TRUTH

315 thoughts on “TRUTH”

1. Um, I think there’s a really bad typo in there. Shouldn’t “their own nationals protecting rape” be “their own nationals PROTESTING rape”?

   Aside from that, my only comment is one of my favorite quotes: “A lie that is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.” — Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

   And I agree that a Trump presidency would be a wild and crazy ride, and the liberals might not like the result. Just because you created the monster doesn’t mean you can control the monster.

   1. Oops, lest anyone misunderstand: my Tennyson quote is supposed to _support_ the author’s 1st few paragraphs. A lie with some truth mixed in is far worse because it’s so much more effective.

   2. Either that, or the words “people from” are missing. As in “nationals protecting PEOPLE FROM rape”.

      And yes, it is utterly damning that they couldn’t muster 100 cops in Cologne on New Year’s Eve to deal with real crimes, but could assemble 1500 cops to deal with thoughtcrime.

      1. The word “from” is missing. I changed it to protesting, anyway.

   3. Yes, it was a typo , but it was true in itself, given the way their own nationals in their governments and statzmedia were covering up for the rapists.

   4. Yes, a typo.
      In Sarah’s defense it was late last night when she wrote it. And too, as a first reader I failed to flag it so what blame accrues is really on me.
      I’ve come to believe that the more passionate you feel about a subject the more prone one becomes to Author’s Blindness, that phenomenon where a writer reads their work and sees what they thought instead of what they actually wrote.

      1. It doesn’t just apply to something the writer is passionate about (although it helps). Getting near the end of a major documentation project, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t notice if my name was in the document, and misspelled.

         That’s what editors are for, not that they ever get enough credit in the real world.

      2. OK, since you’ve admitted guilt the mandatory sentence for Failure to Flag Missing Words in a BBESP Post (First Offense), to attend next year’s Cologne Square New Years Eve event in drag, is waived. Here’s your warning. Bailiff call the next case.

         (What Kangaroo?)

   5. I’m not really too afraid or worried about Trump, what I’m worried about is what comes -after- Trump. Trump will just take advantage of all the abuses that Barry committed, and that were allowed to run free. And if anyone tries to stop him, he’ll probably stomp on them and they’re already used to kowtowing to Barry, so they’ll just kowtow to him.

      My hope at this point is for the convention of the states many have been calling for. If we’re lucky and they call one, and if we’re lucky that the people who show up for it are more for the republican type of government and constitutional style of government, then states rights and the rights of the people will be strengthened and Trump will have functioned more an an inoculation than a disease. Because I remain hopeful that he won’t try to block such a convention of the states and may even support it.

      However, if none of that happens, well I suspect our form of government will have been so worn away by the end of his tenure that the next person to take office will pretty much destroy whatever is left. Barry has done so much that is not just unethical, but flat out illegal, but no one called him on it, for fear of being called a racist. So Trump (or whoever is next) will do much of the same.
      And after that, it’s all downhill.

      1. Various government institutions are like the hymen — once broken they cannot be reinstated (only the illusion can be maintained.) The filibuster is a perfect example of this, and corresponds to the argument elsewhere here about the Geneva Conventions: it only survives because both sides agree to abide by it. Once one side drops it the other side has reason to reinstate it and every reason to believe that, once the wheel rolls ’round again and they’re in the minority, their opponents won’t keep to it. Thus the institutional erosion destroys the foundations.

         We see it also in the abrogation of oversight of Federal Agencies as public employee union rules and protections insulate underlings from culpability, such that such scandals as at the IRS, the VA and National Park Service (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/watchdog-history-of-sexual-harassment-at-grand-canyon-park/article/2580226) persist with no consequences except for whistle-blowers.

2. There’s more to it than just the whole “truth” thing. By denying reality, the statist authorities and their media/intelligensia lackeys are causing others to distrust some of the critical foundations of modern civilization like the rule of law and scientific method.

   This is potentially a disaster because distrust of these concepts seems likely to lead to no more scientific progress or commercial development of new technology

   1. I think we’ve gone, at least in the US, from distrusting the rule of law to the rule of law being dead, stick a fork in it.

      Part of the Trump appeal, a part I deeply understand, is he won’t be a Marquis of Queensbury politician. The left hasn’t been lead by one in a while and eventually the rule of law (like the laws of war) require all major players to abide by them or the others will stop because continuing is suicide.

      1. One of the misunderstandings regarding the Geneva Conventions is that once you sign, you gotta do everything by them. But the Conventions are only binding among the signatories. If you find yourself at war with a group that hasn’t signed, it’s no holds barred as far as that’s concerned

         A country may still have internal policy and law that governs their conduct, but that’s a separate issue… and if an enemy persists in being despicable, that issue may also fall aside.

         Our elites? They are rapidly approaching despicable. In Europe they seem to already be there. And a lot of innocent people are going to be at risk because when the Great Correction comes, a lot of opportunists are going to use it as an excuse to indulge in some vendetta. You see it already if you’re on Twitter with the ugly “KKK-lite” sort of stuff coming out and hailing Trump’s candidacy. I could never tell how much of it was genuine and how much was a discrediting-by-proxy – immediately I saw a response that “look at these right wing idiots” when it’s clear they were either crackpots or plants. But it succeeded in making it harder to talk real sense on illegal immigration when you had to wade through comments like “Trump will close the border and protect us from those filthy w**backs you cuckservatives!!one!two!”

         If this goes hot, dollars to donuts that such miscreants will also join that unpleasantness. So if you have a spare cloak, sell it and buy a sword.

         1. Nit, IIRC the Geneva Conventions require a signer to follow the Geneva Conventions as long as a non-signer acts within the Geneva Conventions itself.

            Of course, the Geneva Conventions also allow “reprisals” by a signer against anybody who violates the Conventions.

            Liberals “forget” about the reprisals part. [Sad Smile]

            1. All corrections cheerfully accepted!

            2. They also ignore war crimes (Perfidy) by people they approve of, like the Doctors without Borders group who seem to have forgotten about marking their clinics with the Red Cross / Red Crescent and then got all indignant when armed men were seen entering it provoking an airstrike.

               1. Indignant, heck, they LIED.

         2. One of the misunderstandings regarding the Geneva Conventions is that once you sign, you gotta do everything by them. But the Conventions are only binding among the signatories. If you find yourself at war with a group that hasn’t signed, it’s no holds barred as far as that’s concerned

            I’m well aware of that and would go further. Extending Geneva protections to non-signatory power or signatory powers who openly disobey them as a general rule actually weaken the Conventions. Nearly every action required by them gives you a disadvantage visa via a power not engaging in them. Soldiers will not long cede advantage to their enemy and when the dam breaks it will be a return to pre-law of war war a la the Thirty Years War (which is the ultimate inspiration for the line of agreements that peak at Geneva).

         3. that last is on our list. I am identified as “latina” on sight one time out of two (depends on what I’ve dyed my hair and if I’ve been out much) but my boys, older gets identified as Latino/black mix 90% of the time, and Marshall it’s either Middle Eastern or Latino. All of us get called Mexican at least once a month. So. Think about how comfortable the KKK lite shit which is undoubtedly coming (and possibly not so lite) makes me feel.

            1. “KKK? Me?! I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Democrat Party!”

               1. No, I’ve never supported Democrats.

                  Okay, I did date this hippy chick once and tell you I supported Gary Hart but I promise it was just to get laid; I didn’t really mean it.

                  1. I did not know Hart swung that way……..
                     🙂

                     1. lol
                        touché

            2. I realize I don’t see people the same way other people do (no, it’s true – if I say that two people look very similar, it’s likely that most other people will tell me I’m crazy), but having seen them at Libertycon, I don’t see how your sons could be confused for such.

               Then again, I guess it’s possible that the people in Colorado are typically very pale, so there would be a high contrast. That might cause it.

               1. Not really, but there are a lot of Hispanics. Though I HAVE to tell you I have no clue how they get “Mexican”. And Wayne, we MUST be related. If I think two people look “exactly alike”other people tell me I’m crazy. There were to high school friends I had trouble telling apart, and EVERYONE told me they looked nothing alike. Eh.

                  1. Meh. Mexican is the default speculative ethnicity for a lot of otherwise intelligent people, when encountering others who don’t look like themselves here in the US. Not least because a.) it’s the most likely alternative ethnicity, given where we are, and b.) because Mexicans themselves are so damn polyglot. You can be anything short of deep black in coloring, and be able to find someone in Mexico whose Pantone shade will match your own. So, people see someone they know isn’t necessarily “of their own”, and assume–And, we all know what assume does.

                     My stepdad, who was about as Eastern European as you can get, complete with a childhood Mongolian birthmark (blue spot on base of spine, reputed to indicate that somewhere back in the bloodline lies a Mongol horse soldier…), was constantly assumed to be of Mexican heritage. Even by Mexicans. I don’t know how many times I watched Mexican-appearing people who were unsure of themselves in public situations sidle up to him, and start asking questions in Spanish, like he was one of them. Bad assumptions go all the way around, regardless of the color line. What used to crack me up was watching him respond to the Mexicans who did that in either Slovenian, Serbo-Croat, or Russian.

                     And, the killer one was the time where he replied in Slovene, and the guy he was talking to had his eyes lit up, and boom… Two long-lost sons of the Julian Alps found themselves together, one with a Mexican passport, and the other with an American one. They’d both assumed the other was Mexican…

      2. Well, being a RINO mangina ain’t cutting it. Trump is going to be brutal to the left. Yeah, blm is going to have to flee, or find themselves in a bad place.

         1. Trump IS the left, oh, blind idiot. He’s even said he approves of the dream act and deferred deportations. stop drinking the koolaid. Some people will swallow any swill.

3. c4c

   1. c4c

      1. C4c

         1. c4c

4. I can understand (but not approve of) why the Aristos want to bring in millions of immigrants. There are several.
   * The peoples of Europe simply aren’t having enough children to continue to support the massive welfare state they have erected.
   * They have to signal group membership and support of the narrative of international progressivism and the inherent vileness of white, Western European culture. (It’s telling that I have to include the modifier ‘white’ in that phrase now – as so many of the people in Western Europe are no longer European, or share the baseline culture that we associate with it.)
   * They can replace a people who believe they have some rights with a people whom the Aristos believe are more suited to living under their protection (dictatorship).
   * They really believe that there will never be any negative consequences to their actions, as long as the theory is correct and the motivation approved by the consensus.

   All that being said, Europe has a few obvious potential futures. One – The Eurabian Caliphate. (Demography is destiny.) Two – Not enough lamp posts, not enough rope, followed by mass deportations. (This will further destabilize the Middle East, but how would you notice?) Three – Russia liberates Europe from the yoke of the Ottomans. Or at least tries to. Four – world wide war between Christendom and Islam, beginning with rivers of blood in the streets of Europe. (This one is likely to go nuclear, with Pakistan supporting the Sunnis, and Iran supporting the Shiites.)

   Any of these may happen. The one they all have in common is buckets of blood. As the Germans describe their flag, out of darkness, through blood, into the light. And, they would all make good stories. (Tom Kratman already wrote the first one.)

   1. world wide war between Christendom and Islam, beginning with rivers of blood in the streets of Europe. (This one is likely to go nuclear, with Pakistan supporting the Sunnis, and Iran supporting the Shiites.)

