Meltdown? What Meltdown?

Silver lining found!

Posted on November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 by Mike

At least the Benedict Arnolds at Faux News are suffering for their treachery.

Internal Fox News Numbers Reveal Catastrophic Viewership Collapse

FOLLOWING FOX NEWS PREMATURELY CALLING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN FAVOR OF JOE BIDEN, THE NETWORK’S RATINGS HAVE PLUMMETED TO NEVER BEFORE SEEN LEVELS BELOW CNN AND MSNBC.

Too bad, so sad. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of assholes.

Last Friday’s ratings for the supposedly “conservative” outlet were less than both CNN and MSNBC for the first time in years, according to an internal Fox document containing viewership analytics.

The numbers show that on November 6th, Fox pulled 2,266,000 viewers while CNN saw nearly twice as many at 4,009,000 viewers. Similarly, MSNBC, per Fox’s internal numbers, counted 2,983,000 viewers, beating Fox by over 700,000 viewers.

This, mind, after having been the overwhelming ratings champ for years now. Savor the deliciousness in my boldface below:

The Fox News Channel crashed in ratings on Saturday, coming in a distant third place to leader CNN and second place MSNBC. In the week before Tuesday’s election Fox News averaged more than double the viewership of CNN and MSNBC.

Fox viewers have been in revolt since election night when the cable network called states early for Joe Biden while holding off calling states for President Trump.

Ace twists the knife.

The liberal Murdoch boys and their liberal socialite useless wives have decided to reposition Fox as a leftwing channel.

They think they can keep most of their unfashionable, racist current audience — we’re too stupid and sheeplike to object or change our habits! — while making more money, as they get more advertising revenue from left-leaning megacorporations, and Google starts allowing their articles to appear on the first page of search results.

The plan depends on “keeping most of their unfashionable, racist current audience,” plus picking up some liberals. Liberals who apparently want CNN-style liberalism but with Shrieking Eagle graphics and country music in the bumpers.

In other words: They want to keep the current audience by giving the current audience what it does not want, and attract a Phantom Audience of leftwingers who want their CNN-style leftwing bias with a Fox News branding, for some reason.

The plan depends on whether we’re stupid and sheeplike enough to continue watching them even while they stab us in the back.

Early indicators say: We’re not that stupid and sheeplike.

The self-immolation of Faux News may not feel like all that much of a victory after a long, dreary week of catastrophic defeats. But it IS a victory nonetheless, and I’ll take it.

Flight 93 augers in

Posted on November 7, 2020November 7, 2020 by Mike

Anton takes stock.

The 2020 election in particular, and our electoral process in general, have been badly compromised.

First there have been the successful efforts by Democrats to loosen electoral administration standards and practices by legalizing ballot harvesting (where partisan “volunteers” go out and collect ballots as well as “assist” voters in filling out their ballots), allowing same-day voter registration, mass mail-in voting, and the like. On the flipside we have Democrats tenaciously fighting any efforts to shore up the integrity of the system, such as requiring ID and proof of citizenship to vote.

Couple all of this with unprecedented last minute rule changes on the eve of what was sure to be the most contested election in generations, if not in American history: all changes designed to favor one side over the other.

Theoretically, none of these measures guaranteed a compromised vote. Theoretically, it’s possible that a system designed to be gamed and abused won’t be. But a party concerned about the integrity of the system wouldn’t expend so much effort making it easier to rig elections; it would do the opposite. The other party, the one trying to do exactly that (if all too often in a desultory, half-hearted way) nevertheless gets attacked as the enemy of “democracy.”

No matter what he does, President Trump will get no credit from his enemies, who are already demanding that he concede before the counting is even over—to say nothing of the lawsuits and potential recounts. If he does, a new standard will have been set, or an old one reaffirmed: in any close election, if the Democrat appears to be ahead, and irregularities appear to be present, they are to be dismissed as nonexistent and the Republican must go gently into that good night.

That may well work in securing the White House this time. But if they just ram this through without explaining what really happened, then the legitimacy not just of our electoral system but of our entire government will have suffered an extreme, and possibly fatal, blow.
No one will really know who won. Partisans on both sides will insist they do, but they won’t—not really. Unless all the anomalies are explained, every count and recount conducted in a fair and transparent manner, the occupant of the White House on January 20, 2021—whoever he is—will sit under a cloud. If he’s Joe Biden, that cloud will be entirely of his party’s own making.

But far more ominously, one half the country—or to be more precise, the class that rules in the interests of (at most) half the country—will surmise that it can rule by fiat. The other half will conclude that they are subjects.

Whether that conclusion resigns the latter to apathy or stirs them to rebellion is the question that will determine the course of our politics going forward.

Agreed, right down the line. The past week’s heinous events have revealed what kind of country America really is. From here on out, we will find out what kind people Americans really are—or if they can still rightly even call themselves Americans at all. I shudder to contemplate what the answer will be. The only thing we can all be certain of is that nothing will ever be the same again. No matter what, politics, elections, the people, their relations with each other, the country as a whole, EVERYTHING has changed—profoundly, irrevocably, and NOT for the better.

