All you’ll ever need to know about those spy balloons

As an aside, it appears that Jao Bai-Ding, in accordance with the wishes of his ChiCom owners, has fulfilled the Bee’s prophecy: Biden Says He’ll Shoot Down Chinese Spy Balloon As Soon As He’s Done Letting It Spy. Brandon Smith has a look into it.

There are numerous theories as to why such a surveillance platform would be used by the CCP and what it is designed to look for, and I thought I would offer a couple theories based on my years of study into similar projects pursued by the US Department of Defense and DARPA.

Lidar Observation From A Balloon Platform

The Chinese have been messing with lidar technology a lot lately. Lidar uses pulsed lasers to measure small variations in terrain to uncover hidden shapes and structures. It also has a knack for cutting through forest canopy and other obstructions. The problem with lidar is that the platforms commonly used to carry the apparatus are faster moving and only capture a snapshot in time. Also, it cannot see through thick clouds, dust, rain, snow or fog.

NASA and DARPA have both been testing lidar from balloons as a means to keep the lasers in the sky longer above a specific area. The Chinese balloon also looks somewhat similar to the equipment used on European lidar balloon experiments.

A lidar based spy balloon would explain Chinese interest in Eastern Montana, where there are numerous known nuclear missile silos as well as suspected hidden silos. The Chinese balloon did in fact come near at least one known nuclear missile base near Billings. Lidar could be exploited to find hidden bases in the region.

Weapons Delivery Platform

High altitude balloons are cheap and relatively effective surveillance platforms that can be used much like satellites but, with the right equipment, could become far more maneuverable. With the CCP’s limited resources it makes sense that they would be utilizing low-cost and low visibility measures instead of expensive and easier to target long range drones or spy planes.

However, these systems are not just useful for observation – They can also be used to deliver weapons packages, including EMP weapons, nuclear weapons and biological agents. The US has been testing balloons for nuclear delivery ever since Operation Yucca in 1956.

In the event of war between China and the US, the CCP may be looking for a way to strike with weapons of mass destruction with a passive delivery system that’s hard to defend against.

The EMP business is worrisome, sure. But war—actual, literal, armies-marching-as-to-no-shit war? Sorry, but despite the recent alarums raised in various quarters about a Chinese attack and/or invasion of the FUSA, I still can’t find it in myself to fret overmuch about the possibility. I mean, why on earth would they bother? They already OWN us lock, stock, and barrel, in both political and economic terms. Given their real-estate acquisitions here over the last several years, a hot war with us would only mean willfully and needlessly ruining the return on their investment.

Then again, though, they’re fucking Commies, so what would they know about maximizing return on investment anyway?

In the end, it all comes down to this: Who really needs military conquest and the attendant hassle, aggravation, and expense, when they de facto defeated us years ago—with the full and witting cooperation of America’s greedy, traitorous Ruling Class—without ever actually having to fire a shot?

1

A coup, if you like

Just now noticing it, are ya?

Jeremy Clarkson: We’re in the midst of a coup. Who the hell’s behind it?

Not in the middle of one; it’s long since been over and done with, I’m afraid. As to wondering who’s behind it, you can’t really be serious about that one.

My son came over for a father-and-son pre-football supper the other day, and as he fussed over the Aga, making a particularly fine stir fry, we laughed about what innocuous word had been banned that day and who’d been cancelled. And then, after a pause, he said with a solemn face, “You do know there’s a war going on, don’t you?”

He wasn’t talking about Ukraine. He was talking about a full-on left-wing campaign to unstitch and burn the fabric of Britain. And the genius is that no one really knows that what they’re doing is serious. We laugh as they change the name of the Sir Francis Drake Primary School to something less slavey. We think it’s all a big joke. But it isn’t.

Think about what typically happens in a military operation and then look what the woke left has done here. It’s seized control of our television and radio stations to such an extent that last week Sophie Raworth said, on the BBC News at Six, with a straight face, “And over now to our LGBT and diversity correspondent …”

And TV drama? Unaffected? Right, and when was the last time you saw a fictional police force hunting a gang of Muslim extremists? It’s always the far right. And it’s the same story in comedy. Say anything you like about Boris or Rishi and the laughter track is turned up to 11. Make a joke about she/him pronouns or Greta Thunberg and they’ll blow a piece of tumbleweed across the stage.

You probably think, because you don’t know this war is going on, that when you drop little Johnny off at the school gates he’s going to learn the nine times table that day. No, he isn’t. He’s learning that he might actually be a girl, which is why there are probably tampon dispensers in the boys’ lavatories.

When some young people with green hair glue themselves to the road, large numbers of officers are dispatched to stand around looking at them. And they are only ever removed from the tarmac if they promise to go immediately to the nearest art gallery and throw some soup at a painting.