      As a friend reminded me recently in 2006 or so I predicted WWIII:

      1. Would start sometime between 2015 and 2020.
      2. Would consume roughly 2 billion people.

      You know, I really don’t want to be right about that.

      1. I think WWIII was pretty much finalized as soon as Obama set it up that Iran can build nukes. Now it’s only a matter of time until things start going boom. My guess is between 2020-2025.

      2. Minor nit: WW3 happened already and is over, we won. WW3 was the cold war, it was world wide and involved everyone.
         What we are now looking at is WW4, which we are in the opening rounds to. I suspect 9/11 will be considered the opening volley in it, but it may be something even earlier than that.

         1. Counter nit: The Cold War was not WW3. If it qualifies then WW3 was actually WW4 and The Seven Years War was WW1. It actually has a better claim to being a World War as major powers engaged directly in combat on multiple continents simultaneously. At no point during the Cold War did the major powers directly confront each other in combat.

            1. Good points. Something to add:

               I don’t believe another World War is in the offing, largely similar to our previous conflicts. Not with major powers battling it out on land, sea, and air…

               More, I see it as what I’ve heard called Fourth Generation War. Less a clash of nations and states. More small conflicts, everywhere, more “terrorism” and guerrilla wars, both high tech (attacking software infrastructure and intelligence gathering) and low tech, fought by and against groups within and extending across traditional lines. Wars of religion, culture, ideology, and every other little festering hate that’s been brewing for years now.

               Less a World War, more a World At War. With itself. That is what concerns me. Possibly even more than traditional nuclear attack.

            2. “If it qualifies then WW3 was actually WW4 and The Seven Years War was WW1.”

               Methinks we must make room for the Napoleonic Wars in there somewhere. All of Europe was involved plus North Africa and western Asia Minor. One can also argue that the Americas were pulled in via the War of 1812 and the Central/South American wars of independence. And there was some French commerce raiding in the Indian Ocean and Dutch East Indies. Sounds like a “world” war to me…

               1. Mmmm, truth. Well in that case…
                  World War I: The Seven Years’ War (personally speaking, my money would be on The War of Jenkins’ Ear/King George’s War/War of the Austrian Succession as the First World War, but hey)
                  World War II: The AWI
                  World War III: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
                  World War IV: The Great War
                  World War V: The Great War, Part II: Sons of the Great War
                  World War VI: The Cold War

            3. The 7 years war was France and Britain. It did not involve countries from all around the world.
               As I understand it, World War means it involves countries from all around the world. The Cold War did, plus it touched every continent,

               1. France, Britain, Spain, Austria, Prussia, the colonies in the New World, India…

            4. Actually, by the reasoning given in my AP History class years ago, by the time we got to WWI, there had already been five or seven world wars (I forget whether WWI was really WWVI or WWVIII, probably the former; actually, seven wars, including two World Wars, sounds about right…). I can’t remember where the Seven Years War/French and Indian War/English and Indian War stood in that lineup; I think it may have been the First one.

      3. I don’t want you to be right about that either. But I worry and I’m scared.

   2. I keep seeing the “more people to support the welfare system” excuse, but why hasn’t anyone loudly pointed out that all of these refugees are *taking* from the welfare system? They aren’t paying in a cent, and from the data leaking out, they aren’t going to, ever. “Electrician” in Syria could mean merely “can insert batteries with the correct polarity” (and take it from me–if you want to work on German electronics you need to really know what you are doing.)

      1. “why hasn’t anyone loudly pointed out that all of these refugees are *taking* from the welfare system? ”

         Because anyone who does is immediately called a “raaaaacist”. I suspect that another factor in the rise of Trump is people saying “if I’m gonna have the name, might as well have the game.”

         1. Yeah, it does seem that a lot of the folks flinging around the term ‘racist’ like the ultimate shut-up button fail to remember that part of human nature that finally throws up its hands and says “Fine. You call me a , and tell me nothing I do will make you stop? Then I’ll SHOW you a monster!”

            1. Someone call for a monster? }:o)
               Wait. Or is it beast? Not sure the classification anymore.

               1. You’re a beast. If you start eating people, then you’re a monster.

                  1. Nope, he’s not a beast.

                     Beasts are non-sapient mammals and he’s sapient.

                     Now he may be a bovine-human shifter or minotaur sapient, but not a beast.

                     Note, I agree with the term “Monster” for beings, sapient or not, that eat sapient beings. [Very Polite Dragon Smile]

                     1. he’s so making it to the next shifter book. you too, buddy.

                     2. Leopards aren’t monsters; they just don’t care if the ape has hair.

                        1. Leopards don’t consider themselves monsters but this dragon doesn’t blame the hairless apes for considering leopards “monsters” for eating them (or even for attempting to eat them). [Very Very Big Dragon Grin]

                           1. If the leopard is trying to eat you, then obviously you either are not paying it enough attention, or you pissed it off a while ago and it just waited to get revenge.
                              Leopards have incredibly long memories when it comes to slights and insults.

                           2. The Leopard should remember that it’s a solitary hunter and humans hunt in packs.

                              A Leopard may be able to take down one human but not all of the humans hunting it. [Nasty Dragon Grin]

                           3. Actually, National Geographic had an interesting story on just such a case, only it involved a pack of feral boars and one leopard.
                              Bidding one’s time is an instinctual trait it would seem.
                              After all, you can’t be with the rest of the pack all the time!
                              Leopards really are the rocket scientists of the cat kingdom.

                           4. I saw Peter Capstick’s last interview on Larry King, and King asked him what was his next thing, and he said:

                              “I’ve been asked by one of the major game parks to help track down a man-eating leopard. If I know leopards, he’s probably bellied up to someone’s window watching us right now.”

                              “So now he knows you’re coming.”

                     3. I think i might best avoid the title ‘bullshifter’ as it would seem too easily misheard – or mal-intended.

               2. Do you know which Scholastic scholar was called an Ox? I think it was Acquinas.

                  1. I had not been aware, but https://www.catholiccompany.com/saint-thomas-aquinas-story-dumb-ox-i899 would indicate you are correct.

         2. Everything’s racist except thinking blacks too stupid to get photo IDs.

            It’s like being in the middle of the park with no shelter or even trees nearby when it starts to rain. You’ll get wet. Live with it.

            1. It is also racist to think that Blacks should not be awarded 250+ SAT points to get into colleges.

               1. Yes, you racist. We must not judge a man/woman/being by his/her/its character, but by the color of whatsits’ skin/hide/epidermis/plumage. Except when it’s the other way around. And the rules change rapidly and without notice.

                  Reality is racist. And sexist. And many other mean things. This is the root cause of many of modern society’s ills – that we simply can not (and now must not) admit that people are different.

      2. yep. This.

      3. that’s part of the story/narrative to all those “doctors/scientists/engineers” from the poor oppressed contraries that have to get job’s as janitors (usualy in hospitals or what ever ) because racist’s/nationalists/ect ect whon’t let ’em practice there craft.

         1. well, PORTUGAL had trouble with South American trained doctors. I imagine doctors trained in Saudi Arabia are even odder. Look their education mostly is memorization. That’s it.

            1. Back in the Eighties I worked at a movie theatre where one of the projectionists was an Iranian, reportedly* an engineer, who had emigrated toward the tail end of the Carter maladministration. But his education would have been during the Shah’s regime, when Western concepts were broadly accepted.

               I say reportedly because I never asked him (didn’t seem polite, and I reserve my prurient curiosities for mare salacious topics) and he never volunteered the information in any discussion.

               1. The shah had sent a lot of kids over here in the 70’s to study engineering. Most were cheating hacks, but the good ones stayed after Khomeini took over. A LOT of them were Bahai, not muslim.

            2. A coworker broke his hip in Qatar. It took them a week to inform him that there wasn’t a qualified surgeon in the country. Flew back to Britain in economy. By the time he got home he required a hip replacement.

               By the way, some of his moslem nurses withheld pain medication because narcotics are a sin.

               1. That, and they could sell the withheld drugs on the street.

                  That’s one of the ugly problems American nursing homes have, too.

      4. This is the “After one generation in our school system their offspring will be fully coopted economically productive lower-tier members of our society with quaint dietary preferences who know their place” concept, which in Germany is biased by experience with the Turks, generally better educated folks who have been in Germany now for generations and who immigrated generally as indivisual families, as well as their efforts to peacefully incorporate the East Germans in the immediate post-unification period, which produced amog others Angela Merkel.

         When applied to millions of non-educated middle easterners in the calssivcal “military aged male” cohort, they are looking at a pretty rough road.

         1. “calssivcal”?? You must have experienced one helluva tail wind there, Mike!

            1. The typos were strong with this one yesterday – especially when posting from my pad…

         2. Let’s not forget that those Turks came from a far more secular Turkey.

            1. I tried to nod at that point in passing: Turkey is not Syria is not Libya is not Yemen is not Somalia, etc.. And Turkey, at least until recently, was run by people trying to actively suppress the non-secular influences that make other countries that happen to share the same dominant religion such complete and absolute failures.

               1. Want to add here that it was the job of the Turkish Army to leave the barracks and take over anytime the islamists gained power, and hold power until they could turn it back to a SECULAR government. They did this a few times, and every time they took over the west, led by America, bitched and moaned about them subverting democracy. They also, each time, turned power back to an elected government, peacefully. Until recently, a devout muslim would not be commissioned as an officer in Turkey, and if one was, would never be promoted. Erdogan, with the full support of the Europeans, has managed to establish full civilian control over the Turkish Army. In Western nations- that’s a good thing. We’re going to see that in Turkey- it wasn’t and isn’t.

   3. To the Aristos, it’s all very simple: the ordinary people are just cannon-fodder for whatever war or program the Aristos have ordained.
      I posted about it this week at Chicagoboyz – http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/51102.html
      The ordinary people don’t really matter, when it comes to the whims of the ruling classes.

5. Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Truth

6. The fun part in this country will come as we get to watch the GOPe try to control Trump after he’s elected. The question is who gets to play the part of Leni Riefenstahl.

   1. I can’t emphasize this enough — I’ve made my peace with it in the sense that I no longer think there’s any point in fighting it, but — there will be nothing enjoyable in a Trump presidency. Not for ordinary, patriotic Americans. Not even seeing the Aristos hang. He’s not going to be anti-establishment, they are his friends and cronies. Even the Clintons will get rehabilitated. while there will be hangings, or at least imprisonments, it will be willy nilly, whoever has said bad things about his trumpness that week, not anything with any ideological consistency.

      1. Trump is pretty thin skinned. I don’t think Clinton is capable of campaigning without something happening that will anger Trump enough he destroys them.

         1. possible…

      2. If we’re lucky, Trump will be a nationwide Blomberg. More likely, he will be our Marcos… Or a Chavez.

         1. This

         2. Maybe Cruz will be elected Pres.

            1. You know, Emily, I pray for this all the time, really hard, but as I said, I’ve made my peace with not being able to stop trump.

               1. This appears to be a downer day…

                  Perhaps I have made my peace with Trump being elected (although I will continue to do what little I can to promote Senator Cruz).

                  I will never make my peace with his being President, any more than I have ever made my peace with Obama. Opposition every day, in every way possible.

