Willful Stupidity

Obnoxious child playing in the street

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Mike

Boy, talk about a problem that solves itself.

A climate activist in Vancouver who is part of the infamous group Extinction Rebellion has gone so far as to literally glue herself to a road.

This group is really going for it with their full-blown plan to take down the establishment and save the planet during its “October Rebellion,” which sounds promising but has done nothing but get 33 of them arrested (so far).

When one of their members named Tara glued herself to the road, they couldn’t have been more proud and ecstatic!

Yeh, I bet so. Just try and imagine how proud and ecstatic I’m gonna be when I binge-watch the upcoming YT vid of her stupid ass getting run over and squashed like a mosquito by a big fucking K-whopper T680 pulling doubles.

Neville Chamberlain Rules

Posted on October 27, 2021October 27, 2021 by Mike

So many things back-asswards and wrong in this one it would take me months to cover them all.

Compromise to Make America Great Again

WELL. There’s an inauspicious start if ever I saw one.

A devout Catholic and a pro-abortion socialist walk into a conference room. No, this isn’t a setup for a joke. It’s an example of how America can win. If that seems odd, consider this one: a slave owner and an abolitionist walk into a hall in Philadelphia. That’s no joke, either: it’s how America began.

In 1787, men who wanted slavery to end convened in Philadelphia with men who wanted slavery to grow. Their purpose was to write America’s Constitution. Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris, delegates to the convention, were ardent abolitionists. George Washington, chairman of the convention, opposed slavery, too, writing a year before “there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it.” Pierce Butler, delegate for South Carolina, thought otherwise. “The security the southern states want is that their negroes may not be taken from them,” he declared.

The Framers bridged a nation over these deep divides. Congress today can’t even pass an infrastructure bill needed to fix bridges. A bridge too far for this Congress is—well, any bridge.

Let’s all just please ignore the fact that, if past form is any indication, the “infrastructure” bill will result in precious few bridges being fixed, if any. But there’ll be whacking great soupçons of taxpayer gelt freely ladled out to federal employees, labor unions, illegal aliens, failing green energy companies, and any other Demonrat grifter-constituency groups astute enough to put their hands out for a nice taste.

America is the one nation that has best realized freedom and equality for all. Americans are freer and more equal and yet of more colors and creeds than citizens of any other nation. America rid herself of slavery, which had been international practice. She liberated Japan from despotism and Europe from Fascists, Nazis, and communists. She enriched her people, among whom even the poorest are rich compared to billions abroad. She proved that a nation of men free to think as they will, speak as they wish, and do as they please can together achieve more than any nation forcing its citizens to think, say, and do as the government commands. What would be obvious to the Framers seems utterly lost on too many today: compromise made all this brilliant success possible.

Fair enough, but I have a question.

Q: Why was compromise possible in 1787, but in 2021 is neither possible nor at all desirable? A:

In 1787, one side could be confident that the opposition was bargaining in good faith; in 2021, this is NOT the case
In 1787, both sides pursued the same primary objectives despite differences on how it might best be accomplished—individual liberty, safeguards against tyranny, government of, by, and for the people; in 2021, there is a fundamental conflict between not just the details, but the objectives themselves
In 1787, negotiations were conducted by men for whom personal integrity and good character were of paramount importance; in 2021, the opposition considers integrity to be an exploitable weakness, and the definition of “good character” has, as with so many other words and phrases, been upended to mean the exact opposite of what had traditionally been understood
In 1787, negotiations were conducted by men who, while by no means agreeing on everything, for the most part had many of their values, ambitions, and personal backgrounds in common with the rest; most importantly, they respected dissenting opinion instead of despising it; in 2021, no trace of comity, respect, and tolerance for dissent is to be found on the Left, with whom Real Americans share almost nothing apart from rough geographic proximity
In 1787, all negotiating parties could be secure in the knowledge that, all of them being honest, respectable men for whom their word was their bond, the terms of any compromise would be fully honored and upheld; in 2021, the record shows that any compromise serves the opposition purely as a jumping-off point for demanding further concessions, on the rare occasions when the agreement isn’t just ignored and/or flung down and danced upon before the ink has had time to dry
In 1787, American citizens had elected representatives who correctly understood their role as public servants and therefore could be trusted to advocate their constituents’ interests vigorously and honorably; in 2021, Amerikan subjects have no representation in the federal government whatsoever, their interests are of no importance to anyone in the federal government, and the political parties operate in barely-veiled collusion rather than honest opposition

