Category: Hubris and Nemesis

The tragicomic fall of the tin god Obama and his lordly minions

Motivation(s)

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Ideology ain’t it.

I’ve given much of the past day or so to thinking about this Victor Davis Hanson essay. It’s a good piece – what else would we expect from Hanson – but I think it’s missing one component to give it a full picture of our enemies: both the visible figures in the Usurper Regime and the shadowed ones who pull their strings.

Hanson leans upon ideology as the explanation for the disastrous (for the United States and its legitimate citizens) policies the Usurpers have deployed. That is: he posits that the damage they’re inflicting upon America and its people is in line with their strongly-held convictions about “the way things ought to be.” But once again: people, their desires, their beliefs, and their aversions exist in a distribution. Not everyone who publicly espouses an ideology regards it as primary, an end to be sought for its own sake. Some people promote an ideology because they believe it to be an excellent tool for acquiring what they value most: power over others.

Indeed, I would venture to estimate that around 50% of the Leftists who promote a Marxist vision do so specifically because they think it will get them power.

I’d guess it’s more than that. But then, we have to leave statistical space for the Useful Idiots, who mistakenly imagine they’ll attain power apres le deluge, but will in reality wind up blindfolded, stood up against a wall, and riddled with bullets by the ruthless goons who actually will.

There is no arguing with a man who has decided that what he wants above all other things is power over you. You cannot reason with him. You cannot reform him. You cannot keep him from pursuing what he wants. Indeed, there is only one long-lasting countermeasure: you must kill him. As most of us in the Right are moderately reluctant to kill others, including the deepest-dyed of black-hearted villains, he has an edge over us that’s most difficult to overcome.

I would surmise that a great part of the interest being expressed in partitioning the nation into separate “red” and “blue” sovereignties arises from the unexpressed awareness that we cannot triumph over the Left without “going for the guns.” If you know that the price of victory is mass executions, but are unwilling to kill, what remains but flight? Yet even flight would provide only a temporary respite, for they who want power want it over everyone and everything. They would pursue us. Ultimately, we would have to fight them to the death.

I purely hate having to say such a thing. I’m more confrontation-averse than anyone else I know. But I can’t avert my mind from the facts and logic that have brought me here.

Nor should you. Indeed, it is imperative that you do not—that ALL of us do not. We don’t have to like it; as I’ve said many times, it’s to our credit that we don’t. Regrettably, The Enemy has long since driven us far beyond the point where our distaste for it matters a whit. Ugly as they are, in dire conflict with our natural inclinations as they are, those facts must be faced—squarely, honestly, and fearlessly. Our very survival depends on it.

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1

Doomed

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Taiwan on its own.

According to Russia’s Interfax news agency, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently announced, “Just like the overwhelming majority of other countries, Russia views Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China. This is the premise we proceed from and will continue to proceed from in our policy.” At the time of this statement, Russian forces were conducting joint naval exercises with Chinese forces in the Pacific—culminating in a 10-ship joint formation sailing through Japan’s Tsugaru Strait on October 18.

This, following a series of unprecedented Chinese military aircraft incursions into Taiwan’s airspace, has rattled Taiwan and America’s other allies in the region, namely Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia. During the first week of October, over 150 aircraft, including advanced SU-30 fighters and H-6 heavy bombers, flew into Taiwanese airspace. An unprecedented 56 tactical aircraft penetrated Taiwan’s airspace in a single 24-hour period on October 4, the highest single day total to date.

China has already taken control of multiple islands claimed by these allies in an effort to access vast oil and natural gas resources, as well as project its military power in the contested territorial waters of the South China Sea. China’s ongoing trade dispute with Australia has also ratcheted up tensions in the region.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment has rushed to assure Taiwan and its other allies that the United States intends to honor its regional security agreements. Of late, Joe Biden has publicly pledged to defend the Japanese Senkaku islands, which China claims as its territory.

BWAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! The notion of the ever-more-enfeebled FUSA actually leaping into the fray to make war against the ChiComs in defense of our RoC allies is ludicrous, and has been for a while now. Realistically, it’s inconceivable that any president since Reagan at least would have dared to honor the explicit US treaty commitment to act militarily in defense of Taiwan against ChiCom aggression—today, the idea is even more bizarre. For numerous reasons, it’s gone from inconceivable to…well, ludicrous.

Thanks to past U.S. economic and domestic policies, we allowed our manufacturing base to be exported to China. While offshoring American jobs to cheaper labor in China was good for U.S. multinational corporations, it resulted in China effectively capturing the bulk of American industrial capacity for consumer goods. This gives China immense leverage within the U.S. economy.

Look now at the supply disruptions spreading across the United States, which result in no small part from our inability to offload Chinese consumer goods at West Coast ports. Consider how U.S. sanctions against China might create an even greater disruption in the supply of goods that the U.S. no longer has the ability to produce. This dynamic gives China considerable sway with a U.S. political donor class that derives its wealth from Chinese industrial capacity. It makes the idea that the Biden Administration would have the will to impose crippling U.S. sanctions as a check against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan unrealistic.

In contrast to China’s relative position of strength, the world has watched as America lost two wars in our failed Global War on Terror. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was exceptionally humiliating, not just to America, but also to our allies. It was so bad, the UK parliament held Biden in contempt for his mishandling of the withdrawal. Americans swallowed hard when it was revealed that the U.S. general in charge of the evacuation asked the British SAS commander to stop conducting rescue missions to retrieve UK citizens because it was embarrassing the airport-bound U.S. military. We went on to leave thousands of U.S. citizens behind in Afghanistan with only a shrug of Joe Biden’s shoulders.

Today, the United States is a deeply divided nation on the brink of open internal conflict. The Biden Administration is gleefully running down a list of ill-conceived policies that historically have resulted in civil unrest and rebellion. Oblivious to its own incompetence or the concerns of working-class America, it has labeled half the population domestic extremists, including parents angry that their children are being indoctrinated into woke-Marxist ideology. Just this past week, Biden’s national approval rating hit 38 percent and is dropping rapidly. It’s no secret that he appears to be suffering from cognitive decline and who, exactly, is running the country has yet to be revealed. America is at its weakest point in at least a century, and China, as well as the rest of the world, notices. 

Numerous reasons, as I said, but the boldface bit is the one that dwarves all the others. As the American populace has grown ever more complacent, indecisive, and vacuous, their will to victory—their willingness to even countenance making war at all, for any reason—has proportionately withered as well, in mirror-like reflection. It’s unlikely in the extreme that present-day American lotus eaters in any great numbers would support military action to defend this country.

Taiwan? Shhyeeeaaah, pull the other one, whydon’tcha. It has a bell on it.

Which may actually turn out to be a good thing in the long run. Fact is, Real Americans have much bigger and more pressing issues confronting us right here at home—issues that will have to be dealt with, issues that simply cannot be back-burnered, ignored, or blithely waved away. Hate it for Taiwan and all, but the rip in our national fabric is so profound that it’s no easy thing to define the FUSA as a nation at all anymore, except in the loosest terms. In a great many minds, the Great Schism has already taken place. And in a non-trivial percentage of those, there is little or no desire to knit the country back together again.

With regard to a China-Taiwan conflict, the danger to America does not necessarily come from what happens to Taiwan. The danger comes from how radically the geopolitical status quo in the Pacific might change should China retake Taiwan by force in the face of U.S. opposition—or lack of opposition.

