Hmmm… – Page 63

Truth can be stranger than fiction

Posted on November 17, 2021November 17, 2021 by Mike

There once was a day when I would have straightaway laughed this off as straight-up paranoia, the worst sort of conspiracy-theorizing—something that can only be the product of a diseased mind.

But this is not that day.

Two interesting tidbits directly from Kyle’s defense attorney in his closing argument. One, Joseph Rosenbaum, who was carrying his belongings in a hospital bag, as if he had just been released from a mental health facility, and who was said to have just been released from a mental health facility, and who himself said on video he had just been released, “and wasn’t afraid to go back,” has no record of having been at any mental health facility or detention center, and neither the defense or the prosecution can account for his whereabouts prior to the riot. So the defense tried to locate where this guy came from, or where he was in the weeks prior to the riot, to show he was a mental headcase, but they couldn’t locate any info, despite him clearly having been under a hold somewhere, dealing with therapists of some sort and believing himself he was locked up. Make of that what you will.

Two, Gaige Grosskreutz was brought into the hospital amblulatory and conscious, but in shock with his bicep blown off, and somehow he ended up admitted as an anonymous patient with no name, so his best friend couldn’t find him when he went to be with him. I doubt Gaige was thinking clearly enough in those frantic moments to request he be listed as a John Doe. I doubt the hospital, getting a rush patient in from the riots with his arm blown off, thought to hide his identity as they were trying to wheel him into emergency surgery. So how did he end up anonymized, even days later?

Now suppose the riot was a complex intel operation, being run from an underground command center many miles away, by intel professionals watching events live on their TV screens, like feeds from numerous “streamers” like Gaige who were running around with their phones, streaming the riot. Suppose that command center was giving orders to their operatives on the ground in the riot through hidden earpieces, using bounced signals from locally positioned repeaters brought in by “Antifa” commanders. Imagine the plan for that night was to make an example out of some patriot who was armed, to counter the images of armed patriots in body armor protesting the Cabal, and make those guys look less scary. Suppose that command center picked Kyle out of the video streams during the early moments of the riot, because he was clearly young, out of shape, naive to how things worked, and looked like a Cherry these seasoned Cabal assets could roll over.

In the trial we learned, that at just the wrong moment, whoever was protecting the CarSource suddenly bailed with no explanation as the crowd moved in (the defense said it in closing). Then, one of the “leaders” of the armed patriots asked 17 year old Kyle to go down there to take the position, and at the same moment, Kyle’s “buddy” in the buddy system the patriots were using, who had been assigned to him earlier (a forty something Army vet), suddenly disappeared inexplicably from the side of the 17 year old kid he should have felt responsible for. So Kyle was suddenly alone and could not find him, just as the order to head to CarSource came in. So Kyle went toward the CarSource alone on orders, where Joseph Rosenbaum was hiding behind a car waiting, and where the FBI had just moved its overhead drone and aviation units to that location to record everything that was about to happen.

What Cabal didn’t know was Kyle was under God’s protection, and just happened to be extra-sharp and highly cool under fire as well. So he smokes two Cabal protesters and cripples a third, all clearly in compliance with all legal strictures, before successfully exfiling and getting to safety. After everything plays out, nobody can say where Rosenbaum came from. Nobody can identify or locate crucial characters, like “Yellow Pants” and “Jump Kick Guy” (both terms from the trial), despite the FBI undoubtedly having the Identification of everyone present that night, and the videos going global. And when Grosskruetz gets admitted to the hospital, somebody knows this will be a clusterfuck, and has the authority to contact the hospital and make sure his name is removed from his admission records, so nobody can find him until they see all the videos, sort out how they are going to deal with it, and figure out what his story will need to be.

It feels like a mad scramble by command after a perfectly planned clock-work op targeting a cherry turned into an epic Goatfuck, and they needed to hide everything until they could figure out how how bad it was, and how they needed to handle it. After Kyle cleaned house, and command gave the order to shut down the riot and send everyone home right after it (why did the shooting not invigorate the crowd to riot even worse?), I will bet there were upwards of a dozen seasoned, high ranking intel professionals gathered in a conference room somewhere shitting bricks, grabbing all the video they could, and trying to figure out how they would keep this epic Goatfuck from blowing stratospheric. I would not be surprised at one point one said, “Well, at least tell me this little shit killed a black guy, so we have something to work with!”

All of that fits together far better as coordinated intel activity, than it does as a random series of events, and odd coincidences, which left Kyle all alone, in the middle of the mob, under attack, with multiple aviation over him.

One the one hand, William of Occam’s renowned Razor holds that when evaluating several competing explanations for the same incident or phenomenon, the simplest is likely to be the correct one. On the other, though, the Sherlock Holmesian Fallacy theory maintains that “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” I dunno, people, you pays your money and you takes your choice, I suppose. One thing I AM sure of, though, is that none among us should fall into the trap of assuming that an ostensibly responsible and reliable federal agency such as Famous But Incompetent would never do such a harebrained, risky, and patently immoral thing. At this point, I think it safe to say that we should all know better than that by now.

Publick Notice

Posted on November 16, 2021November 16, 2021 by Mike

I had forgotten it, but as it happens I have an old alternate image, part of a much older CF Xmas theme, which might make a worthy stand-in for my beloved Scrooge Picard—of whom I shall brook no evil spoken, ever—buried deep in the Trusty iMac’s file catacombs. This alternate is a real humdinger itself, featuring as it does my all-time favorite pinup hottie, Bettie Page—of whom I shall also brook no etc etc.

Upon stumbling across the Bettie header by a stroke of sheer good fortune, I piddled about some with the thing and found its dimensions to be all out of whack with what this current theme calls for, tragically enough. So I’ma do a little mild immersion into P-shop World and see if I can’t make things right. Then, if all goes well without undue hassle, maybe I’ll poke around a bit for a header-image-switching script that will work. Should that endeavor prove fruitful, well…we shall see what we shall see.

Why yes, I DO in fact just loooove tinkering with shit that I should probably leave the hell alone, always have. Why do you ask…?

A piercing insight

Posted on November 15, 2021 by Mike

By George, I think he’s got it.

People like us have been saying for years that SJW always double down, that progressives never retreat, that commies keep pushing until they win, but I don’t think that until recently we really began to understand what that actually means, and the unavoidable implications of that understanding.

To put it in a slightly different frame, imagine that you’ve got a serial killer trying to break into your house. No matter what you do to discourage him, he always returns to make another attempt.

Eventually you’re simply going to have to kill that sonofabitch.

What we’re trying to figure out right now is exactly what “eventually” means.

The last line in bold is the beating, bleeding heart of the current situation, I do believe, summed up as perfectly as I’ve seen yet. Well done, old friend. If I had a prize for “Comment of the week,” Bill would’ve just won it.

One war, two sides

Posted on November 12, 2021November 12, 2021 by Mike

One must win, one must lose.

Choose.

One of the great semantic debates of the past decade has been the ongoing attempt to muddle the definition of “Left vs Right” in the American political sphere. For example, a lot of people who are new to the liberty movement (people who became active during or after the Trump campaign in 2016) have heard of the “false left/right paradigm”, but they have no clue what it actually means. If you think it means there are no legitimate political sides in this fight and that the entire conflict is theatrical or manipulated, then you are misinformed.

The false left/right paradigm specifically refers to the fake division at the VERY TOP of the political pyramid among elitists in government. There are certainly Republicans that are conservative in their rhetoric but not conservative in their actions or policies, and they tend to support or side with politicians on the left regularly when it comes to big government spending and big government power (just look to the Republicans that voted in favor of Joe Biden’s recent infrastructure bill).

Democrats and leftists don’t have to pretend. They base their entire platform on collectivism and centralization. This is no secret. The only theater is in their motives. Top Democrats claim they are fighting for the “greater good” of the masses when they are actually elevating and benefiting a tiny minority of wealthy elites. They do not care at all about the lives of their constituents.

Things change dramatically when we start talking about the bottom of the pyramid among regular people. The political spectrum is not as broad and nuanced as some people would have us believe and the sides are much easier to discern. There are exceptions to every rule and to every group, but to say the groups do not exist is an act of denial.

