LOSING! – Page 2

GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Days that will live in infamy

Posted on March 17, 2024March 17, 2024 by Mike

Both of these bitter anniversaries tremendous losses for America That Was and all who loved her and now lament her death—murder, actually. First up, probably the most outrageous, destructive trampling of liberty in all of US history.

15 Days to Slow the Spread
This story first appeared in 1600 Daily, the White House’s evening newsletter. Subscribe now to get breaking news from President Trump before anyone else.

This afternoon, President Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force issued new guidelines to help protect Americans during the global Coronavirus outbreak.

The new recommendations are simple to follow but will have a resounding impact on public health. While the President leads a nationwide response, bringing together government resources and private-sector ingenuity, every American can help slow the virus’ spread and keep our most high-risk populations safe.

Leslie Eastman offers a few salient points.

This is the vital point: The announcement and associated policies were suppose to be about slowing the spread…not stopping it cold. The idea was that the virus’ effects on the respiratory system were so bad, that slowing the spread was imperative to get the medical resources into position so the healthcare system could handle (it).

I would like to note that two weeks earlier, I was growing concerned about the nature of the Trump administration’s response to the virus. I urged the implementation of the severe flu protocol that had been successfully used in years previously. I also highlighted risk factors for severe infection that could only be addressed on an individual basis.

Subsequently, “15 days to Slow the Spread” morphed into a liberty-crushing horror with impacts that we are still feeling across the nation (and in many other parts of the world).

Now, the nation is facing the choice between the two top candidates:

Trump, who foisted Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx on this country.

Biden: The senile occupant of the Oval Office who mandated the vaccines and prolonged the pandemic response.

Personally, one part of my decision-making will be based on which candidate will not repeat the mistakes in the covid response…and avoid entangling this nation with the World Health Organization’s “Pandemic Treaty“.

I will never forget March 16, 2020.

Nor should you, nor should any of the truly liberty-oriented among us. Next, another costly loss, one which, in its own small way, might almost be considered as badly damaging to Real American prospects as the ScamDemic stampede has been.

Hushed Limbaugh
How did this nation ever get to the point where a man once considered nothing more than a tacky, loud, nouveau-riche liberal NYC real estate mogul/celebrity, with an orange complexion and a crazy pompadour/combover, would be transmogrified into the ultimate scapegoat for the failings, crimes, and corruption that have plagued our government and society since at least the end of the Second World War; the locus and symbol of the most unbridled hatred by the very same global elite that, in point of fact, are guilty of those sins and that he once perhaps was a part of? If I had to venture a guess, I’d say in nearly the same manner as “just some guy in golf pants” (as he once described how the elites tagged him) who at one time happened to have the largest sustained radio audience in history.

Last week marked the third anniversary of Rush Limbaugh passing away after a yearlong battle with terminal lung cancer. In a career that spanned nearly a third of a century, Limbaugh become far and away the most listened-to talk radio host in broadcast history. The conventional wisdom, which is something that Limbaugh defied on a daily basis, was that he had some sort of Svengali-like appeal over masses of mostly white, male, Bible-thumping bumpkins from flyover country by telling them what to think. In point of fact, it was just the opposite. Limbaugh’s success was being able to articulate what a vast swathe of the nation felt—a well-founded angst about the direction of the country especially since the beginning of the Clinton years and for sure with everything in the wake of the 9/11/01 attacks.

Last week marked the third anniversary of Rush Limbaugh passing away after a yearlong battle with terminal lung cancer. In a career that spanned nearly a third of a century, Limbaugh become far and away the most listened-to talk radio host in broadcast history. The conventional wisdom, which is something that Limbaugh defied on a daily basis, was that he had some sort of Svengali-like appeal over masses of mostly white, male, Bible-thumping bumpkins from flyover country by telling them what to think. In point of fact, it was just the opposite. Limbaugh’s success was being able to articulate what a vast swathe of the nation felt—a well-founded angst about the direction of the country especially since the beginning of the Clinton years and for sure with everything in the wake of the 9/11/01 attacks.

He, more than any other political and cultural leader, held both a moral high ground and most crucially a bully pulpit that gave voice to a true silent majority. In examining the life and times of Limbaugh, as well as the gigantic sword of Damocles above Donald Trump’s head, and collectively whatever is left of the United States as we knew or imagined it, a bit of reflection on how we got here, or to coin a phrase, how we—or at least I—got “woke” to the world as it is, is in order.

Although he passed just as the three years-plus FauxVid dumpster fire was really starting to blaze, Limbaugh was astute enough to see what was coming well beforehand.

I’m watching this coronavirus thing, and even the media that you would think would be on whatever we would call “our side,” they’ve lost it too. To them, this is nothing more than a story, and they can’t wait. I mean, everybody is waiting for the next worst headline, the next worst scenario, the next worst possibility. They can’t wait for it and they can’t wait to report it, and they can’t wait to talk about it. And that’s not me.

I resent this. I could never be a journalist. And these people, they’re a pack now. And I don’t care what network you’re talking about or website—there might be some exceptions to websites. Can’t read ’em all, don’t know. But you can’t turn on TV without seeing the same thing on any network. It doesn’t matter what network it is during the news coverage portion. Not so much the opinion programs and prime time. But the news coverage portion.

I mean, it’s now conventional wisdom that the country’s gonna shut down. It’s conventional wisdom that 150 million people are gonna get infected. It’s conventional wisdom that this is deadly, it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened, oh my God. It’s horrible. It’s worse. And nobody’s ever had it as bad or worse. And everybody gets caught up in it. As I watch the media, I don’t see one doubting Thomas. I don’t know how you do that.

JJ notes well the date of this tragically prescient analysis.

That was on March 13, 2020, literally just as the ChiCom/Anthony Fauci-created COVID-19 was just starting to swamp us. Or as Limbaugh seems to have clearly understood, the artificially generated fear of it. We now know, or at least we should know, that it was all one massive lie; from its origins, to its lethality, to the at-best uselessness to at-worst lethality of the vaccines. Yet anyone who back then stepped up and claimed the mantle of a “doubting Thomas” faced destruction.