If the United States opposes China and fails to stop its move against Taiwan, then we will have shown ourselves incapable of fulfilling our security agreements in the Pacific.

Which is, y’know, true.

If the United States demurs and abandons Taiwan to the Chinese, then we will have shown that our security agreements are not worth the paper on which they are printed.

Which is also, y’know, true.

Either way, this likely results in the restructuring of alliances in the Pacific away from an impotent or feckless United States to accommodate the new global hegemon—China. The second and third order effects of our losses in the Pacific would reverberate across Europe, particularly in areas threatened by an expansionist Russia…which has opportunistically positioned itself for just such a situation. 

This, too, could be looked at as a good thing from some perspectives, or maybe a not-entirely-disastrous one. The cold reality is that Amerika v2.0 is a paper tiger, a hollowed-out shell whose only resemblance now to the once-mighty military, economic, and geopolitical juggernaut I call America That Was (swiped from the finest TV show ever conceived, natch) is entirely superficial. As Morton points out, every imaginable Taiwan scenario ends badly for this third-rate power, worse for Free Taiwan.

The post-WW2 treaties promising pipsqueak nations a US defensive shield against Commie aggression now only serve to highlight the unpleasant fact that our antecedents wrote a lot of checks that the current generation hasn’t the means to make good on. The sooner our feckless, braggadocious ProPols admit this forthrightly, sit down, and stop running their fat yaps as if it was still 1947 the better I’ll like it. Because the sad delusion of an American colossus permanently astride the globe, omnipotent and unchallengeable, is getting to be pretty embarrassing at this point.

7

In the wrong hands Part the Second

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A plethora of information is emerging on the Baldwin tragedy—and that’s exactly what it is, although frankly I still don’t give two shits about Alec Baldwin’s suffering, and am not likely ever to—and the more that comes out, the worse the whole thing smells.

‘Rust’ crew describes on-set gun safety issues and misfires days before fatal shooting
Hours before actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on the New Mexico set of “Rust” with a prop gun, a half-dozen camera crew workers walked off the set to protest working conditions.

The camera operators and their assistants were frustrated by the conditions surrounding the low-budget film, including complaints about long hours, long commutes and waiting for their paychecks, according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment.

Safety protocols standard in the industry, including gun inspections, were not strictly followed on the “Rust” set near Santa Fe, the sources said. They said at least one of the camera operators complained last weekend to a production manager about gun safety on the set.

Three crew members who were present at the Bonanza Creek Ranch set on Saturday said they were particularly concerned about two accidental prop gun discharges.
Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two rounds Saturday after being told that the gun was “cold” — lingo for a weapon that doesn’t have any ammunition, including blanks — two crew members who witnessed the episode told the Los Angeles Times.

“There should have been an investigation into what happened,” a crew member said. “There were no safety meetings. There was no assurance that it wouldn’t happen again. All they wanted to do was rush, rush, rush.”

A colleague was so alarmed by the prop gun misfires that he sent a text message to the unit production manager. “We’ve now had 3 accidental discharges. This is super unsafe,” according to a copy of the message reviewed by The Times.

The tragedy occurred Thursday afternoon during filming of a gunfight that began in a church that is part of the old Western town at the ranch. Baldwin’s character was supposed to back out of the church, according to production notes obtained by The Times. It was the 12th day of a 21-day shoot.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was huddled around a monitor lining up her next camera shot when she was accidentally killed by the prop gun fired by Baldwin.

The actor was preparing to film a scene in which he pulls a gun out of a holster, according to a source close to the production. Crew members had already shouted “cold gun” on the set. The filmmaking team was lining up its camera angles and had yet to retreat to the video village, an on-set area where the crew gathers to watch filming from a distance via a monitor.

Instead, the B-camera operator was on a dolly with a monitor, checking out the potential shots. Hutchins was also looking at the monitor from over the operator’s shoulder, as was the movie’s director, Joel Souza, who was crouching just behind her.

Baldwin removed the gun from its holster once without incident, but the second time he did so, ammunition flew toward the trio around the monitor. The projectile whizzed by the camera operator but penetrated Hutchins near her shoulder, then continued through to Souza. Hutchins immediately fell to the ground as crew members applied pressure to her wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

According to something I read yesterday and can’t seem to find now for whatever reason, the director had called for another take after an already long day, to which Baldwin objected in a joking fashion, pointing the gun at the director and inexplicably pulling the trigger. Maybe so, maybe not so. Anybody who’s spent significant time on film sets—which I have, way more than once, in various roles and situations ranging from what’s known as “talent” to invited guest—knows well enough how grueling the work is, how long the days can be, and how seriously it all wears everybody involved down. Onwards.

Labor trouble had been brewing for days on the dusty set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.

Shooting began on Oct. 6 and members of the low-budget film said they had been promised the production would pay for their hotel rooms in Santa Fe.

But after filming began, the crews were told they instead would be required to make the 50-mile drive from Albuquerque each day, rather than stay overnight in nearby Santa Fe. That rankled crew members who worried that they might have an accident after spending 12 to 13 hours on the set.

Hutchins had been advocating for safer conditions for her team and was tearful when the camera crew left, said one crew member who was on the set.

As the camera crew — members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — spent about an hour assembling their gear at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, several nonunion crew members showed up to replace them, two of the knowledgeable people said.

One of the producers ordered the union members to leave the set and threatened to call security to remove them if they didn’t leave voluntarily.

“Corners were being cut — and they brought in nonunion people so they could continue shooting,” the knowledgeable person said.

The shooting occurred about six hours after the union camera crew left.

From the sound of things, and as is usually the case, there’s plenty of blame to go around here; Baldwin is hardly the Lone Ranger on that. So stipulated. Nonetheless, I am still not prepared to go anywhere near as far to sympathize with the prick as Andrea Widburg appears to be:

Part of me pities Baldwin a great deal. He was seen weeping outside the sheriff’s office because, while he is an arrogant, entitled, aggressive, obnoxious git, he’s not a killer. His entire self-image is of someone who defends life (never mind that he’s fanatically pro-abortion). Now, though, he’s taken a life, something that will haunt him forever. That deserves compassion because all of us go through life knowing that one stupid, thoughtless moment (perhaps a moment of inattention when driving) could see each of us take a life, too.

True enough. Also, immaterial. Metaphors and analogies, helpful as they can be at times in establishing perspective and broadening our understanding, break down pretty fast in a case like this—all the more so because “cases like this” are in fact extremely rare, if not totally unique. And when it comes to being unstinting with our compassion Baldwin, by his own words, deeds, and untrammeled arrogance has made himself a damned tough sell in ANY case, this one more than any other. For instance:



That is but one example of many Baldwin lectures reviling the 2A and its supporters personally, by no means the harshest and most obnoxious of them either. The sanctimonious putz has made a fortune shooting people in the movies, yet blankly rejects the very idea of anyone but the film industry having access to them, regardless of how learned, experienced, skilled, or responsible in their use they might be.

Well, screw that noise, and screw Alec Baldwin too. Bill joins Aesop in disagreeing with my assessment, most heartily:

On a set, the actor is no more responsible for checking a firearm – and very likely would not be permitted to do so – than you would be if somebody handed you a toaster and expected you to check it for dangerous electrical faults before making toast.

Let me unpack that a bit. Most actors know exactly zippo about firearms. If you handed them a firearm and told them to make sure there were no live rounds in it, they’d probably ask you were to find the bullets in the piece. Or they’d pull the trigger three or four times to see if anything happened. More than a few actors are dumb as goldfish, and couple that low IQ level with ignorance about firearms is a recipe for disaster.