You’ll definitely want to read all of this one, folks. Even though he’s writing about Jollye Olde, across the pond we’re tailgaiting them down the same sorry road ourselves.

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VDH getting blackpilled?

So JJ Sefton contends, and if Hanson’s latest is any indication, he might well be right about that.

 

One overriding principle of the new Democratic Party is asymmetry—or the notion that the Left’s moral superiority earns absolute exemption from the very methods they employ against their opponents.

Disproportionality explains why the historic Mar-a-Lago raid was constructed in bogus fashion as a legitimate search for “nuclear codes.” Yet it would have sparked outrage had the FBI, on rumors of Biden sloppiness, sent armed agents into Jill Biden’s underwear drawers looking for classified papers concerning Ukraine and Iran, or towed away Joe Biden’s Corvette to get access to a garage full of unlawfully stored classified papers, or strewn Biden’s papers across the floor for an FBI concocted photo-op.

 

Well, sure, but then again who in their right mind would WANT to go through “Dr” Jill’s underwear drawer, anyway? Please pardon me whilst I throw up in my mouth, just a little.

 

The buffoonish protestors and rioters of January 6 were to be jailed for months without formal charges, put in solitary confinement, and often sentenced to the maximum punishment possible. But the rioters, shooters, and killers of 120 days of mayhem and violence during summer 2020 were calibrated as “summer of love” rowdies. Antifa and Black Lives Matter sort of, kind of got a little bit out of hand in torching a police precinct, a federal courthouse, and an iconic Washington, D.C. church, as well as trying to storm the White House grounds, sending the president into an underground bunker.

That Antifa and BLM plotted much of their anarchy and violence on social media unimpeded was unremarked upon. That fact mattered not at all in comparison to the illegal paraders and rioters of January 6. Police who shoot unarmed protestors usually have their identities immediately revealed; yet when they lethally shoot the likes of an Ashli Babbitt, their identities are suppressed, and their questionable conduct lauded.

Donald Trump was deemed crazy. A Yale psychiatrist made the rounds on television and in Congress to claim he needed an intervention and straitjacket. The FBI and an interim attorney general discussed wearing a wire to entrap Donald Trump and convince his cabinet he was nuts. If the FBI and the Justice Department did the same to Joe Biden, the Left would have claimed a coup was in progress.

Joe Biden daily forgets where he is and what he is doing. Someday historians will fault those who knowingly used a non compos mentis septuagenarian, without regard for the interests of the American people, to mask a radical neo-socialist agenda.

Biden shakes imaginary hands. He insists his son died in Iraq. In his mind, Brian Sicknick was murdered on January 6. In Walter Mitty-style, he brags that he has been a semi-truck driver, an arrested civil rights activist, a major college football prospect, a U.S. Naval Academy scholarship prospect, and on and on. If Biden was given the Montreal Cognitive Test, as was Trump, he would likely flunk it outright.

Conservatives should be aware that they are not dealing with the party of JFK and LBJ. The Democratic Party has nothing in common with the agendas of a slick Bill Clinton and is well beyond the “fundamental transformations” of arch-narcissist Barack Obama.

We are faced with a strictly disciplined, no-nonsense revolutionary party, well known from history that aims to change the nation into something unrecognizable by most Americans. And it feels that it has now created the means to do it.

 

“Aims to”? AIMS?!? My God, man, they’ve DONE it. The question before us now is whether or not it can successfully be wrested back from them, and the question remains an open one.

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4

Why we call it Once-Great Britain

So very much wrong here it’s tough to know where to even start.

Britain’s top food watchdog recently warned that bringing cake to the office is comparable to subjecting coworkers to second-hand cigarette smoke.

So-called “second-hand smoke,” like so much else these days, is the bunk.

Professor Susan Jebb, chair of the UK’s Food Standards Agency, told The Times Health commission, “We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time and we undervalue the impact of the environment,” adding that “If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them. Now, OK, I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub.”

Yeah, thanks be to God that you took care of that whole “making a choice” problem for good, eh?

“With smoking, after a very long time, we have got to a place where we understand that individuals have to make some effort but that we can make their efforts more successful by having a supportive environment,” Jebb argued. “But we still don’t feel like that about food.”

Oh, so THAT’s what we’re calling “authoritarian meddling” now, I gather.

Well, maybe that’s because food in the office only affects the individuals who eat it — unlike second-hand smoke, which is inhaled by everyone in close proximity to the smoker.

Sorry, but again: no.

Jebb went on to say that junk food ads are “undermining people’s free will,” yet claimed that restrictions are “not about the nanny state.”

Oh my NO, perish the thought. Sheesh.