America, the land of the First Amendment, has now openly toyed with the notion of “Disinformation Governance Boards,” a fancy name for what is essentially a Ministry of Truth. Universities that were supposed to be bastions of the free exchange of diverse viewpoints now silence anyone and anything even a micrometer to the right of Leon Trotsky. Our government is working hand in hand with Big Tech to have them act as censors for ideas, opinions, and facts that run contra to the narrative that they are putting out as truth, to be accepted blindly and unquestioningly without examination or critical review.

The only reason this is happening is because they no longer have a monopoly on the dissemination of information. Lacking that, as everything they have done to this country that has utterly collapsed our economy, erased our border, endangered our citizens at home, and threatened our national security abroad nearly to the point of a global conflict, the junta has no compunction about completely ignoring even the most basic red lines of ethics, morality, and the rule of law to silence all critique and squash all political opposition.

It’s academic as to whether or not we would have come to this point without the coming of alternative media to question the narrative, or what Limbaugh described as “the daily soap opera.” If nothing else, the mere presence of Rush Limbaugh and then Donald Trump has forced the junta to reveal itself for what it is, not for what their erstwhile media gatekeepers used to be able to bamboozle the public with ease. Trump’s greatest achievement as president isn’t actually what he achieved policy-wise (and they were some of the most incredible achievements ever); it was his mere presence as an oppositional force to the hypocrisy and corruption of the past eighty years that caused the masks and illusions of an America that no longer exists to drop. And there couldn’t have been a Donald Trump without a Rush Limbaugh to pave the way.

Mega dittos owed and mega dittos given.

Indeed so, with whipped cream and a cherry on top. May Rush Limbaugh forever rest in peace, much though it must pain him to look down from Heaven upon all that’s transpired since he departed this Earthly plane. Although I admittedly had problems with him over the years—enough so that by the time he died I’d long since stopped listening to him altogether, out of sheer frustration—it’s to our incalculable detriment that we shan’t ever see his like again.

Update! The Panic, and the damage done.

Four years ago, Las Vegas’ casinos shut down for 78 days. The fallout was brutal
About a month after casinos in Macao were closed for 15 days to slow COVID’s spread, then-Gov. Steve Sisolak on March 17, 2020 ordered all casinos as well as restaurants, bars and other nonessential businesses in the state to close for 30 days.

Brendan Bussmann, a gaming industry analyst with Las Vegas-based B Global, recalled the dark start of the shutdown.

“I still remember driving the Strip the next morning and there was nobody there and it either looked like we were occupied or that a bomb had gone off,” he said.

As a result of the 78-day closure, the Nevada Gaming Control Board estimated Nevada’s 219 major casinos lost $6.2 billion, a 25.2 percent decline from revenue generated a year earlier.

An estimated 26,140 people from a workforce of 162,066 lost their jobs and the unemployment rate soared to 33.4 percent. With demand for travel to Las Vegas lost, airlines canceled hundreds of flights.

As Ed quips, the operative words here might be—should be, in fact MUST be—THEN-Governor. Or, as a Fremen oath from Frank Herbert’s sprawling sci-fi epic Dune has it: Never to forgive. Never to forget. Damned skippy.

The three L’s: liberty, law, and ‘lections

Posted on March 14, 2024March 14, 2024 by Mike

Francis has an excerpt from Clarence Carson’s seminal 1970 book on the subject.

[W]e are told that there is no need to fear the concentration of power in government so long as that power is checked by the electoral process. We are urged to believe that so long as we can express our disagreement in words, we have our full rights to disagree. Now both freedom of speech and the electoral process are important to liberty, but alone they are only the desiccated remains of liberty. However vigorously we may argue against foreign aid, our substance is still drained away in never-to-be-repaid loans. Quite often, there is not even a candidate to vote for who holds views remotely like my own. To vent one’s spleen against the graduated income tax may be healthy for the psyche, but one must still yield up his freedom of choice as to how his money will be spent when he pays it to the government. The voice of electors in government is not even proportioned to the tax contribution of individuals; thus, those who contribute more lose rather than gain by the “democratic process.” A majority of voters may decide that property cannot be used in such and such ways, but the liberty of the individual is diminished just as much as in that regard as if a dictator had decreed it. Those who believe in the redistribution of wealth should be free to redistribute their own, but they are undoubtedly limiting the freedom of others when they vote to redistribute theirs.

Effective disagreement means not doing what one does not want to do as well as saying what he wants to say. What is from one angle the welfare state is from another the compulsory state. Let me submit a bill of particulars. Children are forced to go to school. Americans are forced to pay taxes to support foreign aid, forced to support the Peace Corps, forced to make loans to the United Nations, forced to contribute to the building of hospitals, forced to serve in the armed forces. Employers are forced to submit to arbitration with labor leaders. Laborers are forced to accept the majority decision. Employers are forced to pay minimum wages, or go out of business. But it is not even certain that they will be permitted by the courts to go out of business. Railroads are forced to charge established rates and to continue services which may have become uneconomical. Many Americans are forced to pay Social Security. Farmers are forced to operate according to the restrictions voted by a majority of those involved. The list could be extended, but surely the point has been made.

Porretto’s conclusion mirrors my own oft-stated one:

I could start to rant about the Deep State, whose insulation from electoral processes is a great part of the reason for the diminution of our freedom, but I’ve done it before, and I dislike to repeat myself. My actual purpose here is to remind my Gentle Readers of the essential truth about freedom:

Freedom is not granted.

It is taken:

Whether by you, or from you.

Freedom’s price is always paid in advance. It’s usually denominated in blood. How, then, should we who have paid nothing expect to retain it?

As recent FUSA history has shown, we cannot expect to—because, assuredly, we WILL not retain it. “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Well, we couldn’t, evidently. The one and only thing our tainted “elections,” at least at the national level, guarantee us is more of the same old shite.