Update! Bill, too, is taking stock.

You know, the real problem here isn’t that we have embarrassed ourselves. It is that the Ruling Class and its Ruling Party – the American Oligarchy, in other words – has come out of the shadows in which it customarily operates and, on the third try, managed a naked, but successful coup against Donald Trump.

People thought this was a game. They thought there were rules. There weren’t. There was only win, or lose, and they intended to win.

As I predicted, the tech oligarchs shut down all effective opposition to the coup on their platforms, and put all their expertise to work guaranteeing the success of the coup. The Enemy Media (and that part of the media we thought was not the enemy, but it was too), went all in. The billionaires opened their wallets wide and poured a tsunami of money into the cause. And the politicians loosed Blackshirt storm troopers onto our locked down cities, while we cowered behind closed doors, afraid to breathe free air because of a plague that doesn’t actually exist.

Nor did the designers of the coup intend to settle for half measures. Apparently now control of the Senate is at risk as well. Bucket loads of late ballots manufactured from God knows where are flowing into states in the middle of the night, and suddenly a Senate majority that looked safe for the GOP is teetering on the brink. Make no mistake, if the Senate ends in a tie, Kamala Harris will be there to decide every tie vote to favor the Democrats.

We will end up with a Democrat sweep of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

And then they’ll do away with the filibuster in the Senate, pack the Supreme Court, and start to work on rendering the constitution itself an irrelevant document. The Second Amendment? Forget about it. And if you think the cops won’t enforce the gun confiscation orders from their bosses, well, you probably thought our elections were honest, too.

And we will take it. We will accept the new order. Why? Because we have become a weak and flaccid nation, addicted to the numb buzz of our social media habits, brainwashed by the tech lords and the media minions of the progressive juggernaut. Our Founders bet their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on America. We won’t risk the time it takes to get out of our chairs, away from the juice of FB and Twitter wired directly into our brains, or ten bucks out of our wallets to support candidates who support America. As for honor, that’s so old fashioned. We don’t do honor any longer. And our children have been “educated” to despise everything America once stood for.

We didn’t lose our nation this week. We lost it years ago. And the GOP helped.

Sad to say, I can’t argue with any of that either. As I said last night: although the long downhill slide began long before, we lost our country fully and for good back in the 60s when we complacently declined to kick Proggy Red’s scroungy ass to the curb, tacitly granting space for his diseased ideology to fester and metastasize. The Founders explictly laid out what would ensue should Americans ever relax their vigilance and become derelict in their duty to defend liberty, to “preserve its blessings for themselves and their posterity.” And now their warnings have been realized, their prescient genius confirmed for all time.

All that’s left now is to pay the tab for that gross laxity. It ain’t gonna be fun.

Red flags in your face

Posted on November 5, 2020November 5, 2020 by Mike

Correia compiles ’em, then analyzes the clear fraudulence that’s making ’em wave.

In a small populace, you can get 100% of the vote. However the larger the sample, the more likely there will be dissenting votes. Even in the bluest of blue areas or reddest of red areas, somebody is going to be a cranky dissident, or an old person is going to fill in the wrong circle. When you get into the hundreds or thousands yet maintain that kind of perfect ratio, basically impossible.

Plus we are supposed to believe that Joe Biden, the guy (who) barely campaigned, who got like 12 sad looking people to his rallies, was more popular than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? This election was just that much more special? Uh huh… Except that these few battleground state blue cities vote ratios don’t match up with other blue cities around America, where it appears Trump’s support among every demographic group other than white males went UP.

Then people were quick to dismiss these statistically improbable spikes with “of course the mail in voting favors Biden, republicans vote in person.” Yes, but they don’t favor Biden with these kind of ratios anywhere else in America. The ratios are more like 60-40 or 70-30. But 97-3? Oh fuck no. So either Biden is a better campaigner to the inner cities (though he rarely left his basement) than the eloquent messianic figure of Barack Obama, or there’s something fishy going on here.

Now, as a suspicious auditor type who spent a lot of hours looking for fuckery in complex systems, my gut tells me fake ballots were getting dumped into the system to make up the difference. And oh look, here is a giant pile of red flags indicating that’s the case.

As the man says—as I’ve likewise said so many times myself—when all the “mistakes” only go on one direction, always working to the advantage of one side and never the other…well, these aren’t mistakes we’re talking about, people. They’re part of a plan.

Next, Larry tots the whole dumpster fire up for us.

Here’s another thing you learn about auditing. The more chaotic the system, the more chances for fraud. So when you come across a system that is extra chaotic on purpose, that tells you that the people running it want it that way for a reason.

And the flags just keep coming in. This is going to be way worse than Florida in 2000.

What happens now? Beats me. It goes to court, and then the real question becomes how much spine the republicans have to actually fight. In previous years I’d assume they’d be a bunch of spineless chickenshits and wimp out like usual, but I’m not so sure this time. I don’t know if or how any of these will pan out, and without access to the real data, all I can do is guess.

