Market correction

Give it a year, possibly two, and the truck driver shortage will be over. Well, unless “president” Gropey, the US Congress, or some other goobermint official or agency steps in to “fix” everything.

Walmart increases salary for truck drivers to over $100,000
(KTVX) – As the U.S. deals with a nationwide shortage of truck drivers, Walmart has announced that the company will be offering their long-haul drivers a salary of up to $110,000 per year.

In a press release, the company said the latest investment not only gives first-year truck drivers the ability to make up to $110,000 but also gives drivers who have been with Walmart the opportunity to earn even more.

The average salary for a long-haul driver is $63,433 (base salary plus additional pay) per year, but “most likely” ranges between $28,000 and $149,000 annually, according to a Glassdoor study.

In raising its truckers’ salaries, Walmart is now on the same playing field as Sysco, which also advertises that its employees can make up to $110,000 a year.

Walmart also announced the launch of the first Walmart Private Fleet Development Program, a 12-week program where supply-chain associates in the Dallas, Texas, and Dover, Delaware, areas earned their commercial driver’s license (CDL) and became full-fledged Private Fleet Walmart drivers.

My brother told me about this earlier today, saying he was strongly considering applying for one of those jobs. And why the hell not? Sure, he’d be giving up the single biggest reason he decided to go with being an owner-operator and haul containers in the first place, ie, the near-total freedom to set his own hours and decide when he would work or not work. That is NOT nothing.

On the other hand, he’d also be losing the weight of responsibility currently hanging around his neck like an anchor from the USS Missouri: reponsibility for everything from paying for diesel to repairs of every kind on the truck to the thousand and one fees, licenses, endorsements, and of course taxes which eat up his earnings like a glutton at an AYCE buffet. Last year, for example, the truck made 100k or slightly over, if I remember right. My brother, pitifully enough, made 30-35k himself. That is by no means an insignificant comedown.

So jump from that not-entirely-enticing scenario to this one: 100k in salary, 150k for experienced road dogs, for 2-3 weeks on the road, then home for a week or somewhat less. Wal Mart handles your plates, IFTA stickers, endorsements, and inspections for ya. All you gotta do is show up at the yard, give your assigned rig a walk-around to kick tires, check underneath for puddles of truck-related fluids, and hit the highway. When it breaks down on the road—and trust me, it’s going to—you call the dispatcher, tell them where you are and what’s happened, and wait for the tow-truck to arrive. While cooling your heels lying on that big condo-cab bunk in back, you can think about all the money the tow, the repair, and everything else is gonna cost somebody else.

A pain in the ass? Of course it is, nothing but. It sucks; been there done that too many damned times myself, and it does indeed just pure-tee suck, especially when it’s freezing or sweltering out and your motor won’t run, depriving you of the comfort of the A/C or heat. But the suckage is profoundly attenuated when the bank account being drained by the aforementioned PITA ain’t yours.

  • BAD: Having to call for a tow
  • WORSE: Having to call for a tow which you must then pay for

So yeah, there are pros and cons to the deal, with which my brother will surely wrestle and agonize over before deciding which way to jump. But with Wal Mart also offering help for new drivers with getting their Class A and HazMat certification, you can bet there’ll be a goodly number of guys suddenly discovering a newly-kindled interest in this trucking thing that they’d never felt before. As for people who are piloting big rigs now, unless they’re in an owner-operator situation akin to my brother’s, this news from Wal Mart would have to hit home as a total no-brainer.

Oh, and did I mention that my brother is confident he can put an additional 80k into his kick by selling his Freightshaker Classic XL glider-truck too?

For drivers, the trucking field is a seller’s market right now, has been for several years. With this announcement, Wal Mart is providing a pluperfect example of how markets and capitalism are supposed to work. Even in a market so severely hogtied and strangulated by the ten thumbs of Big Bad Government, the market will always find a way of straightening itself out somehow, if there is one to be found. Mark my words: it may take a minute, yes, but the truck driver shortage is coming to an end.

Update! Straight from the horse’s mouth.

These latest investments mean Walmart drivers can now make up to $110,000 in their first year with the company. And that’s just a start – drivers who have been with Walmart longer can earn even more, based on factors like tenure and location.

The investments make driving for Walmart’s Private Fleet even more enticing than before, so we’re creating new ways to offer existing Walmart associates opportunities to drive with us. Here’s how our new Fleet Development Program works.

Working at Walmart already includes access to the Live Better U program, where Walmart covers the cost of tuition and books for a college degree, and our nationwide network of Walmart Academies. Now, we have launched the first-ever Walmart Private Fleet Development Program. Over the course of a 12-week program, supply chain associates in the Dallas, Texas, and Dover, Delaware, areas earned their commercial driver’s license (CDL) and became full-fledged Private Fleet Walmart drivers.

The investments in pay and training build on multiple recent driver bonuses and improved schedules that enable drivers to spend more time at home. There’s never been a better time to join our fleet. Once drivers are on board, this is a job many leave only for retirement.

I imagine so, yeah.

The Black Gate opens

As our esteemed compatriot JJ says, the flinging wide of the Morannon to free political prisoner Michael Martin is most welcome news no matter how cynical or distrustful of authority you might be. Nonetheless, we’d all do well to keep certain inconvenient truths firmly in mind going forward:

— Not one single protester/rally goer who was unlucky enough to have entered the Capitol Building was armed. Ergo by definition, they could not and cannot be construed as having an intent to riot, let alone overthrow the government with their bare hands or buffalo helmets.

