political situation being what it now is, the bond between Heritage Americans and the US military is nothing like as strong as it once was, always a seriously bad omen for any nation’s defensive prospects.

On the other hand, the occupation phase is liable to be a stone bitch, I imagine, a fact I’m confident the Russian leadership is every bit as cognizant of as I am myself. On the other other hand, the Left has trashed this place so comprehensively, over so long a period, one has to wonder what Russia would really gain from such a chancy move. In sum, they probably COULD do it, sure. Which doesn’t mean they SHOULD.

I have to say, I can’t wait to see what Aesop’s take on this speculative proposal might be.

(Via WRSA)

Will the US fall like Rome?

Maybe not. Then again, maybe so.

Added to greed, avarice, and incompetence was a mix of climate change, unstable borders, and an elite population soaked in corruption. All told, you have a basic understanding of what destroyed the Roman world.

Yes, the history of this civilization often sounds like our own. But then, it sounds like most every other civilization that has existed in any part of the world at any time in history. There is something consistent and familiar everywhere you travel in human history.

Believe it or not, this is where the good news is found. Yes, America is a republic, but it is not, by any means, Rome. This observation was made in correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1819. Jefferson wrote,

I ask myself What was that government which the virtues of Cicero were so zealous to restore, & the ambition of Caesar to subvert?…I do not say to restore it, because they never had it…if their people indeed had been, like ours, enlightened, peaceable, and really free, the answer would be obvious. ‘restore independance (sic) to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to self-government, and do it’s will.

What is important here is that the American Founders were not naïve about the weaknesses of Rome. In particular, they despised the emperors and sought whatever good they could find in the old republic.

The American Founders admired the Roman virtues of citizenship and piety, and the Roman government balanced by the citizens, Senate, and magistrates. However, there was no idea of “rights” among the Roman citizens. Only power.

The Romans would never have created a “Declaration of Independence” in which these beautiful, high-minded words would be announced: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This sort of thinking could only have emerged after the prohibition of the gladiatorial bloodlettings of the Roman world, or the imperialistic greed of the emperors. It could never have been written by a society that believed the enslavement of human beings to be the norm. While some signers of the Declaration, like all humans, struggled with hypocrisy, their ideals have made America great in a way that Rome could have never imagined.

America, like all republics, has freedoms that allow citizens the right to go insane. No free nation will be free of human nature. The current internal and external threats to America do not have to bring, out of necessity, its destruction.

The good news is that America has stronger foundations than Rome ever knew, and those foundations not only seem to be holding, many Americans are rediscovering those foundations in the midst of a modern contest for the soul of the nation.

And the bad news is, with the rise of an insane, despotic Left in our very midst we now find ourselves obliged to cope with the selfsame struggle the Founding Fathers faced in their own time, a battle waged in one sense or another since the emergence of Western Civilization itself: the neverending struggle between Liberty—ie, Good—and Tyranny—ie, Evil.

The essential nature of our Leftist Enemy is that it MUST rule, that it MUST conquer, that it will countenance NO dissent or disagreement whatsoever. It can leave NO ONE alone and unmolested, to live out his life according to his OWN wishes and beliefs. Thus is our essential problem at once as unneccessary as it is utterly insuperable.

I commend to y’all’s attention my Notable Quotes section over in the right sidebar, NC Reed’s immortal summation in particular: Ain’t no misunderstanding this war. They want to rule us and aim to do it. We aim not to allow it. All there is to it. Which, when all is said and done, means that we cannot live peaceably among them. Not for long, we can’t. There can be no comity, no accomodation, no compromise with tyranny. It is a binary solution set: one side must win, and one side must lose. There is truly, literally nothing more to it than just that.

We MUST NOT lose.

5
1

Is Trump “the greatest man alive”?

Dan Gelernter makes the case.

Here’s my question to the January 6 committee: If Trump made a call for violence on January 6, how could I possibly have missed it? I was glued to the TV all day. I watched Trump’s speech; I hung on every word. I recognized it as a pivotal moment in American history: We were about to certify an unelected, illegitimate president. It was an impending catastrophe that only the boldest possible action could have prevented.