The pitiful denouement:

Uncompromising moralism rejects more than America’s founding. It rejects any secular government over a free people. Either the governed are free to disagree over what is right or the government decides what is right over the objections of the governed. The only way for the governed to remain free while the government inches its way toward the true good is compromise. Some compromises already occurred in the Constitution: they are set. Others remain.

In a word, NO. Our Founders—those wisest, most far-sighted of men—knew well that carrying on in search of a way to forge a reasonable compromise with the tyrant King George, particularly after years spent bootlessly imploring him for redress of grievances, would be the very height of folly. They knew what the matter was all going come down to eventually, what they were going to have to do to free themselves. And instead of bleating and whimpering endlessly about lawsuits, non-violent protest, and “compromise,” they didn’t flinch from their duty to themselves and their posterity as they perceived it. They just by-God did it.

Compromise would have doomed them; uncompromising adherence to the “moralism” of human political liberty set a sterling example for an entire civilization to emulate. As I’ve said before: any fool advocating “compromise” with the Demonrats must grapple with one simple question: Which of the Bill of Rights are you willing to trade away, then? Until they’ve provided a straightforward answer to that question, they needn’t waste their breath hectoring me about any “compromise.” They have not one thing to say that I’m at all interested in paying attention to.

“Uncompromising moralism” when it comes to tyranny is EXACTLY WHAT AMERICA’S FOUNDING WAS BASED UPON. It is in no way a “rejection” of anything whatsoever else…other than tyranny. So it was then, so it remains now.

The author of the above is under the sway of several paralyzing delusions, first among them that the central government as currently constituted is not only Constitutionally legitimate, but is in fact nobly trying to “inch its way towards the true good” of its benighted subjects as well. As if nothing we’ve seen over the last not quite two years—the Fauxvid power-grab; PantiFa/BLM riots; the wink-nudge sanction of same by governors, mayors, and other authorities; ongoing FBI corruption and thuggery; the fraudulent 2020 election, to name but a few—had ever happened at all. As if Amerika v2.0 bears even a trifling resemblance to America That Was. As if the country wasn’t already teetering on the brink of catastrophe and collapse brought on and exacerbated by its own goddamned government.

From this original self-deception the other noxious fallacies sprout, as branches from a tree-trunk. Debate and haggling over which branch might best be swapped for another is a mug’s game. When the tree itself has become toxic, none but a fool bothers with pruning. You chop the fucker down and burn the remnants to ashes, lest the whole orchard become sickened unto death from close proximity to its poison.

Phony “compromise” with villainous, amoral totalitarians barren of integrity, suffused with ill intent, and unswervingly committed to the “fundamental transformation” of America as founded into a monstrous, despotic shitrapy, is precisely what got us into the dire straits we find ourselves in today. Heaven preserve us from the dolts who still try to persuade us that only more of the same can possibly save us. There IS a way aspiring tyrants can be effectively dealt with, but reruns of the self-same DC dumbshow we’ve already been forced to watch again and again and again wouldn’t be it.

Even so, Callaghan is by no means alone in his self-deception. Steyn adroitly eviscerates Charlie Kirk, feebly laboring under similar crippling, self-negating delusions, as evidenced by the tail-chasing nonsense he mistakes for argumentation in dispute with an interlocutor way more intelligent and perceptive than Kirk appears to be:

Covidstan has sufficiently restricted my movements these last two years that I see fewer things firsthand than I might wish and am dependent, therefore, on media coverage, which is never a good thing. The parents pushing back against the social engineers (at best) and (at worst) rape-enablers of the Virginia school boards seem, given the provocations, calm and of moderate mien by comparison with the sick ideological commissars attempting to silence them.