These are the same people who are trying to make us eat crickets and believe that cauliflower tastes like rice. And the same people who told us to eat margarine for our health before reversing course and saying it will kill us, and now claiming that it’s good for us again.

And they have the exact same right to do so now as they did then: none whatsoever. Which is the REAL point at issue, not whether they’ve ever gotten a damned thing right, since ever. Or it ought to be, anyhow.

But yeah, you Limeys go ahead and forego that cake, it’s bad stuff. Plus, it’s difficult to eat with those bendy, non-scary plastic knives and forks your NotANanny State has forcibly relegated you chumps to.

1

Things fall apart

Mayor Pete Buttplug, sinking like a stone in a post that’s manifestly way too big for his lightweight, candy-ass to even be able to keep his head above water in, is ON. THE. JOB. So fear not, travelers!

Mayor Pete’s planes, trains and automobiles
Biden’s transportation secretary is terrible at his job. Would a straight man get away with it?

I refuse to dignify that stupid, self-answering question with a response.

Almost a year ago, the Federal Aviation Authority, under the helm of transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, announced that the aviation briefing known as NOTAM, or Notice to Airmen, would undergo a name change. NOTAMs are unclassified notices distributed from an aviation authority to all pilots that contain essential information regarding conditions, hazards, system concerns, or other flight operations. NOTAM, Mayor Pete’s Department of Transportation declared, wasn’t gender inclusive and, as of December 2, 2021, it should henceforth be referred to Notice to Air Missions, not Airmen.

While Mayor Pete preoccupied his department with scrubbing the bigotry out of an acronym, it never occurred to the Biden administration’s Chief Diversity Hire that the system itself might need some tending-to. That was until this morning when an outage caused the NOTAM system to fail and all flights in the US were grounded for several hours, something that hasn’t happened since 9/11.

Today’s FAA system failure came just weeks after Southwest Airlines ruined Christmas when its outdated computer system led to thousands of canceled flights — something that the transportation secretary brazenly mocked, seemingly unaware that the Biden administration had given billions of dollars in handouts to Southwest, with no oversight. As he wagged his finger at the airline, Mayor Pete was oblivious that his own computers might need a tune-up.

But bothersome tasks like keeping the planes flying, or the cargo ships moving, or the railroads secure, aren’t very sexy for Mayor Pete — who famously harvested a couple of babies from surrogates then went on “paternity leave” in the middle of a supply chain crisis. Being blindsided by catastrophe, as happened this morning, seems less like a bad day at the office for Pink Privilege Pete and more like a lifestyle choice.

Not so much. Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by simple incompetence. And that, Pete Buttplug most certainly is, was, and ever shall be.

Lest we forget: Mayor Pete’s legacy as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, the only elected office he’s held, amounted to the fact that he couldn’t fix the potholes. Now he’s in charge of transport for the world’s largest economy, where he’s done little else than fuss over problematic acronyms and grandstand about racist roads and prejudiced bridges, while flying on private government jets to soccer matches in Europe and still finding time to post cringe on Instagram with his Navy Yard hausfrau Chasten.

Did I mention that, in addition to being incompetent, Buttplug is also lazy? Because, y’know, he is.

Bottom line: Pete Buttplug is yet another diversity hire in a ruling junta crammed stem to stern with ’em. Yet somehow, inexplicably, we see that everything is caving in around our very ears all of a sudden-like. Gee, could it possibly be that what the shitlibs have gleefully misnomered “diversity” doesn’t really equate to “strength” after all?

Nah, perish the thought. I HEREBY DENOUNCE MYSELF FOR BADTHINK™!

4

The past is prologue

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

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

Can an illegal immigrant serve in the US military?

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

Military Membership – Curran, Berger & Kludt

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

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

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

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

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

You funny

Hope springs eternal, no matter how vain it be.

As Conservatives Shift From Opposing McCarthy to Holding His Feet to the Fire, Here are Five Promises He Needs to Keep
For America First patriots who opposed Kevin McCarthy’s ascension to Speaker of the House, Friday night was a loss. But to get there on the 15th vote, McCarthy had to make a lot of promises and concessions to the Freedom Caucus. Will he honor those commitments?

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. For the love of God, man, stop it, you’re killing me here.

Our role as patriots is to make certain he does and to call him out when he doesn’t. Unfortunately, the GOP failed miserably to stop the midterm steal in the Senate, so getting any legislation to Joe Biden’s desk will be very hard. Then, there’s the veto that the GOP cannot overcome. But they can still hold hearings. They can still use the power of the purse. McCarthy has moves that he and the GOP caucus can make.

To that end, here are five of the promises he made that need to be fulfilled.