If Trump had called out to the nation in his January 6 speech—if he had said, “We must stop this, come to Washington with your guns!”—millions of Americans would have come. The response would have been massive and overwhelming. You can bet your boots that Ashli Babbitt would not have been the only person shot and killed that day.

Trump easily—easily—could have started a civil war. He had only to make the call. Millions would have answered it. America was watching and waiting. But Trump never made that call, and Washington knows damn well he didn’t.

Which is why he is where he is today, bringing the entire country along for the ride. He had overwhelming support, the weight of numbers on his side, a willing and available counterrevolutionary force with more guns than every branch of the US military combined. We’re talking here about people who are one hundred percent dedicated to destroying the Leftist enemy and reclaiming America That Was. He shoulda damned well pulled the fucking trigger, not just for his and his family’s personal well-being, but that of the betrayed and defiled Republic, and its sane, normal, decent population.

In some very real ways, we’d all be better off right now if he’d done it; the ones who would have been worse off are the windrows after windrows of shitlib corpses stacked high and tight from sea to shining sea, and they have it coming. We can argue from now till Doomsday about why Trump didn’t call on all able-bodied Citizen Soldiers to rally to the side of our rightful President to back him in standing up to the most dangerous threat America has ever had to face, but it doesn’t much matter anymore—whatever his reasons, and I can think of a good few that hold at least some water, he didn’t, so…so…

Well, as I always say: here we all are. Be that as it may, there’s an argument to be made Trump’s perfectly understandable disinclination to go to the last desperate extreme speaks well of the man, in at least some ways.

If you ask me, Trump has shown greater restraint than any man alive in the world today. Greater restraint perhaps than almost any man in history: For there are very few men, even in small and trivial nations, who could launch a civil war if they chose to do it. That sort of following—so wide, so deeply committed, and so much on the precipice of fury unleashed—is truly rare. The fact that Trump did not call upon his supporters to do violence on January 6 is singular, incredible: What leftist, on the verge of losing his power in Washington, and yet possessed of the means of retaining it through coercive force, would have walked away as Trump did?

Now the establishment—the Liz Cheneys, the Nancy Pelosis, the Mitch McConnells and Mitt Romneys—are terrified because they know Trump still has that following. They know the nation, left to choose its own president, would choose Trump again. And they can’t possibly let that happen.

Trump is the only real threat—not to world peace and stability, not to economic security or energy independence, but to the power of the elites. The elites want that power more than anything—they cannot walk away—and they are willing to do anything, even destroy the entire planet with war or disease, sooner than they would see Trump become president again.

But they ought to be careful. The next time they steal an election, it may not take a speech to start a civil war.

After having been run through the Democrat meatless-meat grinder over the last several years with no letup in sight, one would certainly hope it wouldn’t, since a resolute, swift, and uncompromising response to blatant, self-evident treason would constitute evidence that at least some Americans do still retain a kinship with the ideals, the bravery, and the selfless devotion to duty of the Founding Fathers, and are willing to let those timeless beliefs guide their actions and decisions.

Sadly, all available signs from November 2020 up to right this very minute would seem to point us in a very different direction. It’s all too apparent that all too many of us have learned all too little from the supine, boneless response to the broad-daylight theft of an American Presidential election—a barefaced coup for which no criminal conspirator has yet faced serious consequences. No sane person wants this fight to commence, and who would? The prospect is utterly dreadful, horrifying beyond comprehension.

In any event, all of Dan’s above-cited points are well taken and ably made, certainly. But for my money, the most interesting part comes earlier in the piece.

For all the hysteria over Trump’s divisive tweets, the truth is that Trump is the only unifying figure in modern political history: He persuaded millions of people who had never voted for any Republican, indeed for any president, to vote for him. During his first term, he increased his share of the vote with every segment of the population, except college-educated whites. No Republican since Reagan received such broad support from so many groups. And he won their support not by pandering to their sub-category interests or to the things that set them apart, but by appealing to them as Americans.