One step closer to Escape From New York

Posted on March 6, 2024March 6, 2024 by Mike

Somewhere, Snake Plissken is laughing his ass off.

New York Gov Hochul calls in National Guard, state police to help curb crime in NYC subways
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending in the state National Guard to New York City to help police curb a surge in crime in the city’s subways.

Announcing a five-point plan on Wednesday, the Democratic governor said she was deploying 750 members of the National Guard to the subways to assist the New York Police Department with bag searches at entrances to busy train stations.

“For people who are thinking about bringing a gun or knife on the subway, at least this creates a deterrent effect. They might be thinking, ‘You know what, it just may just not be worth it because I listened to the mayor and I listened to the governor and they have a lot more people who are going to be checking my bags,'” Hochul said at a news conference in New York City.

The move came as part of a larger effort by the governor’s office to address crime in the subway, which included a legislative proposal to ban people from trains for three years if they are convicted of assaulting a subway passenger and the installation of cameras in conductor cabins to protect transit workers.

OOOOOOH, a three year ban? Yeah, I’m SURE that’ll do it. Those scofflaws and thugs are bound to respect that law, after having disdained so many other ones threatening much more serious consequences. It’s the same magical-thinking mindset that drives the “gun control” fantasy; shitlibs fervently insist just one more piece of legislation will end gun crime…after well over 20,000 others failed to turn the trick.

9-zip. When you Lose the Kooky Marxist Judges

Posted on March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 by Barry

It means you are so full of merde that even your mother thinks you’re crazier than anyone currently held in the asylum.

The meltdown is predictable and ongoing. When a judge that cannot determine the gender of a person votes against you, you were solidly slapped upside the head with a clue stick.

Next.

Not the Bee, 9-0

we need a picture to go with this:

Picture from Sundance

Congresswoman Ilhan “Omar,” D-Mogadishu

Posted on January 30, 2024January 30, 2024 by Mike

Oh, fret not, she’s representing her constituents and her country all right. It’s just that her constituents aren’t Americans from her Congressional district in the state formerly known as Minnesota, and her country isn’t what we sometimes mistakenly refer to as the United States of America.

I’ve Been Identifying Ilhan Omar as ‘D-Mogadishu’ for Years. It Turns Out I Was Right.
Ilhan Omar rocketed to notoriety a few years back by warning that some American officials have dual loyalties. As it turns out, she was one of them.

Back in 2019, the winsome and patriotic congresswoman had the courage to declare, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says that it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” She was talking about American officials who supposedly had loyalty to both the U.S. and Israel, but on Sunday, a video appeared on X showing Omar telling a Somali crowd that they all were “Somalis first, Muslims second.” Nothing about being Americans. And that was the least jarring and offensive part of the speech.

Omar was speaking in Somali, and the translation was made by someone who clearly opposes her; however, in response to the controversy that her statements sparked, she didn’t take issue with the accuracy of the translation, but only with its interpretation. To a certain extent, Omar is right about this. She is being criticized for saying, “We Somalis must have the confidence in ourselves that we call the shots in the U.S. The U.S. government will only do what Somalians in the U.S. tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else.”

That sounds terrible, but an Omar defender on X contended that it was innocuous: “Omar says she is representing the interests of Somalis in the United States, which is a legitimate task, as a Congresswoman in any democratic system.” Commenting approvingly on that post, Omar herself added: “It’s not only slanted but completely off, but I wouldn’t expect more from these propagandists.”

All right. Certainly, a representative should stand for the interests of his or her constituents. Everyone acknowledges that. But Omar was speaking in Minneapolis and yet says nothing, at least in the available video, about fighting for her constituents’ interests in the United States. Likewise, she says nothing, as you’d expect, about fighting for the interests of the U.S. itself. Instead, she says that the U.S. government “must follow our orders and that is how we will safeguard the interest of Somalia…Sleep in comfort, knowing I am here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside the U.S. system.”

In the speech, Omar said of herself: “The woman you sent to Congress is working day and night to protect your interest. She knows your plight and that of Somalia. I am as concerned about Somalia as you guys are. Together we will protect the interests of Somalia.”

That’s swell, but members of the U.S. House of Representatives take this oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Do you see anything in there about protecting the interests of a foreign country? Neither do I. Ilhan Omar has the dual loyalties that she has claimed supporters of Israel have. In the wake of the release of this speech, many are calling for her to be expelled from the House à la George Santos, and she should be. But given the left’s tendency to circle the wagons and defend its own no matter what, that is about as likely as Old Joe Biden uttering a coherent sentence.

Expelled from the House? She ought to be expelled from the goddamned country and sent straight back to the shithole whence she slithered and slimed her way to our shores, with a quickness. But none of us should be holding our breaths waiting for it. Lest we forget:

The repellent Ilhan Omar—a traitor to this nation condemned by both her words and her deeds, and who is in this country illegally—will not be censured, expelled, impeached, or deported. There’s a reason for that, a most shameful one: it’s because WE are the ones who failed to learn the lessons of the Black Hawk Down incident, not her. Clearly, she learned and understood them completely.

A little good news

Posted on November 13, 2023November 13, 2023 by Mike

Contra the self-obsessed blubbing of shitlib idiot and sportsball also-ran Megan Rapinoe, God is real, and He’s laughing His almighty ass off.

Guest Column: God Here. Megan Rapinoe’s Career-Ending Injury Is Proof That I’m Real.
I thought it would be hilarious, and it was.

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN—Hey, folks. God here. I’m writing in response to recent comments from Megan Rapinoe, a human female best known for playing the so-called sport of soccer, or “Satan’s Folly” as we call it up here.

Rapinoe invoked my name on Saturday after injuring her Achilles tendon in the opening minutes of the National Women’s Soccer League Championship. It was the final game of her professional career.

“I’m not a religious person or anything and if there was a God, like, this is proof that there isn’t,” Rapinoe told the demonic cretins you call journalists during the post-game press conference. “This is f—ed up. It’s just f—ed up. Six minutes in and I eat my Achilles.”