Meh, didn’t read ’em. Not even slightly interested, plus I have many other more productive uses for my time, such as clipping my toenails or something.

6

Keep your eyes on the ball

Don’t be fooled, distracted, or deceived by all the smoke and mirrors.

Speakership Battle Is Just More Bread and Circuses

This entire hullabaloo is about who will be the manager of a whole lot of static nothingness. Whoever is chosen will have the tiniest of margins with which to govern and a caucus far more divided and less obedient than the one Nancy Pelosi controlled. And whoever that manager is will be dealing with a Democrat-controlled Senate and a self-serving statist lapdog Republican Minority Leader and whatever we have in the White House. So, nothing of substance will happen beyond possible hearings and investigations—but even those will be of limited value.

Republicans can run investigations into Hunter Biden, maybe try to bring the corruptocrat-in-chief into the crosshairs, but that means very little because it was the FBI pulling all the strings and covertly engineering an election outcome for the third straight cycle. We have a deeply corrupted FBI manipulating our elections in myriad ways. Consider that sentence. It should knock Americans over. It has been shown to be undeniably true now with the release of the Twitter Files. But who is pushing to do what actually needs to be done: a ruthless offense?

The real problem begins to feel unplumbable. The permanent state remains unscathed and more powerful than ever. The original creator of the permanent state is Congress—yes, the folks who could begin to tackle the problem are the same ones who created the problem. Through legislation over decades that has ceded irresponsibly high levels of discretion to federal agencies in the executive branch, Congress has skated on making tough decisions itself—beneficial for their individual re-elections—and delegated those decisions (and therefore all that power) to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.

The entire system of unaccountable bureaucratic mini-tyrants is working about as one might expect. For pity’s sake, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012 with a lousy memo. It took 10 years for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to determine it was unconstitutional while allowing all those who had taken advantage of it to remain legal. Congress created Homeland Security and ceded incredible powers to it. This dynamic is repeated thousands of times in the federal government at all levels.

So all of the endless drivel about a “dysfunctional” House is nonsense. It was well-functioning Houses that put us under the thumb of powerful, untouchable, invisible federal authoritarians. Oh, that we might have had dysfunctional Houses back then!

Yeah, well, as CA always says, Real Americans didn’t lose their freedom; it was stolen from them, by people who have names, faces, and addresses. May the slippery, slimery sneak-thieves all be reminded of that ineluctable fact, and that right soon.

2
1

Fix: IN

Those 20 heroes I sang the praises of yesterday? Meh, not so much.

THE DAM BREAKS IN THE HOUSE

Update: On the thirteenth ballot, McCarthy again failed to secure enough votes for a win. He picked up one additional vote this time around, Rep. Andy Harris (Md.). The rest of the holdouts voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio): McCarthy 214, Jeffries 212, Jordan 6. The House is adjourned until 10 p.m. tonight.

Original story:

On the twelfth vote for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, several of the twenty holdouts switched their votes to Kevin McCarthy’s column.

The House erupted in cheers each time a holdout voted for McCarthy, signaling their relief that the end of the protracted battle for the top position in the House may be in sight. The final tally was McCarthy 213, Hakeem Jeffries 211, and others 7, coming on the heels of tense negotiations over the last several days as a group of conservatives pressed McCarthy for changes to House rules and key leadership roles. The magic number for McCarthy had been 218 votes, but due to three absences in the House, it was lowered to 217, leaving the California Republican just four votes shy of a win. McCarthy has indicated that he wants to proceed with another vote rather than adjourn for the weekend, suggesting he believes he has the votes needed to bring the election to a conclusion.

It was reported early Friday that the dam had begun to burst, and key holdouts indeed switched their votes to McCarthy early in the afternoon.

But hey, looky at this mess of pottage the Devil gave me in exchange for my soul!

I repeat: there’s only way out of this for us now. Yes, it will of necessity mean bloodshed.

Sick-making update! Ask a silly question.

WHAT COUNTRY IS THIS???!!! Mother of Murdered American Patriot Ashli Babbitt ARRESTED by DC Goon Squad on 2-Year Anniversary of the January 6 Mostly Peaceful Protest…

Why, Amerika v2.0, of course.

Micki Witthoeft was part of a group of protesters walking westbound on Independence Avenue between the Capitol and House office buildings. A trailing police officer in a marked car tried to order the protesters to move to the sidewalk away from the Capitol. The protesters ignored the warning and continued marching, with Witthoeft on the outside in the middle of a traffic lane.

Capitol Police set up a roadblock and ordered the protesters to cross the street to the sidewalk or be arrested. After an officer shoulder checked Witthoeft where she tried to move past him, Witthoeft turned her back to the officers and offered to be arrested. She was immediately cuffed and taken into custody.