But elsewhere there is the increasing sense that the combination of Covid, the election and the accelerating politicization of agencies such as the Department of Justice and the FBI have pushed us closer to the Yeatsian point: “the centre cannot hold”. This exchange is making the rounds:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: When do we get to use the guns? No, and I’m not — that’s not a joke. I’m not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where’s the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?

Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was not anxious to go down this road:

KIRK: I’m going to denounce that and I’m going to tell you why. Because you’re playing into all their plans and they’re trying to make you do this…They are trying to make you do something that will be violent that will justify a takeover of your freedoms and liberties, the likes of which we have never seen. We are close to have –

AUDIENCE MEMBER: They’re already doing it.

KIRK: Hold on. We are close to have momentum to be able to get this country back on a trajectory using the peaceful means that we have at us…They fear us holding the line with self-control and discipline, taking over school board meetings. They are the ones that are willing to use federal force against us.

And I know that people get fired up. We are living under fascism. We are living under this tyranny. But if you think for a second that they’re not wanting you to all of a sudden get that next level where they’re going to say, OK, we need Patriot Act 2.0. If you think that, you know, Waco is bad, wait until you see what they want to do next.

Mr Kirk is trying to thread a difficult needle here: “We are living under fascism” and “tyranny”, but it is not yet time for getting out the guns.

Not a difficult needle—an IMPOSSIBLE one to thread, thanks to certain self-evident contradictions which no true American ought ever to contemplate disgracing himself seeking to reconcile. I know nothing whatever about the man, but the above quotes reveal that Charlie Kirk is either a fraud, a buffoon, or an out-and-out moron desperately cherishing a long-gone memory, dizzied into stupefaction by his own circular illogic.

Between liberty and tyranny, there can be no compromise worth the making. The two are polar opposites; by definition there is no common ground to be found between them. The idea that such might nonetheless exist is chimerical, an ever-elusive phantom any wise, self-respecting, freedom-oriented American knows better than to fritter away a moment of his time and an ounce of his strength in search of. In these times, he well knows that there are far more important things he must do.

Again: Either there is liberty, or there is tyranny.

Choose.

In the wrong hands Part the Second

Posted on October 23, 2021October 24, 2021 by Mike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I see that @DLoesch wants to “take back the truth.”
And she doesn’t care how many dead bodies she has to step over in that pursuit.
The Second Amendment is not a moral credit card that buys you all the guns you want.
That law needs to be rethought.

— AlecBaldwin(HABF) (@AlecBaldwin) March 5, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the propmaster hands you a practical weapon it is your fu**ing duty to re-inspect it in full view of that propmaster and any nearby cast/crew to ensure it is safe in your hands. It does not then need to be re-checked until it changes hands again.

Safety & Redundancy. pic.twitter.com/jjR9ImWUJS

— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) October 23, 2021

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

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

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

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

Clink, a round was in the magazine and chambered.

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

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

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

In the wrong hands

Posted on October 22, 2021October 22, 2021 by Mike

Waitwaitwait…WHUT?!?

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

Ho. Lee. SHIT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Via GP)

Riding the tiger

Posted on October 21, 2021October 21, 2021 by Mike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The training and readiness of the ship’s crew were deficient”

Posted on October 20, 2021October 20, 2021 by Mike

Gee, ya THINK?!?

A cascade of failures – from a junior enlisted sailor not recognizing a fire at the end of their duty watch to fundamental problems with how the U.S. Navy trains sailors to fight fires in shipyards – are responsible for the five-day blaze that cost the service an amphibious warship, according to an investigation into the July 2020 USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) fire reviewed by USNI News.

The investigation into the fire aboard Bonhomme Richard, overseen by former U.S. 3rd Fleet commander Vice Adm. Scott Conn, found that the two-year-long $249 million maintenance period rendered the ship’s crew unprepared to fight the fire the service says was set by a crew member.

“Although the fire was started by an act of arson, the ship was lost due to an inability to extinguish the fire,” Conn wrote in his investigation, which was completed in April and reviewed by USNI News this week.