There are also people who call themselves “moderates” because they think this makes them more impartial and more open-minded. They don’t want to appear as if they are moving to one “extreme” end of the spectrum or the other. But, ultimately, there are only two sides in this fight: Either you are in favor of intensive government dominance of people’s lives, or you are not. And, the vast majority of people in favor of government tyranny herald from the left side of the political spectrum. They revel in the totalitarianism, even when they don’t necessarily benefit from it.

The bottom line is that proof is seen in action: Red states are free, blue states are enslaved. There’s no way around that.

The debate is over, at least in terms of left vs. right. The differences are stark and painfully obvious. Places with majority conservative populations are still fighting the mandates while places with a majority of leftists are perpetuating tyranny. It cannot be denied. It cannot be argued. This is reality. In this day and age if you want to be free you make sure you are surrounded by conservatives, or you become a conservative.

There is not a single blue state in the country that is not on the war path to enforce Biden’s vax mandates. There is not a single blue city in the country that is not trying to subversively teach CRT in schools. And, there is not a single blue region in the country that is not obsessed with wokism and globalism. The truth is, America has split into two completely different cultures with two completely different social objectives.

There are principles and ideals which are mutually exclusive; they cannot exist within the same society at the same time. There are moments in history when tribes form and cults rise, and generally these groups grow from either a desire to control others or a desire to remain free. We are living in such times.

We are indeed, although it’s also obvious that many if not most of us are not reconciled to that harsh reality just yet. But like it or not, they will be, probably sooner than any of us might imagine or wish. Which is where an even harsher reality shoves an oar in.

And that, folks, is foremost among numerous reasons why I unequivocally, categorically insist that there will be no secession, no geographical or political division, no “national divorce” without violent conflict—not EVER. Which, mind, does NOT suggest that there ain’t gonna be a division. In fact, I’m entirely confident that there will be, and that right soon. Actually, it seems apparent to me that, as Brandon says, it’s already in progress, whether we realize it or not. But the pattern of history indicates that our Great Schism enjoins all participants to wade through a veritable ocean of blood before the transition from purely theoretical into daily reality will be established.

Explicating the inexplicable

Posted on November 7, 2021November 8, 2021 by Mike

I’ve for the most part dropped any further mention of how the theft of the 2020 “election” was accomplished, as well as endless recounts and the like. I can’t really forego the pointless and delusional onanism common in certain quarters insisting that soon—ANY MINUTE NOW!!!—***”president”*** Brandon’s transparently fraudulent “victory” will surely be decertified, whereupon the true President will be restored to his rightful position, since I never bought into any of that starry-eyed silliness in the first place. We all know full well that Trump, along with every Real American who believes he has a God-given right to his say in how and by whom he is governed, was robbed.

The deed has been done; the palace coup which began with the original crime wet firecracker Bill Barr correctly called “one of the greatest travesties in American history” went off without a hiccup, a YUUUUGE success. There is now only one means by which that crime can possibly be addressed, by which justice can be achieved at last. We all know full well what that means is, too.

All that said, though, this thorough and unique analysis is just too damned good to let pass by without at least taking note of it.

Eleven months after the 2020 American presidential election, the official results remain so incongruous, they merit an empirical exegesis.

The political establishment’s narrative is that Biden won an unexpectedly close race, and the outcome requires no further examination. Yet, Biden’s victory is so statistically suspicious, so riddled with ahistorical outcomes, that a detailed data examination is necessary to reassure Americans the official result was, in fact, the actual result.

The political establishment’s narrative is that Biden won an unexpectedly close race, and the outcome requires no further examination. Yet, Biden’s victory is so statistically suspicious, so riddled with ahistorical outcomes, that a detailed data examination is necessary to reassure Americans the official result was, in fact, the actual result.

Official tallies record 161.3 million votes cast in 2020. Donald Trump got 75 million of those votes, 12.1 million above his 2016 total, and the most votes ever received by an incumbent president. Joe Biden received 81.2 million votes, the most votes for anyone who has sought the presidency.

Biden received 306 Electoral College (EC) votes to Trump’s 232. The individual vote totals behind that victory show an amazingly slim margin of victory for Biden. He won Arizona (11 EC votes), Georgia (16 EC votes), and Wisconsin (10 EC votes) by a combined 43,809 votes, which made the difference between victory and an Electoral College tie.

Now, let’s consider nine categories of suspicious anomalies that led to Biden’s squeaker of a victory.

I. Census Bureau Data
In 2020, the Census Bureau found 5 million fewer voters than the number of ballots counted. This is the largest gap recorded since these post-election surveys began in 1964. These 5 million excess ballots account for most of Biden’s national popular vote lead. To cite one state-level example, the Census Bureau found 4.8 million voters in Georgia, but Georgia reported 5 million counted ballots.

The Census Bureau’s validated voter survey is a very thorough and comprehensive piece of post-election data analysis. Historically, it has been far more accurate than exit polling and other post-election surveys and studies, as Robert Barnes, a leading political analyst and successful political prognosticator, explained in early May on his “What Are the Odds?” podcast.

The nationwide excess of counted ballots over registered voters in 2020 is extremely unusual. Census data usually finds a very small differential between the number of people they identify as having voted in the previous presidential election and the official total number of ballots counted in that election. In 2016, Census voting data matched almost precisely the number of ballots counted.

Historically, when Census data has differed from the official ballot count, it has tended to overestimate, rather than underestimate, the number of voters. The opposite was the case in the 2020 election.

Most revealingly, the Census data shows the turnout surge was almost exclusively among White blue-collar voters, an overwhelmingly pro-Trump cohort. Yet, somehow, the surge favored Biden in the end.

Turnout in 2020 was 6.7 percentage points higher than in 2016. The Census data on overall turnout, and turnout among specific demographic groups, closely aligns with the macro- and micro-turnout predictions made respectively by Barnes and Richard Baris, the preeminent pollster and managing director of Big Data Poll, and polling data at my firm, Democracy Institute, which forecast a Trump win.

I won’t excerpt any more of it, although the temptation to post a much bigger bite is pretty powerful. The piece is broken down into nine sections, each of which approaches its individual issue from a highly unusual and intriguing angle. It’s a long ‘un right enough, but when you reach the end of it you’ll swear it ain’t anywhere near long enough, I bet. The closer:

A synthesis of the empirical evidence, innumerable anomalies, and predictive metrics leads to an inescapable conclusion about the 2020 presidential election. Although it is statistically possible that Biden won, clearly it is statistically implausible that he actually did.

If you go through the comments section you’ll find the usual shitlib sophists and pedants straining mightily to pooh-pooh the inescapable conclusion in their usual fashion, disingenuously sidestepping the real crux of the matter: Even if one is willing to dismiss this well-reasoned article’s arguments, it still amounts to a single evidentiary nugget mined from a whole quarry’s worth of malfeasance and skullduggery.

It’s almost possible to “prove” that a given election was indeed stolen, as even NPR admitted back in 2007. But when there are causes for suspicion as numerous as this, none but an insensate fool (or a co-conspirator) could fail to perceive a rank odor of corruption wafting off the whole rotten enterprise. In lawyerly circles, what we have here is known as a preponderance of the evidence. And, as the late Rush Limbaugh always said, words mean things. To wit:

preponderance of the evidence

Overview
Preponderance of the evidence is one type of evidentiary standard used in a burden of proof analysis. Under the preponderance standard, the burden of proof is met when the party with the burden convinces the fact finder that there is a greater than 50% chance that the claim is true. This is the burden of proof in a civil trial.

In the trial we might call 2020 Election Thieves vs Real Americans, the evidence is voluminous, diverse, and entirely credible. It clearly establishes Defendant’s guilt for wilfully and knowingly perpetrating the serious crime of election fraud, if only by the sheer number of items and instances introduced into evidence by the prosecution. As such, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, your vote must be, can only be, to convict. The evidence demands it. The law demands it. Most important of all, perhaps, JUSTICE ITSELF demands it.

Sentencing to follow.

A different view

Posted on November 3, 2021November 4, 2021 by Mike

Earlier I dismissed the Vichy GOPe’s Va win as “self-evidently meaningless,” and I meant it too. Eric Peters begs to differ, and could be he has a point.

It looks like the standard-bearer of the Woke Authoritarian Left (WAL) will not be anointed as Virginia’s next governor. Of course, this may change as new “ballots” are discovered – but for the moment, a respite.

Not because the other guy (apparently) won. Rather, because it appears that WAL suffered a significant repudiation. Even in Northern Virginia, where the WAL appeared to be in full control – of everything.