She can only thank her lucky stars that the Capitol Pig goon-squad didn’t just gun her down in cold blood like they did her poor daughter. Because you know good and well they were just itching to, the soulless rat-bastards.

2

Hope springs eternal

However manifestly forlorn it may be.

The exhausting toils of the holidays are behind us; the mischief that could be done by the lame ducks in Congress has been done ($1.7 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill); and the time has come for the citizens of this land to get some answers about the escalating trips laid on them by their own government. The House of Representatives is in new hands. You’ll know in pretty short order whether they are capable, trustworthy hands, or just a blur of fast fingers running another three-card-monte table.

The most pressing questions abide around justice, and the gavel of the Judiciary Committee passes from the barely-alive Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to the very animated Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). He needs to ask FBI Director Chris Wray how it came to be that the Bureau sat in possession of the Hunter Biden laptop during the impeachment of January 2020 and did not offer up to the defense the exculpatory evidence it abundantly contained in the way of business deal memos between the Biden family and officials in several foreign lands, Ukraine in particular. After all, the impeachment hinged on a telephone inquiry Mr. Trump made about just those matters. Was there a good reason for that phone call, or not? Obviously, there was, and Mr. Wray’s conduct looks like obstruction of justice in the highest degree.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) comes in as chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. He announced months ago that he would hold hearings on interesting issues such Hunter Biden’s taxes and exactly who has paid to support his new career as an “artist.”

We’ve got national security concerns with respect to Hunter Biden. We want to know if you remember who bought that expensive artwork when he was an artist for about three days and sold the artwork for half a million dollars. We want to know why the Russian oligarchs who paid Hunter Biden money were mysteriously left off the sanctions list when Joe Biden started putting sanctions on Russians and Russian oligarchs. We’ve got a lot of questions about shady business dealings that Hunter had and whether or not they impacted the Biden administration.

Next Mr. Wray has to answer for the FBI’s infiltration of social media. How did the top lawyer at the FBI, Jim Baker, come to be employed as the right-hand to Twitter’s chief censor, Vijaya Gadde? How did all those former FBI agents land at the company along with Jim Baker, and what did Mr. Wray have to do with the FBI demands to censor news and persons on matters of critical national importance such as vaccine safety and election fraud? How did more than a hundred former federal agents land on Facebook, Google, and other platforms? How did Mr. Wray decide to shut down the avenues of the First Amendment to the Constitution?

Next up: Attorney General Merrick Garland. On what grounds are pre-trial January 6 Riot suspects being held in the decrepit DC federal lockup without bail on rinky-dink charges two years after the event? How does that square with American due process of law? What did he know about the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop and the evidence it contained? What is he doing about it? How did Mr. Garland happen to target for prosecution parents protesting school board policies on race and sexual matters? Of course, Mr. Garland is going to evade answering by using the ploy that all these questions “pertains to ongoing investigations.” Mr. Jordan had better hire a gutsy chief counsel with some brains to penetrate that bodyguard of lies.

If the Special Subcommittee on the January 6 Riot is disbanded, turn the matter over to the Andy Biggs’ Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Let’s hear from Nancy Pelosi’s staff as to why her office (of the Speaker) turned down offers from the Trump White House for national guard protection that day. Let’s also hear from the then-chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, who resigned from that job two days later — in consternation or disgrace? Bring back Mr. Wray and Mr. Garland. How many federal agents were circulating in the crowd the night before and on the day of the January 6 riot? Why was one Ray Epps never indicted for his much-recorded incitements to enter the Capitol? Who opened the magnetically-locked doors from the inside of the building? Stuff like that. What was the decision process for not charging officer Michael Byrd in the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt?

I hope it’s not too impertinent to suppose that the January 6 Riot was engineered by our government to embarrass and punish its political opponents — taking advantage of the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” which was what that crowd had come to do in Washington DC that day. Interesting how a little tweaking here and there turned that into a convenient fiasco. Entrapment, anyone? And how government control and interference over social media and corporate news reinforced the narrative that the stage-managed riot was “an insurrection” — one of many actual “big lies” of our time nurtured by our government against its citizens.

A few other inquiries in this new Congress that need to commence ASAP: Can we hear from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as to how come the US-Mexican Border is absolutely wide open; why his employees are transporting illegal aliens all around the USA; why he is running a program in Mexico to give Venezuelans and other select alien nationals “advanced authorization” and “two years parole,” then sneaking them into the USA through regular ports-of-entry?

Hey, I have an idea: maybe Miss Lindsey “Talk-talk” Graham can empanel another of his vaunted Blue Ribbon Commissions™ to “get to the bottom” of this extensive litany of corruption, malfeasance, and dysfunction again!