“In the 19 months executing the ship’s maintenance availability, repeated failures allowed for the accumulation of significant risk and an inadequately prepared crew, which led to an ineffective fire response.”

Full props to ADM Conn for his desert-dry understatement. Fret not though, Squids, there’s a newly-minted admiral in town who’s SURE to unfuck the USN in a mere trice.

Assistant Secretary of Health Richard Levine, a man who identifies as a woman and goes by the name of Rachel, has been sworn in as the first “transgender” four-star admiral in America, as reported by the New York Post.

On Tuesday, the 63-year-old Levine was named as an admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which is not one of the armed forces of the United States military. Following the swearing-in ceremony, Levine tweeted that he was “deeply honored and grateful to join the ranks of men and women across this great nation who have committed to defend the United States against small and large threats, known and unknown.”

Prior to his role at HHS, Levine had served as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health, where he oversaw a disastrous order to force COVID-positive patients into nursing homes, exposing thousands of vulnerable senior citizens to the virus. Levine himself came under fire when it was discovered that, upon the implementation of the order, he made sure to have his own mother moved out of such a nursing home and into a private facility. During his tenure, Levine also violated lockdown orders by secretly negotiating for a major exclusive car show to take place in Pennsylvania back in August, despite orders at the time banning such large gatherings.

Levine suffers from transgenderism, a mental disorder which leads people to believe that they are the opposite gender from the one they were born.

It remained unclear at presstime exactly how Mrxskkjnnxxx Levine plans to “defend the United States,” as per her HISTORIC!!! COURAGEOUS!!! statement, from her palatial office heading up a bureaucracy with no affiliation whatsoever with the US military. But I’m sure he/she/whatever will do a fine job of it nonetheless. In other news:

Meanwhile, China is expanding its nuclear missile silo field and just launched a new hypersonic nuclear-capable missile that circled the entire globe at low-orbit.

China’s new space nukes could evade the US’s missile defense systems.

While China is flexing its nuclear muscle, the “woke” Biden Admin is focused on white rage, maternity paratrooper suits, French manicures and promoting transgenders.

Levine, who previously served as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health, has a horrible track record.

The Coronavirus ravaged nursing homes across the US because of deadly Democrat policies of forcing people infected with COVID-19 back into the long-term care facilities.

Dr. Levine however made sure his 95-year-old mother was removed from the death box and transported safely to a hotel.

Okay, my apologies to ADM Conn for being overly sanguine just now. Actually, this looks like a most apposite time to begin fretting, sir, and to continue fretting away to your heart’s content. Wringing of the hands and gnashing of the teeth remain completely optional at this time, but are nevertheless heartily recommended. Carry on.

Git hot or go home

Posted on October 17, 2021October 17, 2021 by Mike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stuck in the loop

Posted on October 11, 2021October 11, 2021 by Mike

The six-step EnviroNazi Virtue loop, that would be.

One: Britain goes big on wind turbines in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from traditional power sources.

Two: The wind don’t blow and the power don’t flow.

Three: A subsequent massive increase in demand for natural gas as a power source drives wholesale gas prices through the roof.

Four: CF Fertilisers, a US-owned British fertiliser business that also produces carbon dioxide for commercial use, suspends production because high gas prices have made the business unprofitable.

Five: Carbon dioxide is a required component for meat packaging. Without reliable supplies of commercial carbon dioxide, Britain faces a food shortage.

Six: The British government, which spent millions of pounds to cut carbon dioxide emissions, will now give millions of pounds to CF Fertilisers so it can produce carbon dioxide.

Perfect.

Perfect indeed—for the Environuts and their self-perpetuating Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly “the weather”) scam. For saner sorts, not so much. The thing to remember about the 6S-EV Loop is this: you can step aboard anytime, but the only way you can get back off again is by shooting a whole slew of the sonsabitches who talked you getting onto their little forever-go-round in the first damned place.

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

Posted on October 3, 2021October 3, 2021 by Mike

The root of all evils.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a disaster about to blow up.