And got too publicly cocky about it.

The Clinton’s buck-toothed donkey lost – again, apparently – not because a sufficiency of voters were enthused about Glenn Youngkin, a Republican cut from the same cloth as Mitt Romney. Rather, the Clinton’s donkey lost because he brayed too loudly, too openly about such things as parents of kids in government schools needing to shut up, sit down and let the WAL put boys who dress like girls freely enter the actually girls’ bathrooms and lecture kids of both sexes who happen to be white that they are intrinsically oppressive to “people of color. “

Youngkin is not likely to restore the Bill of Rights in Virginia. But that misses the point of this election.

WAL lost – in a state presumed to be its fief-perpetual. WAL may have lost another state – New Jersey (as this is written early post-election day, the NJ race is too close to call) which is a loss for the WAL even if the WAL’s candidate – the sitting governor – clings to his office.

The tide is turning.

The country resonates with chants of Let’s Go Brandon! It is driving the WAL batty because it is a barometer of that changing tide. The WAL has been using the strategy pioneered by the WAL’s founder – Vladimir Lenin. He knew you win by presuming you are the majority, which you achieve by belittling and demoralizing the actual majority.

He literally seized the name – majority – for his minority cabal of original gangster Woke Authoritarian Leftists, styling them bolsheviks, which in the Russian language means…majority. Which conferred upon his radical minority a false legitimacy. The Bolsheviks – as their party became known – seized control as the representatives of “the people.” In fact, they represented a tiny minority of the populace. Indeed, many of them weren’t even Russians – as the imprisoned Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn would note in his Gulag Archipelago.

Today’s WAL has been using the same technique – with great effect because its membership controls what is styled the “mainstream” media, which includes social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Which the WAL has used to create a false impression of majority-hood.

By suppressing the majority.

Those who offend the WAL’s sensitivities are disappeared – not by goon squads hauling people off into the night but via the less overt method of cancelling them. Their mouths are electronically muzzled (an interesting parallel there with the Face Diapers also pushed by the WAL) and their persons isolated thereby, causing them to believe they are at odds with the…majority. This stifling effect ripples through the general population, making the majority feel themselves a displaced minority, obsolete and in the way.

It worked – superficially – for quite some time.

Most people may not be libertarian – yet! – but they are not Woke. And the more the WAL’s tyranny of the minority is rejected, the more the majority inches toward the libertarian point-of-view. This evolution is inevitable for just that reason. As people reason it out, they begin to see.

The rejection of the vicious authoritarianism of the Left implies a repudiation of authoritarianism, as such – because authoritarianism is always and inherently vicious. Psychologically normal people begin to see that.

Take heart!

And Let’s Go Brandon!

Take heart indeed. There is plenty of cause for concern, yes—plenty and to spare. But we must NEVER yield to despair.

Update! I repeat: No opportunity to rub shitlib noses in their own shit ought ever to be passed up. Ever.

Dear Leftists,

Let’s be clear: Tuesday’s election wasn’t about us, it was about you. It was about putting a stop to your failed American Marxist policies that have been fundamentally transforming and dividing our country by race, class, and ideology. We see it, but, unsurprisingly, you don’t.

Voters—across not only on the dark blue east, but the midwest and Texas too—resoundingly and decisively rejected what you’re selling at all levels of government. Tellingly, though, rather than taking some time for introspection to consider why you lost, we see you’re immediately doubling down on those very same failed policies…

Follows, a Tweet from some doltish twat claiming that the big problem for the Demonrats isn’t with their “messaging,” but that “This country simply loves white supremacy.” At this time, it remains unclear just why the actual fucking fuck this parasitic bint hasn’t long since departed these unspeakably racist shores to shag her Brown Sugah ass on back to De Motherlan’ for good. I do so enjoy this sizzling rejoinder to all that sniveling race-pimpery, not that it will have any effect on those most in need of the schooling.

Hey, @JoyAnnReid. Meet Virginia's new Lt. Governor. Does this look like the 'face of white supremacy' to you?? pic.twitter.com/blbVdCDZHc

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 3, 2021

That, of course, is the entirely awesome Winsome Sears: former Gyrine, outspoken Gun Gal, and soon to be Va’s new Lt Gov. I consider Sears to be the most salutary result of the whole shebang, not least because of how very many shitlib shibboleths she righteously upends just by simply existing as the person she is.

“I am at a loss for words for the first time in my life,” she told supporters. “I am here because of you. I’m here because you voted for me. I’m here because you put your trust in me. Thank you, thank you.”

“I’m telling you that what you are looking at is the American dream. The American dream. When my father came to this country on August 11, 1963. He came at the height of the civil rights movement,” she said. “He came from Jamaica. I said to him, ‘why did you come?’ He said, ‘because America was where the jobs and the opportunities were.’”

She explained that her father arrived in the U.S. with $1.75 in his pocket, taking any job he could find and putting himself through school so he could enjoy the American Dream.

“He came and got me when I was six years old, and when I stepped onto that PanAm Boing 737 and landed at JFK, I landed in a new world. And so let me tell you this,” she said. “I am not even a first-generation American. When I joined the Marine Corps I was still a Jamaican. But this country had done so much for me I was willing—willing to die for this country.”

“U-S-A! U-S-A!” she chanted, as the crowd enthusiastically joined in.

She’s a-okay with me. Read all about her here; Sears has lots more to say, every word of it pure gold. Anyways, several ‘graphs deeper into the pre-digression post above we arrive at what was almost certainly the biggest single reason Va Demonrats got their empty heads cut last night.

When leftist candidates said over and over that parents shouldn’t have a say in their children’s education and bureaucrats called them “domestic terrorists” while siccing the federal government on them, America’s parents were listening. While leftists locked us down; closed our schools, churches, and places of employment; tried to force us to mask and vaccinate; and taught our kids to hate this country, their own gender, and even us, American voters were listening. On Tuesday, American voters spoke loudly and clearly not about racism, but about woke-ism.

The truth is you lost many seats on Tuesday but more than that, your leftist ideas lost. Your ideas are extreme, divisive, tired, and failed. America is indeed tired of the left’s American Marxism.

It’s not us, it’s you, and may God Bless Red America.

Damned skippy. For what it’s worth I believe Sims, among others, is reading way too much into this than the facts will ultimately bear, for all sorts of reasons I won’t go into for the nonce. But that’s okay; there’s plenty of butthurt to go around in Progtardia today, which is never a bad thing.

Updated update! A small victory that could very well end up being a truly meaningful one.

A Massachusetts teacher who was forced to resign after photos of him at the Capitol on January 6 were shared online has won a seat on the district’s school board.

The former Braintree High School teacher Matthew Lynch, 35, was visited by the FBI during his campaign.

Lynch resigned in February after working at the school for approximately ten years.

In his resignation letter to the school, Lynch wrote about how his military experience has left him very concerned about the direction of our nation.

“My military experience as an Intelligence Analyst has given me unique perspective on what is currently going on in both our country and our town and I fear we are heading on a real collision course,” Lynch continued in the letter. “I feel I need to make my voice heard in the town of Braintree but in doing so will have unintended side effects which will be completely unfair to my students.”

The former teacher explained to the outlet that he believes in Braintree schools and believes that they are “worth fighting for.”

“There is a revolution in education going on right now. More and more kids will be leaving public schools for private, Catholic or homeschooling, which will have a negative effect on Braintree’s schools. I love Braintree Schools and I believe they are worth fighting for, so we have to show parents why Braintree Schools is the place for their children.”

On Tuesday, Lynch won.

Good on ya, Teach. Here’s hoping you can make your presence felt up there in the People’s Republic of Massachussetts, in whatever way you’re able. May the example set by your dauntless will to win serve as inspiration to us all.

Update to the updated update! Okay, I confess I did NOT see this coming.

RICHMOND, VA—Tuesday seemed to be a banner day for Republicans. They won a huge victory in Virginia, and without the involvement of former President Donald Trump. Perhaps the Republicans had turned a new leaf.

But it was all a ruse.

As Youngkin gave his victory speech, he pulled off his mask and revealed that he had, in fact, been Donald Trump all along. “Hello, haters and losers!” Trump yelled. “I win again! Now I’m president of this state! Forty-nine more to go!”

“See?! I told you!” screamed Terry MacAuliffe from the crowd. “I told you that electing Youngkin was basically electing Trump! I told you!”