1

RuiNation

Anybody who has ever worked for a medium-to-large-sized corporation in America has experienced this same sort of thing. Even working for a small, strictly-local B-drayage hauler in the air-freight business for many years, I most certainly have.

What happened to Southwest Airlines?

I’ve been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I’ve given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.

Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow-motion train wreck for sometime. And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.

Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day-to-day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front-line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy-in. Everything that was needed to run a first-class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.

Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches then neither do the lower levels of leadership.

Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day-to-day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.

They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.

But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?

We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.

A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010’s. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990’s technology. We didn’t have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.
When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.

Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline’s technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.

But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990’s operating system.

The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.

We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.

The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.

I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.

It’s been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.

Herb once said the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was. I miss Herb now more than ever.

Whether they know of him specifically or not, many people do. Or almost certainly will, as time grinds on.

The American economic juggernaut was built on the idea that people would start at the bottom of any given enterprise and work their way up based on experience, talent, and knowledge of the business from soup to nuts. Alas for us all, the advent of the MBA replaced that excellent system with nebbish dweebs coming in from outside to “manage” the business without ever having set Foot One on a loading dock, factory floor, or assembly line in their entire lives, which has all but done away with any concept of making it on merit. Those overcredentialed-but-undereducated, shiny-loafered, smug college-boy types have been nothing but sand in the gears of what was once the mightiest wealth-producing engine in all of history.

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Look back in anger sorrow

Diplomad takes a look in the ol’ rearview, not just at the disastrous annum just past, but a lot further back than that.

This is where I go full old man.

This no-good, horrid year of 2022 draws to a close–none too soon for my taste–and I can only hope that 2023 will prove better. Will it? While I have no great powers of observation and foretelling, what little I do have tell me that things will not get any better. Sorry to be so cheerful.

The impending death of the current year has me reflecting on my own life, and what I have done and not done with it.  First, my own life. What have I done? Not much really. I spent some 34 years in the State Department; my tenure there will pass, as they say in Spanish, “sin pena ni gloria,” i.e., unnoticed one way or another. I devoted my adult life to what I thought was my country, its values, and interests. I am now wracked with doubts that that was the case. As we see from the “Twitter Files,” the doubts I had about what was really going on have proven out. I am deeply saddened and depressed by that. Those institutions with which I worked closely for so many years, e.g., FBI, CIA, DOJ, have turned out to be the real enemies. The Taliban, AQ, PRC, or the USSR, could not undermine our nation to any degree comparable to what has been done by our high-tech mafia, allied with the pro-regime media, and the key institutions of the Deep State. The enemy is here; they are in our house, and as we so graphically see every day on our border are openly working to tear it apart. Not just here. I see the same happening in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and all over Western Europe.

The assault on the values, even the most basic ones, of our civilization is relentless. The world we leave our grandchildren is a horrid one: Twerking drag queens in our libraries and schools; feral youth owning the streets; malicious cretins dominating our legal, educational, and public health institutions; an entertainment industry promoting violence and perversion. Not cheerful.

Given the way things currently stand, only a fool, a hermit, or a still-slumbering Rip Van Winkle could be.

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1

Raise a glass!

I’ll drink to that.

Most of today’s regulatory framework for alcohol traces back to the immediate post-Prohibition years. The basic assumption was that alcohol consumption is bad but unavoidable. The goal, then, was to regulate in ways that led people to drink less, via high taxes and inconveniences, without returning to the bootleggers and speakeasies of the disastrous Prohibition era.

Though things have lightened up a bit since then, that’s still the basic philosophy today. Alcohol discussions tend to turn on things like liver damage, impaired driving, violence and so on.

These negative consequences are real. But as Slingerland makes clear, they aren’t the whole story. There are a lot of less-heralded positives.

Given the downsides, alcohol consumption must also offer some advantages, Slingerland reasons, else it would have died out. But it hasn’t. In fact it’s hard to find successful civilizations that don’t use alcohol — and those few that qualify tend to replace it with other intoxicants that have similar effects.

Drinking doesn’t just make us feel good,

Until the hangover sets in.

it also makes us get along better,

Until the brawl breaks out.

cooperate more effectively

Until the obstreperousness spills forth.

and think more expansively.

Until the blackout occurs.

Of course, drinking isn’t all upside, but that isn’t the point. The point is that it’s not all downside, either — yet we regulate it, essentially, as if it were. We need a more balanced approach.

Said a mouthful there, Glenn.

And it isn’t just alcohol. As our culture has veered in an increasingly bossy and punitive direction, the tolerance for any sort of downside is vanishing. The “playground movement” at the beginning of the last century argued “better a broken arm than a broken spirit.” Today’s society takes a different approach.