That’s why firearms on a set are always handled and supervised by an armorer or at least a prop master who is responsible for making sure they are safe.

And those people generally do an unbelievably excellent job. I am aware of only three deaths involving the accidental firing of prop guns in the entire history of the business. Considering how many millions of hours of production time we are talking about, you are far, far, far more likely to be killed by a malfunctioning toaster.

Second, a lot of actors, and especially stars, have “people” who do stuff for them. Lots of stuff. I know one megastar whose PA orders for him in restaurants. She follows him around to do things like that for him.

On set, actors have most things done for them. Their job is to act, not fetch, carry, check stuff, certify gun safety, or whatever. To most actors a gun is just a prop, no different than a toaster or a break-bottle for smashing over heads in a fake fight.

As I said before, there is plenty of blame to go around here, and arguments to be put forth over how and where it should be apportioned. That said, I am neither willing nor able to absolve the person who pointed it at someone and then pulled the fucking trigger of his share of it. Bill’s headline contends that “Alex Baldwin Bears No Responsibility For This Shooting.” Sorry, but I simply can NOT go there; in my opinion, that particular bridge is WAY too far for me. For his part, in a recent follow-up post on the matter Aesop says this:

As the Baldwin kerfluffle has illustrated, the shared malfunction by a host of persons reading and commenting hereabouts, and throughout the greater blogosphere, on this exact subject, is best described as thinking everything is YOUR job.

Well, you’re wrong, it’s not, and now we can all go back to whatever we were doing befo….Oh? What’s that? Explain it to you?…heavy sigh

Look, we’ve already covered first aid for any butthurt, so let’s talk turkey here, no offense, nothing personal, and we’re all grown ups.

You, Jasper, and Billy Bob all going shooting at the abandoned quarry is not Alec Baldwin working on a movie set, not even when it’s his production, on a low-budget p.o.s. being filmed in Bumfuck NM.

The lack of a prodigious number of otherwise intelligent people to discern this lies at the root of your problem.

If Jasper or BillyBob get a mite lax with muzzle discipline, or putting their booger hook on the bang switch, you may elect to call it an early day, or not invite them next time. But no one died and left you their Drill Sergeant smokey bear hat and gave you leave to have a boot camp flashback, and most people figure all this out without having it explained to them with a boot to the junkulus.

But somehow, you can’t make the leap from that, to understanding why in hell it’s not ever Baldwin’s (or any other Swinging Richard’s) job to do weapons checks on a movie set, with 40-140 people around.

It might come as a small surprise to some, but I can agree that it is not, never was, and never will be Baldwin’s job to observe the most basic fundamentals of firearm safety before aiming at someone and then pulling the trigger, based entirely on the assumption (!) that others have done their own job competently and completely. So stipulated; as Jesse Jackson used to bellow while speechifying: COMMON GROUND!

But as I see it, it most certainly IS the responsibility of any rational adult, working in whatever industry or profession, to take a moment and check for himself anyhow. Mind, this isn’t preparing lunch for the on-set catering tent, or rehearsing a risky stunt before shooting, or even wiring the lights, cameras &c. What we’re talking about here is a gun, people. Guns are extremely dangerous things, period. They are NOT to be played around with or flippantly mishandled, EVER, lest some innocent party be maimed or killed because of your casual negligence. I supposed it’s possible, just barely, that there might be some benighted Rip Van Winkle sort out there somewhere who, after decades of hysterical propagandizing by the gun-grabber Left—of which Alec Baldwin has been a fully-paid-up cheerleader for many years—is not aware of this. But I very much doubt it.

Aesop’s contention seems to me like a pretty good argument for seeing to it, as a matter of black-letter law, that every last projectile weapon operated by means of any explosive chemical propellant be removed from film industry hands forever. No more guns in the movies—full stop, end of story. Which, hey, I’m good with that. Then again, I’m also in favor of a blanket ban on gun ownership for ALL Leftists, so it may be that my position is a somewhat, ummm, radical one, I admit.

Interestingly enough, Baldwin can’t even fob it all off on his being an ignorant dumbass about handling guns properly, as my boldface below strongly suggests.

It’s unclear what was fired from the firearm, as The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating, telling The Daily Beast that as of Friday afternoon, a forensics report hadn’t been completed. A spokesperson for Rust Movie Productions claimed the gun only contained blank rounds, while IATSE Local 44 said a “live single round was accidentally fired.”

Still, Tobey Bays, a prop and set artist by training and the business agent for IATSE Local 44, explained to The Daily Beast that “a live round” doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a bullet in the chamber.

He said Hollywood propmasters will “only put the amount of blanks into the gun that are meant to be shot in the scene… They’re pretty strict, they’ll always yell out, ‘Gun is hot!’ before they hand it over to the actor.”

However, the source who was on set when Baldwin discharged the prop gun on Thursday said the cast and crew were told it was a “cold” firearm during the rehearsal as they were setting up the framing.

And despite Baldwin having recently gone through a firearm-safety training session, the source said safety protocols were all but ignored by both Baldwin and the responsible production members.

Oof. If true, boy might want to consider lawyering up, I’m thinking. For me, it all still comes down to the fundamentals.

“You never let the muzzle of a weapon cover something you don’t intend to destroy,” said Carpenter, whose New Orleans-based firm has worked on the sets of scores of TV and film productions. “All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.”

Former filmmaker and former US National Shooting Team member Peter Lake put the blame on Baldwin.

“The buck stops with Alec Baldwin on every level,” he told The Post. “It looks very bad for him. At least the captain of the Titanic had the good sense to go down with the ship.”

And that, my friends, is IT. No matter who you are; no matter what your job is and/or is not; no matter how many flunkies you have to take care of things for you, YOU DO NOT EVER—EVER—POINT A GUN AT SOMEONE AND PULL THE TRIGGER WITHOUT CHECKING IT OUT FIRST. Via GFZ, a more intelligent and aware actor named Baldwin says it well:


For my money, Adam is way more talented than Alec too, but feel free to disagree with me on that also, if you absolutely must.

Update! Arthur drives the lesson home. Film-industry types, pay close attention. Take notes, even.

I am kinda obsessive about checking a firearm when I pick it up to make sure it is unloaded. Generally I will check the chamber on a firearm when it is handed to me or I hand it to someone else, even when I literally just checked it a second earlier. It is just a habit I have gotten into as someone who has handled firearms all of my life and in several stages of my professional career been a seller of firearms. Some people think it is a little weird but I don’t care.

So today I was stowing some gear and one of my handguns was in a case. Before I put it into the safe, I reflexively racked the slide even though I knew the gun was empty. 

Clink, a round was in the magazine and chambered.

Now because I am not Alec Baldwin, everything was fine. I was treating the gun as loaded, as always, had it pointed in a safe direction, as always, had my finger away from the trigger, as always. But the gun I knew was unloaded had a round in the magazine.

That is why we check every single time. Better to verify a gun you know is unloaded a hundred times than think that a gun is unloaded when it is not. Don’t get sloppy or lazy, not ever.

Bingo. My own uncle, a highly-decorated former Marine MP and lifelong firearms enthusiast, once nearly shot himself in the leg whilst preparing to disassemble one of those “unloaded” guns for cleaning. I repeat: guns are dangerous. They are NOT to be played around with, regardless of how skilled, knowledgeable, or experienced you may be. You play stupid games with them, you will win stupid prizes. That’s all there is to it—for you, for me, for Alec Baldwin, for every single one of us, no exceptions. And no do-overs, either.