LOL!

I knew this would happen, obviously, but that doesn’t make it any less hilarious. The last game of Rapinoe’s career—the league championship, no less—and she injures herself immediately then has to watch her team lose from the sidelines. I’m still laughing about it.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I technically “created” Rapinoe and “love” her the same as all my “children,” even the ones who deny my existence. Even the ones who worship Satan and play soccer, to the extent there is a difference.

Nevertheless, I think we can all agree Megan Rapinoe is an obnoxious shrew who had it coming. Right? I’m willing to forgive almost anything, but one thing I simply can’t abide is disrespect for my country, the United States of America. Just ask Gabe Kapler or Colin Kaepernick.

Did I take it too far? Maybe. When the U.S. women’s soccer team protested the National Anthem during the World Cup earlier this year, I made sure they were humiliated by Sweden, an inferior country. I engineered it so Rapinoe, playing in her final World Cup, would contribute to the loss by whiffing a penalty kick, one of the easiest shots ever invented in the history of sports.

“That’s like a sick joke,” Rapinoe said after the crushing defeat. It sure was. “Sick” as in awesome.

Heh. Seconded from here below, dearest Lord. Many humble thanks for checking in and keeping Your obedient, devoted children hip to the Heavenly haps like this.

A preponderance of evidence

Posted on November 9, 2023November 9, 2023 by Mike

Just remember, all accusations of voting fraud are “baseless.” GOTTA be, right? I mean, c’mon now, this is AMERICA, right?

RIGHT?

Election Fraud Is Real and Needs to Be Fixed Before 2024
Democrats claim election fraud is a myth. But videos don’t lie.

Roll the tapes:

On Nov. 1, Connecticut Judge William Clark overturned the results of the Bridgeport mayoral primary, calling video evidence of potential fraud “shocking.” Wanda Geter-Pataky, the vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee, appears to have been caught on video stuffing handfuls of ballots into a drop box outside City Hall.

On Oct. 25, in Paterson, New Jersey, the sitting president of the City Council, Alex Mendez, was charged with personally collecting large numbers of mail-in ballots in his district, destroying ballots that did not favor him and replacing them with ballots that falsely chose him. New Jersey’s Attorney General Matthew Platkin states that Mendez “personally observed from his wife’s vehicle as a large, heavy bag, completely filled with ballots, was emptied into the Haledon postal box prior to the election.”

On Nov. 2, in Springfield, Massachusetts, mayoral candidate Justin Hurst was nailed by city election officials for allegedly buying votes during early voting. Videotape shows individuals being dropped off in black Suburbans and Expeditions, and entering City Hall to vote. When they exited, a man “takes out what appears to be a large bundle of cash” and peels off a bill for each individual, according to an affidavit by election commissioner Gladys Oyola-Lopez.

In one week, election fraudsters were busted in three major Northeastern cities.

And that ain’t even the half of it, folks, nor is this sort of thing limited to the Northeastern-city crapholes, either. Funny, innit, how these “errors” and “glitches” and “failures” and “breakdowns” always, always, ALWAYS seem to favor the D卐M☭CRATs, the few that aren’t just outright, openly committed by D卐M☭CRATs. I’m sure that’s just a coinkydink, though. Sarah Hoyt says it so I don’t have to risk sounding like a broken record yet again: “ONE DAY. IN PERSON. ID. PURPLE FINGERS. UNTIL THEN IT’S ALL MAKE BELIEVE.” True, dat.

Do not go gently

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Mike

Into that no-good prison.

President Donald Trump has declared that he’s “willing to go jail” as he vowed to break a federal judge’s gag order against him.

During a rally in Iowa, Trump told hundreds of supporters in suburban Des Moines that he will never be silenced.

Trump held the rally just 91 days before Iowa Republicans are due to hold the first-in-the-nation 2024 presidential caucuses.

Earlier on Monday, Obama-appointed federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan slapped a gag order on Trump.

The order bars the 45th president from attacking or criticizing witnesses, prosecutors, and court staff involved in his Washington, D.C. criminal case.

Wrong answer, Mr President, sir.

I mean, on the one hand it’s a good thing he’s “willing to go to jail,” I suppose, since that’s exactly where he’s headed in any event. But speaking strictly for myself and no one else, I’d like to see a bit more of the “hell no, I won’t go” spirit of outraged defiance from him, a little more “come and get me if you think you can, motherfuckers.” Submissive resignation—a shrug of the shoulders and a “well, whatchagonnado” as if equality under the law still meant a goddamned thing in Amerika v2.0—just ain’t gonna cut the mustard anymore.

MACV-SOG is BACK, baybee!

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Mike

Shades of another foredoomed cause from long ago.

U.S. Army Hospital in Germany Is Treating Americans Hurt Fighting in Ukraine
The Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center has quietly started admitting Ukrainian Army soldiers who were wounded in combat, most of them American volunteers.

“Volunteers.” Oh, I like that. “Quietly,” too. Not that either sounds at all familiar to someone of my advanced age, of course. NOT. AT. ALL.

A group of Ukrainian Army soldiers pierced by Russian grenades and mortar shells arrived at a hospital recently in need of surgery. It would have been a familiar scene from the bloody war grinding on in Ukraine, except for two crucial differences: Most of the wounded soldiers were American, and so was the hospital — the U.S. Army’s flagship medical center in Germany.

The Army has quietly started to treat wounded Americans and other fighters evacuated from Ukraine at its Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Though the number so far is small — currently 14 — it marks a notable new step in the United States’ deepening involvement in the conflict.

When the war erupted in 2022, hundreds of Americans — many of them military veterans — rushed to help defend Ukraine. Nineteen months later, perhaps a few hundred are still there, volunteering for local militias or serving under contract with the Ukrainian national army.

An unknown number of them have been shot, hit by artillery, blown up by mines or otherwise injured in combat. About 20 have been killed. Most of the wounded have had to rely on a patchwork of Ukrainian hospitals and Western charities for help. Now, though, the Pentagon has stepped in to offer some of them the same care it gives to American active-duty troops.