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

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

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

A near thing

Posted on September 30, 2021September 30, 2021 by Mike

Bill survives a close encounter with the “American” “health” “care” establishment, if only by the skin of his teeth.

The mental stress of dealing with the health care system plus worry that I might be dying of cancer, coupled with the physical stress of the fast/weightlifting/vertigo issues has pretty much flattened me for today, but I’m feeling better now, and hope to be back to normal tomorrow. Although my neck is as sore as if I’d been stabbed in the throat three or four times. Probably because I was stabbed in the throat three or four times.

Good LORD. Glad you lived to tell the tale, buddy.

By the numbers

Posted on September 30, 2021September 30, 2021 by Mike

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

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

Bitch, please.

As if.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stalin’s war, Stalin’s win

Posted on September 29, 2021September 29, 2021 by Mike

Reviewing a book that offers a different perspective on WW2.

The goals of the Western Allies in World War II were to defeat Hitler and prevent a hostile power from entrenching itself in Europe and Asia, threatening the freedom and survival of the West. From a narrow perspective, the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945 fulfilled this objective: it was a victory for the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies, and we celebrate V-E Day every May 8 and V-J Day on September 2. But for a large number of nations that fought against Berlin and Tokyo, at enormous sacrifice, 1945 is a dark year that ended one tyranny only to be replaced by another one, the Communist one, which was (and continues to be) no less vicious and in fact was much more lasting and pervasive. Stalin replaced Hitler. Or, to put it in the context of World War II, Stalin was the clear winner of that conflict. It was his war, and he got the most out of it.

This is the argument of a new book, Stalin’s War, by a prolific and excellent historian, Sean McMeekin of Bard College. The author is already well known, having written highly readable and incisive books exploring the role of Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Germany in the origins of World War I. In his new work, he focuses on Stalin, his objectives, his tactics, his actions, and, above all, his ability to obtain from his Western counterparts everything (and more!) that he wanted. The book presents the story of Stalin’s success that brought an enormous human cost to his own people and to those who came under Communist domination, as well as an enduring geopolitical cost. Through this war, Stalin succeeded in anchoring Soviet power and influence over Eurasia, benefiting from the frailty of European powers. Germany was obviously reduced to rubble by 1945, but even the victorious powers, from France and the UK to the other smaller states across the continent, were mere shadows of their former selves. Stalin gained strategic real estate and the tools, looted from Europe or given to him by the United States, to turn Russia into an industrial superpower. The conditions for the Cold War were in place, and in the immediate aftermath of the war, the possibility that Stalin could become the master of Eurasia was not out of the question. And, for the U.S., victory in 1945 meant not a satisfying and prolonged age of peace, but the beginning of a new and massive investment in preserving its security and the stability threatened by the Soviet Union.

The story presented in such a way is not new, and its broad contours are accepted by most, except those who still see Communist ideology and the USSR as a benign progressive force or those who blame American post-war support of Western Europe for the Cold War. But McMeekin digs deeper and his goal is to change two pervasive myths. One presents Stalin as a paranoid dictator bumbling across the European chessboard, getting caught unprepared for Hitler’s aggressive intents, and then rising to the historic occasion and motivating his people to fight the “Great Patriotic War” to liberate Russia and the adjoining lands from the Nazis. In brief, a dictator to be sure, but a naive one with a great patriotic heart backed by a Russian nation willing to accept great sacrifices.

The other myth is of a strategically wise leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, skillfully making their moves across the world’s map, negotiating with a vast array of strategic partners (including Stalin) and organizing bold military actions that ultimately lead to the 1945 triumph. Neither myth, however, is entirely correct, as McMeekin brilliantly argues backed by abundant facts supplied through impeccable research.

After a look into Stalin’s acquisitive designs on Western Europe, all undone by Hitler’s doomed invasion of the USSR in 1941, we direct our attention still further Westward.