— As we have known almost since day one, the protesters inside the Capitol Building—as has now been proven in a court of law—were allowed in by Capitol Police who, after unlocking the doors lectured those they were about to let in to behave, as if they were talking to a group on a guided tour.

— The only acts of vandalism and violence that occurred were committed by a) known BLM and Antifa plants and confederates dressed in MAGA gear, such as this John Sullivan character, who were loudly exhorting the crowd to riot or b) uniformed Capitol Police officers and undercover FBI/DOJ “glowies” resulting in the death of innocent, non-violent and unarmed protesters including Ashli Babbitr and Roseanne Boyland. The death of officer Brian Sicknick was not because a “MAGA insurrectionist” bashed him on the head with a fire extinguisher but because of a heart attack not induced by any physical contact with anyone. Whatever injuries may or may not have been sustained by law enforcement and other security forces were because of unarmed innocent people defending themselves from winding up like Babbitt and Boyland.

— The actual “Stop the Steal” protest rally which featured President Trump and other notable politicians and pundits was legal, peaceful and taking place many blocks away from the government-caused mayhem at the Capitol. Yet the rally itself, and its purpose which, again was peaceful and legal, is being painted as the worst attack on “our precious democracy” (*vomit) than the Civil War, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined.

The scores of flagrantly contra-constitutional arrests and indefinite detention-without-charges in connection with the J6 “riots”—which we’re constantly reminded by the usual suspects was a heinous crime of “deadly violence” perpetrated by bloody-minded “insurrectionists” determined to “undermine our Sacred Democracy”—were all comfirmation enough that Real Americans shouldn’t forget to bring the guns along for their next DC get-together, if any. But this acquittal—by a judge appointed by Trump, natch—has me mulling over a leeeetle detail.

Martin, a former government contractor from New Mexico, told US District Court Judge Trevor McFadden he thought police had waved him into the building and didn’t know he was breaking the law when he entered.

Based on video from the scene, McFadden said Martin’s claim was “plausible” and that prosecutors failed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

“People were streaming by and the officers made no attempt to stop the people,” the judge said.

Curious, no? This has been the testimony of more than a few other of those currently languishing in durance vile as modern refuseniks in the Amerikan Gulag, and there’s plenty of video evidence that backs them up, too. But the part that has me thinking I put in boldfaced above, which raises a crucial question: Were those Capital Stasi goons holding the doors open and waving the protesters inside simply reacting without thought or instruction, merely reflexively responding as they would on any other workday, to any other non-threatening gaggle of tourists or meandering day-trippers?

Or, as seems MUCH more likely, were they acting under orders—orders which were part of a larger plan to turn those non-violent, peaceful, and unarmed Americans into useful tools for TPTB to take firmly in hand and use as grist for the Deep State propaganda mill—grinding out “credible threats,” wild-eyed fanatics and revolutionaries for normal people to clutch the proverbial pearls over? By making a passel of hapless Joe Lunchbuckets into Big Scary Monsters™ to keep the rest of the nation frightened out of its collective wits (if any) after an endless summer of state-endorsed BLM/pAntiFa rioting, looting, and burning, plus the state-fomented Fauxvid subterfuge—our hidden masters showed how completely they grasp the Bedford Forrest maxim which says, “get ’em skeered and keep the skeer on ’em” I’ve quoted so many times before here.

When Swamp creatures need to gin up a threat to cow the weak, deceive the gullible, and advance the agenda, nothing does the trick like spreading some more FUD around. It’s easy, it’s painless, and, once they’d gotten the great majority of us saddle-broke and trained to the bit, it has never failed them yet.

Update! Snitches get stitches. Or damned well ought to, at least. Otherwise, you just end up with more snitches, and you don’t want to be encouraging that.

American Stasi: ‘Citizen Sleuths’ Are Ratting Out Jan. 6 Protestors Who Haven’t Been Arrested
The Left’s phony Jan. 6 “insurrection” witch hunt isn’t going to die down anytime soon. The Democrats still hope to use it to stigmatize and marginalize virtually all of their opposition as “insurrectionists” that all decent lovers of “our democracy” (that is, the Left’s hegemony) should shun. And although it is now almost a year and a half since the Terrible Event That Was Worse Than 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, there are more Jan. 6 prosecutions all the time, thanks to “citizen sleuths” who are ratting out protestors who were at the Capitol on the fateful day.

There are so many snitches that the system is being overwhelmed. NBC News reported Wednesday that “aided by citizen sleuths who keep identifying Jan. 6 rioters, the Justice Department is finding that it has more cases than lawyers to prosecute them.” Accordingly, “the Justice Department is asking Congress for additional funds to prosecute those cases — a list that keeps growing.” It’s growing because “multiple online sleuths in a network of ‘Sedition Hunters’ working’ to find Jan. 6 participants have told NBC News that they’ve successfully identified to the FBI hundreds of additional Jan. 6 rioters — including dozens who are pictured on the FBI’s Capitol Violence website.” And the feds, of course, are only too eager to act upon the information these rats feed them.

One snitch said nobly that he had plenty more work to do: “There are hundreds still to go,” he said, “speaking anonymously to avoid retaliation from supporters of the rioters.” Yeah, you know, he doesn’t want trouble from those dangerous traitors who were going to overthrow the government led by a few grandmothers and a guy with Viking horns. But however ridiculous it is, the narrative must be perpetuated, and so the “sleuth” remains anonymous.