“Shut up, loser!” Trump responded. “I never came up with a nickname for you. It’s Terrible Terry. That’s your name now.” He looked at the rest of the crowd. “Now you’ll never get rid of me! Never!”

Moderate Republicans who had supported Youngkin in the race were inconsolable. “We thought it was okay to vote Republican since they were moving on from Trump,” sobbed Bryant Patton, a Never Trumper. “I just thought the Lincoln Project and Bill Kristol were weird grifters and/or pedophiles, but I should have listened to them and just voted for Democrats who hate and despise me instead of the Republican.”

Trump, though, was ready to get to work, first trying to find how he could get access to the Virginia governor’s Twitter account.

Reports of Pelousi immediately scheduling US House impeachment hearings for an unprecedented fourth time are almost certainly true.

Updates, forsooth! The Last Sane Democrat sounds off.

McAuliffe’s loss is a victory for all Americans. Why? Because it was a resounding rejection of efforts to divide us by race, the stripping of parental rights, and arrogant, deaf leaders. This benefits us all.

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) November 3, 2021

Yes, she’s a Democrat. Yes, she still hews to some shitlib beliefs like gun control, or as far as I know she does. Nonetheless, I still kinda like her.

IT’S MORNING IN AMERICA!!!!!ELEVENTY

Posted on November 3, 2021November 3, 2021 by Mike

THANK GOD WE GOT MITT YOUNGKIN ELECTED SAVED WE’RE ALL SAVED FREE AT LASS FREE AT LASS PRAISE GAWD AWMIGHTY WE’S FREE AT LASS

Now let’s all be sure to hold our breath really, really hard while we wait for Amerika v2.0—or even the Commonwealth of Virginia, for that matter—to be put right again, mmkay?

It’s important to keep elections in perspective. The Youngkin win in Virginia was a backlash against wokeness and willful societal destruction in the name of not being a horrible person. The old saying “nice guys finish last” reflects the rough and tumble world of politics. For those who would rather maintain civility, decency and self respect, it’s sometimes better to lose than to get into the gutter with one’s opponent just to win, depending on what one stands to win. When it comes to a bonus, or a raise, one might opt to remain decent and faithful to the virtues one promotes to his children. When it comes to the survival of the nation or the culture, there are no depths that should not be plumbed in order to win that fight, because no virtue is taught by starvation or execution.

The Youngkin win was a BFYTW win. It doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t make voting any more valid or trustworthy or the way out of anything. It might stop CRT from being taught in Virginia schools for a while, but that fight isn’t over until the school boards are ripped up and replaced. It might prevent a few 14-year-old girls from getting raped in the bathroom by skirt-wearing sexual deviants, but it won’t stop rape. There are bigger issues to be addressed on that score. There is a whole segment of society attempting to normalize sodomy and rape of little boys and girls that no vote will alter or eliminate. That’s up to serious men aware of the issues and prepared to solve it once and for all. 
I was a huge proponent of getting out the vote in Virginia, because it had a force-multiplier effect. Democrats losing the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general offices sends a message to AOC and the squad. The close governor’s race in New Jersey is a virtual slap in the face to vaxx mandates. It emboldens the moderate Democrats. All of that, pushes back against the $5 Trillion-dollar infrastructure and budget momentum, giving Democrats in largely red districts the backbone to push back against AOC and her Green New Deal. Preventing a huge budget expenditure slows inflation, which pushes down on the price of food and other goods ahead of a dark winter. But it goes no further than that. It’s one battle in a long war, but seeing a few willing to fight boosts morale. Still, the only reason the election in Virginia went off with success is because they had 100% roles filled in election officials and monitor positions instead of the customary 28%. They had RNC officials on the phone ready to answer concerns when raised at polling places and officials there ready to respond. That comes back on the people to get involved locally, fill all of those spots and make sure there is someone on the other end of the phone when it rings.  
The turnout and success of the governor’s race in Virginia was nothing other than a stalling tactic and anyone who thinks it’s anything else isn’t paying attention, but that was a needed respite from the drumbeat march of communism, forced injections, woke schools and border madness. It’s much more important for its symbolism to a demoralized “right” than it achieves practically. There are still uses for politics, but for those seeking one-off solutions, politics won’t achieve it. Nothing will, because there are no one-off solutions.  
This is a war. That was a battle. It’s good to win once in a while; to have the front moved back a few yards now and then, but the war rages on.

As it will do, whether we like it or not. The orgy of back-slapping triumphalism and self-congratulation on Our Side are all fine and well, I guess, but don’t look for me to join in. OF COURSE the Uniparty cabal is willing to allow a milquetoast Vichy GOPer win one now and again. And lest anybody think I was kidding or exaggerating when I referred to Virginia’s new Potemkin governor as “Mitt Youngkin” just now, I implore you to reconsider.

Glenn Allen Youngkin (born December 9, 1966) is an American businessman and politician who is the governor-elect of Virginia. He is expected to be inaugurated as the 74th governor of Virginia on January 15, 2022. A member of the Republican Party, Youngkin defeated former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe in the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election. Prior to entering politics, he spent 25 years at the private-equity firm the Carlyle Group, later becoming its CEO. Youngkin stepped down from the Carlyle Group in September 2020, and announced his candidacy for the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election in January 2021.

Hmmmm…Carlyle Group, is it? I dunno, sounds kinda familiar.

Carlyle is a unique model, assembled at the planetary level on the capitalism of relationships or “capitalism of access” to use the 1993 expression of the American magazine New Republic. Today, in spite of its denials, the group incarnates the “military-industrial complex” against which Republican President Dwight Eisenhower warned the American people when he left office in 1961.

That didn’t prevent George Bush senior from occupying a position as consultant to Carlyle for the ten years ending October 2003. It was the first time in United States’ history that a former president worked for a Pentagon supplier. His son, George W. Bush, also knows Carlyle well. The group found him a job in February 1990, while his father occupied the White House: administrator for Caterair, a Texas company specialized in aerial catering. The episode does not figure in the president’s official biography. When George W. Bush left Caterair in 1994, before becoming Governor of Texas, the company was in bad shape.

“It’s not possible to get closer to the administration than Carlyle is,” asserts Charles Lewis, Director of the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan organization in Washington. “George Bush senior earned money from private interests that worked for the government of which his son was president. You could even say that the president could one day profit financially, through his father’s investments, from the political decisions he himself took,” he adds.

The collection of influential characters who now work, have worked, or have invested in the group would make the most convinced conspiracy theorists incredulous. They include among others, John Major, former British Prime Minister; Fidel Ramos, former Philippines President; Park Tae Joon, former South Korean Prime Minister; Saudi Prince Al-Walid; Colin Powell, the present Secretary of State; James Baker III, former Secretary of State; Caspar Weinberger, former Defense Secretary; Richard Darman, former White House Budget Director; the billionaire George Soros, and even some bin Laden family members. You can add Alice Albright, daughter of Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State; Arthur Lewitt, former SEC head; William Kennard, former head of the FCC, to this list. Finally, add in the Europeans: Karl Otto Poehl, former Bundesbank president; the now-deceased Henri Martre, who was president of Aerospatiale; and Etienne Davignon, former president of the Belgian Generale Holding Company.

Carlyle isn’t only a collection of power people. It maintains holdings in close to 200 companies and, above all, provides returns on its investments that have exceeded 30 % for a decade. “Compared to the five hundred people we employ in the world, the number of former statesmen is quite small, a dozen at most,” explains Christopher Ullmann, Carlyle Vice-President for communication. “We’re accused of every wrong, but no one has ever brought proof of any kind of misappropriation. No legal proceeding has ever been brought against us. We’re a handy target for whoever wants to take shots at the American government and the president.”

Carlyle was created in 1987 in the salons of the New York eponymous palace, with five million dollars. Its founders, four lawyers, including David Rubenstein (a former Jimmy Carter advisor), had the -limited- ambition at the time of profiting from a flaw in fiscal legislation that authorized companies owned by Eskimos in Alaska to give their losses to profitable companies that would thus pay reduced taxes. The group vegetated until January 1989 and the arrival at its helm of the man who would invent the Carlyle system, Frank Carlucci. Former Assistant Director of the CIA, National Security Advisor, then Ronald Reagan’s Defense Secretary, Mr. Carlucci counted in Washington. He is one of current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s closest friends. They were roommates as students at Princeton together. Later, their paths crossed in several administrations and they even worked for a time at the same company, Sears Roebuck.