McMeekin then focuses on how the Western allies, Churchill but especially FDR, abetted Stalin’s ambitions. This part of the book is fascinating and depressing at the same time. In a nutshell, Stalin obtained from FDR more than he expected: territory, influence, and materiel. And he did not give anything in exchange for it because FDR and his advisors never asked him for it. For instance, FDR supported the Lend-Lease program, putting his friend Harry Hopkins in charge. Under this program of military aid, the United States supplied a massive amount of weapons, trucks, airplanes, tanks, foodstuff to the Soviet Union in the months of its greatest need, as German troops were driving deep into Russia while the vaunted Soviet armies were melting away. Without such aid, the USSR would have likely been unable to stop the German onslaught and certainly would have been incapable of mustering the resources necessary to push westward. Hence, in this moment there was a good strategic rationale for the American support of Stalin’s defensive efforts against Nazi Germany.

But the problem was that FDR—and Hopkins—went much further than simply buttressing a collapsing Soviet power. The most stunning mistake—a policy willfully pursued by FDR—was that Stalin was never asked for anything in exchange for this material aid. The United States had the upper hand because the Soviets were desperate for any help and would have paid a price for these goods. As McMeekin comments, FDR “could have asked any price: payment in cash, by loan, or in kind; political concessions inside Russia; or promises from Stalin of better behavior abroad, such as abandoning his spying operations in Washington or offering token support for the US-British war against Japan. Instead, the Americans simply gave and demanded nothing in return aside from a vague, nonbinding promise of loan repayment beginning five years after the war was over, at no interest.”

Such a naivete could have been the result of FDR’s belief in his personal capacity to persuade people. But, at best, FDR profoundly misunderstood Stalin, despite the evidence of Soviet actions and even of Stalin’s own words and behavior toward the US President. FDR thought that he could build goodwill with Stalin. As he put it, “I think that if I give him everything I can and ask for nothing in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.” This is the point where naivete became stupidity.

With certain classifications of Western liberal, the distinction between naivete and stupidity is so thin it’s not worth the bother of making. They’re conjoined twins, constantly shifting and bleeding over one into the other, staggering clumsily about like a dancer uncertain of his stage cues. Sooner or later, though, the Libtard can be relied upon to close this pointless ballet with both feet planted squarely on Stupid. In reality, though, is that he started there, and never ventured any meaningful distance from it. Read the rest for further details of Stalin’s willful humiliation of the hapless, grossly-overmatched clown Roosevelt, and what Uncle Joe’s deftly stolen victory ended up costing the entire world, in blood and treasure.

Construction of the world’s biggest prison

Posted on September 29, 2021September 29, 2021 by Mike

In Australia,the roots of tyranny are strong and deep.

Cunningham was sick and tired of English rule in Ireland. And along with 50,000 of his fellow Irishmen, Cunningham picked up a weapon and started in uprising against Great Britain.

Their rebellion was a complete disaster; the rebels hoped that the British army was too weak to resist after their defeat in the American Revolution.

But within a few short months the British had regained tight control of Ireland.

Naturally their first order of business was to round up all the remaining rebels— and Cunningham was among them.

His punishment was being shipped off to a British penal colony in the south Pacific, in a place that was generally known at the time as “New Holland”.

Today we call it Australia.

Cunningham wasn’t one to accept his fate easily. Even while en route to Australia, he and other prisoners briefly managed to take over the ship…though British marines eventually regained control and gave Cunningham 100 lashes.

But Cunningham still wasn’t finished. A few years later in March of 1804, he led about 300 Australian prisoners in yet another rebellion against their British jailers.

That rebellion was so severe that the British governor was forced to declare martial law— the first, but certainly not the last time in Australia’s history this would happen.

It’s ironic that, each year, ‘Australia Day’ is celebrated on January 26, which commemorates the day that the British Navy first sailed into Sydney Cove, hoisted their flag, and declared the land their penal colony.

So Australia Day does not celebrate the birth of a nation so much as the ribbon-cutting of a giant prison.