I can say without hesitation though, that fuckery is afoot, and if an actual real investigation happens they’ll be able to prove it. Only this is politics, so who knows. The only thing I do know for certain is that this election is so fucked up it is just going to make America’s two halves hate each other even more.

Usually this many red flags flapping around gets the bull madder’n a wet hen. We’ll soon see if he’s gonna charge or not.

(Via WRSA)

Don’t try to peddle that shit in Texas, y’all

Posted on October 31, 2020October 31, 2020 by Mike

Not wanted, not needed, not welcome.

As noted in previous threads, there has been an organic movement by Team Trump to show up at Biden-Harris campaign events and outnumber the Biden supporters.

This effort has an origination in Miami-Dade by Latinos for Trump confronting Kamala Harris in early October, has grown throughout and is a direct way to push-back against the false polling claims and narratives by mainstream media.

Additionally, the Biden-Harris bus has been dogged by parades of MAGA Trump supporters forming caravans of flag waving vehicles and following the route. Yesterday, Biden-Harris cancelled stops in Texas because they were outnumbered by Trump supporters, and as they departed the lone star state Team Texas provided the escort.

Despite all the recent talk about “the purpling of Texas” because of an influx of refugees from Kommiefornia, it would seem that the liberal locusts haven’t gotten the job done entirely just yet. For now, anyway, Texas remains a Real American state. Let’s all celebrate with some sweet, sweet liberal tears, shall we?

CENTRAL TEXAS (KXAN) — Supporters of President Donald Trump allegedly harassed a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris bus as it traveled through Central Texas on Friday, according to Democratic activists.

Videos and photos posted on social media show a long line of vehicles flying Trump flags trailing the Biden-Harris bus as it traveled north from San Antonio on I-35. In some images, the bus appears to be boxed in by the vehicles.

In a Twitter thread, historian Eric Cervini, who said he traveled to Texas to help the Biden-Harris campaign, said the Trump supporters waited on I-35 to “ambush” the bus.

The Biden campaign told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump supporters put “staff, surrogates, supporters and others in harm’s way.”

“Harassed”? “Ambush”? “In harm’s way”? OOOOOOO, SCARY! Except…

As of Saturday morning, no injuries have been reported as a result of the incident.

Hmmm, I see. Get back to me when as many of yours have been beaten, stabbed, and shot dead as have ours, you sniveling pantywaists.

What he said

Posted on October 31, 2020October 31, 2020 by Mike

Can’t argue with this. I mean it literally can’t be done.

The way Trump—the way China will respond is when we gather the rest of the world that in fact [unintelligible] in… in… fr- in in in in open trade and making sure that we’re in a position that the world uh that, that we deal with WHO the right way that, in fact, that’s when things begin to change, that when China’s behavior is going to change.

Absolutely! Thanks for “clearing that up” for us there, Gropey.

The Argument

Posted on October 28, 2020October 28, 2020 by Mike

Forget Huntergate. Forget the decades of unrestrained graft and corruption. Forget the sleaze, the lies, the patent incompetence. Forget the fundamental absurdity of a powerful career politican who’s spent almost five decades with his greedy snout rooting in the government trough now pledging to “fix” problems he never bothered himself about before, if we only make him president first. There’s only one argument anybody needs to make in support of the fact that Dementia Joe Biden is unfit to be president, and this is it.

Wow. Clearly, it’s not as bad as we thought it was; it’s much, much worse.

Black days

Posted on October 27, 2020October 27, 2020 by Mike

As you all know, as of yesterday all American women have been stripped of their sacred Right To Choose™ to have their unborn children dismembered in the womb, or to have the infant set aside to die of starvation while still moist from having still been in it immediately beforehand. Likewise, Women’s Health Care™ (another synonym for abortion, according to every dictionary in history, ever) is now a thing of the past also.

These precious rights and so many, many others—all precisely and explicitly enshrined in our precious US Constitution, although good luck finding anything resembling that in the actual text of that outdated, deeply flawed piece of shite—become now only the stuff of mist and memory with the illegitimate, illegal, and brazenly contra-Constitutional swearing in of the evil witch Amy Coney Barret to sit on the now-defunct and meaningless US Supreme Court, by none other than that shuckin’, jivin’, spear-chuckin’, watermelon-suckin’ moon-cricket himself, Uncle Tom “Clarence” Thomas.

As I was driving around for work earlier, I couldn’t help but notice the total absence of any females sharing the streets with me. Then, like a flash, the truth hit me: upon ACB’s swearing-in, all American women were doubtless taken into State custody; forcibly impregnated; swaddled in one of those silly red schmattas a la Handmaid’s Tale; and locked into some remote gulag to be held in durance vile for the duration of this national ordeal.

Most foresighted, judicious take on this darkest of all days? Gotta be the one elucidated by that reliably high-minded, never-hysterically-partisan statesman Chuck Schreecher:

At the end of this sordid chapter in the history of the Senate, in the history of the Supreme Court, my deepest and greatest sadness is for the American people. Generations yet unborn will suffer the consequences of this nomination.