                  Just my $0.02…

                  1. This

                  2. Amen.

                  3. LIkewise.

                  4. So say we all.

                     1. I understand the concern many people here have concerning Trump even while I hope they’re wrong.

                        What’s somewhat funny is to listen to Liberals talking about the “Evil Trump” while expecting us to ignore how they talked about *every* Republican candidate for President.

                        Why should they expect people to believe them *this* time. [Very Big Evil Grin]

                        1. Yep.
                           “But he’s eeeevil!” As evil as you said G.W. Bush was? “But he’s eeeevil!” As evil as you said G.H.W. Bush was? “But he’s eeeevil!” As evil as you say Millard Filmore was? “But he’s—wha-huh? Oh, yeah, eeeeevil!”

                           1. After we selected what they said was a good man to carry out what they said was intelligent policy, it’d be natural but naive to figure that opposite branding would have opposite results.

                              ‘Okay, if we go with someone who preaches the full scale industrial murder of the Mexican, the Muslim and the Druggie, maybe we will get somebody with regard for human life and the rule of law.’

                     2. Maybe we should vote for Laura Roslin?

               2. I haven’t been following the news enough if there is a concrete reason for this, so I’ll just stick my head in the sand and pretend this is just the winter blues speaking.

                  America’s next President is going to be Pat Buckman.

                  1. Two thoughts.

                     Pat Buckman got elected mainly due to a major Islamic attack on the US which hasn’t happened yet.

                     Tom Kratman (who created Buckman) has implied that he would have died fighting Buckman’s take-over.

                     1. Also by the lack of any muscular response by the president he replaced. Don’t forget about that.

                        One thing about either Trump or Hillary, they’d respond to an attack. Not because of any feeling of duty of good governance, but because they’d take it personally.

                        1. Going along with that, another aspect about Buckman was that his dictatorial actions had real support from an American people who wanted revenge.

                           A potential Buckman now (lacking News Media support) would be unable to take the actions that Kratman’s Buckman got away with.

                           Now Kratman does say that Buckman won later Presidential elections (the two term limit having been removed) more because of election fraud.

                     2. Unfortunately, Drak, it is such an obvious path that many of us write it in as “assumed” background… (Yes, I have one, too. For a “prequel” series that I will get to work on sometime after this year.)

                        Of course, we (as in just about everybody around Sarah here) can see the obvious path, and the cliff at the end of it. Which is why we are so energetically seeking the non-obvious paths (the rocky ones, the overgrown ones) that lead elsewhere.

                        (Yes, I fully agree that Tom would take up arms once again in the Buckman scenario.)

                     3. Pick the funnest
                        a) already happened, Three Cities was a metaphor for the series of attacks that have gradually discredited the establishment and the status quo.
                        b) going to happen. The establishment thinks that they can demoralize the right if they can bring in some Islamic proxies to attack Trump’s family before the secret service assigns a protective detail. This could drive him Buckman crazy.
                        c) Buckman was a Democrat. Suppose Bernie wins the nomination, and is much further ‘right’ than any of us now expect.

                        1. c) Some of us know whence fascism comes.

                           1. What was the Three Cities?

                           2. In Tom Kratman’s Caliphate, three US cities were destroyed by smuggled in nukes.

                              New York was targeted but the nuke didn’t work. (There may have been another failure.)

                              The destroyed cities (along with the failed attempts) and the poor response by the sitting President led to the rise to power of Pat Buckman.

                        2. much further ‘right’

                           Hells Bells, he’s a national socialist, a NAZI. Just look at his pronouncements, not much different from the NAZI platform in the 1932 elections. And they are not to the right, but creatures of the left.

                           1. Hence square quotes. Bernie doesn’t have the stature to buck the trendsetters of the left now. If he’s willing to shove Muslim and Mexican babies into ovens, the only part of that he can express now is ‘pro-choice’. If he becomes President he will have a freer hand.

      3. while there will be hangings, or at least imprisonments, it will be willy nilly, whoever has said bad things about his trumpness that week, not anything with any ideological consistency.

         I’m actually relying on that. Is that good or fun? No, but it is survivable and isn’t the mass liquidations that ideological dictators tend to create.

         When the good side is your dictator is mainly driven by his ego and the “head down” strategy is viable you done f*cked up but good, but given as recently as December 2015 Trump could have been averted we done f*cked up but good.

      4. On the plus side, I can’t see him wanting to serve two terms. Other than the shear power of it all a presidency is actually a step down for him. Legally if elected he must sequester all his property and business holdings in a blind trust, for him a serious financial hit. And he’s already Donald Trump, so the usual cache of being a former president is not of nearly as much benefit as with previous holders of the office.
         In this scenario he would naturally hand pick his successor, and after defeating Hillary and negating most if not all of Obama’s dictates on our system, I don’t see the Democrats in any shape to put up much of a fight.

         1. On the minus side, I don’t see him sequestering f*ck-all. It’s rather more likely that he says something like “What are you gonna do about, tough guy?” to the first person who asks. Considering how feckless Congress has been with actual high crimes and misdemeanors in this administration – merely because they largely target ordinary Americans and not them – why would The Donald think he couldn’t thumb his nose at them too?

            1. nightfly, you simply don’t understand: Both the GOPe and the Democrats hate Trump and Cruz. If either doesn’t follow their rules, they WILL at least try to impeach him, and unless there’s a bigger slaughter of incumbents than I think (in the House; the Senate doesn’t look like it will have enough opportunities with only 1/3 of them up), they WILL have the votes to do it.

               This is why I always said impeaching Obama was futile; Democrats will always have 1/3 of the Senate. That obstacle won’t be there for Trump or Cruz.

               1. Don’t bet on it. The Dems will learn to use Trump within a week.

                  1. Trump is a master negotiator and yes, manipulator. If he becomes president he will be playing Congress like a fiddle within months.
                     Go watch the video of when Saddam Hussein took over his country’s congress (or at least read the accounts). I suspect Trump will do pretty much the same, except it won’t be bullets to the heads of the people who get ‘dragged out’.
                     But they’ll still be just as ‘dead’ politically.

                  2. Unfortunately Sarah, what are our choices?

                     If it is Trump vs Hillary, I’ll be voting Trump.

                     I really doubt that the News Media will object to Hillary’s actions as President and there’s the chance that the News Media will keep a sharp eye on Trump. [Sad Smile]

                     1. The MSM keeping a President Trump under an electron microscope is not so much a chance as a given. You think they kept a sharp eye on Reagan and the Bushes, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

               2. No, I understand well enough. You may be right; but do you think Trump cares? Do you see any signs of spinal manifestation in the current Congress that could warn him? Even if that is their response, he probably will thumb them in the eye publicly, the way he sees everyone else doing in every country, including folks now. And he will count on the patronage machine and popularity to ward off official reprisal.

                  I think it’s likely that we’ve entered the “palace intrigue” phase of our decline, where nobody does anything too openly, but clandestine, unofficial agents carry out our ruler’s bidding. Lord knows Hillary’s gotten away with it for 30 years and counting.

      5. I can think of one “enjoyable” thing: I’m going to be laughing so hard when Trump extends the Obama amnesty for illegal immigrants. I’m going to rather enjoy the sputtering of the people who thought that the the guy who in 2012 said that Romney’s plans to enforce employment laws and get immigrants to self-deport was horrible and cruel actually MEANT it when he said he wanted massive deportations.

         1. How would that make him different from any other Republican? Seriously? Say Trump turns around and does nothing he said he would, how does that make him different from the GOP after they drove Gingrich out (who, like him or not, did a pretty good job of delivering on campaign promises).

            The GOP expanded government, added new entitlements, and tried to pass amnesty via Congress when they controlled all the elective branches. If Trump signs amnesty legislation (and it will be legislation this time and bipartisan at that) the worst he will be is a genuine Republican.

            People are taking the Powerball Odds he’s not but who is surprised when they don’t win Powerball?

            1. Herb, I’ve told you before, the Republicans held back the tide. You’re forgetting how bad it was in 2008. There wasn’t much more they could do. And you’re forgetting too they have the press ready to paint anything they do as a crime. They might get over it, eventually — if nothing else, Trump has done that — but not yet. THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT. They know what cooked statistics and reports tell them.
               Yeah, they think the future is Latino, so they’re trying to ingratiate themselves. (I think they’re wrong.)
               Trump, otoh is just a crony capitalist, and cheap labor good.

               1. “THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT.”

                  THEY DON’T CARE WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT.

                  Fixed it for you.

                  1. Even those who care, or who want to at least not be lynched, are being lied to. What do we keep hearing from the press? The Republicans need to “compromise” if they don’t they’re “wingnuts.”

                     1. Any Republican candidate who heeds advice from the MSM might as well hire James Carville or Dick Morris as their campaign manager. If he has done nothing else, Trump has repudiated the fable that Republicans should get their campaign strategies from the NYTwits or WaPo.

                        Instead they need to be as serious as someone going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

                        1. McCain d****** near did hire the main stream media. Remember all the McCain employees who turned on him and Palin after the election.

                           1. Yep.

                           2. And McCain was pushed, in no small part, because the media loved him and thus would be nice to us.

                        2. The Republican leadership have not been able to get it through their heads that the MSM is their enemy. Oh, they see it in individual instances, but can’t believe that it’s across the board.

                           The newer Republicans realize that the reporting is slanted, but still can’t believe that the numbers of things like surveys and polls are crooked. The ones doing the manipulating are getting bolder, though, because they think they see the endgame, and it won’t be TOO much longer before they push hard enough that the backlash will turn to whiplash.

                     2. If that is true explain 2014.

                        They hold more of Congress than they have since FDR. If they can’t figure out from that what the people who vote want they are fools.

                     3. The reality is they thought they could kick the can down the road on pleasing the base forever. Note: I though that as well, hence my “vote GOP to run out the clock on my life before the collapse because they will delay it (ie, hold back the tide) instead of bring it like the Democrats.”

                        I was wrong. The GOP Establishment was wrong. The bill for betraying your election season beliefs after the election has come due.

                        I don’t like the bill collector but if you run up the bill it isn’t the borrower but the lender who picks the collector. The Reagan Democrats (and that is Trump’s base) have picked Trump.

                        He is our penance for letting the GOP betray us year in and year out and holding our noses while we gave, while we worked campaigns, and while we voted.

                        Trump is as much a Republican as a lot of Republicans I have worked for. That says more about the state of the GOP than it does about Trump.

               2. I am not making any judgment on what they did. I am making a judgment on the effects of what they did.

                  Had the GOP in 2003-2007 merely frozen government spending under the excuse that they lacked the ability to defeat a filibuster it would have been different.

                  They did not.

                  They:

                  1. Set records for spending and debt.
                  2. They passed the first new entitlement since LBJ in the form of Medicare Part D.
                  3. They attempted a broad amnesty.

                  All of these were BEFORE 2008 and the first two were BEFORE Obama was even a Senator (although #1 occurred after as well).

                  THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT.

                  I don’t buy that. They had been campaigning on more or less the same small government platform since at least 1980. They were elected under it. They governed 180 degrees from it when they controlled the elective branches.

                  That is what created Trump’s opening.

                  Trump, otoh is just a crony capitalist, and cheap labor good.