Spot on, and of far greater import than one might realize at first glance, if only for the big fat hint it provides as to how many out there might still consider a candidate for office “appealing to them as Americans” to be a good thing, rather than a bad or even offensive one. Alas, it’s much too late now to hold out hope that any such Trumpian reassertion of American unity and shared values might suffice to heal this mortally wounded nation.

No sane person wants this fight; who would? But the lines are firmly established; the ideological breach cannot be reconciled, negotiated away, or blithely ignored for very much longer. The national divide is real, serious…and wholly meet and just, actually. Like it or not—and nobody should like it—this is a battle that every American who takes his God-granted liberty, his rights, and self-determination at all seriously has no choice but to fight, and to win.

One can easily sense a broad uneasiness across the American landscape, a foreboding that violence and bloodshed might erupt at any time: in a month, in a week, in a few days, or in the morning. The distempered nitwits at The Grauniad post some stats.

More than one quarter of US residents feel so estranged from their government that they feel it might “soon be necessary to take up arms” against it, a poll released on Thursday claimed.

This survey of 1,000 registered US voters, published by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP), also revealed that most Americans agree the government is “corrupt and rigged against everyday people like me”.

The data suggests that extreme polarization in US politics – and its impact on Americans’ relationships with each other – remain strong. These statistics come as a congressional committee is holding public hearings on the January 6 insurrection.

Naturally, being Mark-1 Mod-0 shitlibs, The Grauniad whiffs badly on the stark reality that the phonied-up, purely partisan J6 dog and pony show currently being staged in Mordor On The Potomac constitutes irrefutable proof that “most Americans” are RIGHT to believe that their vile, tyrannical government is “corrupt” and “rigged,” in every least particular. Can there possibly be even a single knave left among us so foolish, so blind, so out of touch that he’d contend—sans sarcasm, irony, or satirical intent—that it ISN’T?

Even farther beyond the demonstrably limited ken of The Grauniad and their intellectual brethren is another inescapable truth: the endemic corruption mentioned in Paragraph Two is the very thing which has forced Real Americans to conclude that a resort to the Second Amendment Solution “might soon be necessary,” a prospect lamented with such horror and dread in Paragraph One. Far from being unrelated, the two notions are indivisible; absent the one, the other would likely not exist.

Liberal nincompoops will rend their garments, gnash their teeth, and tear their hair out in great hanks over how awful all this is, something underlined by the inter-party disparities in this graph:

SpicyTimeStats.jpg

Myself, I can’t honestly say I share the Left’s blood-curdling perturbation over this survey’s revelation of a perfectly accurate perception of massive corruption and malfeasance so deeply embedded in the central government it can never be rooted out by less than extraordinary measures and what might be the upshot of that. Nor am I troubled in the least by the calm acceptance of the Founders’ explicit prescription for how a free people must always deal with this intolerable situation—sentiments common amongst a rapidly growing cohort of Americans. To me, that’s encouraging news, albeit with a darker implication in train: if the American “education” system was what it should be—and, not all that long ago, actually was—we wouldn’t be discussing an embarrassingly niggling percentage of “more than one quarter of American residents” here. No, if Americans had been properly schooled in history and civics, that measly “more than a quarter” number would be well up into the 90s, as it damned well ought to be.

The notion that a liberty-minded citizenry might not disdain to avail themselves of the selfsame methods by which our long-abused country was created in the first goddamned place is assuredly NOT radical, extreme, or in any way indicative of a fascination with “white supremacy.” Like so very many other of the Founders’ ideas, the Freeman’s solemn obligation to rise up in revolt to overthrow any would-be oppressor who dares to proclaim himself the Freeman’s rightful Master rather than his humble employee is eternal. This obligation may be shirked; it is certainly an inconvenient, difficult, and demanding one. But none can ever call himself free who refuses to at least try to meet the challenge it represents.

1
1

OUR day

NOT Theirs.

Independence Day has been a far more somber holiday for me and many others for many years, more akin to sitting around drinking after the funeral of a friend who used to be hearty and hale but in his later years became weak and frightened. We try to remember him as he once was in his health, not how he was in his dying days.