SO, basically the money-laundry for the Perpetual War department of the Deep State, then. Or, if it better suits you, one of the glass panels on the notorious revolving door all ProPol grifters rely on for their self-enrichment. Onwards.

Youngkin won the nomination at the party’s state convention on May 10, 2021, after multiple rounds of ranked-choice voting at 39 locations across the state. He defeated six other candidates. All the Republican candidates, including Youngkin, stressed their allegiance to Donald Trump and Trumpism, although other candidates for the nomination, such as state senator Amanda Chase, were the most vocally pro-Trump. After winning the party’s nomination, Youngkin was endorsed by Trump. Youngkin called the endorsement an “honor” but has sought to distance himself from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters. The New York Times wrote in October that Youngkin had sought to localize the race. Youngkin openly courted both anti- and pro-Trump supporters.

According to PolitiFact, before the Republican convention, Youngkin “toed a delicate line when asked if Biden was legitimately elected. He acknowledged that Biden was president but would not clearly say whether he thought the president was fairly elected. After the convention, Youngkin began acknowledging that Biden’s election was legitimate.” Amanda Chase, who has advanced conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, acted as a campaign surrogate, and the Associated Press noted that Youngkin “failed to refute a conspiracy theory” about the 2020 election; when asked at one of his rallies if Trump could be restored as president, Youngkin replied “I don’t know the particulars about how that can happen because what’s happening in the court system is moving slowly and it’s unclear.”

I can only doff my cap in awe of this remarkable display of supple, practically boneless fence-straddling. Even for a ProPol, his “flexibility” stands out.

While running in the Republican primary, Youngkin pledged to “stand up against all of the legislation that has been passed by the Democrats” and to be an opponent of abortion. Youngkin criticized the Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans most abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy, stating he instead favors a “pain threshold bill,” which occurs around twenty weeks. Youngkin personally opposes same-sex marriage, but has said he would not interfere with the issue as governor.

THAT’S telling ’em, Gov!

He spoke out against gun legislation that Democrats had passed, including expanded background checks, handgun purchase limitations and red flag laws. After winning the nomination, he de-emphasized these social issues, seeking to appeal to suburban swing voters. In July, he was caught on a hot mic telling an activist that he would limit his comments about abortion during the campaign so that he would not alienate independent voters. Also in July, the National Rifle Association (NRA) declined to endorse Youngkin after he declined to fill out their candidate survey. In September, a Democratic-aligned group began running ads in conservative parts of Virginia, seeking to diminish Republican turnout by attacking his lack of an endorsement from the NRA.

Youngkin supports the COVID-19 vaccine, but opposes mask and vaccine mandates. He supports eliminating the grocery tax, suspending the gas tax increase, offering a one-time rebate on income tax, doubling the standard deduction on income tax, cutting the retirement tax on veterans’ income, and implementing voter approval for any additional increase to local property taxes, which the Associated Press has called the “most wide-ranging and detailed” plan of his campaign.

Enough already. The one thing we can all be sure of about this Mark-1, Mod-0 shitweasel is that not ONE of this greasy weasels’ empty campaign pledges—nebulous and changeable as they already are—will be even half-assedly pursued, let alone implemented, without first receiving approval and permission from The Power.

Yeah, a victory once in a while can be a heartening thing, good for morale, even when it’s one as self-evidently meaningless as this one is. Nonetheless, the sad, central fact remains: it changes nothing, and nothing will be changed by it. As I’ve said so many times: Amerikan “elections” are meaningful solely as entertainment. They are theater, nothing more. At this point, they are the very acme and omega of what is meant by the phrase “bread and circuses.” If that still trips your trigger enough to actually go out and cast a vote—hey, have it, and more power to ya. You won’t need to elbow me aside to do it, I assure you.

Which does not in any way mean that all of us shouldn’t be rubbing Demonrat noses in it nonetheless; certainly, we should, and I mean every single chance we get. The more they suffer, the unhappier they are, the better off Real Americans are, no matter what. Back to TL for the denouement.

The problem is, and always has been, that states like Texas don’t recognize their own strength and abilities to exercise the power of the Tenth Amendment against a federal government that refuses to “faithfully execute” the laws. There are court cases to be brought, but answering the threat can’t wait for court cases. It’s easy to get frustrated by the lack of will of anyone on the right to do their job, push the envelope and solve the problem. People like Governor Abbott will never do it. They aren’t creative, they aren’t brave enough to face the federal government down in the interest of the citizens of Texas. He’s a peacetime governor, not a wartime governor. He simply doesn’t understand the serious nature of the threat. 
Beyond the election there are more important issues. Every state is teaching CRT somewhere. Every town is a border town when the federal government flies these illegal immigrants all over the country to avoid the optics of them piling up on the border. Every state is pushing the vaxx mandate. There’s a lot of work and we need to stay on top of it.

Indeed. If elections alone could change anything, they’d be illegal.

Handsome is as handsome does

Posted on October 30, 2021October 30, 2021 by Mike

Also, when he’s right, he’s right. Explanation to come, but first, the backstory.

On Wednesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson released a preview for a trailer on a new series scheduled to debut next week, which tells the “true story” of the January 6th Capitol riot.

It appears to both condemn the left for framing the incident as terrorism and its participants as terrorists, while exploring the potential role of the FBI in staging a false flag.

First, the trailer for “Patriot Purge”:

Which I won’t embed, so as to get right on to the meat of this.

Unsurprisingly, the left has been absolutely triggered over Carlson’s upcoming exposé, and wants it stricken from existence before millions, perhaps tens-of-millions of Americans are presented with an alternative narrative that contains highly uncomfortable truths.

“There is no lie too big or conspiracy theory too dangerous for Tucker Carlson to propagate,” said top Russiagate / Ukrainegate peddler Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in a statement to WaPo. “His latest salvo is nothing less than an invitation to violence. By airing it, Fox News demonstrates yet again a willingness to profit from tearing the country down.”

And on and on the shrieking shitlib hysteria-fest goes, of course and as usual. So brace yourself for the main reason I’m posting on this topic at all.

CF Lifers may recall an extended Gulf war-era dustup that raged ’round these parts with one Glenn Greenwald, who back in those days I took to sarcastically referring to as “Gleen Grenwald” for some long-forgotten reason. As I have ruefully acknowledged many times since those heady warblogging days of yore, my unqualified support for what I later came to derisively label the War On (Some) Terror was a mistake, owing to my being taken in completely by the Forever War scam.

Having waxed ever more appropriately and correctly cynical about FederalGovCo and all its works ever since, I’ve somewhat shamefacedly noticed a growing concurrence with Greenwald’s opinions of late; as I opened this post, when he’s right, he’s right. And he is, about more things than I would have imagined twenty years ago. My ego isn’t so smothering, nor my pride so stubborn, that I can’t give credit where it’s due. Although I’m sure we’ll never see eye to eye on everydamnedthing, nonetheless Glenn is due a great deal of credit, not least for this obversation:

The people who love democracy very deeply and are profoundly concerned about growing fascism and authoritarianism want the US Government to shut down Fox because it's airing a program exploring the role of FBI informants and infiltrators at the 1/6 riot. https://t.co/pgLphjvPNO

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 28, 2021

Good stuff all right, and perfectly consistent with his beliefs then. But it’s the closer at the bottom of this next one that really tickled me good.

The US political landscape, 2021: pic.twitter.com/p1DReJ9SnR

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 29, 2021

WHOA, that’s good squishy. I very much doubt Greenwald would remember me or our serial clashes way back when; he grazes in much more expansive fields nowadays, so to speak, and a lot of years have gone by. Be that as it may, I’ll say it anyhow: my humble thanks to you, Glenn, for giving me the heartiest laugh I’ve had all day.

(Via WRSA)

Obnoxious child playing in the street

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Mike

Boy, talk about a problem that solves itself.

A climate activist in Vancouver who is part of the infamous group Extinction Rebellion has gone so far as to literally glue herself to a road.

This group is really going for it with their full-blown plan to take down the establishment and save the planet during its “October Rebellion,” which sounds promising but has done nothing but get 33 of them arrested (so far).

When one of their members named Tara glued herself to the road, they couldn’t have been more proud and ecstatic!