The hospital at Landstuhl is authorized to do so under a Defense Department policy, which began last summer, that allows the hospital to treat up to 18 wounded members of the Ukrainian forces at a time, the Pentagon confirmed in a statement. The fact that most of the Ukrainian troops at Landstuhl are Americans illustrates how the war has progressed in unexpected ways.

The Biden administration vowed at the start of the war that it would not put American troops on the ground in Ukraine, and it warned Americans not to get involved. Now it finds itself treating those it told to stay away.

Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, knowhatImeanrightright?

Asked about the development by The New York Times, a Defense Department official who is regularly briefed on Ukraine-Russia matters expressed surprise, and said that leaders at the Pentagon were unaware that Landstuhl was regularly treating wounded American volunteers, but added that the leaders were not concerned about it.

I’m sure they aren’t. Because you know damned well they DID know about it. Because they’re, y’know, running it.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, noted that while the administration strongly discourages American citizens from going to Ukraine to fight, it is obvious that some go anyway, and if they become wounded and end up at Landstuhl, the military is not going to turn them away.

One would certainly hope not. Then again, seeing as how this country’s “leadership” is pure, unadulterated Evil Incarnate, one wouldn’t be much surprised to learn that they were.

Incroyable, innit, how everything old is new again.

(Via WRSA)

A Republic? You can’t keep it

Posted on August 26, 2023August 26, 2023 by Mike

So much utter, utter brilliance crammed into this one it’s tough to know where to even begin excerpting it.

note that, like covid, this was not a thing that team donkey or team elephant did to us. this sort of truly epic damage is reserved for the times when the two parties agree. that’s when they are at their most dangerous. and this is what makes the illusion that you need to vote for one party to save you from the other so precarious. because when the chips are really down, they don’t. and they won’t.

you’re just waiting until the next political syzygy when the bodies all align and the pull grows too forceful for any liberty not firmly in your grasp not to be torn away.

and then you lose.

because they are not coming to save you. they are coming to rob you.

they will rob you of your property, your rights, your liberty, your privacy, your agency, and even your dignity. it’s a ruthless one way ratchet to serfdom.

and these are not “rogue comets” tearing away your atmosphere. they are smash and grabs orchestrated by feeding “leaders” a bunch of bunk to get them to commit absurdities and atrocities.

the parties are not the prime movers here. they are the patsies, the puppet-show. they are the magician’s assistant in her spangles to draw the eye away from where the trick is being done, from the place where the permanent state resides, the place where real power lies.

it comes together in terrible confluences of intelligence, regulatory, law enforcement, and bureaucratic state that command vast budgets and have near zero supervision. they have become thieves’ forests of grifters and power grabbers that stretch from EPA to FBI, DOJ to NIH, and CDC to CIA. they swirl around this idea of “homeland security uber alles” and the new fashions in fear to drive greater surrenders of agency in the fruitless societal fracture of desperately trying to trade a little liberty for a little safety.

and they penetrate everything. they determine what leaders “see” and what they “know.” they use this to set deep agendas and manipulate the course of events. when did covid get out of control in the US? right when the national security advisor sent in debbie birx to run the show. and how did she run roughshod over so many purportedly powerful people? because she had the real power behind her, the deep influence of the “deep state.”

“deep state.” it’s fun the way that term has been gaslit into some sort of “Q anon triple-tinfoil raving nutter conspiracy,” but ask yourself: who might have benefitted from such a perception? who might have put such a gambit into play? surely not the disinformation specialists who suppressed the lab leak hypothesis that they knew full well to be the odds on explanation. no, surely not…

anyone else starting to maybe see a pattern here?

like maybe this all keeps starting in the same place and going the same way?

this system is not fixable because this system is not broken.

it’s functioning as it is intended.

See what I mean? Dude just summed up my last ten years of blogging in one fell swoop of a post. Yes, you want to read all of it; trust me, it’s good enough to even make the ee cummings no-caps affectation bearable.

(Via WRSA)

Fucked around, found the fuck OUT

Posted on August 24, 2023August 24, 2023 by Mike

The probable origin story of the well-known phrase.

What would happen if a local small time criminal, drug addict or gang member robbed a business owned by the Mafia or protected by them and even shot and killed or injured people bringing police and mob attention to themselves in the process?
These situations usually fall into one of two categories. The perpetrator doesn’t know the place they are robbing is mobbed up, or they do know and are just exceptionally dumb. Either way, the outcome likely won’t be good.

The various crews in the New York Mafia usually operated out of “social clubs.” The two best-known are the Ravenite and the Bergen Hunt and Fish Club. They were the HQ of Gambino capo and later boss John Gotti.

In 1992, Thomas and Rosemarie Uva were broke.

Thomas was an ex-convict, having done time for armed robbery. He and his wife worked for a collection agency but were not making ends meet. They decided a good way to remedy that situation would be to rob mafia social clubs.

Thomas had been a Mafia enthusiast growing up and knew that the people in the social clubs were usually unarmed, often carried large amounts of cash, and were unlikely to call the police. With this knowledge, Thomas devised a simple plan. Rosemarie would wait in the car while Thomas stormed into the club and robbed everybody at gunpoint. He then ran out, jumped into the car, and the couple drove off into the sunset.

The couple was confirmed to have robbed four social clubs, possibly as many as 10, targeting mainly those owned by Gambino and Bonnano crews. In one, Thomas forced the patrons to strip to their underwear when he robbed them.

That was likely the last straw. Both the Bonnano and Gambino families put out an open contract on the Uvas. They were to be killed on sight.

On Christmas Eve, 1992, Thomas and Rosemarie decided to get in some late Christmas shopping. At the intersection of 103rd Avenue and 93rd Street in Ozone Park, two men opened fire on their car. Rosemarie and Thomas were struck by three bullets each and died instantly.