Indubitably so…and there’s a reason for that, too. In present-day Amerika v2.0, broken spirits are the goal, the real point of the whole exercise. Why? The better to oppress you with, my dear. Docile slaves are much easier to lord over than resentful, belligerent ones, you see. The bottom-line problem propping all this foolishness up? The deep-seated Progressivist aversion to any and all risk.

During the pandemic, we saw a degree of safety-ism that discounted the value of humans getting together in the face of tiny or even notional risks, leading to absurdities like ocean paddle-boarders being arrested for paddling maskless. There’s much more value in the activity than risk in being unmasked at sea.

The list of cases where killjoys focus excessively on the negative is huge, and anyone reading this can think of many examples. But what do we do about it?

Ain’t but the one thing: start killing the killjoys. It really is the only way to be rid of them for any meaningful length of time, although even that isn’t permanent.

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3

Not “stupid,” not “weak,” not “clueless”—COMPLICIT

None so blind as those who will not see.

What Moves the Voters Republicans Lost?
Unless there is a major turnaround in the culture, the Republicans will have to deal with a strong and vocal opposition in future elections.

In “The Republican Struggle with Defeat,” Conrad Black lays out the situation that the Republican Party confronts after its unexpectedly disastrous midterm elections. Despite Joe Biden’s unpopularity and the range of problems he and his party have caused—from broken borders and inflation to the cultural radicalization of both the military and public education, and debacles abroad—the Democrats did unexpectedly well at the polls. Unlike during the Obama Administration, Biden’s party won the Senate, several governorships, a number of state legislatures, and held its defeats in the House to a minimum.

Black avoids exaggerating the Trump factor in the defeat of Republican candidates. One can point to some worthy Trump picks, including Kari Lake, Blake Masters, Adam Laxalt, Lee Zeldin, and J. D. Vance, even if other picks, such as Herschel Walker and Doug Mastriano, were duds. But there is no convincing evidence that Trump’s support for a candidate was the decisive factor in any person’s defeat. Other circumstances, as Black points out, led to those candidates’ losses. If the United States now “plods on with a one-and-one-half party system” and “veers harder to the left,” we should look elsewhere for the most decisive reasons.

A major cause for the midterm results, argues Black, “is the apparent inability of the Republicans to master the harvested ballot. Trump correctly warned in 2020 this would be used to rig the election, but he was completely inadequate in the counter-measures he took to prevent that.” In my view, one can’t stress enough the games that the Democrats have mastered in changing electoral procedures. From vote-harvesting and voting without personal identification to election outcomes being determined by insecure mail-in ballots sent in more than a month before scheduled in-person voting, these Democratic “reforms” should have met unrelenting Republican resistance.

Unfortunately, they didn’t, which raises the question: How would the elections in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania have turned out if these states had the voting laws that are in force in Florida?

An utterly pointless debate, an exercise in abject futility, perhaps even outright misdirection, at least in some cases. Those laws are NOT in force; the Vichy GOPe did NOT resist, and only a delusional fool expects that they ever will. If they had any interest in such piffling bagatelles, they would have done so already. Get your head around it already, ferchrissakes, and deal with current reality at long, long last.

For obvious reasons, Republicans are hesitant about contesting questionable ballots.

“OBVIOUS reasons,” is it? Name three for me, please. Don’t strain yourself, I’ll wait.

They quake at the thought of being accused of election denial or suppressing minority votes. This hesitancy puts them at a disadvantage against a radical leftist party that shows no compunctions about cheating or election denial.

Not hardly, amigo. What actually makes them quake at the thought of it is the prospect of upending a comfy, too-familiar applecart, thereby disrupting a wholly rotten system in which they’ve long since accepted their assigned role—a system which has made them rich beyond the dreams of avarice, despite their demeaning status as junior partners therein.

This hesitancy puts them at a disadvantage against a radical leftist party that shows no compunctions about cheating or election denial. The fact that Democratic Party organizers and politicians can engage in their legerdemain with unfailing media protection makes them even more brazen.

That lack of compunction and brazenness is a very, very old story, told from deep within a very crowded memory hole.

Democrat Voter Fraud: A Brief History
This is a “brief history” because the complete history of Democrat electoral malfeasance reaching back to Tammany Hall and Tweed would require four volumes or more. (I’m running into the same problem with a new book I’m outlining analyzing the Democrats as a criminal organization, much like the Mafia or the Camorra.)

So a brief history it is, limited to the past thirty years or so. Believe you me, there’s no lack of cases even in that short span.

The Dinkins Magic Voting Machines

Just days before voting in the 1993 David Dinkins/Rudolf Giuliani election, the New York Times reported that a number of voting machines had been found in a closed Manhattan school. All the machines were loaded with votes for Democrat incumbent David Dinkins.