Yeh, I bet so. Just try and imagine how proud and ecstatic I’m gonna be when I binge-watch the upcoming YT vid of her stupid ass getting run over and squashed like a mosquito by a big fucking K-whopper T680 pulling doubles.

Supply chain SNAFU

Posted on October 24, 2021October 24, 2021 by Mike

An industry insider outlines the multifarious problem.

Yesterday I rented a boat and took the leader of one of Flexport’s partners in Long Beach on a 3 hour of the port complex. Here’s a thread about what I learned.

First off, the boat captain said we were the first company to ever rent his boat to tour the port to see how everything was working up close. His usual business is doing memorial services at sea. He said we were a lot more fun than his regular customers.

The ports of LA/Long Beach are at a standstill. In a full 3 hour loop through the port complex, passing every single terminal, we saw less than a dozen containers get unloaded.

There are hundreds of cranes. I counted only ~7 that were even operating and those that were seemed to be going pretty slow.

It seems that everyone now agrees that the bottleneck is yard space at the container terminals. The terminals are simply overflowing with containers, which means they no longer have space to take in new containers either from ships or land. It’s a true traffic jam.

Right now if you have a chassis with no empty container on it, you can go pick up containers at any port terminal. However, if you have an empty container on that chassis, they’re not allowing you to return it except on highly restricted basis.

If you can’t get the empty off the chassis, you don’t have a chassis to go pick up the next container. And if nobody goes to pick up the next container, the port remains jammed.

WIth the yards so full, carriers / terminals are being highly restrictive in where and when they will accept empties.

Also containers are not fungible between carriers, so the truckers have to drop their empty off at the right terminal. This is causing empty containers to pile up. This one trucking partner alone has 450 containers sitting on chassis right now (as of 10/21) at his yards.

This is a trucking company with 6 yards that represents 153 owner operator drivers, so he has almost 3 containers sitting on chassis at his yard for every driver on the team.

He can’t take the containers off the chassis because he’s not allowed by the city of Long Beach zoning code to store empty containers more than 2 high in his truck yard. If he violates this code they’ll shut down his yard altogether.

With the chassis all tied up storing empties that can’t be returned to the port, there are no chassis available to pick up containers at the port.

And with all the containers piling up in the terminal yard, the longshoremen can’t unload the ships. And so the queue grows longer, with now over 70 ships containing 500,000 containers are waiting off shore. This line is going to get longer not shorter.

This is a negative feedback loop that is rapidly cycling out of control that if it continues unabated will destroy the global economy.

Alright how do we fix this, you ask? Simple. And we can do it fast now,

When you’re designing an operation you must choose your bottleneck. If the bottleneck appears somewhere that you didn’t choose it, you aren’t running an operation. It’s running you.

You should always choose the most capital intensive part of the line to be your bottleneck. In a port that’s the ship to shore cranes. The cranes should never be unable to run because they’re waiting for another part of the operation to catch up.

The bottleneck right now is not the cranes. It’s yard space at the container terminals. And it’s empty chassis to come clear those containers out.

In operations when a bottleneck appears somewhere that you didn’t design for it to appear, you must OVERWHELM THE BOTTLENECK!

Miscellaneous side angles I haven’t seen or heard mention of anywhere other than in casual conversations with my brother and several of his coworkers at Horizon Freight:

Chassis are extremely scarce currently; my brother has been working only two-three days/week over the last two weeks because there are just too few chassis in Charleston available for use—no chassis, no haulee containers
Amazon has taken to reserving way more container space than they need, then offering to resell it to shippers at eight to ten times the usual rate, which adds up to a lot of empty space in a lot of containers
Horizon has two dispatchers responsible for assigning chassis and containers to specific drivers who are charged with hauling them out of the Charelston and Savannah ports. These dispatchers are absolutely worn to a frazzle, working frantically to get these containers out of the ports and on the road to their destinations, for a damned good reason: there’s a firm deadline by which each container MUST be removed from the port, usually only two-three days after arrival. After the deadline, the dispatcher her own self gets whacked with a several-thousand dollar fine…compounded EACH AND EVERY DAY said container doesn’t move, applicable to EACH INDIVIDUAL CONTAINER

I repeat: in shutting down entire national economies on a pretext that grows more threadbare each and every day, politicians and bureauweasels have meddled in affairs much too big for them. Contrary to their personal God Complex delusions, the extremely complicated, intricately interdependent, and fragile systems they wilfully fucked up are FAR beyond their meager ability to restart or repair. The unbridled arrogance and conceit of ProPols have created a catastrophe that the entire world can only watch unfold with horror and dread. There is no power on Earth capable of stopping what’s coming now.

Here’s a simple plan that @POTUS and @GavinNewsom partnered with the private sector, labor, truckers, and everyone else in the chain must implement TODAY to overwhelm the bottleneck and create yard space at the ports so we can operate again.

Not one proposal of which plan is ever going to happen.

This is not a comprehensive list. Please add to it. We don’t need to do the best ideas. We need to do ALL the ideas.

We must OVERWHELM THE BOTTLENECK and get these ports working again. I can’t stress enough how bad it is for the world economy if the ports don’t work. Every company selling physical goods bought or sold internationally will fail.

The circulatory system our globalized economy depends has collapsed. And thanks to the negative feedback loops involved, it’s getting worse not better every day that goes by.

I’d be happy to lead this effort for the federal or state government if asked. Leadership is the missing ingredient at this point.

Nope, nope, nope. One of BRM Peter’s commenters says it concisely and correctly.

government diddling caused this crap storm.

More government diddling will not fix it.

Nailed it. The one positive contribution federal and/or state governments might make here is also the one they’re wholly incapable of making: get the hell out of the way and allow the innumerable moving parts of the system of supply and logistics freely begin the slow and painful process of healing itself. Sadly, tragically for all of us, the self-styled Superior Beings who made this mess will never go along with it; such a thing is constitutionally beyond them, and goes against their nature. Their vanity, their bloated sense of their own importance, their every belief stands in direct opposition to the very concept. Indeed, they would resist any attempt at relaxing their grip on our throats to their dying breath. Which, y’know, can be easily arranged for them, and in fact ought to be.

Elsewhere, Karl digs down to unearth one of the deepest roots of our sorry situation.

I get it that everyone would like to just wave a magic wand and make the problem go away. There are people out there who claim they can — and have. They’re wrong. I may not be the CEO of Flexport but you shall see that going from a 2-stack to either 4 or 6 (depending on approvals) in the trucking company yards will solve nothing; the problem simply does not lie there.

The problem is that all the constraints have produced a labor shortage end to end in various places, including in warehouses, transportation hubs, drivers and similar. As a result the freight is not being unloaded and the empties not being returned on schedule.

When the ship gets here and unloads its several thousand containers those containers must ultimately return to the source to be loaded again. If the cycle is interrupted and there are none to load for the return trip then the source will run out. Unloading more containers into a chain of events that is constrained all the way through does not accelerate the rate of return for the journey back to the source!

You have to return the cycle from unload time to the return of the empty to the port to its expected rate and time in-transit or you do nothing. That means getting rid of the reasons that problem exists – which all revolve around labor and working conditions.

Some of those have been building for quite some time but a hell of a lot of them are external and imposed by governments related to lockdowns, mandates of various sorts and similar. The former ones building for quite some time will take some time to resolve but the others can be removed on an instant basis by the very government entities who placed them.

Phew—transcribing all of Karl’s characteristic bolds, underlines, and italics is hard work. But the man ain’t wrong about the scarcity of willing grunt-workers. Why, one might almost start to wonder whether—after going on two years of lockdowns, business closures, and being paid handsomely to lounge about at home in one’s jammies—this all might possibly be more than happenstance, coincidence, or sheer bad luck. Yeah, I know, I know, excessive paranoia, a ridiculous conspiracy theory, sorry I brought it up.

All the same, though, we might want to ask ourselves: cui bono? Who benefits, that is, from tighter control over individual freedom and mobility; reinforcement of fear, uncertainty, and doubt; making 24-7 surveillance and tracking of the Serf Class much easier; increasing Serf Class dependence and helplessness, among other things? We wonders, yes we wonders.

The Thrubbles, American-style

Posted on October 21, 2021October 21, 2021 by Mike

Alarming parallels.

The Irish Troubles is one of six models I’ve identified that could have (loosely) an American equivalent.