There isn’t enough blue language in the Milky Way galaxy to express how completely this sewage-slurping shitweasel disgusts me—him, and all others like him. Sad to say, such vermin have plagued their betters since Lucy first stood erect, and probably always will. Still, I hope some stouter soul, possessed of a more finely-tuned sense of propriety and acceptable behavior, soon does mankind a solid by putting a bullet through this execrable coward’s head from a long ways off, bursting it like an overripe melon dropped from a 25th-floor window onto a city sidewalk in a July heatwave, thankfully erasing a malign influence from the gene pool forever.

Rats are close relations with their like-minded kindred, the Karens and Kens of recent notoriety. But the family tree of these loathsome arthropods is actually a lot older and deeper-rooted than their kissing-cousins relationship might suggest, to the shame of all humanity.

This “citizen sleuth” is a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. In the Soviet Union, anyone could be an ear for the state: your friends, your neighbors, even your own children. The rewards were great for those who turned in “enemies of the state,” and amid the omnipresence of the totalitarian state apparatus, no one was safe. In Communist East Germany, 2.5% of the population acted as informants for the Stasi, the brutal and repressive Ministry for State Security, and some estimate that one in every three people gave information to the Stasi at some point.

In September 1932, a thirteen-year-old boy, Pavlik Morozov, was found murdered in a Siberian forest; it turned out that he had denounced his father to the secret police, and authorities claimed that his own relatives had killed him. He was hailed as a hero of the Soviet Union. Before Pavlik was killed, he appeared at the trial of his father, Trofim Morozov, who called out to his son in the courtroom: “It’s me, your father!” Pavlik told the judge: “Yes; he used to be my father, but I no longer consider him my father. I am not acting as a son, but as a Pioneer,” that is, a member of the Soviet youth brigade.

Watch for the “citizen sleuths” to become heroes of the new woke order the Left is trying to build if they succeed. Maybe we’ll see statues of some of these slouching Internet nerds replacing the statues of Washington and Jefferson that Antifa and its allies have pulled down. Every civilization, even the most degenerate one, has its heroes.

Any civilization that makes heroes of its squealers, its cowards, and its rumpswabs and ass-lickers is indeed a degenerate one, and will collapse a lot sooner than later. As is only meet and just; its lapse into extremities of blasphemy, debauchery, and obssessive self-indulgence might provide some highful useful instruction to succeeding civilizations, should they be wise enough to pay attention to the lesson they offer.

Winning ways

The great Ron DeSantis stays on the offensive.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Wednesday that he would send the illegal immigrants dumped by Biden’s administration in Florida to Biden’s home state of Delaware.

Governor DeSantis vowed to transfer the illegal immigrants to sanctuary states like Delaware, saying they now have the funding for rerouting.

It can be recalled that DeSantis introduced a proposal last December to add $8 million to the state’s budget in order to send those illegals out of the Sunshine State and into Democrat areas such as Marthas Vineyard and Biden’s home state of Delaware.

“If businesses or contractors are dumping people who are illegal into Florida from Southern Texas, you know, we’re going to go after their ability to do business in Florida,” Gov. DeSantis said Wednesday after he signed the No Patient Left Alone Act into law in Naples, Florida.

“If Biden is dumping people, which he has dumped people, they fly them in at 2 in the morning. They haven’t done it lately, but they did it many months ago. We now have money where we can reroute them to sanctuary states like Delaware. And we’re going to do that, to make sure we’re keeping people safe here.” DeSantis asserted.

On the same day, Texas Governor Greg Abbott also announced he would begin to use up to 900 charter buses or “as many as needed” to send illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C., as part of his strategy for the overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants.

“We are sending them to the United States Capitol, where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border,” Gov. Abbott continued.

Be sure to dump some of ’em onto the White House lawn, too, so’s ALL the architects of the forced repopulation of the US can fully enjoy the fruits of their efforts. More like this, please, just as fast as it can be done. Keep THEM on the ropes, their hands effectively tied as they wonder and worry where the next blow might be coming from. In the wise words of the Wizard of the Saddle: Get ’em skeered and keep the skeer on ’em.

5

Dream ammo

Yours may differ, which is fine, but my own gets a mention here.

Thought I would take a minute to jot my thoughts on ballistics before we redeploy. We’ve been in heavy fighting the last few days.

5.56 works just fine on people, provided you don’t have to shoot through anything heavy. Not sure where it got the rep of not working. Expectations too high, most likely. People we shoot with it fall down and die. Very accurate.

The M4 is the perfect size. It is an excellent system, ergonomically. For law enforcement, it is perfect. For military work, with the exception of the cartridge, it is also.

We need to quit trying to optimize performance in tissue, from a military point of view. Do all that you want for cops, hunters, armed citizens but leave us out of it. I just spent the last 10 months in urban combat as an adviser to the Iraqi Army, so I have a few opinions.

Whatever round we get needs to penetrate stuff. And I don’t mean dribble out the other side. It needs to blast through cover, then through the dude behind it and preferably the dude behind him. It should, at a minimum, penetrate:

2 mm mild steel
2 inches hard wood
2 car doors with windows down
Trunk, back seat, front seat and dash
2 stacked AK 47 mags with steel cased ammo

AND do all this at minimum 250 meters. If you can get it to do this, it’ll flatten people too.

By mid WWII, ALL 30.06 was steel cored armor piercing for this very reason. Nobody who’s ever used it has complained about effectiveness. While we’re at it, we should go ahead and make it incendiary as well. No point in carrying different types. For the squeamish, it could be formulated to only ignite on hard targets. Personally, I want the guy to burst into flames when I shoot him.