Izzat right there, Chuckles? As in, “suffer the consequences” of being permitted to, y’know, ACTUALLY BE BORN INTO THIS WORLD?!? In contrast to being ripped to bloody bits, the victim of a last-ditch act of birth control?

You really, REALLY sure that’s the argument you want to be trying to make here, genius?

All sarcasm aside—okay, most of it, maybe—The Notorious ACB’s brief post-swearing-in statement was truly a thing of Constitutional Originalist beauty, for those dwindling few of us who fervently wish we had adhered to the thing properly rather than negligently allowing the Left to incrementally burn it down to ashes.

I have spent a good amount of time over the last month at the Senate; both in meetings with individual senators and in days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The confirmation process has made ever-clearer to me one of the fundamental differences between the federal judiciary and the United States Senate, and perhaps the most acute is the role of policy preferences. It is the job of a senator to pursue her policy preferences; in fact, it would be a dereliction of duty to put policy goals aside.

By contrast, it is the job of a judge to resist her policy preferences. It would be a dereliction of duty for her to give in to them. Federal judges don’t stand for election, thus they have no basis for claiming that their preferences reflect those of the people. This separation of duty from political preference is what makes the judiciary distinct among the three branches of government. A judge declares independence not only from Congress and the president, but also from the private beliefs that might otherwise move her. The judicial oath captures the essence of the judicial duty; the rule of law must always control.

My fellow Americans, even though we judges don’t face elections, we still work for you. It is your Constitution that establishes the rule of law and the judicial independence that is so central to it., The oath that I have solemnly taken tonight means at its core that I will do my job without any fear or favor and that I will do so independent of both the political branches and my own preferences. I love the Constitution and the democratic republic that it establishes, and I will devote myself to preserving it. Thank you.

ZOMG, no WONDER the Left simultaneously hates and fears this madwoman so desperately! She’s clearly a wild-eyed, fanatical, extremist zealot!!

Okay, okay, OKAY. /sarcasm. No, seriously, you guys. I mean it this time. Until I don’t.

There are more than just a couple of sweet, sweet aspects to this, aside from not only getting a third Trump appointment onto the Court but one who to initial appearances looks like being a thrice-worthy antidote to Chief Justice Roberts’ toxic stealth-liberalism.

For starters: the oath of office was indeed administered by the great Clarence Thomas, a gifted legal mind whose staunch Originalism has graced the Court and blessed the American people well beyond anyone’s fondest hopes. Thomas has grown into his exalted position with aplomb, having authored some of the most well reasoned, meticulously constructed, and logically unassailable opinions and dissents ever—opinions that stack up quite damned well, thanks, with any other Justice I can think of throughout our history.

Thomas now bestrides the US Supreme Court like an almighty Colossus, and rightly so too. The man is no less than one of the best we’ve ever had in the position, and we’re fortunate indeed to have him there. But there’s also another little matter to consider here: AJ Thomas was also the man whose horrifically sordid and disgraceful Senate hearings—a “high-tech lynching,” as he himself so aptly described it—marked the early phase of the Demonrats’ transformation of the advise-and-consent process into no more than a pornographic Ringling Bros & Barnum & Bailey circus act.

And guess who one of the marquee performers in the revolting, abusive 1991 ordeal Thomas stalwartly endured might have been? Who, in fact, was not only a participant in the shameful mess, but was actually the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time? Why, none other than ol’ Where-Am-I Biden, his own ever-despicable self.

But wait, it gets better yet. I’ll just let JJ do the honors.

Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in last night after being confirmed by a Harry Reid simple majority in the Senate. The swearing in of Justice Barrett to take the empty seat on the Supreme Court is filled with a number of metaphors as well as at least one deliciously ironic coincidence; yesterday was Hillary Clinton’s birthday. Just over four years ago, the now deceased predecessor of Justice Barrett, who was no spring chicken even then and a double cancer survivor was urged to step down so that Barack Obama could appoint her successor, one who would be equally anti-Constitutional. But no. She was determined to bitterly cling to that seat so that she could live to see her successor sworn in by Hillary, who was after all, a 100% lead pipe cinch to be the first female president (the jury is still out as to whether or not that was, in fact, Obama or James Buchanan). If you’re reading this post wherever you are, how did that work out for you?

No way to really know for sure, but I’m imagining a scenario along these lines: a large spit, rotating ever-so-slowly over one of Hell’s hotter fires, with Ol’ Scratch Himself rolling a TV over by RGB, so’s she has to watch the ACB swearing-in on an endless—or should I say eternal—loop while she’s charbroiling. I’m envisioning something very similar for HILLARY!™ on her arrival, too.

FLASH!!! BREAKING NEWS!!! MAN BITES DOG!!! PIGS TAKE FLIGHT!!! STOP THE PRESSES!!!!

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

Hold onto your hats, people. Sit down, swallow whatever you might be drinking, and brace yourself for the most unexpected, unprecedented, and incredible event since the Great Flood.

Ready for it?

Here we go: Today, on some rando’s podcast blatherfest, JOE BIDEN ACTUALLY SAID SOMETHING THAT’S TRUE!!! Probably for the very first time in his entire worthless life!