Gone are the recollections of the history of heritage Americans and the declaring of their independence from England. We don’t even call it Independence Day anymore, just “The Fourth Of July” as if the date is just randomly chosen to get a day off so we can grill burgers.

The thing about Independence Day and what it celebrates is that it is an entirely White male achievement. The famous painting of the presenting of the draft of the Declaration to the Congress by John Trumbull is noteworthy for what it doesn’t include: there are no women, no “people of color”, no transvestites or Jews or Muslims. Just a bunch of White men.

As America slides rapidly into minority-majority status, Independence Day will mean less and less to each successive generation of increasingly non-White citizens. Why shouldn’t it? The story of America isn’t their story, they contributed basically nothing to our founding and the development of America as the greatest country on Earth. Independence Day has no real historical significance for blacks or Chinese, mestizos or Jews. Hell there was only a single Catholic signer of the Declaration, most were Episcopalian/Anglican, Congregationalist or Presbyterian. It is interesting that the current Supreme Court has six Catholics, only two Protestants, and one Jew.

It only makes sense that a first generation Mexican immigrant or a Somali refugee would have no clue what Independence Day was really all about or have any sort of positive feelings about it. It isn’t their day and never will be. 

Just as the day is losing any meaning, the principles that inspired the Declaration of Independence mean less to each successive generation of America. Try asking a young person today what these words mean:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness….

Good luck. You might get a reasonable answer from a smart kid from a good school but Da’quan or Mohammad from some inner-city slaughterhouse of a high school? Forget about it.

It is nice to get a day off, and shoot off some fireworks, but this day has otherwise lost all meaning, all solemnity and all significance. It is just a relic of a nation that no longer exists, an annual funeral service where we drink toasts and offer amusing anecdotes about a dearly departed friend. 

Perhaps the remnants of the American people will one day have cause to celebrate anew their independence from Tyrants, Despots and Usurpers. Let us hope so in order that the light of liberty may never be lost from this world. 

I’ve said for years now that the Fourth of right ought to be less a day of celebration and indulgence, and more one of national mourning for what has been lost, stolen, and/or casually squandered. With this blunt reminder of our heritage and history, Arthur rubs Real American noses in one of the uglier aspects of life in whatever you want to call the tottering, faltering nation we inhabit: in “the land of the free,” there are many truths which are not to be spoken aloud, lest the wrath of our Masters be incurred thereby. The above would be one of those.

Regrettably, the cognitive dissonance doesn’t end there. Here in NC, dominated politically by shitlibs for my entire life, fireworks are illegal and can’t be found for love nor money…except for the week or ten days leading up to July Fourth, when you’re allowed to have ’em so’s you can celebrate your notional “freedom.” Only a liberal asswipe could possibly be blind enough that he’d fail to spot the gruesome irony in that one.

Update! As grim as things sometimes seem, there are still flourishes of uniquely-American greatness to be found in this land.

Joey Chestnut Captures Crasher While Downing 63 Hot Dogs
Joey Chestnut won the hot dog eating contest again after he downed 63 hot dogs. The closest anyone came ate 40-something dogs. While downing and winning, he also got a crasher into a headlock.

The crasher was wearing a Darth Vader mask and carried a sign reading, “Expose Mitchfield  or Smithfield or something Death Star.” Uh, what?

Joey’s our hero.

Joey’s a NATIONAL hero, actually. Video at the link to prove it.

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Federalism: the true American way

Another in Hayward’s long succession of brilliantly conceived, impeccably crafted, and truly insightful Twitter treatises.

There are many reasons why power should be devolved to the states, as Dobbs did with abortion. The obvious one is that individual voters have more influence over state legislatures. Your voice rings much louder in state capitols than in Washington.

Of course, the left-wing / globalist project for decades has been to centralize power, and then internationalize it, moving it utterly beyond the reach of voters. This was very much by design – they know federalism gives YOU more control, and they don’t like it one little bit.

Cause after cause beloved to the Left is portrayed as a “consensus” of “experts” that must be imposed on the people against their will, with no input from voters and no means for individuals to resist. They’re increasingly less shy about saying their agenda is beyond democracy.