So do I, bub, so do I. You said a mouthful with that, one which I will most enthusiastically second from way over here.

If you mean it, they will come

DeSantis’s knock ’em down, keep ’em down, never back off governing style pays off bigly.

Florida Democratic hearts just sank as a new St. Leo University Poll of  500 voters shows that Gov. Ron DeSantis has a combined job approval rating of 58.8%.

This is crushing news for Florida Democrats.

“Governor DeSantis is benefitting from a strong economy and a lack of COVID cases in the state over the past few months,” said Frank Orlando, director of the Saint Leo University Polling Institute and a political scientist.

Perhaps, perhaps. Myself, I much prefer another scenario: that DeSantis The Barbarian is benefitting mostly from governing like a Real American, in perfect accord with Constitutional requirements.

“While he gets lots of national attention for provoking the ire of liberals on things like masking, it doesn’t seem to hurt him in Florida, and in fact continues to raise his national profile.”

In head-to-head gubernatorial matchups between Gov. DeSantis and the other three Democratic gubernatorial candidates—Sen. Annette Taddeo, Rep. Charlie Crist, and AG Commissioner Nikki Fried— DeSantis leads them all by double digits, and bests perceived Democratic frontrunner Fried by 23%.

A small sample in this poll, admittedly. Plus, what the hell, it’s a damned poll; y’all already know well enough just how much stock I put in those things. Still, though, it’s encouraging news. Anytime I read of Demonrats being “crushed,” I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Keep up the skeer, Gov; don’t take your hands off their throats, squeeze harder instead.

2

Hammerdown

DeSantis the Barbarian by-God don’t let up.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Tuesday that the Walt Disney Company “crossed the line” when it announced its intention to repeal the Parental Rights in Education bill, which DeSantis signed into law on Monday.

During a press conference in Tallahassee on Tuesday, DeSantis told reporters, “For Disney to come out and put a statement and say that the bill should have never passed and that they are going to actively work to repeal it, I think one was fundamentally dishonest, but two, I think that crossed the line.”

He added: “this state is governed by the interests of the people of the state of Florida. It is not based on the demands of California corporate executives. They do not run this state. They do not control this state.”

To no one’s surprise, there’s much, much more of this wonderful stuff. For instink:

Just one day after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education bill, the Republican is now suing the federal government for its never-ending mask mandate for public transportation and airlines.

More than two years since Covid-19 reached our shores, the Biden administration is still ordering that Americans wear face coverings on planes and to commute. After the Trump administration opted not to require masks on public transport, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order in late January 2021, which prompted one from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in February 2021 shortly after Biden’s inauguration. Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody says these federal agencies “never had the power to issue” these mandates.

TSA’s rule was supposed to expire in May of last year but was instead extended to September, then January of 2022, then March, and now April. DeSantis and a horde of other states are trying to change that by arguing that the federal mask mandate goes beyond the CDC’s authority and violates state laws that ban forced masking.

“It’s not something that’s grounded in any science,” DeSantis said during the press conference, showing that just like you don’t have to be a biologist to know what a woman is, you don’t have to be a virologist to understand basic sense. “If you have somebody sitting in the window seat and they’re nibbling on peanuts for two and a half hours, they can have their mask down. You have the person in the middle seat that is not eating, and if they just want to read a magazine without their mask, then somehow that would be a big problem.”

“Florida has led the nation in standing up to misguided federal government policies and fighting back against heavy-handed mandates that have no scientific backing,” DeSantis said. “If politicians and celebrities can attend the Super Bowl unmasked, every U.S. citizen should have the right to fly unmasked. It is well past time to get rid of this unnecessary mandate and get back to normal life.”

Yet more enheartening quotes from Ron the Great at the link. Circling back around to the infamous and inhumane “Let’s Lynch All Teh Gheys!!!” bill—as Leftards have labelled it in their usual calm, rational, not at all overly dramatized manner—our enemies have slipped up and given the game away.

Teachers Who Insist They’re Not Teaching Your Kid About Sex Also Weirdly Outraged By Ban On Teaching Your Kid About Sex
ORLANDO, FL—On July 1st, teachers throughout Florida will no longer be permitted to encourage discussions about sex with children in grades kindergarten through grade 3. Florida teachers have been adamant that they’ve never encouraged such discussions in their classrooms but they are weirdly outraged that they will no longer be able to.

“I have never once told a boy they are really a girl, or a girl they are really nothing, or a man that they should be comfortable loving children. Not once. BUT IT’S OUTRAGEOUS THAT I CAN’T,” said Ms. Feilershiek, a kindergarten teacher at Chickasaw Elementary, while picketing in front of her school instead of teaching children.

One third-grade teacher, Mx. Pat Frumouge (ze/zir), had begun teaching zeir students about LGBTQ culture full-time ahead of the July 1st deadline.

“Look, I don’t groom any kids. But I have to constantly explain why I look like a porcelain fish-being,” ze said, visibly shaken. “This law is going to erase me as an individual. My sexual identity and favorite kinks are my entire identity…if I can’t share that with children—which I don’t—then I don’t know what I’m going to do. Teach math?”

Children at Chickasaw Elementary School are reportedly failing at math and science but excelling at peer-pressuring other children to switch genders at will. Teachers insist the kids are doing that on their own, however.

According to sources, teachers are preparing for the next year by abandoning all subjects entirely in favor of full-time LGBTQ lectures to make up for the fact they won’t be able to indoctrinate children next year—even though they don’t do that.