In 2014, their adventures were made into a movie called Rob the Mob starring Michael Pitt, Andy Garcia, Nina Arianda, and Ray Romano.

Morons. That’s the kind of posthumous celebrity we could all do without.

STILL playing their game

Posted on August 24, 2023August 24, 2023 by Mike

Giuliani says things that might have been so twenty years ago or more, but aren’t now.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had a dire warning for supporters and detractors alike on his way to be arrested in Georgia should “the political winds shift, as they always do…”

Faced with the same number of charges as former President Donald Trump, with a number overlapping the president’s as well as the other 17 co-defendants indicted by the state, Giuliani was stopped by the press on his way to the airport to offer some words.

After recounting his record as mayor and as a state’s attorney who “took down the mafia and made New York City the safest city in America,” he expressed, “I’m fighting for justice. I have been from the first moment I represented Donald Trump, and as a man who has now been proven innocent several times — I don’t know how many times he has to be proven innocent and they have to be proven to be liars, actually, enemies of our republic who are destroying rights, sacred rights.”

“They’re destroying my right to counsel — my right to be a lawyer. They’re destroying [Trump’s] right to counsel. It’s not accidental that they’ve indicted all his lawyers. I’ve never heard of that before in America — all the lawyers indicted,” the mayor continued before voicing concern to the public.

“Now, whether you dislike or like Donald Trump, let me give you a warning, ” said Giuliani. “They’re gonna come for you. When the political winds shift, as they always do, let us pray that Republicans are more honest, more trustworthy, and more American than these people in charge of this government. Because if our government is conducted this way and the system of justice is politicized and criminalized for politics, your rights are in jeopardy and your children’s.”

“Donald Trump told you this,” he reminded. “They weren’t just coming for him or me.”

Pathetic, there simply is no other word for it. “IF,”? Rudy? You’d’ve been a helluva lot more accurate to have ommitted that word entirely from your statement. Yes, it’s true that you ARE fighting for justice—or you were. Sorry to have to tell ya, but you lost, and so did justice…and so did we all.

It’s simply beyond belief to me, how so very many of us still carry on like this isn’t really happening or something—even Trump, Giuliani, and the rest of these poor schlubs, all denying the evidence of their own lyin’ eyes even as the handcuffs are snapped on and the mugshots are being taken. Soon enough, they can join in with the J6 Gulagees for a rousing nightly sing-along of the Star Spangled Banner from the comfort and security of their own cells, I guess.

This is now business as usual in Amerika v2.0, and it’s not going to stop until (and unless) it IS stopped—firmly, almost certainly by force of arms. Lincoln Brown grimly reminds us that America That Was is well and truly dead, dead, DEAD.

If you have read much of my stuff before, you may know that years ago, my wife and I were part of a human trafficking awareness mission to Cambodia. We traveled around the country and visited some historical sites. We saw the infamous prison Tuol Sleng, where people were routinely tortured, often to the point of death.

We saw the killing fields with stacks of skulls and bones of victims and their pictures in which they gazed ahead with anger or resignation during their final moments. We saw a tree on a place called “Women’s Island.” Khmer Rouge soldiers would take babies by the feet and slam them against the tree until the infants were beaten to death in front of their grieving mothers. Across the country, we saw the legacy of Pol Pot’s rule.

People may be tempted to think that Pol Pot’s forces only targeted known political enemies. As illustrated above, that was not the case. I met some of the people who came through that horrific time. One man told me that as a young person, he was forced to take the buckets from the latrines, and with no shoes or gloves, hand-fertilize the rice fields. Rice was a year-round crop. People were arrested for having too much fabric in their possession. They were arrested for owning radios. They became suspects for wearing glasses since glasses were seen as a sign of education, and an educated person was a potential threat.

Under the Khmer Rouge, anyone could be arrested for anything, even those who thought they were loyal and obedient party members. Many soldiers who had enjoyed herding people into crowded cells and then hauling them away for torture began to find themselves under arrest and sitting in the very cells that they used to guard. Because that is what happens when a government is run by amoral, power-hungry people.

The people who hate Trump will find a way to get to you. Even if you are a solid Trump-hater yourself, they will get to you for something. They may freeze your social media or your money. They may refuse to let you fly. They may shut down your business or establish laws that might get you fired. They may even knock down your door in the early hours of the morning and take you to jail because of your views on abortion. This current episode in American history is nothing more than an appetizer. These people are just getting stretched out and warmed up.

They most certainly are. You don’t have to like it, but you DO have to admit it, unpleasant though it is.

Update! In an irony so scorching it could raise blisters on unprotected flesh, in the course of doing my usual post-posting proofread, I noticed a most curious juxtaposition:

EndCommies

Learn it, know it, live it indeed.

Ready for Round Two?

Posted on August 20, 2023 by Mike

Hate to say I told ya so, but…I told ya so.

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Preparing to Bring Back FULL Covid Restrictions, Rollout to Begin Mid-September
Whistleblowers from the TSA and Border Patrol have raised the alarm to Infowars that the Biden administration is setting the stage for full Covid lockdowns that will begin with incremental restrictions like masking TSA employees in mid-September.

The first source, a high-level TSA official confirmed and known to Infowars, reached out to Infowars and cited a Tuesday meeting in which TSA managers were told new memorandums & policies were being completed that would reimplement masking, starting with TSA & airport employees as early as mid-September.

The TSA official also said next week they will receive new guidelines on how the policy will escalate: by mid-October, mask-wearing will be required by pilots, flight staff, passengers, and airport patrons.

After hearing from the TSA manager, Infowars reached out to our trusted Border Patrol source who is also a manager. This source confirmed the same directives were being given to Border Patrol.

Infowars’ analysis is clear: this new rollout’s timing is perfect for the embattled Biden administration to put the country back in a state of civil emergency and even martial law to further divide and confuse the public and move forward with the greatest election meddling in history.