                  Again, and remember I am not a Trump supporter, how is he different from the majority of the GOP field and leadership in that respect.

                  The way to attack Trump is certainly not to claim he’s a RHINO. Even if he is you’ll get “at least he fights” answer. That answer has a point. In one week Bill Clinton went from respected ex-president to the Democrat Bill Cosby due to Trump.

                  The fact is the GOP as a tide break has been eroding especially since the election of 2014. They were more afraid of Obama and the press AFTER that win than before. If it wasn’t Trump it would have been someone else. Having run for a generation on smaller government when given the chance in 2003 the GOP punted. Bush, Hastert, and Frist created Trump the moment the record long House vote to create Medicare Part D occurred.

                  No matter how much good the GOP has, in theory, done since 2008 it was never going to be enough to repair that damage.

         2. Actually you won’t enjoy it, Zsuzsa because the same people now saying they’re for the deportations will be saying “We always knew he wouldn’t do it. our leader is so wise.” THAT is Trump’s danger. I already see this from self-avowed Libertarians, for crying out loud.

            1. So the evidence seems be indicating…

      6. I think Ted Cruz may just surprise Trump with his organization and his steadfast, but below the radar courting of the evangelicals. He’s also got a helluva lot of Paulistas behind him too.

         1. From your mouth, to His ears.

            1. I’m pretty sure it’s why Trump suddenly started attacking Cruz lately…

   2. I know EXACTLY how they will try to control him: Vichy Mitchy and Lyin Ryan will suddenly rediscover all those legislative powers (like the purse) and prerogatives they never could use against Obama, and the Democrats will be happy to help.

      For Peak Derp, they’ll “reach across the aisle” and impeach him, with more than enough Senators to confirm it.

      At which point, you’ll see an increasing number of incidents where people decide that the only rule these people might respect is Rule .308.

      PS: Cruz will get the same treatment, possibly sooner than Trump will…. with the same results.

      PPS: This election is mostly about giving all the other boxes one last chance, not because of any realistic expectation of anything better. Just think of your ballot the same way Sarah described buying a Powerball ticket: one last fantasy of something better before getting down to the real work.

      1. As I said, Cruz will get the same treatment.

         1. Yep. That was spot on. Thanks for the link.

      2. It’s unlikely that Cruz would get the same treatment, if for no other reason than he is at least willing to play the game.
         It’s also entirely possible that McConnell and Ryan are both trying to play “run out the clock, don’t make waves”–which they are not being helped in by the unwillingness of certain factions to accept that half a loaf is better than none.

         1. Click the link in my reply to myself for why I’m right IMHO.

         2. McConnell/Ryan/Frist/Boehner/Lott/Hastert have been promising the conservative base half a loaf for the last 15 years – immediately followed by handing the whole damn loaf to the Dems & their crony capitalist buddies. At this point, a lot of people are willing to burn the damn bakery to the ground rather than maintain the status quo.

            1. Not helped by the fact that large portions of the conservative base pull a Woodrow Wilson and go “whole loaf or no loaf.”
               Back in 2012, when every Republican candidate said they would not accept a 10:1 spending cut to tax increase reform plan, I nearly blew a gasket due to the utter stupidity. Good night, with our system the way it is the refusal to compromise is not a virtue. Furthermore, we didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it, either. Any attempts to do so will land us in worse–see Donald Trump.
               And, while schadenfreude is tasty, and having certain of my leftist colleagues find out what real fascism looks like would be entertaining, I would prefer to avoid that in the interests of everyone.

               1. Good night, with our system the way it is the refusal to compromise is not a virtue. Furthermore, we didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it, either.

                  When the promised half a loaf always turns out to be no loaf you start refusing to compromise. Medicare Part D and then record budgets and debt weren’t half a loaf when you control the whole shooting gallery.

                  When the GOP held it all from 2003 to 2006 they not only didn’t provide half a loaf to their base they started baking diet Dem loafs. In doing so they insured a GOP minority would be given no room to maneuver by their base.

                  Bush, Hastert, and Frist are the real root of the uncompromising conservative base and never get the blame for it. They were the promised “when we control everything” and they delivered zip.

                  1. When the promised half a loaf always turns out to be no loaf you start refusing to compromise.

                     On top of that – we’re the ones that baked the blessed loaf in the first place! It’s like compromising with a pack of cannibals, proudly holding up the treaty with your remaining hand. What are we supposed to do when they come over all peckish again?

                  2. And Exhibit A for your thesis is “gun control”, where people finally started saying “All you want is a gun ban by the slice. Oh Hella no. And if you try it anyway, we will shoot you. No deal. No compromise. Molon Labe.”

                     And before anyone points to blue states like CA, CT, or NY, look at the compliance rates for their latest bans (5%) and how many LEOs are openly saying “No, we won’t enforce it.”

                     1. We gun owners are kind of slow. We compromised, we did. In 1934, 1968, 1986, and times too numerous to mention at the state and local levels. Each and every time we gave away a bit of our freedom in exchange for the promise of “this is all we want, now we will be safe.” And because evil people somehow do not seem to follow the law (go figure) shortly after the passage of each new restriction the anti gun crowd was right back at it, using the media in an attempt to sell yet another really good common sense solution.
                        We’ve played Charlie Brown to the anti gun Lucy long enough. Not gonna do that any more. We finally learned our lesson. It finally sunk in that the real end game is the gun free nirvana that they’ve established in Great Britain where everyone is disarmed (except the government and the criminals of course) where the people can live secure with a violent crime rate only five times as high as that of bloody America. (Source for that is the UN violent crime report of 2010. It’s quite embarrassing so they try to bury it, but it’s out there if you dig a bit.)

                        1. I wonder if the gun owners of times past were more tied into “Need” and less into “Rights”. Great Grandpa Fudd may have owned a number of guns and hunted frequently, but wasn’t too concerned when the NFA passed in ’34. Who needs a tommygun besides gangsters?
                           Grandpa Fudd owned a couple of guns he needed for his annual hunting trips, so he wasn’t too bothered by the GCA of ’68. Who needs a cheap Saturday Night Special besides dope fiends?
                           Daddy Fudd had a bolt action rifle he needed for the occasional trip to deer camp, so he wasn’t bothered by the AWB in ’94. Who needs an assault rifle besides those scary gang bangers?
                           And now we have Mr. Fudd who owns a double shotgun he sometimes needs for skeet shooting. He supports a magazine limit, because who besides schools shooters needs more than 7 rounds?

                           1. Obviously, the question of “need” was critical in former times, else the arguments for controlling access to weapons would not have been based on that “Nobody needs a machine gun for deer hunting” type of argument.

                              That merely shows how secure we were in our Second Amendment rights … and how much we recognize the present threat to them. Your rights under the First or Fifth Amendment are not subject to any perceived “need” to peaceably assemble to address representatives nor a “need” to not want to talk to cops. Those are sovereign rights and in America the citizen is (as of yet) still sovereign (mostly. Kinda. Until one of the conservative Justices gets replaced.)

                        2. *I* didn’t compromise on anything. That was done by a bunch of people I wasn’t able to vote against.

               2. Every compromise with the D’s has been tax increases NOW which they want, for spending cuts LATER, which R’s want. The spending cuts, for some reason, never materialize. That’s one really, really good reason for refusing to compromise with them now or in the future.

                  1. The problem, of course, is that if you can’t compromise because you can’t trust their word, how can you include them in a civil society which requires that basic level of trust?

                     You can’t, which is why civil war is inevitable.

         3. Where is this half a loaf of which you speak?

         4. Yep.

   3. I still have trouble taking Trump seriously. I think that if he gets the nomination, he’s gonna be like that dog that finally catches up to the car he’s been chasing, and won’t have a clue what to do with it.

      The important part of the Trump candidacy isn’t him; it is who he brings with him into government. I haven’t seen squat about that yet, and I’m not going to form an opinion about him and his potential for the presidency until I do.

      The president is more of a figurehead, these days, and its a hell of a lot more important to vet the people surrounding him than it is to look at him. One reason I was dead set against Obama had a lot to do with his intimate advisers, like William Ayers and Valerie Jarrett. All I had to know about Obama to oppose his election as president of the US was a.) He’s from Chicago, a well-known bastion of corruption, and b.) Who he had as his intimates. Ayers I knew about, and it took about ten minutes of research in 2007 to know that anyone with Jarrett as an adviser was going to be a disaster for the country.

      So, let us see who Trump is going to be taking to the White House with him. Could be good, could be bad–I don’t have the information necessary to even begin to form an opinion.

7. I’m not seeing any real leadership on the world or national stage. Maybe it’s hiding or has some sort of agenda that’s not obvious, but for the vast majority of the population, it’s failed. From my viewpoint the elite appear to be decadent nihilists that have paint themselves in gilded corner while tossing fewer crumbs to the rest.

   I don’t know about Europe, but in the States gun sales and ammo are increasing. My spouses training sessions at the range are fully booked and there is a waiting list. There are more “normal” people interested in prepping, gardening, alternate power and even ham radio. The more aware can sense the changes in the wind, but the majority haven’t woken from the soma coma.

   1. We found this out when we were house-shop. Thing is I remember Carter,and it’s not that far off, just a bit more.

8. Telling lies with truth– Yep, I was very young when I learned this concept from my mother. It is why I have a horrible time believing anyone until I watch them in action. And yes, politicians are some of the worst (or best) at this– both sides btw. *sigh

9. Sad to say, I largely agree with your “predictions.” Europe will largely cease exist as a “functioning” society, within *no more* than Fifteen years. It could be as little as _Five_, but no more than Fifteen. The same can be said, with a _longer_ time frame, for the Fifteen largest U.S. Cities. Most have been run/mismanaged by Democrats/”Progressives” for as long as _fifty_ years (Chicago/Detroit). The “destabilization” is starting to show, so that it can’t be hidden much longer.
   I wish, for many reasons that I could believe it wouldn’t happen, but it will. Chicago and NYC are becoming ungovernable, due to failed management and educational policies. Philly, where the _Mayor_, denied what the suspect (and police) said about the the attempted assassination of a police officer, is a good example.
   In fact, many of the “National level Authorities” exhibit symptoms of *clinical insanity.* As you pointed out, when the “populace” can no longer deny the fact that the “elites” live in a dream world, it will get very bad. When the general public (not just minorities) no longer trusts/listens to the police, the city will no longer “function.” Vigilantes will “rule” the streets, and “justice” will be a joke. In fact, the “elites” will “experience” the French revolution first hand, and the “police” will not be willing/able to protect them. Some will say. “Call out the National Guard to ‘restore/enforce’ order.” Hah! The NG is going to be the same people running the “people’s justice.”
   The phrase “get ugly” will have a meaning not seen since the 1790’s in France. or Russia in 1915. The scary part is that the “elites” and their “hangers on,” can blame no one but themselves. Perhaps 1 in 100 “good guys, will have self defense weapons, and 1 in 2 or 3 criminals will have weapons.

10. It is rather telling that Germany turned the water cannons and gas on their own nationals protesting rape that they couldn’t be bothered to turn on the people actually doing the rape.