And again, we have to ask ourselves: is it satire, or is it for real? It just gets harder and harder to tell. Pity the folks at the Bee; they have the toughest jobs in the world. Trying to find a way to effectively exaggerate the Left’s positions and statements—already so extreme they observably warp and distort actual physical reality—for purposes of satire must exhaust a body to the very edge of total collapse. Meanwhile, another whackadoo shitlib demonstrates why the loony Left can never really be defeated.

The angry teachers of TikTok are rolling in after Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education law (also known as “Don’t Say Gay,” because politics demands that every bill signed by a Republican must be demonized). The word “gay” is not in the bill. The bill actually protects children in pre-K through third grade from being assaulted with discuccion of sex and gender issues that they are not ready to handle. For some reason, people on the left are having meltdowns because they can’t talk about their personal sex lives with little children and, in a bizarre trend, they’re making videos about it…

Libs of Tik Tok on Twitter is at the forefront of exposing all the teachers who are carrying on like stuck pigs because they can’t indoctrinate children anymore (at least in Florida). Not only did the bill outlaw discussions of sex and gender with students from pre-K to third grade, but it also outlawed hiding information from K-12 parents about their children’s gender identity or any other information that would be important for them to know. There is a disturbing trend of public schools actively keeping secrets from parents that has led to suicide attempts and harm to children. In Florida, that’s no longer allowed.

But at least one teacher, Amber Mercier who works at The Academy, says she’ll keep lying to parents about their kids, and she’s willing to lose her job over it.

Mercier is gay, and she believes keeping secrets about sexuality from her students’ families — if the student wants her to — is worth losing her job over. “I just want to go ahead and state that I would rather lose my job than out one of my students to their families. Being a safe person and a safe place for kids who don’t have that at home is one of the best parts of being a teacher, so, yeah, I’m not doing it. Fire me, sue me, take me to jail — I’m not doing it.”

Okey doke, fine by me then.

As if the previous nutjob and her oath to lose her job weren’t radical enough, though, there’s also this clearly sane, perfectly normal adult.


Only one correct response to that proposition, I believe.

TermsAcceptable.png

See what I mean about it being impossible to defeat them, though? For Leftards, EVERY hill is a hill worth dying on. Plus, they DO NOT moderate, they DO NOT yield, they DO NOT bargain in good faith. For these relentless zealots, every setback is only temporary, their eyes always locked on the ultimate goal. They’re a lot like cyborgs in that. You can’t defeat them; you can only either shut them down or destroy them. Listen, and understand.



1

Can’t get enough of that DeSantis stuff

I missed this oldie but goodie its first time around, but it’s still solid gold.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In an exclusive interview with The Federalist, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis challenged the right to take a proactive stance on cultural issues, not just a defensive one.

“Do you want to be the Harlem Globetrotters or do you want to be the Washington Generals? D.C. Republicans, a lot of them are my friends, but they’re like lovable losers,” he said. “They let the corporate media define the narrative and it’s like trying to fight your way out of a wet paper bag. You have to reject these narratives.”

Recognizing Americans who “aren’t captive to the Acela corridor or the far left coast,” DeSantis noted a hunger for strong and active conservative leadership. “If all you’re doing is, the Democrats propose $2 trillion in infrastructure [legislation], so we say we’ll do $1.5 trillion, that’s not going to animate anybody,” he said. “That’s just Me Too Republicanism and ultimately that’s not going to be successful.”

While so many Americans feel they’re on the defensive against an onslaught of cultural threats to their faith, families, and patriotism, DeSantis encouraged them to fight back. “The goal is not to just lose ground more slowly,” he said. “The goal is to regain ground in an offensive direction.”

“This last year was a fundamental test [for the Republican Party] about leading against lockdowns and leading to get kids in school and leading to make sure people weren’t under the yoke of oppressive regulations,” said the governor, noting his lawsuit against the federal Center for Disease Control over its attempt to force the cruise industry to require vaccine passports from passengers. “We are going to pry open every portion of this country one way or another.”

Plenty more where that came from, folks. Don’t miss a single scrumptious word, you’re gonna love it.

A becoming modesty

It ain’t bragging if you can DO it.

Many people are asking, so I’ll give it to you now, it is 100% true. While playing with the legendary golfer, Ernie Els, winner of four Majors and approximately 72 other tournaments throughout the world, Gene Sauers, winner of the Senior U.S. Open, Ken Duke, and Mike Goodes, both excellent tour players, I made a hole-in-one. It took place at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on the 7th hole, which was playing 181-yards into a slight wind. I hit a 5-iron, which sailed magnificently into a rather strong wind, with approximately 5 feet of cut, whereupon it bounced twice and then went clank, into the hole. These great tour players noticed it before I did because their eyes are slightly better, but on that one hole only, their swings weren’t. Anyway, there’s a lot of chatter about it, quite exciting, and people everywhere seem to be asking for the facts. Playing with that group of wonderful, talented players was a lot of fun. The match was Ernie and me (with no strokes) against Gene, Mike, and Ken. I won’t tell you who won because I am a very modest individual, and you will then say I was bragging—and I don’t like people who brag!

Oh, of course not, Mr President, sir. Perish the thought. Your well-known modesty is in fact what so many of us admire most about you.

AHEM.

1

A thing of the mind

Wait, did you guys know about this and not tell me or something?