After the dismal success of Test Run For Tyranny v1.0™ in 2020-2022, an encore was never a matter of if but of when. So will “Americans” lay docilely down en masse again and take their buggering like good little sheep as they so disgracefully did last time around? Or can we expect more resistance of these blatantly contra-Constitutional edicts than we too-recently witnessed?

Compliance, or defiance? That, folks, is the crucial question. Our liberty, our fortunes, our sacred honor, our very future (if any) all hang in the balance, awaiting our answer. Our posterity likewise hangs by the same slender, frayed thread…waiting.

Fingers crossed and all that, but honestly, I can’t say I’m expecting very much. We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan’s prophetic words of warning from his 1967 Inaugural Address ring out more clearly and somberly than they ever have before.

Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to properly be appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.

In 2023, after everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve endured, can any sane, sensible person seriously contend that Reagan was mistaken? About so much as a single syllable of it?

Analysis interruptus

Posted on August 20, 2023 by Mike

Proposition: America is no longer what it once was because Americans are no longer what they once were. Discuss.

The left isn’t wrong when they paint conservatives as natural enemies of “our democracy.” There is nothing conservative about the radically egalitarian system that governs the country, which turns politics into a race to the bottom, a game at which the left naturally excels. The left, in all times and places, has thrived on destruction and decay. The muddled, obese, foreign mass that is today called “the American people” has only a faint connection to the sturdy, adventurous Anglo-Saxons who founded the nation. Their values – freedom of speech, property rights, religious toleration, free enterprise – it is not surprising to find, are being trampled by the government we now have, which imposes tyranny from above with the support and legitimacy of “we the people,” or what has become of the people, below.

As the country degenerates, the left grows more and more extreme without ever paying a price at the polls. On the other hand, the right is under constant pressure to moderate an already liberal agenda in a futile effort to delay extinction. What passes for conservatism has retreated to the slippery redoubts of “parental rights,” platitudes about women’s sports and “nation of immigrants” pablum.

The ugly beast of socialism, led by the stalking horse of “democracy,” is killing America from the inside. Politics and culture revolve around the grievances of the weak and the envious. To speak of great projects, or even the low bar of sobriety in government, is an absurdity amidst the deafening cry for revenge against white men and the civilization they built. Our courts have been taken hostage by lynch mobs. Decadent judges showboat for approval from the crowd. Power is wielded with a heavy hand against the enemies of the revolution, while violent criminals roam free. No one in authority accepts accountability. The soul of “democracy” is captured well by the obscene spectacle of Donald Trump’s show trial, led by patently unqualified, racially aggrieved prosecutors.

Those who find the present state of things tolerable, or even good, will never be shaken out of their delusions. One cannot feel too sorry for them when they come face to face with the creatures vomited out of the belly of their beloved “democracy.” If there is any hope of leaving this cesspool of mediocrity and disorder, it lies not with soft and flabby conservatism, which has utterly failed to yoke its vision to an unwilling, degenerate nation, but a politics that is willing to raise the bar.

And there it is yet again: The only hope, the last hope, is “a politics that is willing to raise the bar.” Sweet Christ on a crutch, what does that word-salad even mean? In such an emergency as Real Americans now confront, can it be said to mean anything at all, in practical terms?

There’s some merit to be found here and there in what the author is saying, admittedly. Moreover, it’s too true that with the bloated central government we now groan under, a cautious circumspection about what one says publicly is certainly a good and neccessary thing, if only as a matter of simple self-preservation. In times so parlous, you can’t fairly fault a guy too much for stepping a bit lightly.

That said, I’m beginning to feel more and more as if I want to just go through my browser bookmarks with a weed-whacker, trimming away all the mealy-mouthed tapdancing around what we all know the central issues and options to be, so as to allay all the steadily-mounting angst, frustration, and heartburn this kind of thing causes me. I swear, if I never have to read another article wherein the author rocks it hard right up til the last paragraph or two, spraying the landscape with full-auto blasts of high-caliber Truth only to pull out and wave that flaccid “political solutions” pud around as if it was an insight to take pride in, I’ll be a much happier man for it.

If you’ve noticed of late that I’m wandering further and further afield from national politics and current affairs—for most of its existence the primary focus of this hogwallow—instead writing more and more on subjects like music, cars and/or motorcycles, military aircraft I dig, and such-like fripperies…well, now you know why.

No fate

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Mike

But what we make. So far, we seem to be making a piss-poor job of it.

Recently, I was asked to make the “pessimistic case for the future.” I present instead more of a “pessimistic take on the present.” The future, while imminent, is obscure. The present, by contrast, is knowable. This is also not so much a “case” replete with exhaustive evidence—there isn’t space for that, nor is there a need—as a quick tour through our present hell. No one who thinks “everything is fine” will be persuaded otherwise. Those who see the seriousness of our problems hardly need proof. Nor have I made any attempt to be evenhanded, much less philosophically detached. My account is perforce one-sided. I hope it is wrong.

Alas, all evidence to date indicates that it isn’t. In fact, seeing as how this is Michael Anton we’re talking about here, one might reasonably assume that it’s all dead accurate; with him, that’s practically always the case. In this essay, Anton breaks his arguments down into sub-categories, which for purposes of this excerpt I’ll present as is, formatting intact (ie, italics). No better place to begin than the beginning, right?

The Constitution Is All but Dead

We Americans are supposed to govern ourselves via a constitution that rests on a specific understanding of natural right (right and wrong, good and evil, better and worse exist by nature) and natural rights (government’s job is to secure people’s God-given rights to life, liberty, property, etc.). The Constitution specifically declares and delimits the purposes of government and its powers, and it specifies how we the people choose the officers of the state, who are supposed to exercise those powers.

We still choose, sort of, but that hardly matters, because the people we nominally elect do not hold real power. And when they do, they often use it for unconstitutional ends. America’s real rulers are not the constitutional officers we nominally elect, and certainly not the American people, whom our understanding of political legitimacy asserts to be sovereign. They are, rather, a network of unelected bureaucrats, revolving-door Cabinet and subcabinet officials, corporate-tech-finance senior management, “experts” who set the boundaries of acceptable opinion, and media figures who police them.