Of course, I’m not talking about Catholics versus Protestants, but a sectarian conflict featuring sporadic armed political violence where the government’s primary mission is peacekeeping followed by counterterrorism.

The Irish Troubles resulted in over 50,000 casualties and 3,500 deaths over a 30-year span (1969-1998). Armed violence was widespread across Northern Ireland, but this map illustrating the deaths of civilians and British Security Forces gives us a good glimpse of where casualty-producing attacks occurred.

One of my key assumptions for this model remains that armed political volence would be geographically limited. I wouldn’t expect much from, say, central Nebraska or northern Alabama, for instance, just like many areas of Northern Ireland had very few instances of armed violence over a 30-year span. I expect most places to remain… well, pretty quiet as far as fighting is concerned. (Criminality is another matter!)

A few things… First, civilian deaths are roughly equal to deaths of all belligerents. High civilian casualties are the norm for domestic conflicts, going all the way back to at least the 1500s. As French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1532-1592) observed, “In truth a forraine warre is nothing so dangerous a disease as a civill.”

Second, while the 1970s were by far the most violent, war-related deaths continued to stack up over the following decades. The total death toll of 3,483 works out to an average of 116 deaths per year, or roughly one death every three days. For 30 years. Low intensity conflicts, especially insurgencies and guerrilla wars, are often protracted. Nothing happening in the United States today signals that our own domestic conflict would be short lived.

Third, I’m still compiling the numbers of fighters as a percentage of the overall populace. The end result will show that a small percentage was actively engaged in the fighting at any given time. As we see in most low intensity conflicts, a small percentage actually takes part in the fighting, followed by maybe 5-15% of the total population involved in active support at some level, and everyone else is just trying to live their lives. I suspect that the American Troubles would be similar.

The real problem for most Americans will be the economic, financial, and monetary destruction that results from armed conflict. While you’d think that high unemployment would enable the mobilization of millions of military-aged males, the disruption to transportation, shipping, and production likely means that many Americans will be focused on week to week survival, as opposed to actively fighting.

The greater the operational tempo and mass of fighters, the greater logistics you need. This likely means that the number of fighters remains relatively small compared to the efforts required to support them. Again, less than 5%, maybe even less than 1%, is likely to be engaged at any time. (That’s still a lot of people.)

On that note, the United States population today is some 200 times larger than Northern Ireland was from 1969-1998. So could we see 200 times the death toll? Certainly.

Although I still maintain that there is simply no possible way to accurately predict where this is headed or how it’s all going to end up, Culper’s comparison with The Thrubbles (hey, I’m Irish all to hell and gone on my mom’s side, so I can say it that way if I want to, dammit) seems entirely apt to me, and just as likely to yield some useful indications as any. At the end of the day, though, the one and only sure thing is that it’s going to positively SUCK.

(Via WRSA)

WAKE UP, BLACK AMERICA!

Posted on October 21, 2021October 21, 2021 by Mike

You folks know by now that I am resolutely immune to the bizarre ((((((JOOOOOOOOOOO!!!™)))))) obssessiveness currently fashionable in certain other quarters, for reasons I’ve already gone through here plenty enough times. Being more of a William of Occam devotee, I’ve never really had any truck with conspiracy theorizing of any flavor, which admittedly has become a much more difficult mindset to maintain the last two years. But once in a VERY great while, a conspiracy theory comes along that is so damned compelling, so brilliantly conceived, so clearly beyond argument that no sensible soul could possibly do anything other than embrace it without reservation.

This would be one of those.

San Francisco State University Prof Says Jewish Pot is Making Black Men Gay
“It is Jewish genius that has helped…to weaponize the weed.”

Wesley Muhammad believes that the U.S. government and the Jews are using marijuana to make black men gay. The “Pot Plot” is a popular theory in Muhammad’s Nation of Islam cult.

At the Saviours Day Convention in Chicago, an official Nation of Islam event, Wesley Muhammad claimed that, “It is Jewish genius that has helped… to weaponize the weed so that it may effeminize the black male of America. And be clear, it is Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam that is standing in between the total demasculinization of the black man in America.”

Some years back, Wesley Muhammad’s lecture, “How to Make a Homosexual: The Scientific Assault on Black America” was canceled at a Philly black beauty expo because of its hateful content. But what wasn’t good enough for the 23rd Annual International Locks Conference, a black natural hair expo, is unfortunately all too welcome at San Francisco State University.

It’s not too surprising that a black “wholistic” hair expo has higher standards than the most antisemitic university in America. Or that Muhammad fits in so well at SFSU.

“It is clear that the two most powerful lobbies in America – the Jewish and the Homosexual – are hellbent on the information in this lecture, “How To Make A Homosexualm (sic)” NEVER makes it to the public’s awareness,” Muhammad complained on Facebook.

San Francisco State University has however been happy to provide Muhammad with a platform despite no shortage of ethnically Jewish and gay people on the faculty and in the administration.

Wesley Muhammad’s bio at the taxpayer-funded university notes that he is a lecturer in the Africana Studies Department of SFSU’s College of Ethnic Studies. It mentions his publications in the Final Call newspaper of the Nation of Islam hate group, and his book, “Understanding the Assault on the Black Man, Black Manhood and Black Masculinity” which contains thoughtful chapters such as “Why Saggin is Faggin” and “Birth of the Black Man (God)”.

This one scores straight A’s all across the board: for creativity; for originality; for weaving widely disparate threads into a wholly incoherent narrative fabric; for entertainment value; for sheer bugfuck lunacy, it tops every category. I must confess that I haven’t read all of it yet, mainly because I can only get another ‘graph or so deeper in before keeling over in helpless laughter and having to start all over again.

Damn pesky JOOOOOZ, getting all the brothas hung up on de weeeit ‘n’ fucking dey shit up ‘n’shit! Nomesay’n? Yup, it takes a nation of millions to hold ’em back. WE WUZ KANGS ‘N’SHIT!!!

This time for sure, Charlie Brown

Posted on October 10, 2021October 11, 2021 by Mike

What, you thought things were gonna be different this time around?

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is asking Gov. Ralph Northam to waive the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots cast by mail in this fall’s election.

The board voted 9-1 for the proposal by Chair Jeffrey McKay to send a letter to Northam, with Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, the board’s only Republican, casting the only vote against the motion.

McKay said that waiving the witness signature requirement – as was done during the 2020 election – is necessary due to the continued threat of COVID-19.

Herrity said that waiving the requirement would be a “blow to election integrity.”

Uhh, hate to have to be the one to etc and all, Pat, but “blow(s) to election integrity are the whole fucking point. TTPTB have but one interest when it comes to election integrity, and you can bet your sweet bippy it does NOT involve finding ways to secure and/or maintain it. Bayou Pete has questions.

So, what’s going on here? Let me ask a not-so-rhetorical question.

Question: Why would you change the security rules for mail-in ballots in the middle of an election that’s already under way?

Most likely answer: Because you’ve looked at the ballots that have already been received, and realized that you’re losing.

That’s what I’m sure is going on here.

And you would be correct, sir. Pete backs up his case with a little historical perspective:

Liberals and progressives often try to model the U.S. on Western European countries, but you never hear them arguing that we should adopt their voting rules. There is a reason for that. Banning mail-in voting or requiring people to use photo IDs to obtain a mail-in ballot is quite common in developed countries, especially in Europe.

These countries have learned the hard way what happens when mail-in ballots aren’t secured. They have also discovered how hard it is to detect vote buying when both those buying and selling the votes have an incentive to hide the exchange.

France banned mail-in voting in 1975 because of massive fraud in Corsica, where postal ballots were stolen or bought and voters cast multiple votes. Mail-in ballots were used to cast the votes of dead people.

The U.K., which allows postal voting, has had some notable mail-in ballot fraud cases. Prior to recent photo ID requirements, six Labour Party councilors in Birmingham won office after what the judge described as a “massive, systematic and organized” postal voting fraud campaign. The fraud was apparently carried out with the full knowledge and cooperation of the local Labour Party. There was “widespread theft” of postal votes (possibly around 40,000 ballots) in areas with large Muslim populations, because Labour members were worried that the Iraq War would spur these voters to oppose the incumbent government.

In 1991, Mexico’s election mandated voter photo IDs and banned absentee ballots. The then-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party had long used fraud and intimidation with mail-in ballots in order to win elections. Only in 2006 were absentee ballots again allowed, and then only for those living abroad who requested them at least six months in advance.