The Conch Republic was born on April 23, 1982, in response to a United States Border Patrol Blockade of the Florida Keys. Since the United States insisted on treating the Keys like a foreign country, Mayor Dennis Wardlow seceded from (the) Union. Today we stand proudly as a community of who have “Sovereign State Of Mind” and as the “People who seceded where others have failed”

The Conch Republic (also known as Key West and the Florida Keys) like many nations was born from trouble. The trouble started back in the dark days of March 1982, when the U.S. Federal Government placed a Border Patrol Roadblock at the Last Chance Saloon in Florida City.

A seventeen mile traffic jam immediately ensued as the Border Patrol stopped every car leaving or entering the Keys, supposedly searching for illegal drugs and aliens who might be hiding under the front seats, in glove compartments, and in trunks.

The media starting reporting on the unprecedented action of the Border Patrol in setting up a Border Roadblock within the United States, itself (after all, most everyone believed that the Florida Keys were indeed part of the United States!) As the stories of the traffic jam poured out across the nation and the world, visitors started canceling reservations to come to the Keys.

Community leaders started to gather around Mayor Dennis Wardlow to decide what to do. The very lifeblood of a budding tourism industry was threatened and Secessionist talk was bubbling up in each discussion. At the urging of David Paul Horan, the legal route was chosen as the first alternative and an injunction was filed against the government’s action in Federal Court in Miami.

The court essentially refused to enjoin the US Federal Government’s Border Patrol from treating the Keys like a foreign country. When the Key West delegation left the courthouse, they were met by a gaggle of the world press asking “What are you going to do, Mr. Mayor?” and Mayor Wardlow replied “We are going to go home and secede” and thus the Conch Republic was born.

On April 23rd, the Conch Republic flag was raised over city hall and the Schooner Western Union, under command of Captain John Kraus, went forth into the harbor and attacked the US Coast Guard Cutter DILIGENCE with water balloons, Conch fritters and stale Cuban bread. The DILIGENCE fought back with fire hoses and thus commenced the Great Battle of the Conch Republic. Prime Minister Wardlow surrendered and demanded foreign aid from the United States (which we are still waiting for!) The road block was quietly removed and the glorious Conch Republic was born.

Later on, the parodic, jokey nature of the Conch “secession” is made clear, more’s the pity—I was already packing a bag over here, dammit. Despite that unseriousness, the last line hints at something fairly significant.

The Conch Republic exists as a sovereign state of mind, which signifies our vision of the America which we are proud to be part of.

Glad they included that “state of mind” business, because that’s the only place where their vision of America—and, for that matter, mine—actually still exists.

2

America’s Gov does it again

We cannot spare this man. He fights.

And, y’know, wins.

DeSantis Blasts Hollywood ‘Degenerates’ Before Signing Parental Rights Bill
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill into law Monday, marking another victory for parents in the Sunshine State. 

“Parents’ rights have been increasingly under assault around the nation, but in Florida we stand up for the rights of parents and the fundamental role they play in the education of their children,” DeSantis released in a statement. “Parents have every right to be informed about services offered to their child at school, and should be protected from schools using classroom instruction to sexualize their kids as young as 5 years old.”

There, Vichy GOPers, was that really so hard to say? Yeah, I know, I know, for you it ain’t the saying; it’s the making it stick part that presents so much difficulty for ya.

The legislation specifically prohibits sexual education instruction for children eight years old and younger, a concept the majority of Americans support. 

During remarks ahead of the signing, DeSantis blasted Hollywood elites for repeatedly lying about the bill and claiming it is discriminatory.

“If the same Hollywood elites who upheld degenerates like Harvey Weinstein now oppose our efforts to protect parental rights, I wear that like a badge of honor,” DeSantis said. 

GOD, how I love this man. More rich, buttery goodness on this most frabjous of days.

As Twitchy reported earlier, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education Bill, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and already Disney has issued a statement saying it remains committed to repealing the law. One thing that got lost in all of the “Don’t Say Gay” hysteria is that this bill was about more than just keeping instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity out of kindergarten classrooms; as the bill’s real name implies, it enumerates the rights of parents when it comes to the education of their children.

For example, the law prohibits school district personnel from “discouraging or prohibiting parental notification and involvement in critical decisions affecting a student’s mental, emotional, or physical well-being.” We did a post on one school that had a “transition closet,” so that children could come to school in the clothes their parents “made” them wear and then change into clothes that “reflect their true gender identity … like the superheroes they are.”

In signing the bill Monday, DeSantis posted a video of a mother of a 13-year-old describing how school officials had drawn up a “transition plan” for her child without her notification or input.

Now for a small sampling of Tweets that will positively curl your toes with near-orgasmic bliss.



Know what the best thing about DeSantis is? With him, you can be sure he really, truly means it; unlike every other goddamned all hat, no cattle GOPe Swamp critter currently extant, DeSantis WON’T back down, not even a tiny bit, no matter how crushing the deluge of rankest shit the Left hurls at him. To appropriate Martin Luther: Here he will stand, he can do no other. May God bless and protect this man, and all who sail in him.

Update! A treatise on DeSantis’s motivating principle: interposition.

A recent University of North Florida poll of registered Florida voters found giant margins for DeSantis over either of his Democrat competitors. He leads former governor and party flip-flopper Charlie Crist by 19 points and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried by 21 points. Those numbers will close by November, of course. But the poll was of registered voters, who don’t typically poll well for Republicans. And DeSantis has nearly $100 million for re-election while his contenders each have a few million and a primary yet. 

How is this stunning success in popularity among ordinary voters possible when every conceivable media, social media, and cultural mover has vilified DeSantis for three years?

In a word: Interposition.