Add to this the routine, repeated violations of our explicitly guaranteed rights—Big Tech censoring free speech, big cities denying the right of self-defense, the government itself violating the right to be secure in one’s person, home, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures—and it becomes more than a stretch to describe the United States as any longer a “constitutional republic.”

We Have Two-Track “Justice”

How the same offense is treated by our “justice” system depends on who’s committed it and, often, for what purpose. At the upper strata, compare the treatment of Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and Andrew McCabe with that of Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Carter Page, and Michael Flynn. Clinton illegally hid, and then deleted, her proprietary—and classified—communications from government records. Comey and McCabe orchestrated the Russia Hoax and lied about it. None of these three was even charged.

The latter five have all been hounded by the state—some convicted and imprisoned, all at least bankrupted and defamed. Their crimes, to the extent that any were even committed, were all much less serious than those of the regime darlings.

Compare the treatment of the Jan. 6 protesters with the total impunity granted to the summer 2020 rioters. One example: Two lawyers, literally caught throwing Molotov cocktails, were given slaps on the wrist. Meanwhile, Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with first-degree murder (one of six charges) for shooting two deranged thugs who were in the process of trying to kill him. All over the country, and especially in blue-ruled precincts, acts of self-defense will get you arrested, jailed, and possibly imprisoned. Meanwhile, in the Black Lives Matter era, so long as the perp is the correct race or acting in a sanctified cause, violence and arson are excused.

Skipping a couple categories down, we come to what I consider to be the most condemnatory, troubling, and just downright infuriating of the entire lot.

We’re So Blinkered by Ideology that We Can’t—or Won’t—Apply Obvious Solutions to Simple Problems

The same way we don’t lock up criminals because “racism,” there is almost no end to the sensible things we refuse to do, and the stupid things we eagerly do, because of ideology.

The United States is presently in the midst of our worst energy crunch since the 1970s. Instead of expanding supply, we are constricting it. Why? “Climate change.” But nuclear would generate energy without carbon emissions. The same people who say no drilling also say no nuclear. Why? Supposedly, because the plants themselves and the waste they generate are “unsafe,” though nuclear power has a near-perfect record in this and nearly all countries. (The real reason is to force everyone to don the hairshirt.)

Our drug problem is fueled by Mexican cartels that cross our border with impunity. But we don’t secure the border because “no human is illegal.” Monkeypox is transmitted at homosexual orgies. We won’t close bath houses because “love is love.” But we will close churches, gyms, and restaurants over Covid. That’s an emergency!

“WE’RE so blinkered”? As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, whatchoo mean WE, white man? The shitlibs own that one lock, stock, and barrel. Which of course Anton knows, as the above-cited examples demonstrate without explicitly spelling out.

By the end, each of Anton’s sub-cats tie in together to present a scarifying portrait of where we now are, with seriously ominous indications of where we might be heading. Essentially, he uses interlocking bricks to construct an unassailable wall of logic and observation as deftly as a Master Brickmason. For instance, the connection betwixt “We Prioritize “Diversity” Over Mission and Performance” and “Our Military Doesn’t Win” is readily apparent, with the first being a primary reason for the second. It’s a blunt-force yet subtle strategy of argumentation that even TeeWee lawyer Perry Mason could only shake his head in awe and admiration at, being fond of the same sort of thing himself.

Most condemnatory, depressing line of all has to be the one which caps off the mercifully-concise “Nothing Works Anymore” sub-cat: “The whole country is becoming the DMV.” To which the response can only be: ouch. Also: YIKES!

Much, much more yet to this typically top-notch article, of which you should definitely read the all. Adapted from Anton’s contribution to Encounter Books’s Up from Conservatism compilation, it’s as comprehensive, unflinching, and clear-eyed an examination of the roots of our woes as can be imagined. From the EB website’s book-blurb:

The Conservative Establishment’s consensus of the past two generations has almost totally broken down. Conservatism was unable to stop or even slow the Left’s rolling revolutions in nearly every sector of American society—from classrooms to boardrooms, from the military to the culture at large. The Left has successfully transformed the nation over the past few generations, racking up victory after victory, with no clear end in sight. This is not sustainable for the country or the constituency represented by the Republican Party. For the Right to have a serious future, it needs to rethink its positions and think more deeply about the essential policy questions which will define the future of the country: race, men and women, sexuality, religion, the economy, foreign policy, and other major issues. This collection of essays, written by some of the Right’s most interesting thinkers and practitioners, seeks to reframe the ideological and policy direction of the American Right.

Can’t find a whole lot to argue with there, other than to say I’m extremely doubtful that “think(ing) more deeply about…policy questions” will ever avail us much. When you get right down to the nut-cutting, it amounts to putting the policy cart before the ideological horse.

The conflict presently before us doesn’t primarily revolve around “policy,” but fundamental beliefs. Unfortunately, we find ourselves smack in the middle of a struggle involving ideologies which are entirely incompatible, one insistent on totalitarianism and absolute, unchallenged State power over the individual, the other on ordered liberty and the right to be left alone to live as one chooses, within certain constraints to which both parties are in agreement.

There can be no reconciliation of the two, no satisfactory compromise, no middle ground. As pretty much all of 20th-century history more than adequately demonstrates, whenever and wherever the Leftist glioblastoma is permitted to metastasize and flourish within a liberty-oriented body politic this conflict is made inevitable. One side must win, the other must lose. Once the victor has been determined, “policy” will necessarily flow from there.

Category: LOSING!

Days that will live in infamy

The three L’s: liberty, law, and ‘lections

One step closer to Escape From New York

9-zip. When you Lose the Kooky Marxist Judges

Congresswoman Ilhan “Omar,” D-Mogadishu

A little good news

A preponderance of evidence

Do not go gently

MACV-SOG is BACK, baybee!

A Republic? You can’t keep it

Fucked around, found the fuck OUT

STILL playing their game

Ready for Round Two?

Analysis interruptus

No fate

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