All my life I’d thought of Oz as one of the freest nations on Earth, a true oasis of Liberty whose fiercely-independent population would under no circumstances tolerate any hint of despotism stealthily creeping up behind them. Clearly, I was in error. The infamous 1996 gun ban—rushed into law in a frenzied panic two weeks after a lunatic had murdered 35 people at Port Arthur—came as something of a shock to me, that shock amplified when Aussies foolishly embraced the government’s rescission of their natural rights (not legally codified, mind; Australia has never had a 2A) with open arms. Australians, it seemed were blindly eager to trade essential liberty for temporary security, a deal with the Devil they walked into with eyes wide shut.

SO. How’d that work out for ya, cobber?

Thousands of Australian construction workers, for example, protested because they refuse to be coerced into vaccination against their will.

They actually were peaceful protestors. For real. They literally sang the national anthem.

Yet police pepper sprayed them and fired rubber bullets into the crowd of thousands (which included children).

Perhaps even more diabolical is that the government restricted the media from showing footage of the event as it was happening, and restricted airspace to prevent media helicopters from filming.

What’s really crazy is that this authoritarianism goes beyond COVID hysteria.

Australia’s parliament has passed a new bill eradicating Australians’ right to digital privacy.

It’s called “Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2021.”

It gives the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) sweeping new powers to not just surveil Australian citizens online, but also take over and run their online accounts, lock the actual user out of the account, and add or delete data.

The police never have to notify a person that their account has been hacked by the government.

What they are calling “warrants” actually do not always require an actual court or judge to sign off.

An “emergency authorisation,” allows police to bypass the courts entirely. And why should anyone be concerned about that? It’s not like the Australian government has ever abused its emergency powers before…

The right to travel, the right to protest, the right to privacy, the right to due process, the right to leave your home and earn a living— these are basic human rights that are now gone in Australia.

Ahh, worked out exactly as it always does, then. Good to know, I reckon.

It should be obvious by now to every citizen of any Western nation that never-ending “emergency powers” can easily snowball into a full-blown dictatorship.

Hardly unexpected, seeing as how that was the plan all along. It’s the “easily” part that I find most dismaying.

There is no reason it couldn’t happen to other formerly free nations as well.

And that means, more than ever before, it’s time to think about a Plan B.

It is at that. Considering the fact that the aforementioned snowballing is already happening in THIS formerly free nation—is quite well along, actually, with not much more resistance here than Aussies showed when their guns were taken from them, embarrassingly enough—I hereby propose that “Plan B” consist entirely and exclusively of three simple, easy to remember words: Kill. Them. All.

Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Generals, then and now

Posted on September 26, 2021September 26, 2021 by Mike

Right from the opening paragraph, this article is proof that some things never change.

On September 1, 1939, Brigadier George C. Marshall took the oath of office as the 15th U.S. Army chief of staff, a post he held until November 1945. When the ceremony ended, General Marshall confided to his aide de camp, “There is enough dead wood in the Army’s officer corps to light several forest fires.”

Marshall was more right than he knew. If the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps fought shoulder to shoulder with the French Army in 1940, American arms would have suffered the same fate as the French and British Armies—total defeat at the hands of the German Wehrmacht. This fact was made painfully obvious 14 months after the Second World War broke out.

In February 1943, 11,000 German troops smashed through the 30,000 soldiers of the U.S. Army’s II Corps at Kasserine Pass. The U.S. commander, Major Gen. Lloyd Fredendall, a swaggering blowhard, was relieved and sent home. It was not the last time that a cigar-chewing imitation of a real general would fail in action against the German onslaught, but the experience strengthened Marshall’s intolerance of general officer failure in action.

Today, the task of finding senior military leaders with character, competence and intelligence is immeasurably harder than it was in Marshall’s day. Under the Bush and Obama administrations, the American media’s adulation for four stars transformed general officers such as Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Allen, and Austin into instant celebrities.

Four stars now automatically become part of a mutual general officer admiration society, that cheers even mediocre performance in general officers chosen for high command, because, like “made men” in the Mafia, senior leaders agree not to turn on their peers. Eliminating failed general officers, even when failure is found out the hard way in action, is deemed dangerous to a promotion system based on nepotism that presents itself as infallible.