    That was the part of the situation that really shocked me. It gave the lie to their claim that they couldn’t stop the rapists. That and the claim that they couldn’t hold any of the Muslims they arrested because they lacked prison space — excuse me? You just press any room that can be locked and has solid doors and no accessible windows into service and put armed guards on the door, then hold detainees there until you can clear up some more holding cells. A city of OVER A MILLION people can’t hold at most a thousand prisoners? Do the German people actually believe this claim?

    And the lies they’ve been told are so humongous that it amounts to their elites being at war with their people.

    I was thinking myself that the behavior of the Cologne police — standing back to let Muslims rape German women, then cracking down on German men when they protested this situation, is almost indistinguishable from Germany stating that the rape of German women was now legal, and complaining about it illegal. That’s a primal-level threat to ordinary Germans, both male and female — I think if you tried to enforce the law that way in an Ameican city, the citizens would start shooting cops on sight..I also doubt that most American police forces would obey those orders — they would stand down. It may say something horrible about the German character that the German cops are obeying these orders — and it’s the same horrible thing that was noted about Germany in World War II — “we were only following orders.”

    Rather ironic, given that what they think they’re doing is “anti-fascist.”

    1. With the Germans, things can turn 180 degrees in a moment. Those cops behind the water-cannon could be the same ones in six months that are herding the “refugees” onto trains to ship off to detention camps.

       Germany is not the USA, and it isn’t easy to grasp how different it is for the average American or Briton. Yeah, things have changed, but the fundamentals are still there. All it’s going to take to flip the switch is for those idiots like Merkel at the top to either change their orders, or for the people to be changed out in those positions. Hell, it could happen tomorrow, and the day after, the majority of Germany is going to look entirely different. The herd-think is strong in those people–Right now, they’re just angry. When you get “angry”, coupled with “permission from higher”, then the rods are going to come out of the reactor.

       I don’t think people get this about German culture, at all. Mark Twain put his finger on an aspect of it, when he commented that the Germans were a nation of Cuckoo-Clock makers, who ever few generations get a wild hair up their asses and decide to try conquering the world. He got an expressionary, observational aspect of the culture correct, I think, but missed the underlying feature, which is that the Germans are capable of turning on a dime, and going what looks like bonkers to outsiders. The left wing in Germany has been suppressing natural impulses for so long that they think they’ve bred those impulses out of the population, but the reality is that they’re still there, under the surface, and only need a trigger to re-express themselves.

       I knew a German guy, when I was over there. When I first met him, he was your typical domesticated German male, brow-beaten by his wife and committed to life as a sitzpinkler, a man who sits to pee. Last time I saw him was after his wife rubbed her infidelity to him in his face, and he’d beaten the ever-loving snot out of her, having reached his saturation point. After he got his divorce, and left her, he took up the life he really wanted, and became a roadie for a heavy-metal band, and when he and the band visited Tacoma on tour, a mutual acquaintance alerted me to his having run into him, and described what he’d been up to. Left me taken aback, let me tell you–If there was someone who was unlikely to follow that path, it was him. Or, so I thought.

       I think there are a lot of Germans like him, just going along to get along, and once they reach the realization that the game is rigged against them, the reaction isn’t going to be pretty. Nor will the big-picture political results be at all attractive–Germans are kinda binary, in that they are either at your throat or at your feet, as the saying goes. Were I a “refugee” in Germany, right now? I’d be heading for the exits, post-haste. The future isn’t good, and this current suppression of the natural reaction to what happened in Cologne isn’t going to damp things down, either–Instead, it’s only going to make things worse, and perhaps result in the whole situation coming crashing down. I feel like another 1848 or 1968 may be in the near-term future, for a great deal of Europe. And, the elites have nobody but themselves to blame for it.

       1. The lack of a free speech “safety valve” isn’t going to help the situation much, either.

          1. That’s the element that could make everything seem normal until the moment Merkel gets put in “protective custody” and resigns in favor of a junta, or something of that sort.

       2. With the Germans, things can turn 180 degrees in a moment. Those cops behind the water-cannon could be the same ones in six months that are herding the “refugees” onto trains to ship off to detention camps.

          It has occurred to me that the cops probably hate the Muslim immigrants far, far more than I do — they probably felt dishonored and humiliated when forced to stand back and let them attack the women– and when they get orders to crack down on the immigrants, I suspect they will do so quite brutally and enthusiastically.

11. It may say something horrible about the German character… Perhaps. I was just reading about the battle, can’t remember name offhand, after which Confederate and Union officers sent complaints back and forth, that the Confederate Cherokee were scalping and otherwise mutilating the Union dead, that the Union Germans were murdering Confederates who tried to surrender.

    1. Sounds like it was probably Pea Ridge, but I couldn’t say definitely.

       1. Probably that or Wilson’s Creek.

          Could be one of the minor campaigns though, like the Red River campaign.

          1. Could be wrong, but I don’t think Stand Watie showed up till Pea Ridge. His arrival with the Cherokees is one of the major factors that stopped the Union advance into Arkansas.

          2. Also, the presence of Germans argues for Missouri. It was German militia that held the state arsenal and allowed the Federals to take over the state.

             1. One Augustus Busch of Budweiser fame was one of the soldiers in the St. Louis Militia who held the Confederates back from taking the Arsenal.

       2. Pea Ridge, exactly. I was reading “Friendly Fire in the Civil War” by Webb Garrison.

12. Trump also has the advantage of his opponents wanting to make his exaggerations true.

    The best example is the expansion of H-2B (not H-1B) visas for unskilled workers in the omnibus. Any attempt to claim Trump’s statements about the desire to replace Americans was shot in the head with that middle finger to Trump supporters. Before that you could say his accusations of the goals of the elite were exaggerations. After that he sounded almost mild in his analysis.

    Then again, I suspect that omnibus budget was the moment Trump became inevitable. With the GOP Establishment now warming up to Trump because he could be their ‘King’ like Obama has been for the Dems and the last alternative, Cruz, actually means all that stuff about limited government I think we’ll be inaugurating President Trump.

    I am not just depending on the fact that even more than Obama he is driven by his own ego (and probably not a narcissistic one…he needs to be liked too much to be a narcissist) than ideology to tamper down how autocratic he’ll be. Dictators are bad but ones that believe their own BS are the worst (which is the danger of founding a religion, see Hubbard).

13. To the Tranzi mind, Truth is what they need it to be. Therefore for you to make distinctions between observable truth and convenient narratives is false consciousness.

    When the people are viewed as the means to express the rulers’ will, rather than the source of the rulers’ authority it becomes legitimate to replace the people with another (hopefully) more compliant people. ” ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ “

14. And what’s topping the newsfeed on Facebook?

    “Jennifer Lawrence: Actress Scolds Reporter Twice for Using His Phone Backstage at Golden Globes”

    The future is going to hurt.

15. First off, thank you for this insightful post about truth and its misuses. Long ago, I learned in speech and debate that you can beat an opponent by agreeing on some truth (preferably something so obvious that acknowledging it is actually a triviality) and then following up with whatever you want. It’s one part truth to three parts bombastic ridiculousness – but it can be very effective.

    Regarding Europe: watching what’s playing out in Germany is disturbing on a visceral level. I have always wanted to visit Germany – so much fascinating history going back before the Romans, even – and I took it upon myself to begin learning German in anticipation of finally getting to go. My husband even agreed to a backpacking trip through Germany to celebrate if I finish my Masters. But now?

    Not by the Seven Haberdasheries of Hell will I be going. The influx of young, military-aged men with no desire to assimilate was off-putting enough, but when I watched the footage of the German authorities watercannoning (heh, new word) their own people who were protesting _against_ a mass rape incident? No. Just no.

    So, where are all the SJWs who have turned everything into rape when there is actual, honest-to-the-deity rape happening on a large scale? Where are the calls of victim-blaming when the mayor of Cologne is engaging in exactly that?

    The next time somebody trots out the thread-bare trope that the crusades were a European land-grab, I will grab said person by the scruff of the neck, point to Germany and say, “No, you fool, the crusades were to prevent this!” I will then be arrested for battery and for invading a safe space.

    1. So, where are all the SJWs who have turned everything into rape when there is actual, honest-to-the-deity rape happening on a large scale? Where are the calls of victim-blaming when the mayor of Cologne is engaging in exactly that?

       Assign one each of “frat brothers” and “Muslim migrant men” to the following two categories:

       1. Will go off and drink beer by themselves when criticized.
       2. Will cut your head off when criticized.

       I think that exercise will answer your question. SJWs are the ulitmate cowards and bullies.

       1. Crybullies.

          1. Yep. Just like bullies who could use their status/power/strength/whatever to challenge an actual threat, it gives them greater satisfaction to beat on the target least likely to hurt them.

          2. “Crybullies”, oooo, I’m so much going to put that into my lexicon(with your permission), of course.

             1. I THINK John Wright made it up, or someone in one of my FB groups did. BUT everyone who is anyone is using it, even the divine Milo Yannopoulos. So use it! Do!

    2. I am so glad that I got to see Europe when it was mostly still Europe; got to visit the museums, historical sites, castles and cathedrals while they were still there and glorious. Glad that I could walk around with my daughter (then a small child) in one hand, my camera in the other, in perfect safety. Got to drink wine at little wineries in Germany, sample French food, admire statues and gardens, eat English pub food.

       1. Me too; spent 4.5 months in Germany in 1994, at Spangdahlem Air Base. About 30 minutes (non autobahn) from the Moselle valley.

       2. Likewise. Spent a semester in Salzburg back in ’09, loved every minute of it. Was able to travel all over the continent, but I didn’t make it to half the stuff on my list. I’d always said I wanted to go back, but now? Now I wouldn’t go back to Europe if you paid me.

    3. The rapists were no threat to the authority of those in power.

       Which tells you pretty much what you need to know about the police understanding of what their role is.

       1. So, like all other things, the purpose of the armed members of the government is reverting to the historical norm.

          1. In Deutschland? Vas meinen sie, “revert”?

             1. Haven’t the police in Germany (at least in post-WW2 times) always doubled as a regime protection force?

       2. “The rapists were no threat to the authority of those in power.”

          Good point. Then again, we will see how quickly this new dog bites the hand that feeds it.

    4. I too always wanted to take my husband to Germany, particularly Cologne, which I loved when I was there. And we were thinking when kids are off our payroll, in three years, we could do that. Uh. No. Just no.

       1. Which makes me wonder how hard-hit Germany (and the rest of Europe) will be by the drop in tourism. I suspect there are many, many people of a similar mindset. A gentleman of my grandparents’ generation commented to me that the last time he was in Germany he had a rifle and that’s the only way he’d go back now.

          1. I cancelled a three week tour of Belgium and northern Germany, maaaaayyybe reschedule for 2017. That’s at least $50,000, more if more people had signed up before I pulled the plug.

             1. Would any organization promoting such a tour bear some degree of legal liability for any misadventure occurring to a woman on that trip (presuming they a. failed to provide due notice of the peril and/or b. implied there was no heightened risk)?

                1. Yep. Been saving up… Not going to take elderly parents or a 13 year old daughter, now.

    5. Frankly, I’m truly worried about Larry Correia and his upcoming European (Britain, France, Germany) book tour.

       1. Larry is fine. It’s Europe that won’t know what hit it.

          1. Wonder if I can coordinate to be there at same time and have him come visit my family on the way back. I’m sure he’s a cousin they just haven’t met. 😉

             1. MHI:Portugal?

                1. LOL. I am working on a novel in Ringo’s BTR universe that WILL be set in Portugal.

                   1. What, a whole novel? Are you at liberty to discuss details?

                      1. Only that it’s half written, it takes place in a version of the village I grew up in, and it has John’s and Toni’s tentative thumbs up.