In the wrong hands

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Waitwaitwait…WHUT?!?

Alec Baldwin “Discharged” Prop Gun That Killed ‘Rust’ Cinematographer & Injured Director On Set; Actor Questioned And Released – Update

Ho. Lee. SHIT.

UPDATED with more law enforcement information: The Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department confirmed Thursday night that Alec Baldwin “discharged” the prop gun that killed one Rust crew member and injured director Joel Souza on the set of the Western feature film on location in New Mexico.

Director of photography Halyna Hutchins, 42, died not long after being transported to a hospital in Albuquerque, NM this afternoon. Souza, 48, remains in a local hospital; his condition is unknown.

“Mr. Baldwin was questioned by investigators and released,” a Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department official told Deadline this evening. “No arrests or charges have been filed.”

No, of course not. Unlikely there ever will be. Meanwhile, responsible, well-trained teenager Kyle Rittenhouse faces a very uncertain future at best, having A) shot someone in as clear-cut a case of self-defense as can be imagined, and B) no helpful connections among the wealthy, famous, and/or powerful, in sharp contrast to the unhinged asshole Baldwin. From the Santa Fe SD’s official statement:

Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the Bonanza Creek Ranch movie set of the western “Rust”, October 21, 2021, when an 911 caller reported a shooting on the set.

The sheriff’s office confirms that two individuals were shot on the set of Rust. Halyna Hutchins, 42, director of photography and Joel Souza, 48, director, were shot when a prop firearm was discharged by Alec Baldwin, 68, producer and actor.

Ms. Hutchins was transported, via helicopter, to University of New Mexico Hospital where she was pronounced dead by medical personnel. Mr. Souza was transported by ambulance to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical center where he is undergoing treatment for his injuries.

This investigation remains open and active. No charges have been filed in regard to this incident. Witnesses continue to be interviewed by detectives.

Baldwin, natch, is one of innumerable sanctimonious Hollywood gun-grabbers who flaunt their shameless hypocrisy by creating, acting in, promoting, and personally profiting from one guns ‘n’ gore-drenched feature film after another. Baldwin’s readily obvious ignorance and recklessness when it comes to the proper handling of firearms is even more appalling in light of his extensive record of violence, abuse, and over-entitled obstreperousness (sanitized as “a long history of fiery behavior” in the linked article).

And now, two guiltless people have been shot, one of them killed, by this “fiery” prick, waving a loaded gun around in total disregard for the safety of others nearby. How long will it be, I wonder, before we’re treated to the BLOCKBUSTER interview wherein he whines and pules at narcissistic length about how the REAL victim here is…Alec Fucking Baldwin.

(Via GP)

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Putting it straight

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Not sure where I ran across this one—it’s been just sitting quietly on my desktop for days now, waiting for me to make some P-shop adjustments and then put it to good use here—and I can’t say I know who this Langan fellow might be, either. But I dunno, the part I highlighted in blue just tickled me no end.

Don’t hold back, Chris, tell us how you really feel.

4

Riding the tiger

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I dunno, does it seem to anybody but me as if the dot-mil fucksticks are really going out of their way to jump harder on the SEALs than anyone else?

Defense Dept. threatening elite Navy SEALs who refuse to take COVID jab with paying back cost of training and discharge
(Natural News) The U.S. Navy’s SEAL teams are literally among the most elite military forces in the world, if not the most elite, but because the Biden regime is literally made up of exactly the kind of tyrants they accused Donald Trump of being, our country is at risk of losing many of these warriors.

According to an exclusive Fox News report, “a growing number of U.S. Navy SEALs who are seeking a religious exemption to the Defense Department’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate are being threatened and, in some cases, harassed into submission.”

Added retired SEAL chief Tim Wood on Twitter: “This is a political purge. ‘A new directive by the Navy’s COVID Consolidated Disposition Authority (CCDA) issued yesterday states that if SEALs decline the vaccine, the Navy may seek to recover from each individual SEAL the money the government has spent on training them.”

“Purging our military of its elite servicemembers is detrimental to national security. Doing so because the Commander in Chief refuses to accommodate their religious convictions is abhorrent to the Constitution. Their years of experience and leadership in service to our nation is immeasurable and irreplaceable,” Michael Berry, First Liberty Institute’s general counsel, and lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, who is representing approximately 34 active-duty SEALs and two reservists, told Fox News.

“Remove a SEAL from special warfare, reduce his salary, and force him to repay his training is purely vindictive and punitive. And it’s illegal. They have nothing to do with a virus,” he said.

Just when you think the nasty little dimestore dictators have finally hit Peak Pettiness and Spite, they go and up the ante on ya again. Today’s masterful Brandon Smith essay might at first glance appear to be unrelated. It is no such thing.

Covid Authoritarians Are The Cause Of America’s Problems, Not The Unvaccinated
Leftists, collectivists and globalists function according to majority rule and herd mentality. They have gatekeepers, and the gatekeepers set the agenda and dictate decision making responsibilities for the group. Leftist herds wait patiently for top-down orders from their designated gatekeepers and most of them obey without question. This is how they operate.

Liberty minded people operate in the opposite fashion. Our “leaders” are always under scrutiny, and this includes political mascots like Donald Trump. This is why, during a recent speech in Alabama, Trump was booed by a crowd of supporters after he called for them to get the covid vaccine. Conservatives generally don’t care about the person promoting the message, they only care if the message passes the smell test.

Leftists and globalists are incapable of grasping conservative principles or the conservative mindset. This fact is hilariously evident in the style of propaganda they have consistently used to try to intimidate or pressure the conservative public into compliance with the mandates. We don’t view Trump as a philosophical leader; in fact, there were so many underlying issues with his cabinet and his policies that his leadership became suspect. At most, conservatives enjoyed Trump’s administration simply because his presence in the White House drove leftist authoritarians to greater madness.

We definitely don’t care what Trump has to say on the vaccines.

There is further evidence of the disconnect I describe in the actions of leftists and the establishment when it comes to vax mandates in the workplace. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the argument from covid cultists that conservatives “Might say we will refuse to comply, but when our livelihoods are threatened we will submit.” They believe this because that’s how THEY would respond. They are cowardly weaklings with no heart, no principles and no morals. They think that since they would cave in to the pressure, the rest of us would cave in as well.

The past month has proven them oh so wrong as millions of people stage protests and walk outs across the country. There is even refusal among around 25% of the armed forced averaged across all branches, as well as up to 50% of city police forces. Most employers and government offices can barely function as is; there is zero chance they will be able to cope with a 10% loss of workforce, let alone a 25% to 50% loss. They would crumble.

This was obviously not the plan; the globalists were not prepared for this level of resistance in the US and this is evident in their pathetic propaganda scramble. That does not mean they don’t have contingencies in place. I am already seeing a fledgling narrative in the media which is implanting the idea that any breakdown of the system in the US will actually be the fault of the unvaccinated.

Biden has been a fervent culprit behind the narrative that everything from economic instability and supply chain problems to social divisions should be blamed on unvaccinated Americans. That’s right, the majority of these disasters started on Biden’s watch and because of his policies, but somehow WE are the real danger. Yes, the draconian mandates are illegal and unconstitutional and yes, mandates are not laws in any form, and yes, Biden and his handlers are acting like dictators and there is no reason to do anything they say. But, we are the bad guys. This is classic communist gaslighting.