Voting proceeded without the help of those machines, and of course Rudy was elected. But that was the end of it. As far as I’ve been able to learn, there was no investigation, no inquiries, or, for that matter, any further reportage on it.

Votes from the 8th Dimension

The 2004 Washington state gubernatorial contest between Republican Dino Rossi and Democrat Christine Gregoire ended with Rossi up by 261 votes. A machine recount left him still ahead by 42 votes. The state Democrats paid over $700,000 for a hand recount, and whaddaya know… Votes started appearing from any and all conceivable sources. A bag containing votes here…  an electoral official’s car there… it’s surprising they didn’t start falling out of the sky like the frogs in Magnolia.

By the end of the year Gregoire was ahead by 130 votes and was inaugurated on January 12. Rossi, God love him, continued fighting, taking Gregoire to court over the blatantly illegitimate votes. A Pierce County judge tossed the votes out, only to be overruled by the Washington State Supreme Court. A final decision didn’t come for six months, when Judge John Bridges, a Democrat appointee, tossed aside the concept of “chain of custody” to find in favor of Gregoire. Rossi should have continued on to the U.S. Supreme Court – after all, a critical legal concept was being overthrown – but he does get an E for Effort, since he did more than any other Republican in recent memory.

The Washington case enshrined the concept that all Democrat votes, whether they emerged from a portal into hyperspace or were discovered in a 2000 B.C. Sumerian temple, had to be counted no matter what the circumstances. GOP votes… not so much.

Goshdarnit, People Liked Him

A similar chain of events occurred in the election of Al Franken in Minnesota in 2008. Incumbent Norm Coleman originally prevailed with over 700 votes, which were mysteriously whittled down to 200 in short order. Franken called for a recount, and begorrah, the votes suddenly started appearing. Some, anyway — an envelope of votes from one county simply disappeared, but were counted regardless, the totals evidently being read out from tea leaves. By the time it all ended, Franken was ahead by 312 votes. Coleman, a Republican gentleman of the old school, made perfunctory efforts at protest, but was undercut by the GOP itself, led by former governor Arne Carlson, a RINO to rule them all, who had refused to endorse Coleman during the campaign.

Shortly after the election, it was discovered that at least 1,099 illegal votes had been cast by felons, and this had been known during the vote count, but had been ignored. Franken exchanged his diapers for a suit and spent the better part of two terms voting the way he was told and embarrassing his party before being forced out during the “MeToo” craze.

Lots more where that come from, and remember, these are contemporary examples only. Back to the AG piece for the sad, sorry denouement.

The solution to these problems for Republicans is to ignore the righteous accusations and to challenge unwaveringly suspicious ballots.

It isn’t a “solution,” it’s their sworn and sacred duty, or would be in a better, less ruinously-crooked system than this one is.

It would make even more sense to get voting to take place on election day and in a precinct station under bipartisan surveillance. It is just plain dumb for conflict-averse Republican leaders to tell their constituency to learn to do mail-in voting months ahead of Election Day. Most Republican voters cast ballots, as they should, in the assigned places on Election Day.

Fine suggestions all, not a single one of which has a ghost of a chance of ever being implemented. The larger problem?

Even more problematic for the Republicans are the large voting blocs they are losing by ever larger numbers: 18-to 29-year-old voters, in which the proportion of college students is rising. In November, unmarried women voted 70 percent for the Democrats, and in Pennsylvania they helped significantly in electing the brain-injured radical John Fetterman. More than 70 percent of college students voted, and 63 percent of them broke for the Democrats. Although the Republicans have made modest inroads among black voters and while the Hispanic vote has increased for the GOP by 10 points since 2018, they are losing badly key constituencies. These blocs are mostly on the woke Left and not likely to be won over by appeals to “conservative values.”

Heh. “Not likely,” he says. Understate much, pal?

Further, there is no indication that the electorate cares about Democratic scandals and failures. Republican attempts to call attention to such issues or to the damaged brain of our new Pennsylvania senator or to Joe Biden’s obvious decrepitude fall on deaf ears with these voters. Unrestricted abortion rights count for them far more than broken borders or the venality of the Biden family.

That’s because more and more of us are being brought around to the grim realization of the uselessness, the hopelessness, of Voting Harderer!™ at them to provide a way out of this stinking bog for us. The cynicism and disgust at the wholesale, systemic corruption of “elections” in Amerika v2.0 is growing by leaps and bounds, which I take as a positive sign. The more of us who acknowledge the farcical nature of the whole shit-circus, however unpleasant a reality it might be to confront, the sooner something meaningful might actually be done about it, I believe.

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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

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