Inadvertently, natch.

Was he misspeaking or just opening his mouth and removing the filter between his brain and mouth? Was it a Joe Bidenesque Freudian ~~slip~~ sniff?

Biden was holding a rare campaign event – via video – when he boastfully proclaimed that his campaign operates “the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”

Worse? He was cribbing from notes.

CF FACT CHECK: The claim that Joe Biden said something that was not a bald-faced lie, whether on purpose or not, has been rated by our investigative staff as 100% percent ACCURATE.

Verily, the End Times are nigh.

Of coyotes, and lying dogs

Posted on October 24, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike

Biden caught with his mouth moving yet again. And we all know what that means.

On Thursday night when Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden angrily accused President Trump of a “criminal” family separation policy that had “lost track” of more than 500 migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border, he was repeating an inaccurate and misleading news report that had circulated earlier this week.

“What happened? Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone,” Biden said. “Nowhere to go, nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

The former vice president was likely relying on a brief report from NPR about the latest development in a lawsuit between the ACLU and the Justice Department regarding the status of children who have still not been reunited with their parents after being brought across the border illegally.

The report claims that “the parents of 545 children still can’t be found,” but that’s not quite right. The NPR report omitted a statement issued by Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Chase Jennings explaining that in fact the vast majority of these parents have been found but have refused reunification with their children, which is why the children are still in DHS custody.

“In the current litigation, for example, out of the parents of 485 children whom Plaintiffs’ counsel has been able to contact, they’ve yet to identify a single family that wants their child reunited with them in their country of origin,” Jennings said.

Davidson delves further into some harsh border realities that the gormless ignoramii who assumed Trump believes that illegal-alien kids are being strapped to the backs of actual coyotes and riding them across the border are blissfully unaware of, which is all fine and well. But the bottom line is bluntly laid down in the article’s headline: “If You Don’t Know That ‘Coyotes’ Are Human Smugglers, Shut Up About The Border.” That could be said of so very many other topics these arrogant nitwits presume to lecture their intellectual betters about, though.

A brand new day, a brand new way

Posted on October 22, 2020October 22, 2020 by Mike

Y’know, you wonder sometimes why Trump continues to give any of these asswipes the time of day. And then he shows you.

Trump Releases Raw Video of ’60 Minutes’ Interview and It’s Everything You Thought It Would Be

Oh, it’s that, and much, much more.

Trump’s reasoning for the move has been that the media doesn’t represent him honestly, and he wanted to make sure the people could see the full footage and make their own judgments.

Watching back the video, it is obvious they made the right choice. Stahl came in loaded for bear and set up the interview by asking the President if he was “ready for some tough questions.” Trump responded with a shrug.

Trump:Just be fair
LS: But last time I remember you saying ‘bring it on. Bring it on’
Trump: No I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for fairness. That’s all.
LS:You’re going to get fairness. But you’re ok with tough questions?
Trump: You don’t ask Biden tough questions.

It didn’t get much better from there.

The hell you say; I think it gets LOTS better from there. A couple-three more good ‘uns over at RS, all of which you should read. Ace also has plenty of delicious examples of our no quarter, no holds barred POTUS giving shitlib propagandaist Stahl the full brass-knuckles-to-the-mouth treatment, including:

STAHL: Can you characterize your supporters?

TRUMP: Yeah, I think I can: people who love our country.

And:

This exchange between Trump and Lesley Stahl is insane. She repeatedly insists the Biden laptops can’t be verified, so reporters shouldn’t talk about it.

Trump asks her why it can’t be verified.

Her answer: Because it can’t be verified.

Oh, izzat so, bitch?

My name is Tony Bobulinski.

The facts set forth below are true and accurate; they are not any form of domestic or foreign disinformation. Any suggestion to the contrary is false and offensive.

I am the recipient of the email published seven days ago by the New York Post which showed a copy to Hunter Biden and Rob Walker. That email is genuine.

This afternoon I received a request from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the Senate Committee on Finance requesting all documents relating to my business affairs with the Biden family as well as various foreign entities and individuals. I have extensive relevant records and communications and I intend to produce those items to both Committees in the immediate future.

That’s verification aplenty, without even tossing the FBI, the DoJ, and the DNI into the “verified” pot as well. Clearly, when the liar Stahl says “it can’t be verified,” what she really means is it WON’T be verified—not by her, not by CBS News, by any and every other Praetorian Media outlet. And that’s because the “news business” Gorgon isn’t actually in the business of reporting the news at all, and hasn’t been for a very long time.

The historic popularity and profitability of Tucker’s show raises a simple, yet important question: why have none of the major networks, including Fox, attempted to copy his success?

Wouldn’t the fabled “marketplace of ideas” dictate a certain convergence toward the topics and styles that draw the biggest audiences?

Perhaps the ad boycotts aimed at Tucker have scared off would-be copycats. But this simply raises the question of why companies would leave money on the table by refusing to advertise on television’s most popular cable news show. Something is off here, and it suggests that the media industry does not work according to a simple profit motive.