                         1. Is that “tentative” as in provisional? Are you at liberty to say you’re (for example) working from an approved outline or plot thumb-nail?

                            This is intended for the Black Tide Rising anthology, nyet?

                            1. approved plot one-liner, but no contract, etc, until it’s done and John sees it. Also because the last few years I haven’t been good with contracts, though that might be more health than contracts, in the end.

                            2. And yes, it was intended for Black Tide, but when I crossed 40k words, I said “uh, no way.” So instead there’s a story about what happens in an emergency room in Colorado the night the lights go out. That’s called Do No Harm. The story in Portugal will have a title to do with Castle, but Dan says Castle and Keep is lame.

                            3. Citadel. Fort? Presidio? If a Star fort, one reference that. Walls?

                         2. How ’bout Castle the King as in the chess move?, heh, heh.

                            1. no kings in novel.

             2. I would pay cash money for video of that meeting 😀 “Dear God, it’s the entire North American Continent coming through the door! Doom is come upon us!”

                1. Sabrina, my family is built on that scale.My mastodons are petite by Almeida standards, and I’m positively svelte. He LOOKS like one of the Almeida cousins. It’s more likely the neighbors would run for cover.

       2. Larry just needs to add “how I helped train women to shoot rapists” to his standard book tour “about me” speech. 😀 Watch the Frauen take notes…

    6. “invading a safe space”

       No, that’s cracking a Mosler.

    7. …the Seven Haberdasheries of Hell…

       This has me amused. And a bit curious. Should I be worrying about any headgear I might don?

16. I still think a big part of the elite’s problem is denial of faith. I have worked in the middle East and listened to Mohamedans chuckling at the poor stupid westerners who will one day submit to Allah. They believe down in their bones that we are decadent, evil losers.

    They cannot be compromised with. They must have their faith demolished. Of course they will be shocked when the west finally wakes up to it’s peril.

    WWIII will happen.

17. You are saying the exact same thing as Vox Day, so you must really be the same person.

    Except that Vox likes Trump.

    It is almost like the Democoits are running as the National Association for the Advancement of Rapist Americans*, and everyone with an ounce of sense can see how badly that will turn out.

    *Bill Clinton, Mexico’s felons, and Muslim Jihadists.

18. Reblogged this on The Arts Mechanical and commented:
    Having had the Donald in my view for most of my life I have to say that Trump is a shark. Sharks are opportunists. When there is scavenging they scavenge. Where there is weakness the shark will attack. And If you are strong the shark will go away. The shark has highly evolved senses for detecting weakness and so does Donald.
    The real problem is that the Progressives have basically taken over just about everything, are incredibly weak and ripe for destruction. The sharks are inevitably circling. Trumps success is not a product of his strength, it’s a product of the elites weakness.

    1. The left can take over institutions, what they can’t do is run them even semi-competently. They are blinded by ideology.

       1. Ideology – a big word meaning one’s head is up one’s [REDACTED].

          Their tendency to immediately vent their animus once they’ve seized power also tends to be non-productive — like the carjacker who can’t drive stick shooting the driver, who does.

       2. When the left takes over the reality hits and things end up in a huge bloody mess with literal blood.

    2. The Donald is a very good salesman.
       As such, he’s very good at telling the rubes what they want to hear in order to close the deal. The brusque, tough guy, tell it to you straight talk is just another pitch technique.
       What people forget is that the Donald is not a very good manager.

19. A minor point, but I do question this:

    “Germany was handed a raw deal in WWI” which was true.

    As compared to what? The Treaty of Frankfurt, which Germany imposed on France at the end of the previous war? The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany imposed on Russia when they looked like the victors of WWI? The Treaty of Triannon, which took away from Hungary more territory than it was left? The Treaty of Versailles has gotten a bad reputation due to what happened in Germany afterwards, but the objective evidence that it was a uniquely horrible injustice has always struck me as pretty slim.

    Prior to about the end of World War II, losing a war sucked. There was none of this, “As soon as you surrender, we’ll spend millions rebuilding your economy and helping you set up a government to your liking” business. The winners took territory, money, and resources to their liking; the losers sucked it up and dealt as best they could. I don’t think Germany got it particularly worse than other losers in wars around that time.

    1. In the sense that it was PHYSICALLY impossible to pay back. the problem with those other restitution is that they “sort of happened.*” But in the twentieth century the bureaucratic machine was honed so that collection would happen.
       *Portugal has owed some impossible amount of gold to the Papal See and to Spain (the later in restitution) since its war of independence… now almost ten centuries ago.

       1. Actually, it was possible. It would have been difficult, but it was possible.

          At least it’s arguable, since I’ve seen arguments. 0:)

    2. The Treaty of Frankfurt, which Germany imposed on France at the end of the previous war? The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany imposed on Russia when they looked like the victors of WWI? The Treaty of Triannon, which took away from Hungary more territory than it was left?

       Key difference in both of those: where was the losing side’s army at the end of said wars?

       Germany had defeated (and imposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on) Russia and seized a huge portion of it. Italy was out of the war with the German army in Italy. The German Army in the west was mostly in Belgium with some parts still in France. There was still a German army active in Africa. It’s commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, would return home to a heroes welcome having never been defeated.

       Given they still held foreign territory on every front at the armestice it was reasonable for the Germans to assume, at worst, restoration of the status quo ante bellum. In fact, in the east it was reasonable for the to presume they could retain at least some of their gains.

       What they did not expect was a dismembering of Germany with territory still held by the German Army to be given away willy-nilly.

       Now, had Wilson allowed the spring 1919 offensive to occur instead of threatening to make a separate peace with Germany if the French and British didn’t accept the armistice offer it would have been different. By mid-year the German army would have dissolved and a situation very similar to that when the Russians were forced back to the table for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk would have prevailed. In fact, 27 years later that was done for that exact reason.

    3. I hear what you saying and you have a point but…

       With WW1, you had the situation where none of the Allied Troops had set foot in Germany.

       German forces had not been driven from France.

       So from the POV of Germany, they were still in a Strong Position when they decided that the war should end.

       Of course, the German Government that decided to end the war was *not* the German Government that had started the war.

       They had forced out of power the Kaiser & his Government, who could be said to have started the war.

       So it could be seen that it was the Germans who wanted Peace that were punished for a war that they didn’t start.

       So I strongly understand the anger that Germans felt toward that treaty.

       Mind you, it is “interesting” that France was willing to punish Germany yet did nothing to stop Hitler when they had the power to do so.

       I don’t “blame” the Allies for the rise of Hitler.

       I blame France & England for not stopping Hitler when they could have.

       1. Tooze makes the point that France and England were reluctant to re-open hostilities against Hitler because the only possible benefactor would be the USA and USSR. In many ways they were right, but they were also wrong in that delay and appeasement just made the war inevitable.

    4. Let’s realize that Versailles was on a whole level different than the other treaties you mention. Germany only finished paying the war reparations from WWI about a decade ago; and it’s not just WWII which the Treaty of Versailles set the stage for: the Cold War, the Communist Revolution in China, the First and Second Indo-China conflicts, and even the current difficulties in the Middle East all have roots in that crappy peace treaty drafted in 1919.

20. I think I’d rather Trump now than whoever would pick up the tide of his support after four more years of continuation of current policy.
    I’d certainly rather Trump now than what could happen if his supporters have ‘proof’ that the Republican party engaged in shenanigans to keep him from being their candidate and Clinton wins the Presidency.

    1. I’m hurt that you would speak of me so.

       As a big supporter of Friends of Pat Buckman for President, 2016, I will be very well placed to trump Trump in 2020.

21. Because Obama wasn’t enough of a Carter already:

    http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/12/pentagon-2-navy-boats-in-iranian-custody-iran-assures-crew-will-be-returned-promptly.html

    1. History often rhymes.

       Now, when did we see a former Democrat media star turned Republican run for President with an Iranian hostage taking as a backdrop????

       I’m sure it will come to me….

       All Hail Discordia!

       1. What do you mean, “former” Democrat? Do you buy Trump’s conversion to the Republican party? Because I don’t. I think he knew he’d have to run against Hillary either way, and figured he could play the GOP anti-establishment voters for suckers.

          1. Lighten up, Francis. The external similarity of the events was the point. Although I will say that there were plenty of people who doubted Reagan’s sincerity at first, too. But until someone has reliable mind reading, externals are all we have.

             1. Yeah, sorry, my original intent was to just write “What do you mean, “former” Democrat?” and leave it there as humor. Then I wrote the rest, and looking back, I see my intended humorous tone got COMPLETELY wiped out by the rest of what I wrote.

                My apologies for coming across as aggressive; it wasn’t my intent at all.

                1. And yet I agree with everything you said.

                   1. Yes, I agree with almost all of it too, or I wouldn’t have written it. 🙂 The second sentence, where I asked snelson134 if he’d been fooled by Trump, is the only one I really shouldn’t have written. That one came off as aggressive and insulting. My intention was only to call Trump’s sincerity into question, not snelson134’s intelligence. For the latter, though I did it accidentally, I wholeheartedly apologized.

                      1. Yes, I didn’t mean to insult Steve. I took that question as a rhetorical flourish.

                         1. No worries. As I said, I was just struck by the possible historical echoes. That was why I was praising Discordia.

    2. All this has happened before and will happen again, and again, and again . . .

22. I don’t think Trump has a chance, any more than Paul the elder ever did– I do know a lot of his “supporters” don’t support him at all, they’re just pushing against the rush to become left wing.

    I’m afraid you’re right about Europe, though. There’s a lot of support for it in Ms Rand’s ever discussed philosophy– she didn’t reject what hurt her and go back to what it was overturning, she accepted a lot of the bad assumptions and built her own.

    Something about “misuse does not rule out proper use” (can’t remember the Latin) seems to be really tough for some folks.

    1. What bothers me is how the media seems to be trying to stampede people towards him.

       1. I think you’re giving too much credit to the News Media.

          IMO they aren’t trying to stampede people toward him.

          They’re trying their “usual shit” against Republicans against Trump but Trump doesn’t care (in one sense) what they say about him as long as they keep talking about him.

          The thing is that the News Media doesn’t “realize” what he’s doing.

          IE He likes what they’re doing so he keeps “playing them”. [Very Big Evil Grin]

          1. If there is any stampeding going on, it is Trump stampeding the MSM. They’re whitewashing his fence and paying him for the privilege. Every time he says something “outrageous” and they run about doing their headless chickens dance, declaring “Trump said a bad thing!!!!!!!” they just give him more credibility.

             
             The MSM think they’re the dog but really they’re sheepish.

             1. They’re the dog…. that will hump anybody’s leg.

          2. “He likes what they’re doing so he keeps ‘playing them’.”

             Like waving a red cape in front of bulls.

       2. Because the Establishment Media is celebrity-obsessed. No more complicated explanation than that. Of course, it has to be The Right Kind of Celebrity.
          I suppose those talent-less and taste-deprived Kardashian clan will be the next possible nominees, given that those fish-faced and fat-arsed t*ats seem to be everywhere.