Political leaders are of no help.

Quite the opposite, I’d say, of course and as always.

The point is that General Mark Milley is not an isolated example. He’s the product of an environment that has existed for nearly 30 years, if not longer. Behind Mark Milley stand another two dozen four stars ready to take his job that are indistinguishable from him in their attitudes and career patterns.

Is the situation hopeless? History answers with an emphatic “No.”

After the defeat of the U.S. Army’s II Corps, General Sir Harold Alexander, Eisenhower’s British deputy, commented on Fredendall to his American allies, “I’m sure you must have better men than that.” Eisenhower agreed. Major Gen. Patton, a man who but for the outbreak of WWII would have retired as an obscure cavalry colonel, replaced Fredendall.

As the author says, the correct answer to the question “is the situation hopeless” is “an emphatic ‘No,'” and always will be. As such, the question is immaterial. The question that matters is: Are we up to the challenge of doing everything required of us to prevail over the exigencies that make the situation APPEAR hopeless? That question is strictly pass/fail, and will NOT be graded on a curve.

Update! This might look to be unrelated at first glance, but I assure you it ain’t.

Mike responds to a post of mine from yesterday, and finishes with:

Yes, the whole system is rotten to the core, to the point that it can never be fixed or restored via traditional, peaceful means. AS ZMan put it, a system that is immune to voting is not going to be fixed by more voting.

I agree with this, of course. And while my assessment may sound bleak, I still believe it to be accurate. People, especially patriotic Americans, have been willing to swallow damned near anything to avoid admitting to themselves just how bleak the situation actually is. Why? Because if they do admit it, they then are face to face with the next question: What the hell do we do about it?

And that is a very painful question, because there are no good, painless answers. Oh, sure, you can gargle a big glass of normality bias and pretend that voting gooderer and harderer will fix things. Or that some deep counter-Qspiracy is going to defeat the Ruling Class and its Deep State. But that, of course, is simply denying the reality you have to admit and confront in order to deal with it on a personal basis going forward. That’s the thing, see? It’s going to hit you personally, whether you want it to or not. It won’t go away just because you ignore it, or tell yourself it’s not really what it looks like.

Read on to find out just how very related it is. In fact, the thing that sometimes makes me sit up a little straighter and rub my eyes in awe and wonder is how deeply interconnected all the issues confronting us are—yet another of those things that, once seen, cannot be UNseen.

Other foot suddenly shod

Posted on September 24, 2021September 24, 2021 by Mike

So lemme see now, would this be the part where it’s GOING around, or COMING around? Asking for a friend, that’s all.

Queensland Australia Police Have Two Weeks to Get Vaccinated or Get Out

That’s it, then. Up with those sleeves, Obersturmführer, and not a whisper of complaint from you either, hein? SCHNELL, SCHNELL!!! Sauce for the goose, and all that jazz.

Chickens coming home to roost? The state of Queensland, Australia, (QLD) is located in the northeastern portion of the nation above the state of New South Wales. The biggest metropolitan areas are Brisbane to the south and Cairns to the north. Like many states, and in alignment with the national plan, Queensland is mandating a vaccination upon citizens if they want to escape the rules and regulations of lockdowns and COVID compliance dictates.

Despite some initial signs of moderation, recently Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has fallen into line with the national government plan and has announced she is fully prepared to be just as big a totalitarian dictator as her neighboring Premiers to the west and south. As a consequence, Premier Palaszczuk has decreed that all Queensland police units must be vaccinated within two weeks or they will lose their jobs.

My attitude henceforth is going to be: A) Any cop, military, medical personnel, or other such-like, here or elsewhere, who refuses the jab at cost of his/her livelihood is all right with me; we’re on the same team, and he/she will have my full-throated support in whatever way I can find to render it; B) Any cops, military, &c who elect to conduct themselves as if surrendering one’s personal sovereignty to tyrannical Authority in order to gain permission to rejoin civil society was somehow a Good and Just Thing are my enemies, no more nor less, and will be considered such until either they or I am dead. Period fucking DOT.

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