Here’s an idea: Stop trying to enforce covid mandates and vaccine passports. Stop paying people to stay home from work with covid welfare bribes. Stop generating trillions of dollars in fiat stimulus from thin air to pay for even more useless programs we don’t need. Then watch how quickly stagflation, economic instability, the workforce shortages and most other problems in the US suddenly disappear. The unvaccinated are not the source of American distress, the globalists and errand boys like Biden and blue state governors are the cause. Remove them from the equation and America’s future looks much brighter.

Ahh, but there’s the rub, see. Removing them from the equation is indeed crucial, the front-and-center survival imperative—NOT in any rhetorical or figurative sense, but quite literally. The task will require direct, physical action. If we ought to have learned anything by now, it’s that these bipedal plague-rats will never remove themselves, of their own volition, for any reason whatsoever—public health and/or safety, domestic tranquillity, America’s future as a nation. Be assured that they will neither go willingly nor quietly. To adapt one of my own pet phrases, they will have to BE removed.

I’d guess that one of the very best ways to get THAT party started for reals would be to keep right on pissing all over the SEALs the way they’ve been doing. From all I’ve seen of them, SEALs are NOT guys who are in the habit of standing still for bucketloads of wanton abuse from slope-shouldered pissants and office-bound bureauweasels.

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Git hot or go home

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There’s a “new anger” in town, of a sort the ancient Festivus “Airing Of Grievances” tradition isn’t strong enough to overcome.

One thing Americans can presumably all agree on in our current cold civil war is that civility, mutual if grudging respect, and rational if testy debate in our political discourse have all been replaced by a hair-trigger performative outrage, the scorched-earth warfare of cancel culture, and even occasional violence. It’s difficult to remember that there was a time when even acerbic antagonists like William Buckley and Gore Vidal could trade barbs onstage without hurling chairs at each other and inciting nationwide rioting. What has happened to us? How did we come to this point? And is this state of rage destined to be a permanent feature of our cultural and political landscape?

Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars and author of the essential 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project, has addressed these questions incisively in a must-read, brand new book titled Wrath: America Enraged. He agreed to answer some questions about the book.

Mark Tapson: Mr. Wood, what is the “new anger,” and what is the difference between anger and wrath in a political context?

Peter Wood: “New anger” is show-off anger, the display of someone who expects to be admired for the performance or to boast about it afterwards: anger mixed with self-delight.  New anger contrasts to the older ethic of trying to master your anger and not to let it master you.  Through much of American history, giving free vent to anger was regarded as a sign of weakness and immaturity.  We admired the man or woman who, when provoked, found ways to handle the situation without descending into rage.  Of course, that kind of self-control often failed, at which point brawls erupted.  Those who brawled in public or in private, however, were not regarded as good people.  Those who turned to anger too quickly or too often were shamed.

“New anger” became a recognizable force in American life in the 1950s, though it was at first a trend confined to avant garde parts of society:  the beat generation, early adepts of Freudian psychoanalysis, and people reading French existentialist novels. From these seeds grew the counterculture of the sixties, and then the disillusioned anger of the Big Chill 1970s.  I am collapsing a lot of history into a few sentences.  The breakdown of the older ideals of emotional self-control and their replacement by a new ethic of emotional expressiveness didn’t happen overnight or all at once or equally in all sectors of society.  Fifteen years ago I spent a whole book (A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now) to describe the slow progression of new anger into the position it now has of cultural dominance. I’m mindful that whole generations have grown up for whom there is nothing “new” about “new anger.” It is all they have ever experienced unless they have been immersed in the world of Turner Classic Movies, where you can glimpse a world ruled by different emotional norms.

But you ask me “what is the difference between anger and wrath in a political context?” The political left, going all the way back to the 1950s and even earlier upheld the view that American society is so unjust that people should indeed feel righteous indignation and anger at our institutions. The form of this leftist anger, of course, shifted with other changes in the national temperament. A Woody Guthrie protest song of the Dust Bowl years expressed leftist anger in a vivid way but it was meant to rally people and it had a good-humored element to it. As new anger emerged in the 1950s, leftist anger began to take on a darker tone. The Beat poet Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem in 1956 titled “America,” in which he told the country, “Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.” The shock of a line like that has dissipated over the years as vulgarity has become common, but it was a pretty big step at the time, and it opened a rhetorical arms race on the left. Finding ever newer and more offensive ways to express anger became a competition among leftist artists, intellectuals, and self-styled rebels.  

I’m using the word to capture that moment of emotional impasse in which the person has been angered beyond endurance and sees no way ahead. All the exits have been blocked and the places where emotional expression could be channeled into political or legal action seem to be out of reach. Wrath is collective despair suddenly torn free of all (or at least most) restraints because the other side has chosen to rule by foce and intimidation, not by the consent of the governed.

Which, to me at least, highlights a simple fact: The wrath of Heritage Americans is rational, reasonable, and entirely justified. It is reactive, the just and proper response all citizens of a free republic should feel over the depredations of those who propose to enslave them. The Left’s wrath, in razor-sharp contrast, is none of those things, being no more than the response of overindulged juveniles to the thwarting of their will to absolute power, or the adult rejection of their presumed right to wield it. There is no justification for such unreflective, self-serving rage, nothing reasonable or rational about it. Rather than indulging or even tolerating it, it needs to be punished, and mercilessly.

Sorry, Commie brats, I’m afraid you just don’t get to wave your chubby fists around in inchoate rage because freemen decline to just quietly roll over and let you rule them. That ain’t how it works, I’m afraid. Freedom-oriented folks—being peaceable, mature sorts whose primary wish is to be left alone by the likes of you snotnoses—will put up with a lot, to be sure. But there IS a limit to their forebearance, which limit you are well past, whether you know it or not. To learn more about all this, keep fucking around and find out. I promise you won’t like it.

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A tale of two countries

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Two sets of laws, two sets of beliefs, two sets of outcomes. See if you can spot which one of them is nothing but arrant, evil horseshit.

Our Representatives, Not J6 Protesters, Defile the ‘Sacred’ U.S. Capitol
Here is how Joe Biden’s Justice Department recently described the actions of Robert Reeder, a Maryland man whose life has been ruined since he was charged with four misdemeanors related to his participation in the January 6 protest: “The attack on the U.S. Capitol…was one of the only times in our history when the building was literally occupied by hostile participants,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Rothstein wrote in an August filing. “The Defendant chose to be a part of the desecration of the Capitol rotunda. The Defendant stood in the center of the rotunda, where Ruther (sic) Bader Ginsburg, John Lewis, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Abraham Lincoln, among others, lied in state. What the Defendant chose to record and celebrate at that place, at that time, was antithetical to the events that most Americans associate with the Capitol rotunda.”

“Indeed, his very presence in the Capitol rotunda that day was a desecration of hallowed ground.”

Now, for credentialed D.C. insiders like Joshua Rothstein, that undoubtedly is true. After all, Reeder, unlike Joshua Rothstein, did not attend Columbia Law School. Reeder was a FedEx truck driver until the company fired him after his arrest and now he can’t find another job. As he said during his sentencing hearing last Friday, he is “radioactive”—so he cannot afford to throw himself a 40th birthday party like Joshua Rothstein just did. Rothstein’s party, held at a rented-out D.C. restaurant, was complete with truffles and monogrammed cookies and attended by former Homeland Security director Jeh Johnson and other Beltway bigwigs, Politico reported.