What if the true goal of a media conglomerate is not to produce a reliable and entertaining news service tailored to its audience, but rather to influence that audience on behalf of third parties? What if the purpose of a media company is not to be profitable for its own sake, but influential for the sake of others?

Business models aren’t always what they present themselves to be. Movie theaters make money not from ticket sales, but from concession stands. Airlines likewise need to sell tickets, but they make more profit from frequent flier rewards programs. Supermarkets are increasingly big data collectors for insurance companies.

This does not mean that profit is irrelevant to a media company. In Tucker’s case, his stratospheric ratings are a great tool of leverage, and without profit, a company must continually court new investors. But the point remains that for a serious media enterprise, profit is always secondary to influence.

Just as a social media company’s true product is its user data, the true product of a major media company is the flow of narratives that shape the perception of reality. Wielding influence over the public mind will always be more valuable than any profit that could be generated by optimizing the news to suit public tastes.

Major media companies are not about profits, but influence — there is no “marketplace of ideas” that functions in the way people might imagine. And this applies to any industry that has a profound effect on the narratives and beliefs that shape the public’s perception of reality, including movies and video games.

In our increasingly corrupt society, every institution is a scam, and there is often a vast disconnect between the generally understood purpose of an institution and its actual purpose.

Indeed. If that sorta reminds of you of the NeverTrumpTard GOPe too, well, it damned well ought to. But as I’ve said so many times already: the greatest service Trump has done, will do, or could EVER do for this country has been to rip the mask off these underhanded s’faccim and expose them for what they really are, in a way that none but the willfully obtuse, the witless, or the nefarious can deny any longer.

Nothing to see here

Posted on October 21, 2020October 21, 2020 by Mike

Gotta be tough, being wrong every fucking time, about every fucking thing.

The Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt told voters to ignore the Hunter Biden laptop e-mail story, calling it “obviously not credible” in an interview with MSNBC host Ari Melber on Monday. Schmidt tied Alex Jones, Rudy Giuliani, and Steve Bannon to the story, who he called “exquisite scumbags,” and called attacks on the son of Joe Biden “disgraceful” and “despicable.”

“It’s obviously not credible,” Schmidt, a former Republican strategist, said. “The American people have been lied to, deceived. I mean, look, this information at its origin is coming from Alex Jones, who is a Newtown denier. Think of the pain that man has caused people in this country. Rudolph Giuliani, who has shattered his credibility for God knows what reason over the last four years. And Steve Bannon, who is…indicted for multiple felonies. None of these people have any credibility. All of these people are exquisite scumbags in this American moment and none of them should be believed.”

“The attacks on Hunter Biden are disgraceful, despicable and they come from, of course, the biggest grifting, disgraceful family that has ever set foot inside the people’s house, the White House,” he said. “The residence of the president of the United States and they have debased it. They have debased the institution. They have disgraced the presidency. They have humiliated the country. And soon it will be time for them to go and to face the judgment of history and the American people.”

Absolutely every word this pustule utters is so completely assbackwards, so totally at variance with observable reality, that I can’t help but glance around in expectation of Bearded Spock’s sudden appearance. Have a gander at the kind of thing this oh-so-virtuous paragon of integrity and Muh Conservative Principles™, this self-appointed Defender of Decency, would have us blithely ignore:

Rudy Giuliani has announced that he has turned over Hunter Biden’s hard drive to Delaware State Police due to pornographic photos of underage girls and inappropriate text messages.

Giuliani confirmed that there are photos of minors on the hard drive during an appearance on Greg Kelly’s show on Newsmax on Tuesday evening.

Giuliani said that Biden, according texts sent to his sister in law, on numerous occasions face timed a 14 year old girl while naked and on crack cocaine.

Giuliani also shared one of the text messages backing up his claim.

But hey, no harm no foul, right, NeverTrumpTards?

It’s a new low for the NeverTrumpTards: so badly has their hatred for Trump unmoored them from rationality, they’re now reduced to defending a crackhead pedophile and his collection of kiddie porn. Even worse, the poor, deluded Beautiful Loser class are so deeply immured in the Swamp miasma they’re unable to perceive any problem with that. If the material evidence of the rampant criminality of Biden, Inc found on Cracky’s laptop is representative of the “normal” that they think we’ll all be happy as clams to see automagically reinstated via their sleazy dump-Trump empty-skullduggery, I’m afraid they’re in for a bit of a shock.

Just a suggestion here, guys: if your politics are so profligately fucked up that they lead you into such a godawful place as where you now are, it just might be time to reconsider those politics. And if your supposedly Noble Quest induces you to speak out in vociferous defense of plain old human debris such as the Biden Crime Family, your quest is anything BUT noble.

Spite is also great, and would suffice

Posted on October 20, 2020October 20, 2020 by Mike

This, times eleventy billion kajillion.