If concern about voter fraud with mail-in ballots is delusional, it is a delusion that is shared by most of the world. Even the countries that allow mail-in ballots have protections, such as government-issued photo IDs. But Americans are constantly assured even this step is completely unnecessary. Without basic precautions, our elections are on course to become the laughingstock of the developed world.

“On course to become,” is it? For any forthright, halfway knowledgeable soul, it’s a bit late for indulging such a Pollyanna-ish point of view. This is why the usual late-stage reports of Repugnicans “closing the gap” in the (rigged) polls—thereby “narrowing” and “heating up” the “race”—are so drolly amusing, at least to me. Throw the increasingly common “don’t get cocky” trope into the mix, and the whole charade is just 24-karat comedy gold.

Contrary to received wisdom, establishing a modicum of integrity and trustworthiness in the fraud-rife American “election” system would not be a complex task, neither expensive nor beyond the capability of mere humans. All it would take is a little unambiguous, no-nonsense legislation:

Forbid ALL use of electronic voting machines in any US election
Forbid ALL mail-in ballots, except perhaps for dot-mil, diplomatic personnel, or other specific goobermint personnel deployed overseas on election day; absolutely NO other exceptions considered
Require in person, election-day-only voting, using paper ballots exclusively, proper photo ID to be presented by ALL voters before they’re allowed to enter their local polling place

And then we could…uhh…well, actually, that’s it. Nothing more than just those three little things. All dead simple, low-cost, and totally fair. All comprehensible, all very easily implemented. Take these three easy-peasy steps, which would take little to no time, and you will have un-fucked American “elections” pretty much completely. Congratulations are in order for you; you have just successfully re-installed a quite valuable thing, an essential component that hasn’t been part of the broke-down American electoral machine since before the days of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall at least: credibility.

Unless and until these common-sense reforms have been effected, voting in American “elections” expecting anything but more of the same shite is a mug’s game, the Founding concept of self-government and the primacy of the expressed will of the people no more than fantasy. There’s a word that pops unbidden into mind:

Definition of gossamer (Entry 1 of 2)
1: a film of cobwebs floating in air in calm clear weather

2: something light, delicate, or insubstantial

And there you have it. Describes the overall situation pretty nicely, I think.

Tinkering around the edges of the current system in trivial ways—the approach favored in those few states where any reform at all has been undertaken so far—is NOT enough to fix this. Simple and obvious as they are, the three options laid out above are in fact revolutionary changes, which partly explains the fierce howls of outrage at any mention of them from the malefactors profiting from the present wretched dysfunction. However unhinged the opposition to it, though—and however devious and dishonest the hidden motives behind it—nothing short of revolutionary measures will get us out of this. Thus, our national kabuki production will creak and totter on, strutting and fretting its hour upon the stage, signifying nothing. Until one day, suddenly—UNEXPECTEDLY!!™—the badly-needed revolutionary reform occurs, after which it will be heard no more.

Speaking strictly for myself, I haven’t the least intention to provide my tacit endorsement via participating in it. But YMMV, as always. Those who choose to continue participating in American election theater, for whatever reason, are perfectly welcome to do so; they can expect no opposition, interference, or condemnation from me. But maybe it would be better for all concerned for those folks to acknowledge, if only to themselves, the shadowy presence of the con artist behind the curtain, director of the whole sorry show. If real reform is ever to take place, such a quiet, internal admission of the unreality and ultimate pointlessness of the whole sham could show us a way forward. In the meantime, I’ll rerun my instant-classic meme.

One way or another, by hook or by crook

Posted on October 8, 2021October 8, 2021 by Mike

Um, wait. Whut?!?

Vaccine Hesitant? US Researchers Are Engineering Lettuce and Spinach to Carry mRNA COVID Jabs

Okay, THAT isn’t creepy or anything.

Researchers at a U.S.-based university have received a federal grant to study whether they can genetically engineer plants to carry Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.

The University of California Riverside announced in a Sept. 16 article on their website a project to examine “whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories.” The endeavor has received a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and will be in collaboration with UC San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University.

The article says the experiment has three goals:

Implanting “DNA containing the mRNA vaccines” into the “part of plant cells where it will replicate”;

Demonstrating the plants can carry enough mRNA to be the same as an injection; and

Determining dosage.

The leader of the project, Riverside’s Juan Pablo Giraldo, said, “Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person,” adding the experiment is being done on spinach and lettuce with both “long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens” and mass industrial production.

Well, I suppose it really isn’t all THAT bad. I mean, I’m SURE we can all trust our benevolent and caring Überstate to be entirely scrupulous about clearly identifying and labeling what kind seeds we’re purchasing, or which heads at the local supermarket have been doctored up into DNA-altering Frankenlettuce. Right?

Bill manages to be one hell of a lot more sanguine about all this than I am.

Trying to basically be zero-carb almost all the time, I very rarely eat any kind of vegetables. It won’t be that much of a hardship to change “rarely” to “never.”

Fine and well—for now. Sooner or later, though, they’ll get around to something that CAN’T easily be given up or shunned. Lettuce and spinach are but the first quiet steps in an ongoing program that, just like every other goobermint program, will have NO expiration date. Count on it. In Leviathan’s twisted lexicon, “temporary” and “permanent” are synonyms.

Accentuate the positive

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Mike

After opening with some encouraging tidings re: the Rittenhouse railroading, BCE shifts fire to another item whose implications might be taken as encouraging as well.

Also, ‘nother topic: Seems Larry Vickers of Vickers Tactical ran into an issue. The ATF seized ALL of his weaponry. https://www.mom-at-arms.com/post/atf-seizes-larry-vickers-machine-guns

Now for those who don’t know, Larry Vickers is fucking Legend in the SPECOPS community. He’s a retired Delta Operator. A real bad ass. He’s been in the gun biddness for quite a spell. Now, this was just announced, but so far he himself and his fecesbook and other online instances haven’t said a word about the seizures. The date on the paperwork is from 25 August. It runs to 182 pages. As in like 40 guns listed on each page. THAT is one hell of an arsenal.

Now, since he ain’t said shit, the ATF isn’t saying shit, I’ve been thinking on it. Dangerous I know.
BUT
Suppose that there was or is a group of highly trained men who wanted to change things?
I described in one of my poasts a decapitation-style-strike on the FedGov in a fictional fashion by HIGHLY disgruntled Navy SEAL teams in a alt-universe. It was good writing and y’all loved it from what I got in the feedback.
That being said

What if reality was closer than we imagined?

One of the big(ger) problems a group of guys like that would have is getting the weaponry to do such ‘dirty deeds’ They couldn’t just roll into the arms room and check out their issued shytte. That’s raise more Red Flags than a Soviet May Day Parade. Telegraph the intentions faaar too easily, and man, you just can’t steal from an arms room…waaay too difficult. The Po-Po would be on you like stink on shit

However
A retired sympathetic Delta Operator who owns a metric fuckton of ‘party favors’?
Now granted, I’m speculating right out of my ass…BUT, it’d make one hell of a movie Aye? Doubt we’ll ever know, but hey, it sounds cool as fuck. IF it was going that route, well it got smothered in the crib so to speak. Mores the pity.
So what say you?

I say hell’s mothafuckin’ YEAH, that’s what. Before anybody out there gets a serious case of the Sadz over the story, though, do bear in mind: should Expat’s movie-script speculation turn out to be on the beam, and I hope to hell it is, what actually got “smothered in the crib” was the FIRST try at it. Expect others. Also bear in mind: Process, not event. This kind of thing is all just part of said process. Expect, also, that you won’t be hearing much if any reportage from the MotherFuckingMedia concerning any of these, uhh, film-script dress rehearsals (a-HENH) as and when they occur. You won’t. Until all of a sudden you do…because they’ve become so damned numerous and widespread that news of them can no longer be adequately suppressed.

And that’s the point, see, at which the dam will burst and flood the whole joint with floor-to-ceiling coverage of said incidents—hysterical, shrieking coverage, 24-7, featuring panicky, teary-eyed “journalists” profligately spewing condemnatory verbiage such as “dangerous white supremacist revolutionary racist Nazi bloodshed mass murder” and the like around the place. Said verbiage explicitly commanded by Moderate Merry Garland and his band of drooling DoJ bohunks, natch.

In the movie, I mean. Not in real life. Because that would be wrong.

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