In fact, Robert Reeder, thanks to people like Josua Rothstein and his journo pals, doesn’t have many friends any more. Reeder’s teenage son, who shares his father’s name, doesn’t want to go to school; he’s bullied because of his father’s involvement on January 6, even though Reeder didn’t attack anyone or vandalize any property.

Reeder’s family and neighbors have abandoned him, too. As Reeder tearfully explained to a federal judge on Friday, even his church told him to stop coming because he was a distraction. “That’s tough because it was my support group,” Reeder told Judge Thomas Hogan, who ignored Reeder’s desperate plea for compassion and sentenced him to three months in prison for pleading guilty to one count of “parading” in the Capitol building—a place Hogan described as “sacrosanct.”

Rothstein, who wanted Reeder in jail for six months, told the court Reeder walked around like “he was a congressman” on January 6.

While it’s true Reeder did enter the Capitol building twice, he acted nothing like a United States congressman.

The official congressional record does not show Reeder as a co-sponsor of Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion boondoggle—a figure closer to $5 trillion according to some analyses—that will raise at least $2 trillion in new taxes and redistribute the windfall to Democrats’ pet projects including paid family leave, child tax credits, free college, expanded health care coverage, and “clean energy.”

Robert Reeder isn’t responsible for a wide open southern border that threatens our safety and our sovereignty. There’s no evidence he consented to deploy millions of U.S. troops and spend trillions of U.S. tax dollars on failed foreign wars that culminated with a humiliating exit from Afghanistan resuling in the murder of 13 American servicemembers while leaving behind $80 billion in weaponry and artillery.

He didn’t participate in two preposterous impeachment trials against Donald Trump, one of which was a ruse to cover-up the Biden family overseas racket before the 2020 primaries, or the vile character assasination of a Supreme Court justice nominee.

He didn’t marry his brother to commit immigration fraud, repeatedly lie to the American public about an “abundance of evidence” to prove Trump-Russia election collusion, scream “we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker” after being sworn-in to Congress, encourage people to publicly harass Trump officials, or bend a knee in the “sacred” Capitol building to honor George Floyd. There is no statement from Reeder condemning America as systemically racist and supporting a new federal holiday to collectively repent for George Floyd’s death.

Joshua Rothstein was wrong when he claimed that January 6 was the first time the Capitol had been invaded by “hostile participants.” With the exception of a handful of decent lawmakers, the “sacred” ground of the Capitol building is occupied by “hostile participants” every day—congressmen of both political parties, who hold American citizens such as Robert Reeder and the other 630-plus January 6 defendants in open contempt. Those representatives have done far more irreversible damage to the country than a few thousand Trump supporters could ever do—and, unlike January 6, their rampage is ongoing.

If this obscenity doesn’t leave you absolutely sick with fury, please consider having someone nearby check to see that you still have a pulse. Because frankly, I don’t see how any Real American possibly could.

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IT’S BEAUTIFUL, MAAAAN!!

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I suddenly realize I’m gonna be getting a LOT more use out of that great Tom Cruise clip from TAPS I ran not too long ago.



Southwest Blames Cancellations On Worker Shortage, Union Denies ‘Sick-Out’ Over Vaccine Mandate

Update (1800ET): Southwest Airlines has had another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day – as a shortage of workers combined with an air traffic control interruption to bring the total number of canceled flights to nearly 3,100 in four days.

“Crews were struggling to move and you end up in short order with aircraft and crews in the wrong spot,” said EVP Bob Jordan, adding “It’s really difficult to repair and put those things back together.”

Speculation over the actual cause of the cancellations has been rampant on social media – with some pilots refuting claims that they were staging a sickout over vaccination mandates, while COPO Mike Van de Ven told employees on Sunday night that it needs to build more of a “staffing cushion” to deal with unexpected disruptions.

The airline has set a Dec. 8 deadline for vaccinations, which the Pilots Union claim “imposes new conditions of employment” and threatens termination.

“What was a minor temporary event for other carriers devastated Southwest Airlines because our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure,” said Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. “Our pilots are tired and frustrated because our operation is running on empty due to a lack of support from the company.”

As we noted on Sunday, Southwest airlines canceled nearly 2,000 flights over the weekend – blaming the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and inclement weather.

Oddly, no other major airlines had the same issues, while rumors swirled that airline employees had staged coordinated walk-outs (which their unions deny).

Yeah, odd. Delightful as it already is, though, does it get even better?

OHHHHHH yes it does.


Say it with me one mo’ time ag’in, chirruns: A process, not an event. And believe you me, the process is ongoing, even beginning to snowball, as these things have a tendency to do. Which makes it time, I think, to establish a brand-new category for such encouraging items: The Resistance.

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Big, meddlesome government: is there ANYTHING it can’t fuck up?

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The root of all evils.

On the surface, the supply chain crisis that’s left ships off both U.S. coasts facing a month of waiting before they’re unloaded is caused by bottlenecks following a post-COVID retail flush, rising shipping costs, and a lack of truckers available to unload containers waiting offshore (Redstate covered that angle here). That’s what labor unions told the Daily Mail, anyway, no doubt with the intent to remind everyone of their importance.

But scratch the surface, and supply chain problems are revealed to be much more complicated, driven by bureaucratic intrusion, and effectively look like a mini-war between shippers and carriers, one that the Biden administration and the Democrat-led House of Representatives aren’t interested in working on until at least November, making the problems we’re seeing today extend into the Christmas season.

Oh, those problems are going to be extending a whole lot longer than that, I’m afraid. As I said from the very start of the Covid clusterfuck: you can’t just shut an entire national economy down, as if the action was no more complex or potentially destructive than flipping a light switch off—for fifteen days to flatten the curve a year and a half to consolidate a tyranny and train a Sheeple—then nonchalantly flip the switch back to the “On” position, emboldened by a level of confidence only the truly witless ever get to experience, that things will just pick up and carry on as before with no lasting disruption and/or damage. Their monstrously inflated egos and delusions of omnipotence notwithstanding, the idiot ProPols badly overestimated their own smarts, competence, and capabilities—exactly as they always have—and now every damned man Jack of us is going to have to pay a severe price for allowing them to do it—exactly as we always have.

Part of the problem lies with the Biden administration’s “Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains,” issued on Feb. 24, 2021, which set up a “‘sectoral supply chain assessment‘ of six industrial sectors, including transportation. It requires the secretary of transportation, consulting with the heads of the department’s modal agencies, to submit a report to the president within one year of the executive order that assesses ‘the role of transportation systems in supporting existing supply chains and risks associated with those transportation systems.’”

See what I mean? My God, the EGOS on these little tin gods, daring to imagine that diddling around in affairs that are much too big for pygmies like themselves could ever lead to anything other than disaster, widespread human misery, and societal chaos. Any genuinely intelligent, sane person would have known better. Clearly, the professional politicians…don’t. Does that suggest anything about the advisability of restricting government at all levels to no more than the merest minimum of authority and power? Why, it seems so NO DUH! obvious, so self-evident and beyond argument, that I’m shocked that nobody ever thought of such a thing before now, nor attempted to codify, explicitly and in writing, how a government strictly and sturdily fenced by such restrictions might possibly be established. A real head-scratcher, that one is. Oh well, maybe someday.