          1. Well, Kanye West has already announced that he’ll be running in 2020. Which I’d find hysterically funny if I didn’t think that me might realistically have a shot at winning.

          2. 2015 was the year I finally found what out what exactly a Kardashian was. Sigh. And I’d been doing so well…

             1. My condolences.

                1. I’m still amazed the a porn star could get that level of celebrity.
                   I mean a PORN star! That’s all she did! She made a very low budget amateur porno which she gave away for free! Hell, I don’t even find her all that attractive, she’s only average in my book.
                   If anyone is up for the part of ‘whore of babylon’, it’s her.

       3. yep

       4. Going a bit further, Trump IMO is “playing” the News Media and the Democratic Party like a fiddle.

          He’s “giving” them things to “scream” about so they fall into his trap and “scream” about the Fascist Trump.

          That give Trump headlines that he can use to further his run for the Presidency.

          It’s possible that some in the Media and Democratic Party realizes what he’s doing but there’s no way in heck that they could stop their fellows from falling into Trump’s trap.

          1. I halfway suspect that Trump started out as a ploy, and is working his way up through “Hey, I could really win this thing…” to “inevitability”.

             And, the idiots in the media and left… Oh, but I repeat myself… Have nobody but themselves to blame.

             Hell, at the rate the Republicans are going, I’m almost at the point where I’m ready to throw up my hands, say “F**k it…”, and vote for Trump just to piss everyone off.

             Which, I strongly suspect, may be the primary motivating factor for most of his voters…

             1. Imaginary Trump voter/supporter/poll-answerer:
                My choices are two ancient Progressives, six guys who look like they have been dry-cleaned, a business-woman everyone ignores, and TRUMP!!!!!

                Hmm, which vote will hack off the guy in the Pious who lives up the block and who double-parked after cutting me off to turn into the Whole Paycheck parking lot? Heh, heh, heh.

                1. Cruz has all those advantages; in fact, I’m pretty sure that the GOPe will and is picking Trump over Cruz simply because they feel they might be able to bribe him if they go high enough.

                2. That’s my general attitude every time I go to the polls.

                   “300 million people, and *these* bozos are what I’m supposed to choose between?!”

                   Opponents of my Powerball Election System (random choice to fill seats) might put defectives or criminals in office. My usual reply is, “How could we tell the difference?”

                   1. “Hello Sir (or Madam, as the case may be…). You have been Selected to be the next President of the United States of America.”
                      “Oh crud.”
                      “Indeed, but you have been Selected, like it or not.”
                      “I don’t I am ready for this. And I doubt the country is ready for me, either, for that matter.”
                      “The President is never truly ready for the job, and the country has rarely if ever been ready for any Administration.”
                      “Admini.. oh crud. As the beaver said upon seeing a raging riving a forest, more dam work.”
                      “Indeed. This way, please.”

                      1. please, write it. Make him a Heinlein character.

                         1. Make him a Heinlein character.

                            Now that, alas, I do not know to do. And a guess would likely be a Bad Idea. Hrm, so many ways this could go.

                            Hey, TRX, anyone else ‘Selected’ rather than elected? Senators? Cabinet members? Or only the President (and VP?)? And… can someone not play, and at what price if so? Or this where you say “Hey, you’re the fool that started writing it.” ?

                         2. Sounds like a scene out of “For Texas and Zed”, heh.

                         3. Crap. Crap. Crap.

                            I hadn’t expected more, but his name is Montel Howard. His detractors will nickname him ‘Moe’ of course.

                            Dear subconscious: Alright, if you’re gonna do that, YOU write the thing.

                            1. Dear Lord in Heaven above; that’s enough! Please, no ‘Moe.’

                            2. RES: Oh, Fine, Larry!

                            3. How about Curly?

                            4. Where’s the love for Shemp, the only alternate Stooge who was an original member of the act?

                               One wonders what the Howard household was like, raising three such boys as Moe, Shemp and Curly! Probably not a place to casually visit on April First.

                            5. Hey, that’s what writes my books.

                      2. Sigh. That works up until a Katrina vanden Heuvel or Ron Burgundy gets tickled by Fate’s fickle finger. Heck, even Snake Jailbird would be less disastrous than them. Bernie Sanders, bad as he is, is still better for the job than about two-thirds* of the people voting for him.

                         *Call me a cock-eyed optimist, call me charitable, just don’t call me late for supper.

                      3. I believe I read an Arthur C. Clarke novel which had the President chosen by some test, and the test almost universally chose someone who didn’t really want the job, but had enough work ethic to go ahead and do his best (this was a barely mentioned point that took up maybe a page of dialog, since it wasn’t really germane to the story except as background info).

                         1. That would be Imperial Earth. Set during, I think, America’s quart-or quincentennial.

                   2. Simple, the defectives, at least, would be much more likely to acknowledge their inability and either reason or seek wise council.

             2. If Trump is the nominee, I will not vote. Or I’ll write in Mickey Mouse. Yes, I now what that means, but I don’t want the blood on my hands.

                1. I think Rubio will get the nomination. I’ll vote for Cruz even if I have to write his name in.

                   1. I would vote for Rubio if he was the nominee, shamnesty notwithstanding. But…

                      I’ll vote for Cruz even if I have to write his name in.

                      … this is about the point I’ve reached as far as Trump is concerned. There’s NO WAY I’m going to vote for a Democrat in the general, even if he has lied his way into getting an (R) placed beside his name on the ballot.

                      1. Keep in mind that if the Republican candidate doesn’t win the 2016 Presidential election, we will have four and maybe eight more years of someone like Hilary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. In the first case, I think the consequence will be the fall of the Republic due to the corruption of the Constitution (she’ll get to appoint more Supreme Court justices and jigger the election laws nationwide, so it might be impossible to vote her or her successor out of office); in the second case, full-on Atlas Shrugged level economic collapse as Bernie tries to put his socialism into practice, coupled with massive diplomatic failure — how effective will a guy who was intimidated by two 20-year-old girls on a stage be at standing up to the Caliphate, Russians or Chinese?

                         So yeah. I’d take Trump as the alternative.

                         1. I am less concerned about who occupies the White House than I am about who she or he would appoint as ambassadors, as Cabinet secretaries, as senior officers in the military and to the many administrative agencies. While we vote for president the reality is we are choosing an entire management team.

                            We should choose carefully.

                2. Young Lady!!! If Trump is the nominee you will vote and you will smile while doing it. You may leave the “President” portion of the ballot unmarked but there are plenty of down ballot candidates who merit your support, and even more (on the other side of the ballot, admittedly) who deserve your opposition.

                   Just because you don’t care for the entree doesn’t mean you leave the salad, soup and appetizer untouched. This is America and in America we vote.

                   1. Yes, sir.

                3. I have to be honest with you: I think the 2016 election cycle has the potential to be one of those “historically significant” ones that go into the history books with their own chapters and titles of significance.

                   The mismanagement and incompetence of our political class has resulted in this joke of a field we’ve got to choose from, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to watch the whole thing blow up spectacularly in their faces. They’re setting up all the freaking bowling pins for some epic FUBAR, and where it will end? I haven’t a clue.

                   Want to know what I find the scariest thing? Trump isn’t even the worst thing that could happen. He’d be bad, but I don’t think he’d be as destructive as you are scared he would be. Trump, in the final analysis, does not want to tear the whole thing down–He just wants his little ego-boos, and I suspect he would probably delegate a bunch of the job to competent people he picked out, while playing figurehead. Despite his many bankruptcies and surrounding financial chicanery, he’s not a horrible manager, and he’s had some good people working for him that say they thought he did a good job for what he was doing.

                   No, I don’t think he’s the worst we could do. Not perfect, not what we need, but not the worst, either. The worst would be a Bernie Sanders or Hillary one, where they double down on stupid and keep screwing up foreign policy. The idea of the architect of the Libyan/Egyptian fiasco being the president is one I find terrifying. And, God alone knows what that family would do, were they to be in the presidency again. I think they’d actually wreck the place, given the trends of the last decade.

                   Overall, though? I don’t think it’s going to come down to Trump or Hillary. I have this feeling that this whole charade is just that, and we’re going to have some epic weirdness happen this year. Like “The president won’t leave the White House, and there’s a standoff with the Marines…” kind of weirdness. I think all the crap they have been sweeping under the carpet the last seven years is going to come crawling out, and we’re going to see Nemesis come out of the woodwork to drag Dear Leader off into the night his hubris has earned him. Whatever else goes along with that, I don’t think it’s going to leave the rest of the situation at all normal. I’m halfway expecting both parties to get down to the wire with the current cast of clowns, look at them, and go “Holy crap… There’s no way this is gonna work… Mikey, who we got in the wings? Webb? Hey, is Fred Thompson still alive? No? Damn it… What about whatshisname, that guy that was the governor…?”.

                   In other words, I don’t think we’re going to be faced with voting for Trump or Hillary. Something big is going to happen in the next ten months, and its going to be a paradigm-shifter. I’ve got no idea what it is, or how it is going to manifest, but this year just feels epically weird, like there’s that ozone smell in the air right before a Midwestern thunderstorm.

                   I always thought Obama was a manifestation of the left’s inherent insanity and inability to deal with reality. The way they’ve been in such deep denial about what is going on overseas, as well as here at home just convinces me more that we’re approaching a cusp of some kind, and there’s some unGodly bizarre thing waiting to catch up to them for their massive hubris.

                   Seriously… At the rate things are going, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if someone tears off their obvious mask, and announces that they are actually Reptiloids from the planet Reptilius, and that we are now a part of their world-spanning federation of furry-equivalent “scalies”…

                   1. I’d like to say something like, “Kirk, sir, I think watching _V_ after reading _Puppetmasters_ and two HALO novels while eating cold pizza was a bad idea,” but at this point, I’m not sure Reptiloids would surprise me.

                      1. “… at this point, I’m not sure Reptiloids would surprise me.”

                         They’d sure surprise me! I would expect much greater competence from Reptiloids. Lemurians, maybe; they’re known for this kind of shoddy work, but Reptiloids have higher standards..

                         1. Well…. Reptiloids do have higher standards but we may not know just what they are planning.

                            You see incompetence but the Reptiloids may see a plan coming together very nicely. [Nervous Smile]

                      2. I’ll also say people said the same thing in 12. But no. We were still screwed.

                         1. We’re screwed, no matter what. Always have been, always will be…

                            The entertaining part is, see, figuring out who is going to be doing whom, where they’re going to be doing it, and what part of the Kama Sutra they are using as the source document…

                            See, at this point, it’s either cultivate a sense of the absurd, or despair. Since I refuse to despair (I WON’T!!! I WON’T!!!), right now I’m deep into contemplation of the surreal humor I find around me, as life warps into a series of stories from the Onion and Duffleblog.

                            When the going gets tough, the weird get… Weirder? Expectant of ever more surreal in their surreality? Yeah, that’s the ticket: Wonko the Clown for President! Why the hell not?

                            And, speaking as a former citizen of Lemuria (past life, y’see…), I wish to register a protest as to the aspersions cast on our kind about our competence. Were it not for those damn Atlantean kids in their silly chariot, and their great big dog, we’d be running the show still, to this day…

                            1. Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man.