A young woman explained everything about this election in less than one minute.
If you can’t stand Trump here is our reply:

If you are liberal and can’t stand Trump and can’t possibly fathom why anyone would vote for him, let me fill you in. We can’t stand you. You’ve done everything in your power by trying to destroy this country by tearing down our police, our borders, our history, systematically destroying our schools and brainwashing our kids into thinking socialism is the answer to everything. Demonizing religion and faith and glorifying abortion, violence and thug culture. And calling us racists…

We are voting for Trump because of you!

Joe says that really “says it all,” and it does in a way, anyway. Then again, it kinda doesn’t; I could add plenty of valid reasons for supporting Trump that have little at all to do with the Vile Left without breaking a sweat. Still, there’s no gainsaying that a tremendous aspect of Trump’s appeal is that he amounts to a huge FUCK YOU not just to the Left ancien regime, but to the Swamp entire. He represents Real Americans in a simple, direct fashion that traditional political animals have no regard for or interest in: more than just a spokeperson for ordinary Americans, he is the raised middle finger they’ve longed to wave right in their smarmy faces for so long now. Forget the mouse in the old posters and t-shirts you geezers may remember from back in the 70s; for Real Americans, TRUMP is “the last great act of defiance,” in the flesh.

ZMan has another rationale that works just fine for me too.

I’m voting for Trump for the same reason I voted for him the last time, spite. No candidate in my life time has made the ruling class so crazy with anger. Not even Nixon elicited this type of hatred. Maybe him winning leads to mass suicides. Fingers crossed.

T’is a consummation devoutly to be wished. But knowing how happy it would make us will probably be enough to dissuade the Left from any such beneficence, alas. No matter, though. If all we get out of it is more shrieking hissy-fits from barren bambinas like the anti-babes featured in the post below, what the heck, I’ll take it.

The grifter class

Posted on October 18, 2020October 18, 2020 by Mike

The crooks are in charge of the jailhouse.

Hunter’s family is his only asset. How else did someone with no special skills manage to collect such huge payments from foreign companies with deep interests in US policy? He has no knowledge of Ukraine or China, no experience in energy or banking, and a crack pipe full of personal problems. So, how exactly did he get rich?

For that matter, how the hell did Joe get rich? Or hapless Nevada real-estate failure Harry Reid? Or Obama, the “community organizer” who never did a second’s worth of productive labor his entire life? Or Stretch Pelosi? John Dingell? Or any of thousands of other Career Politican slimewads, from all across this once-great nation?

Last I looked, a US Senator makes (not “earns,” mind you) 200 grand a year. The POTUS gets 400k. That might be the stuff of wistful dreams for those of us who have to spend the closing days of every month choosing which bills they’ll be able to pay and which they’re going to have to skip this pay-period. But given Morder On The Potomac living expenses, along with the requirement that Congresscreatures maintain some sort of pied a terre in whatever state they pretend to hail from to be eligible to run for office, it still does NOT add up to leaving that cushy DC sinecure a multi-multi-multi millionaire. No way. The math just doesn’t work. No matter how you slice it, it’s still baloney.

And yet. There is no further evidence needed to show just how badly out of whack and off the rails the Amerika v2.0 system of government really is than the simple fact that so very many of the amoral, conscience-free arachnoids among us disdain True Crime as a profession to instead go into “public service” (HA!) with one purpose in mind, and one only: to get stinkin’ rich.

I hasten to add that there ain’t a damned thing in the world wrong with getting rich, despite how strenuously the Church Ladies of the Left preach a different gospel. Nor should any Real American have a problem with anyone harboring ambitions towards same. But ain’t it funny how every last one of these Demo-Marxist Swamp critters—all of them comfortably afloat themselves on a mighty sea of decidedly ill-gotten personal liquidity—spends so many of their “working” hours passionately denouncing “capitalist greed”; the “heartlessness” of free-market economics; the corruption of Big Business.

And all the while, these virtuous souls are also piously extolling the dire need to palliate the brutality by exorbitantly hiking taxes on “the wealthy”; zealously over-regulating all private businesses, both great and small; and advocating the “equality” and “fairness” of some form of barely-disguised Marxism, of all things. Inexplicably, the Savior Left carefully avoid any mention of how the self-same Proles they copiously weep crocodile tears over consistently fare whenever their self-proclaimed betters have finally contrived to bring those unfortunates under the grinding, bloody heel of it.

Should you or anyone else try to helpfully correct the oversight and stimulate discussion by bringing such a distasteful subject up yourselves, you might just get shot in one of their “mostly peaceful” riots or run over or maybe Arkancided, depending on what’s most convenient. Then there’s doxxing, SWATting, hounding you out of gainful employment forever, and wee-hours bullhorn-wielding mobs on your front lawn issuing threats of violent retaliation, starting random fires, shitting all over the begonias, and generally despoiling the neighborhood.

At the very least, you’ll never be posting another goddamned thing on Twatter or Fakeblecch again, you evil fascist Nazi.

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out the answer. Joe Biden himself could figure it out. The money was meant to open doors in the Obama administration and potentially a future Biden one. It was meant to inform mid-level US bureaucrats and diplomats that these companies had very powerful connections. The message: your bosses will be happy if you meet with these fine folks and even happier if you can help them.