While over 150 companies and trade associations have written a letter to encourage Congress to work on the bill, there’s some concern within the industry that the legislation would only create tension between shippers and regulators and carriers.

OH yeah, by all means let’s get Congress involved too! Having them waddle their fat asses on up and thrust their snouts into the slop trough will SURELY straighten this whole mess out with a quickness. Won’t it?

In short, government involving itself and imposing new regulations while also refusing to update existing regulations have played a familiar role in the slow down of a market that is trying to bounce back after COVID stopped the machine.

Update existing regulations, my baggy white ass. The one and only treatment for what ails us that stands a ghost of a chance of curing the affliction is to take a broadaxe and start chopping as many as can be reached into little, tiny pieces.

Apropos of not a whole lot, the Red State companion-piece mentioned in the first excerpted ‘graph is worth a read in its own right.

Cargo ships anchored off California and New York, and in rail yards and on trucking routes, shipping consumer goods are incredibly backlogged due to a lack of manpower and pandemic restrictions to unload the goods. And now, there are warnings that the supply chain may be on the brink of collapse.

Shipping ports which normally only had one or two ships in dock waiting to be unloaded prior to the pandemic now have dozens lined up, waiting to be unloaded for up to four weeks, slowing the whole chain. In Los Angeles and Long Beach, as many as 73 vessels were waiting to be unloaded last month. The bottlenecks at the ports are also impacting railways and trucking. In Chicago — that has one of the largest rail yards — it was at one point backed up for 25 miles.

This is a disaster about to blow up.

If you were trying to do-in the country, I’m not sure what you would do that the Biden team hasn’t been doing.

Hey, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

It makes for some pretty grim reading, all the moreso since there really is no way the Great Chaos Engine our damned fool politicians cranked up and set in motion can be stopped at this late stage. All any of us can do now is brace for the impact of the imminent crash. Hopefully, the survivors can come up with some way to repay them for all the wonderful things they’ve done for us.

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By the numbers

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Aesop contends that that’s how the Perfumed Princes are fucking up in their campaign to crush LTC Scheller for the heinous crime of speaking the ugly truth about them right out in front of God and everybody.

We read where some folks commenting are all doom-and-gloom worried about the future prospects of Lt. Col. Scheller, USMC.

Bitch, please.

As if.

The way you “protect” someone like this, with balls the size of church bells, is hand him a bayonet, and then get out of his way.

If they were smart, they’d simply drop all charges, separate him from service post-haste, and grant him a full pension, and hope he just goes off and plays golf. But they’re not that smart.

I hope he’s right about all that, I truly do, and in a just world he surely would be. Unfortunately, this is most definitely NOT such a world, nor anything even close. Which means that it’s no better than even-money odds that they’ll just quietly Epstein him, and hope nobody notices.

And that, my friends, will open a whole ‘nother can of worms, one they’re gonna enjoy even less than the one they have now. Read it all to find out how well THAT might work out for ’em.

Harbinger of doom update! Well, this tears it. The poor guy is well and truly cornholed now.

A growing number of conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill are rallying to the cause of a Marine lieutenant colonel jailed this week for his outspoken and repeated criticism of his superiors and what he said was their failure to take responsibility for mishandling the chaotic final days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Yep, he’s definitely hosed. Any time “conservative lawmakers” declare themselves to be in your corner the fight is officially over, and you lost.

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Political prisoner

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We all knew it was coming. Which, far from quelling the anger out of fear of possible consequences, ought to stoke the fire from Hot, But Manageable right on up to Killing Rage.

Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, the Marine officer whose meteoric rise to internet fandom began with a video criticizing military leadership over Afghanistan, is currently in the brig, his father told Task & Purpose.

“All our son did is ask the questions that everybody was asking themselves, but they were too scared to speak out loud,” said Stu Scheller Sr. “He was asking for accountability. In fact, I think he even asked for an apology that we made mistakes, but they couldn’t do that, which is mind-blowing.”

He said that his son is expected to appear before a military hearing on Thursday.

“They had a gag order on him and asked him not to speak,” the senior Scheller said. “He did, and they incarcerated him. They don’t know what to do with him.”
After this story was first published, the Marine Corps issued a statement confirming that Scheller has been sent to the brig.

“Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr. is currently in pre-trial confinement in the Regional Brig for Marine Corps Installations East aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune pending an Article 32 preliminary hearing,” said Capt.Sam Stephenson, a spokesman for Training and Education Command. “The time, date, and location of the proceedings have not been determined. Lt. Col. Scheller will be afforded all due process.”

(After publication the Marine Corps confirmed that Scheller is accused of the following offenses under the UCMJ: Article 88: Contempt toward officials, Article 90: Willfully disobeying superior commissioned officer, Article 92: Failure to obey an order, and Article 133: Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.)

I am not a Marine, nor do I play one TV, but for me the charges break down like this:

  • On the second and third: Scheller is inarguably guilty as charged
  • On the fourth: The charge is not only spurious, but is in direct opposition to observable reality; Scheller is in truth the living, breathing embodiment of how an officer for whom integrity and courage are still more than just empty words ought to conduct himself
  • On the first: Guilty as charged, said guilt mitigated entirely by the simple fact that contempt, for almost any officer above the rank of Lt Colonel, is the only opinion of the miserable rumpswabs any honest, self-respecting man could possibly hold

Stipulated: in time of peace—more importantly, with a military whose flag-rank officer corps has NOT been corrupted stem to stern by the crippling toxins of political correctness, partisanship, and self-dealing—LTC Scheller’s defiance would amount to insubordination, and the harm done to respect for the chain of command would indeed warrant the harshest punishment.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the military and flag-rank officer corps we actually have. If it were, it’s doubtful in the extreme that Scheller would have felt the need to do what he did in the first damned place. To my way of thinking, the burden of criminality is properly on the shoulders of the reprobates **cough-cough Obama cough-cough** who purposefully perverted the higher-officer corps wholesale, and the ladder-climbing, ass-kicking scoundrels who acceeded to positions they were wholly unworthy of a result of said perversion.

It isn’t LTC Scheller who should be sitting in a cell awaiting trial and punishment. It’s his accusers. Scheller’s real crime was his courage, and his inability to just sit back and keep his mouth shut in the immediate presence of the brazen outrages, the raw treason, to which he was forced to bear witness. Yon says:

One who Surrenders to the Machine vs Warrior who Stands
LTC Scheller is essentially a prisoner of war at this point. Not by letter of the law, but in essence.

Scheller is the first POW in the unfolding civil war. A Marine officer taken by Marines.

Notice the narrator misses the point of self-sacrifice. It’s all about career.

The longer Scheller fights, the more support he gathers. The harder the war-losers punish Marine Scheller, the stronger this leader becomes. This true Marine can flip the script and suddenly outrank this tormentors through elected office, and/or power of the pen.

It’s only over if he quits. If Scheller goes Honey Badger, they are in for torn flesh.

I support this True Marine, Lieutenant Colonel Scheller. This Officer put his country first.

Indeed. The shameful attempt at a political lynching of this good and honorable Marine cannot stand. Every Real American has a personal obligation to meet the standard he so bravely and selflessly set to make damned sure that it doesn’t. Torn flesh is but a down-payment on the debts his tormentors have incurred.

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No property, no rights

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And no freedom, either.