                               Despair of human beings as much as you please. Your part is to remain faithful to the truth.

                         2. Also, Sarah, take comfort: The force of Nemesis may be slow, but like the Karma Police, they always, always get their man. Or, woman…

                            I’m thinking that Obama isn’t going to be taken down by anything serious, like a scandal or a coup, or an impeachment.

                            I think he’s going to be the victim, instead, of something that turns him and his presidency into the punchline of a really bad joke. The rest of us are going to be screwed, blued, and tattooed, but we’ll have that to laugh at, as we work in the lithium mines of Reptilius.

                            Hubris of an Obama scope has to be answered by something, and I think it’s going to be something that turns him into a laughingstock, like him making a speech about how his great work with Iran has solved the problem of the Iranian nuclear program. Followed promptly by Iran nuking Israel, seeing their missiles shot down by the Arrow interceptors, and Israel and Saudi Arabia then taking the Samson Option and blowing Iran off the map, irradiating a significant portion of the world’s oil reserves.

                            Hubris always attracts Nemesis, and the grander the hubristic delusions, the more ridiculous and destructive Nemesis becomes. Granted, we’ll be collateral damage in all this, but at least we’ll all get to watch the final denouement of the Idiot’s Ball that has been the Obama presidency. I mean, what moron would put Hillary Clinton in charge of the State Department…? Really? What the hell was he expecting–Competency? That’s like putting Joe Biden in charge of… Cancer… Research… Huh.

                            The f*****g idiot did that, too. Amazing.

                            1. I’m pretty sure hubris of an Obama scope will require him to give a speech in downtown DC about how we managed to contain Iran’s nuclear program, followed by a bright flash and mushroom cloud behind him.

                         3. I mean, what moron would put Hillary Clinton in charge of the State Department…? Really? What the hell was he expecting–Competency?

                            He then repplaced Hillary with John Kerry. In other words, he put in charge of the State Department an ex naval officer whose rise to fame came by telling destructive lies against his own country’s military — and his brother officers and sailors — before Congress.

                            This has so far worked about as well as might have been expected. Kerry hasn’t had his Benghazi moment yet, but if he manages to avoid it, it will be only because the clock will first run out on the Obama Administration.

                            1. Sigh. Obama is a fourth generation red diaper baby. Red diaper babies/leftists give each other a handle up the ladder by the fervor of their belief not their competency. While this doesn’t mean they judge against competency, in the end it comes to that. You see, they can’t afford to be shown up by subordinates, so the less competent hire even less competent and so on.
                               And this is how we got the Obama Administration, the War on Competence. This time it’s deadly.

                      3. Yep, I *wish* I could consider Kirk’s post just nuttiness. [Frown]

                         1. Paul, you want nutty? I’ll give you nutty…

                            Mr. Obama just put Biden in charge of… Curing… Cancer.

                            If I’d written that as a story for the Onion, as recently as yesterday, the editor would have laughed me heartily onto the reject pile.

                            After tonight? I’m overcome by events, and they’re so weird that they can’t be parodied, anymore. We’ve reached peak madness; it can’t possibly get worse. But, it will, it wiiiiiiillllllllllll…

                            1. The cancer thing isn’t unusual compared to his ’08/’09 platform on energy and the environment.

                               Yeah, it might be physically impossible, no matter how much people want to believe. Aside from possibly Obama, no one sane enough to matter politically thinks it’d take less than a year.

                               Biden is at best going to be competently managing, at worst squandering the resources.

                               Nothing will happen, and when the next president changes the arrangement, the true believers can at least have one thing to have faith Obama would have fixed. Unlike everything else, there will not be any pesky reality checks. Biden would have to go around murdering researchers to shake the confidence of people who don’t already hate Obama. That probably isn’t going to happen.

                               It could actually be a shrewd thing for Obama to say. Certainly it distracts from reiterating his more life threatening incompetentcies.

                            2. Wait, but wasn’t Obama’s election in 2008 the moment that the seas stopped rising? There’s some proof of this. It’s seven years later and the seas haven’t noticeably risen! 😀

                            3. And the Earth started to heal. You know what shocked me is that even religious people never actually paid attention to things.
                               Perhaps it’s because I think of life as a novel and Himself as an author that the ah… foreshadowing hits the eye.
                               How could any self-avowed Christian vote for Obama? (And yes, many did. In fact I walked out of my former church over the minister saying we should all vote for Obama so the poor could have health care.) Don’t they remember? “Oh [Light bringers] son of the morning, how didst thou fall?” Okay, so it was in Latin. Are they idiots?

                            4. Reality has no obligation to make any sense. And seems to prove such over and over.

                               And as I’ve told some folks who tell me “could be worse”, Please do NOT tempt the Universe into showing how.

                      4. I, for one, welcome our new Reptiloid overlords.

                         1. They’re really not bad sorts, once you get used to the occasional limb-snacking…

                      5. I’m thinking of going into a cryo pod, but I’ll either end up getting revived and told I have to rebuild X-COM or a couple centuries down the line in a nuclear wasteland.

                         Oh well, I might get an adorable German Shepard as a traveling companion.

                         1. “Idiocracy.”

                            I thought it was supposed to be a comedy, but I think it was a documentary…

                            1. Sometimes I suspect (fear) that dystopian fiction is being used like a guide to dancing, as if it was telling where to step, rather than as intended, as a map of a minefield telling where not to step.

                   2. The idea of the architect of the Libyan/Egyptian fiasco being the president is one I find terrifying.

                      What’s worse, she seems to have learned nothing from Benghazi. Her argument remains that she was betrayed by everyone else, and the disaster exaggerated for political purposes.

                      I always thought Obama was a manifestation of the left’s inherent insanity and inability to deal with reality.

                      From the very beginning, with the openly-lunatic ranting about Obama being semi-divine and able to reverse the tide of Fate with an effort of will, his followers have shown bizarre expectations for him. And Obama didn’t do anything to discourage that kind of talk, which demonstrated from the beginning that they didn’t grasp that he would inevitably disappoint such dreams.

                      1. “From the very beginning, with the openly-lunatic ranting about Obama being semi-divine and able to reverse the tide of Fate … Obama didn’t do anything to discourage that kind of talk”

                         That Obama wouldn’t feign faux modesty in the face of such fervid adulation conveys pretty much all you need to know about him, don’t it?

                   3. Yeah, I have that weird, breathless feeling of SOMETHING happening any minute now.

                      1. Good Lord, Celia, I thought it was just me. I am having trouble staying off the net and writing, because I feel like I’m on watch, on post, waiting for the balloon to go up. Then I found out son feels the same way. Then I found out Amanda feels the same way.
                         Well, I HOPE that psychic premonition doesn’t work…

                         1. Oh, no – definitely not just you, there are a lot of us out there feeling that ‘shoe about to drop’ feeling. We’ve been feeling it for quite a while, but lately it’s even more intense.

                            1. It’s driving me insane. Older son gave me a lecture about my not being in the military and my not having a duty to watch. But the heart feels what it feels.

                            2. It is a characteristic of the conservative heart to anticipate troubles ahead. This is far preferable to liberal assumptions that everything will work out fine in the end. But it requires self-knowledge to temper the dread.

                            3. I deny that I have any psychic abilities of foretelling.

                               All of my forecasting derives from thought and instinct. I’ve just been training myself long enough to that the contemptible forecasting of the news makes me over proud.

                               After San Bernadino, some of the details led us to expect a wider plot due at a later date. If US counterintelligence is competent, and isn’t compromised, we expected them to run down stuff in place at that time if it didn’t get used first. Christmas or New Years would’ve been shocking events to kill many during. We were waiting for the terrorists.

                               That didn’t happen, people are back from the holidays, and maybe getting back to more regularly scheduled shooting gallery events.

                               Stress tends to out, we are under a lot of stress, and we’ve got Feb. 1 and Mar. 1 coming.

                            4. Not that I disagree with the above, but Bob’s listing of dates omits the very next and ponder the amount of nonsense various sites “cover” on that day, and.. well, now. But yeah, it would utterly fail to surprise me if the pressure went up just one more “tiny little bit” and the boiler blew before then.

                   4. The advantage to every Republican presidency is that his term will be under the microscopic scrutiny of the press. Which is exactly it should be.

                      And, unlike Cruz he simply isn’t afraid of the press vipers and vile prog activists. Hubris, more than likely, but it works for Trump, because everyone, even many on the left, are hungry to see someone stand up to them. You’ve all seen how Mrs Hoyt became a Morman guy, Mr. Correia a wife-beater, John Wright anathema, the vile slanders levvied at Mr. Torgersen. And these are small cry facing media hacks without, say, the wherewithall to tap your phone, hack your cell, and turn the lives of your loved ones – including your kids – into rape jokes on national TV.

                      When I say that Republicans and libertarians have a healthy fear of the press, I’m not trying to insult them. (Selling us out for access to the trough is another matter) But the tide is turning, and when it comes to PC and censorship Trump is actually helping.

                      One positive Pres. Trump scenario has him emboldening Republicans running in the midterms.

                      1. Actually Cruz is the one who talked back to the press at that ridiculous debate. he’s just not insane.

                         1. I’m really looking forward to the chance at a president who can’t just talk back to the press– but can tell them EXACTLY what they said, and how it was said.

                            It’s devastatingly effective.

                            1. Yes, please….

                      2. “And, unlike Cruz he simply isn’t afraid of the press vipers and vile prog activists.”

                         Where in God’s name did you come up with this nonsense?

                         http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/12/watch-ted-cruz-defend-his-mic-from-anti-second-amendment-protestors-video/

                         1. And again
                            http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/18/ted-cruz-to-obama-on-refugees-come-home-and-say-it-to-my-face-sucka/

                            1. http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/07/ted-cruz-debates-a-member-of-code-pink-over-iran-nuke-deal/#more

                               Just because Cruz has been no-platformed as much as possible doesn’t mean he hasn’t made Leftists and RINOs alike look like the fools they are.

                            2. Yep. this. The media is trying to keep a cone of silence on him.

                         2. Keep in mind that I was a Jindal supporter, so I’m still in ru-and-find-out mode about the remaining candidates.

                            So yes, I’ve seen Mr. Cruz respond to hecklers at his public appearances: it’s one of the things that I find encouraging. But I had not known anything about his responses to the media (the debates are a horse of a different color. I was unimpressed by everyone.)

                            I’ll cross-post this to TheRightFanGirl. Thanks.

23. I have been voting Republican for a long time now. I am still a registered democrat. I kind of feel guilty about the idea of changing registration. My family was democrat since the damn Yankees took grandma Mercer’s Pigs doing the Civil War! Oh well, I have told my family that the democrats left me and I am still the same but voting republican!

24. It is not merely that people believe outrageous things because the people pushing said things start with truths and work in their jokers. People will also believe in something that started out to their advantage, even if it changes for the worse. This might be called the “All Diets Work” principle: all diets DO work, no matter how outlandish. For about a week or so. Then your body resets its metabolism to “famine” mode and the weight loss tapers off. But since you DID lose 10 pounds in a week, you will be convinced that the diet really, really works, despite what people say about it. KEEPING the weight off, now…

25. Pingback: The Bookworm Beat 1/19/16 — the speed round-up and open thread

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