These damning facts were well known before the New York Post published its latest cache of documents, supposedly to and from Hunter Biden. (The word ‘supposedly’ is used here since the documents must be verified.) What’s new about these documents is their avalanche of details, their list of additional companies and specific executives, and the scale of payments, some which were simply for Hunter making ‘introductions’.

The logic here is simple: outsiders purchase access and influence from insiders who sell it. That has long been the story of Washington lobbying and revolving-door politics, which grows in tandem with the size and scope of the federal government. Economists call it ‘rent-seeking behavior’.

The Clinton Foundation set a new standard for this rent-seeking. Its scale was unprecedented, and so was the cleverness of making it a tax-deductible charity. It worked smoothly when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and the favorite to succeed Barack Obama. How do we know the money funneled to the Foundation and the Clintons personally was designed to buy access and influence? Because it all dried up after Hillary lost. As politicians in the old Chicago Machine used to say, ‘don’t back no losers.’

It is easy enough to see this as corruption, pure and simple. That’s because it is. The recipients are grifters, even though they wear Hermès scarves and ties. They are paid by companies seeking influence in government and the profits associated with it. This is Washington’s Circle of Life. Trump calls it ‘the Swamp’. Retired politicians and generals call it a living.

“Easy enough” to see it? Only a willfully blind man or a pure-tee dumbass could possibly miss it. Read the whole thing, depressing and maddening though it surely is.

Corrupt to the core

Posted on October 17, 2020October 17, 2020 by Mike

Remember how some people claimed that the Hunter Biden emails were “uncomfirmed,” that it probably wasn’t even really his laptop at all, or that—most hilariously of all—it was another “Russian hack“?

Yeah, about all that.

After the New York Post broke the bombshell report detailing evidence found on a computer hard drive of the Biden family’s influence peddling, Hunter Biden’s attorney contacted the computer repairman who found the incriminating material, and asked for the computer hard drive back, President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani revealed on Steven Crowder’s podcast, Thursday.

The former New York mayor summed up the NY Post bombshell for Crowder: “Hunter Biden and Joe Biden are involved in a bribery scheme in Ukraine and Hunter Biden and Joe for years have said that Joe knew nothing about Burisma, the company that paid the bribe,” he explained.

“And what there is, is a cold, clear group of text messages in which Hunter Biden sets up a meeting with the number two person in that company and Joe Biden, who then texts Hunter back and thanks him. So it makes Joe a complete liar for the last seven years. It show that he met with Burisma,” Giuliani said.

Hell, the 2017 video of Honest Joe openly bragging about it confirms that well enough, or so one would think.

Plenty more sleaze at the link, none of which comes as a surprise. Anybody who doesn’t know perfectly well what Biden is by now is a damned moron; the rest is just details.

Timely information

Posted on October 8, 2020October 8, 2020 by Mike

CA posts a handy threat-level terminology chart.

Sporty: Baseline level of unprecedented behavior; think 2016

Frisky: “Holy cow”; think intel community coup of 2016-2020

Spicy: Getting warmer; “Is that gunfire nearby?”

SPORKY: Shit Pants Or Roof Korean; YOLO (you only live once)

Plan accordingly.

And whatever the Eff you do, don’t freaking lose.

Learn ’em, live ’em, love ’em, that last in particular. There’s also a link to Wilder’s latest CW 2.0 Weather Report installment, which is summed up in his opening caption:

Right now it feels like we’re watching a slow-motion video of a wreck that’s getting ready to happen. We know it’s going to happen, but have no idea how to stop it as physics makes it inevitable.

When I started doing these updates, I wondered if I was being too pessimistic. In part, the original scale was developed based on personal experience – I had visited a “blue” state a few years ago on summer vacation.

A man, apparently looking at birds in a little-used state monument, saw us drive in. He trained his binoculars on our license plate. “Lower-upper Midwestia, eh?” he yelled. “Yes,” I responded.

“Who’d you vote for?” Unusual, but, whatever.

“Well, his name starts with a T,” I replied, grinning.

He then proceeded to call me a name for a portion of the anatomy that was the first thing people panicked about when COVID-19 hit and everyone bought all of that toilet paper.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.” He then repeated the anatomical description and then scurried, rat-like into his SUV.

The Mrs. had gone to the little bathroom at the historical site, and had missed the interaction. I’m glad. She would have broken him like a stick. She always handles my light work.

But this was a significant data point. Never in my life had I been attacked, in public, for no reason other than my ballot. For most of my life, political differences had been a path to amusing conversations among friends. We had considered moving to this state. Why would we, though, when people acted like that? And now, people are moving out of California for the same reason we didn’t move to that blue state.

Once upon a time, we could talk about our political disagreements and still be friends. That worked, because even though there were things we disagreed about, we agreed about most things. Now? Leftists have largely abandoned the things that made us Americans. We have nothing to say to each other.

When a stranger will insult you in public over nothing more than your ballot? The time of violence is close.

Just one symptom of a much broader national ailment—an incurable, usually fatal one.

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