In the West, the morality of the state has been determined by how much or how little it respects the basic rights of its citizens. During the Cold War this was a critical measure used to justify foreign policy. The American government claimed it was within its rights to overthrow South American governments that got too chummy with the Soviets because they would endanger the rights of their people. On the other hand, they would back anti-communist dictators because they were better than communists.

There was a lot of lying and dissembling on this issue, but the principle was important to Western governments, so they made a big show of it. In America, for example, this meant protecting property rights from the excesses of the state. As a practical matter, it meant the state had to prove they had good reason for violating your rights before the court would permit them from doing it. They had to get a warrant, for example, before tapping your phone or riffling through your papers.

Government is always a blunt instrument and men are not angels so to avoid office holders and bureaucrats from abusing the rights of the people they first had to demonstrate there was a compelling government interest in declaring your backyard a wetland or banning a certain activity. Put another away, it was the duty of the government to make the affirmative argument. Citizens did not have to justify their rights to exercise them. They were assumed.

Property is a useful metric in this regard because it is simple and the economic basis of Western society. Even in feudalism property rights were respected, because ownership was what made the system possible. The right to speak out or organize are up for debate to some degree, but the right to own the fruits of your labor is the starting point for social organization in the West. It is what makes communism alien and why it has always been the domain of outsiders and subversives.

The general violation of property rights is now the norm. The tech oligarchs, for example, strongly oppose private property. If they don’t like what you are saying on your website, they will steal your domain name. They will collude to limit your ability to hold a job or have a bank account. What used to be a sacred right of all people is now up for debate with an unelected oligarchical class as the judge and jury. What is yours is theirs and what is theirs is theirs and they own everything.

Today, the people in charge have no respect for the law or the concept of law, so their agents just do as they please. In fact, they take pride in trampling the rights of the people, because it pleases their masters. The goons prosecuting the January 6th protestors, for example, take a sadistic pleasure in the torment they are inflicting on the people caught in their trap. Their intentional cruelty has become a positional good, something that elevates them in the eyes of the oligarchs.

The Declaration of Independence is a remarkable document that is mostly remembered for the opening lines. Even though those lines have been abused by the very tyrants that now rule over us, the document is a remarkable expression of Western thought and Anglo-Saxon morality. After the long bill of indictment against the king, a list familiar today, there is this line. “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

The beauty of that line is that it qualifies the moral depravity of the tyrant by juxtaposing it against the nature of a free people. A people who sit idly by as their rulers trample their ancient rights are getting the government they deserve. A free people, in contrast,  must hold their prince to the highest moral standard. It is immoral for them to do otherwise, as it violates that which defines them as free people. Every tyrant issues his own death warrant to the free people he seeks to oppress.

True, dat. Or, as some fool or other recently put it: The bane of all tyrants, sooner or later, is tyranny itself. The thing is, it’s usually up to We The People to see to it that the tyrant’s self-issued death warrant is executed.

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Despite everything, the heart of freedom is still beating

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Two Tweets too good to resist swiping.


Red China? Sheeeit, Gov, Australia is making North Korea look like a bastion of liberty by comparison. The OzNazis have raised the bar on tyranny so high it may NEVER be exceeded. At least, I HOPE it won’t; I’ll probably end up disappointed on that. Thankfully, this next one provides a hopeful counterpoint.


Looks like at least some in Italy haven’t forgotten the lesson of Mussolini just yet.

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CAUTION: Armageddon ahead

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In front of our very eyes.

The current experimental injection being forced upon the world is a recipe for disaster, as the mounting evidence shows. The jab already has killed many thousands and has maimed millions across the globe. Yet, the profiteers still push it, knowing its potential for population control, something Bill Gates actually revealed a few years ago. For elites, it’s also a source of great personal wealth.

Resistance to the forced jab continues to grow, as does the oppression to mandate the shot. In countries where private citizens have been disarmed, we are witnessing the spread of tyranny like a raging wildfire. In America also, the heat in the kettle is rising, but people are now feeling the pressure and choosing to resist. Many are about to lose their jobs, and they are accepting it. These wise and courageous ones recognize that giving just an inch to the enemy further empowers them and further erodes our freedom. We may not yet face the threat at gunpoint to take the “vaccine,” but securing food, accessing bank funds, traveling, and access to other daily needs is slowly becoming more challenging. The warped Communist Biden government is proceeding with caution, hoping to wear us down by every means possible, short of threats of violence. But you can be sure that violence will be employed if they can somehow disarm us.

This fact leads me to explore the minds of our nation’s founding fathers. The greatest insurance against mass tyranny is—and always will be—the armed private citizen. While America has failed to assemble and maintain a well-regulated Militia, the private armed American is a powerful stopgap to the onslaught of a derelict government turning to violence.

And now, we are finally beginning to recognize the dire need for Patriots and Conservatives to organize. Nothing short of a full-fledged assault against the Communist domestic dictators will do, be they mock leaders like Biden, or Marxist governors like Gavin Newsom. We are now seeing freedom lovers worldwide rise up against unethical police officers and military forces that serve the dark side and torment us. This fellowship of freedom fighters has now begun to take a stand and say, “No more!” We are fed up with the lies, deception, propaganda, indoctrination, and fear-mongering. We will no longer accept being told to cover our faces or accept the toxic jab, close our businesses, or isolate ourselves from one another. The brotherhood of mankind has been created in the image of God. Thus, God, Himself tells us—and that instills in every man and woman a deep-seated yearning for freedom to create, to prosper, and to live according to the laws of humanity.

You can be sure that the whole world has seen the torchlight of Lady Liberty, and they crave it more than do we Americans who take our liberty for granted. But as the tyranny escalates and as freedom wanes, the dormant patriots are awakening in our once free republic as well. Yes, a war has already been declared against the United States Constitution. Now we see clearly that our freedom is near to being tossed over a cliff. Under such tyranny years ago, the American Revolution was fought and won. If we so choose once again, nothing can stop the Second American Revolution that is now brewing already. But the war could be carried far and wide, and who knows… perhaps a World Revolutionary War is on the horizon. A freedom fight is always a just war, and the brotherhood of man seeking freedom is a mighty powerful army. Now is the time to act. And when the storm passes, we shall behold a most glorious rainbow!

We can but hope. Until then, we can either get militant or get kilt. Almost certainly both, actually, for a yet-to-be-dtermined number of us. The Enemy, for his part, is immovably committed to forcing the issue.

Joe Biden made an absolutely insane claim about getting back to normal after COVID-19. He’s now saying that we have to get 97-98% of Americans vaccinated before normalcy can return in this country.

Historically, herd immunity was reached once approximately 70% of a community was immune to a virus. That would include those vaccinated and those with natural immunity. The problem is that the authoritarian dictator that runs this country doesn’t believe in science.

Um, no. The problem is that he in fact IS an authoritarian dictator. Do understand that, as I’ve said before, “Biden” is obviously neither in charge nor remotely cognizant of any of this, that the very name “Biden” is merely shorthand for whoever it is that really calls the shots in Amerika v2.0: a genuine Legion Of Evil whose names we’ll never know, whose faces we’ll never see.

The second link above might be a tad heavy on the Xtian proselytizing for some of you, so if that ain’t your thang, feel free to skip it. I ain’t much bothered by it myself, although I would admittedly prefer it if his whole analysis didn’t revolve around it and he would just stick to the worldly aspects of the issue, so I can easily see how the author’s focus on Biblical prophecy might grate. Though I do consider myself a Christian, I’m also sure a lot of the stricter believers would condemn me as a Bad one.

3

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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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