Another positive feature of moving issues to state legislators is that they tend to gain clarity. D.C. is much worse about stuffing issues into titanic trillion-dollar spending bills. Rarely does the national Congress vote clearly on one thing.

The needs of individual states and their populations can be different. The consensus of their voters can be very different. A free republic of sovereign individuals shouldn’t have many one-size-fits-all, no-dissent-allowed solutions.

When power returns to the states, the people also gain the option of moving to different areas if they have severe issues with how a state is being run. They can merely travel to other states that allow what their home state has prohibited.

This is crucial, even if the number of people who actually decide to relocate is fairly small, because it is a manifestation of the one TRUE freedom, the only one that really matters in the end: the Power of No. The ability to say no, to refuse, is the fountain of all liberty.

Corruption is the horror plaguing the entire world. The corruption and waste in our federal system is absolutely sickening, and it’s permanent. There is no way to fix it without shifting power and money to the states, which can be monitored more closely and held more accountable.

You cannot “reform” a system that has trillions of dollars and millions of footsoldiers to protect every one of its corrupt fiefdoms, every nickel of its bloated agenda. There are no clean, big governments, and there never will be. The Leviathan has too many fangs and claws.

You cannot audit a system as titanic and broken as the federal government. It will never, ever be “transparent.” Among other things, it simply has too many people working for it, and far too many of them are utterly beyond the reach of voters. In no sense do they answer to YOU.

Lord knows state governments can have plenty of scandals, and some of them are Leviathans in their own right by any objective standard, but at least the people have a better chance of securing accountability – and if they give up on reforming a corrupt state, they can just leave.

One other great feature of federalism, perhaps its most subtle advantage: there are no tyrannical “settled issues.” Nothing is every really settled forever. The future is not held hostage to the past. Voters can change their minds, and change the law.

That is a HUGE advantage to the cause of freedom, a key aspect of sustaining that climate of persuasion that is so far superior to the corrupt business of demands and commands. Voters must be persuaded in perpetuity. Today’s law must be nourished and sustained tomorrow.

This will soon become clear in the matter of abortion, as states may tighten or loosen their restrictions as voters demand. No more phony “census” of ersatz “experts” chiseled in stone and used as a cudgel against generation after generation. Bad arguments will take a beating.

In a free republic, most of the laws should be written on paper, not carved in stone. The Constitution can be changed, but it’s not easy. That means not many issues should be “settled forever” with the permanence of the Bill of Rights. Permanence is power, to be used sparingly.

Everything I have said in this thread is the antithesis of leftist, statist, authoritarian ideology. They would howl that every single point I’ve raised is an offense against their sacred agenda, which must be imposed for the good of whatever they claim to care about.

“How can a government of wise experts be subjected to scrutiny by the proletariat? Why should brilliant social engineers have to explain themselves to the rubes over and over again? People moving to other states, saying no to our judgments – that’s absurd! THE EARTH IS ON FIRE!”

There is no better way to illuminate tyranny than to enumerate the virtues of a system that would make it impossible, and let the would-be tyrants tell you why that’s unthinkable.

Nothing to add from here, except for expressing my thanks to KT for taking the time and trouble to bust this excellent piece out of Twitter Format Prison confinement and compile it all as just plain old text, sparing me from having to do thirty friggin’ embeds, which is an acute pain in my ass.

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CF Glossary

ProPol: Professional Politician

Vichy GOPe: Putative "Republicans" who talk a great game but never can seem to find a hill they consider worth dying on; Quislings, Petains, Benedicts, backstabbers, fake phony frauds

Fake Phony Fraud(s), S'faccim: two excellent descriptors coined by the late great WABC host Bob Grant which are interchangeable, both meaning as they do pretty much the same thing

Mordor On The Potomac: Washington, DC

The Enemy: shitlibs, Progtards, Leftards, Swamp critters, et al ad nauseum

Burn, Loot, Murder: what the misleading acronym BLM really stands for

pAntiFa: an alternative spelling of "fascist scum"

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FREEDOM!!!

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