This is the idea that a state in a federation such as the United States has a right and the authority to interpose itself between an overbearing federal government and that state. The Constitution is riddled with its implications in the separation of powers between the federal government and state governments. The Federalist Papers discuss it. It was an essential element of states rights federalism and invoked prior to the Civil War. That terrible conflagration became inevitable to rid the nation of the moral scourge of slavery, but the price was a rolling forth of power consolidating in Washington, D.C. at the cost of the states.

However, it’s not like interposition was ever outlawed. States could still practice it, but that requires spinal fortitude. And now more than ever.

Never using the term “interposition” publicly, DeSantis nevertheless practiced this essential concept repeatedly during COVID. He stood between a federal shutdown and shutting down Florida. Even the three-week Florida “shutdown” was minimal as the list of who could remain open, including churches, was very long. He blocked the federal government from mandating vaccines in Florida, even keeping corporations from acting as fronts to enforce the mandates. When the federal government curtailed Florida’s access to monoclonal antibodies for what appeared to be petty personal reasons, DeSantis bypassed the federal stock and bought monoclonals on the open market.

Even in the latest kerfuffle over the Parental Rights in Education bill there is a form of interposition by the Republican legislature and DeSantis because the U.S. Department of Education holds so much (extra-constitutional) leverage over school districts, and they have created a state legal bulwark against federal infringement.

Most recently, DeSantis challenged his own party leadership in the legislature over long-time gerrymandered congressional boundaries to provide a black district in North Florida. Legislative Republicans kept the district similar to what it had been, which also had the side-benefit of clumping a lot of Democrats into one district. DeSantis believes drawing districts based on race is openly unconstitutional. This is the sort of principled stand that wrong-foots so many in the political world, but is often appreciated by voters. More Republicans should understand this.

Naturally, the media lost its mind at every one of these actions, but the policies were relatively popular among Floridians. The fact that they have proven to be right in hindsight by the data is awesome for Floridians, but not the first point. The first point is that a state governor had the cajones to place himself and the authority of his state government between the federal government and the people of his state.

That reference to DeSantis’s oversized cojones above gives me the perfect excuse for this. Not that I needed one, of course.



What the hell, you can never have too much of the Greatest Pure Rock Band Of All Time, amIright?



Excellent sound quality for a live recording, I must say.

1

What’s theirs is theirs. Also, what’s yours is theirs

What I’d like to know is, how did goobermint get so all-fired high and mighty that it arrogates unto itself the authority to seize your car and destroy it, without your having done a damned thing wrong?

The thought of crushing a freshly restored 1959 Corvette is heartbreaking. Then, add in that the reason for doing so centers on the condition of two very specific rivets. Luckily for Richard Martinez, Kansas lawmakers have finally come through and passed a law that frees his beloved hardtop from the clutches of the impound lot.

Say, Richard, don’t you think it’s high time you seriously considered getting yourself a safe, economical, dependable electric car, hmmm? For your family, for the climate, for The Future™?

The center of this debate has been the VIN plate on Martinez’s Corvette. He bought the car in 2016, a beloved ride that got a full restoration some years ago and as part of the repainting process had the VIN plate removed. Upon presenting it for routine state inspection, the Kansas Highway Patrol seized the Corvette. Unknown to the Martinez, the car ran afoul of a Kansas law which stated any vehicle with a “destroyed, removed, altered, or defaced” VIN plate must be crushed. That’s a harsh reality for a historic car that wasn’t party to any nefarious intent. Early on, authorities declared Martinez innocent of any wrongdoing, but the car was still being targeted for destruction.

With the car sitting in an impound lot, a push developed revise the Kansas law, largely thanks to the non-profit Kansas Justice Institute. The revision that resulted from this advocacy (House Bill 2594) aims to exempt classic vehicles undergoing repair or restoration and would additionally exempt classic car owners who didn’t know or had no reason to believe their car was involved in a crime. This is a big step forward and removes a significant bit of hesitation from owners in Kansas who feared their vehicles might get them in legal hot water when they went to register it.

A “big step forward”? If so, it’s a step away from a dark, dismal place we never should have allowed ourselves to be led into in the first place. Hats off to those Kansas lawmakers for doing the right thing in the end; a big Bronx cheer for the Kansas lawmakers for the original “We Will We Will ROB YOU!” Act from whence all the hassle sprang. Question: who does Mr Marinez see to get those lost years of angst and anxiety back?

Like a fucking BOSS

Not a story I find particularly compelling, but Ace’s opening line makes it worth a post.

Stormy Daniels Loses Appeal; She Now Owes Trump $300,000 in Lawyers Fees
—Ace

Trump is the first man in history to present a prostitute with a bill.

Heh. Gotta love it. More, and funnier still:

Michael Avenatti pushed Stormy Daniels to bring this lawsuit for his own private interest, not hers. She was always exposed to this risk of having to pay huge lawyers’ fees — California’s defamation law has a provision that punishes those who bring lawsuits to reduce public participation in political debate, and Daniels walked right into this judgment for $300,000 by brining the suit in California.

And Avenatti told her to do that.

Not only did he steal the money she was owed for her book, but he also saddled her with $300,000 in lawyers’ fees for a suit that never should have been brought, just so he’d have something to talk about with Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper on CNN.

Oh: Coincidentally, the amount Avenatti embezzled from her for her “book” (really just another media-subsidized political hit and undisclosed, money-laundered campaign contribution to the Democrats) was also $300,000.

Daniels says she’ll go to jail rather than “pay a penny” to Trump.

Hey, fine by me, ya dumb cooze. Your body, your choice and all that, and Trump won’t miss the money. As a career hooker, You should feel right at home in lockdown; I’m sure it won’t be your first visit.

5

“Triggering the Irrelevant”

Vox puts up a most excellent Gab post.

The future belongs to those who show up for it. Stop whining. Start fighting by getting married, having children, and planting the acorns of the trees in whose shade your grandchildren will play.

Yes, there are risks. You might get your heart broken. You might lose half your toys. So what? Action requires risk and risk is inherent to life.

TheFutureBelongsToThoseWhoShowUp.png

Over at the VD blog, he says that “All the cowards and incels on Gab were triggered by this,” which shouldn’t surprise anybody. Bottom line?

There is no point in whining, blackpilling, or worrying about things you can’t possibly control. If you’re not willing to take risks to build the future, if you’re not willing to live, if you’re not willing to set your face against the entropy of the universe, then you are irrelevant and your inferior genetic line will end with you, due to your cowardly narcissism.

We should all hope so; it’s better for everybody that way, frankly. Beyond that observation, all I can think to add is a hearty “Amen.”

What took you so long?

I expected this WAY before now, as y’all know.

I sense a disturbance in the force. In fact, I’ve been feeling the tremors for a while. Back in January, I wrote a column for American Greatness called “The Coming Dethronement of Joe Biden.” In it, I noted that Biden’s appalling performance as president would sooner or later—and probably sooner, given the ostentatious nature of his multifaceted failure—lead to his removal as president.

I should have added that it wasn’t Biden’s performance per se that would lead to his downfall. The problem, rather, was the way his performance was undermining his—and therefore his minders’ and puppetmasters’—political power. As Saul Alinsky, community organizer to the stars, noted, the “issue is never the issue.” Accordingly, the people who put Joe Biden in power—I cannot name them, but I know they are the same people who keep him in power—do not care about inflation, rising gas and food prices, COVID lockdowns or mask mandates, the porousness of our Southern border, the threat of war with Russia, or the myriad other issues that worry ordinary voters. I am quite certain, in fact, that the word “voters” brings a vaguely contemptuous smile to their faces.

They are not troubled by the suffering of the people, indeed, they approve of a certain amount of suffering. Suffering produces dependency; and dependency, in turn, is like an insurance policy for those who cater to it: the bureaucrats who fill the troughs that feed the populace. The point, of course, was never to end the dependency but to manage in such a way as to perpetuate and expand it. Joe Biden is an errand boy, a figurehead, in the metabolism of this great (not to say Great Society) act of political legerdemain.

The last several days have been full of wonder at the New York Time’s admission that, guess what, Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” was not—as Joe Biden claimed—“Russian disinformation.” Nope, everything that Donald Trump said to Leslie Stahl about it was true. Everything the New York Post said about it was true. Twitter and the rest of the regime media pronounced a damnatio memoriae on the Post and anyone who dared publicize the scurrilous story. The poor computer repair chap who found and publicized the dirt, political as well as sexual, on Hunter’s laptop was hounded and driven into bankruptcy. (Remember Jonah Goldberg on that poor fellow? I do. “Wait you believe the computer repair shop story? Like at face value?”)

Goldberg is but one of many who—if this were a better world and they were better people—would be scrambling madly to make a shamefaced apology to those of us upon whom the passage of time has now conferred total vindication.

Many people seem to think that the reason that the story of Hunter’s laptop—which is just as much about Joe Biden’s perfidy as it is about Hunter’s perversion—has emerged now is because it can no longer do any serious damage. The election is over, Biden won—at least, he was declared the winner, which is not quite the same thing, although it does mean that he gets to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But I wonder if there isn’t something else going on. The news is full not only of stories about the New York Times fessing up, sort of, about the contents of Hunter’s laptop, but also of stories about how Hunter is likely to be indicted for tax fraud. In one sense, that is not news. I wrote about it at the end of 2020 when Hunter announced, sotto voce, that he had been informed that he was being investigated by the tax authorities. But in another sense, I suspect, that news, like the revelation from the New York Times that, what do you know, all that stuff about Hunter’s laptop was on the level, like Joe Biden’s bizarre suggestion a couple of days ago that “everybody knows somebody” who has taken nude pictures of some lover and then used them to “blackmail” the person—all that has a different valence now that the Biden Administration is seriously underwater and there are no lifelines in evidence.

The issue is never the issue. I suspect that Joe Biden is being prepped for ejection. Exactly how it will happen I do not yet know. But he is on the threshold, or possibly has even passed the threshold, where he could appear to govern. His minders understand this. They must be the ones to replace him, otherwise they themselves risk being replaced, which would be intolerable. As I say, it’s not entirely clear yet how the defenestration will take place. Obviously, Kamala will have to be dealt with first, and she will be. Look for some ground softening stories such as the Times just served up about the laptop. They won’t be long in coming. 

T’is a consummation devoutly to be wished—not because it would solve any problems, not that it would fix anything, not that it would signal any monumental Ruling Class capitulation—simply because it would be a painful, humiliating slap in the face for two grubby little mountebanks who are long past due for one.

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CF Glossary

ProPol: Professional Politician

Vichy GOPe: Putative "Republicans" who talk a great game but never can seem to find a hill they consider worth dying on; Quislings, Petains, Benedicts, backstabbers, fake phony frauds

Fake Phony Fraud(s), S'faccim: two excellent descriptors coined by the late great WABC host Bob Grant which are interchangeable, both meaning as they do pretty much the same thing

Mordor On The Potomac: Washington, DC

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