*I’ve been sitting on this post for a while. I didn’t put it up before because it’s basically an excuse for Kate to get very entertainingly insulting. But today, if I weren’t up to my eyeballs in book, I’d been writing “Freebleeding left or how 4chan Pwned John McCain and the MSM”. They’ve left reality with pee pee gate, a scandal only those who believed in binder gate could get bent out of shape about… or more importantly care about. So this is a great day for Kate to do her yelling at the big babies on the left. I’ll be back when I’ve finished the book. PROBABLY tomorrow.-SAH*
You Won – by Kate Paulk
… the World Championship Dummy Spit, that is.
For those not familiar with Australian vernacular, a “dummy” is a baby’s pacifier. “Spitting the dummy” refers to throwing the kind of tantrum where said pacifier exits the baby’s mouth at speed, usually achieving an impressive arc before coming to ground somewhere hard to reach. Chances of the parents convincing the baby to put the thing in its mouth after it’s been located and cleaned are… minimal.
Winning the World Championship Dummy Spit is a rather Australian way to say “You can quit the tantrum now. The adults don’t care.”
Seriously, I don’t care how disappointed you are. I don’t care if you think the President-Elect is Literally Hitler (he’s not. The last person who was shot himself in a bunker over seventy years ago) and is going to herd you all into extermination camps (he’s not. Even the most useless of you are capable of spending money, and he’s a savvy enough businessman to know a good business needs people to buy what it sells). I don’t care if you think I’m the biggest ___ist ever to walk the planet (I’m not. At least, not since I lost weight).
Life is not fair. It will not always do what you want. To go all Australian on you, shut yer gobs and rattle yer dags because you drongos are going to help clean up the fucking balls up you’ve created even though collectively you might be about as much use as a two-bob watch. Maybe. It’s a fucking tough world out there and Mother Nature’s a stone bitch. I’m from the land of everything trying to kill you: I know this shit.
You’ve wasted years using every lurk and perk you and your slimy pollies could dig up, and you think you can sit back and whinge while the rest of us work our arses off then enjoy the bennies? You’ve got yours and Buckley’s mate: it ain’t happening. Quit trying to beat your best dummy spit, and pitch in or bugger off.
You galahs claim to be for a fair go, but a fair go’s the last thing you want because deep down you know bloody well you haven’t got a leg to stand on. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be chucking a wobbly like this: you’d be in with the rest of us to help clean up.
Oh, right. You think a bit of hard yakka’s gonna make you kark it.
(Translation: Close your mouth and start working. You idiots will have to help clean up your mess no matter how useless you are. The world is a tough place.
You’ve wasted most of your life exploiting whatever advantages your fellow-travelers and politicians could give you, and now you think you can complain while others work; then you think you can make use of any good things that others produce. You have no chance of that happening. Stop throwing tantrums and either help or leave everyone else alone.
You fools claim to be all about equal opportunity but you know very well that you aren’t capable of anything if there aren’t any barriers to other people achieving. If you really wanted equal opportunity, you wouldn’t be throwing tantrums, you’d be helping clean up the mess.
Oh. Right. You think hard work will kill you).
Those who are interested might like to search for “epic dummy spit” – there are some interesting tantrums thrown by supposed adults there.
According To Hoyt 
Egad, I understood most of that without needing to read the translation. Not all, mind.
And yes, this is does seem the ideal day for this post.
♉
Have I mentioned I love your symbol?
Not until now, that I recall.
Rather like it myself, of course.
You should see if you can get the Washington Post to make a picture of it out of little pink women.
They don’t even have the reading comprehension to understand written English…well, Murkin…. You think they are going to grok Awzie?
It might be foreign enough that they slowly process it. At least on the ‘I think I’ve just been insulted, but I can’t really protest because I didn’t understand enough of it, and she’s smiling at me… why is she smiling at me and why am I not reassured?’ level.
I’ve seen Kate smile like that.
Is she showing fangs? I think I understood all of that except galahs. I thought galahs were a kind of bird?
They are birds, and they are very loud, and can be a right pain in the rump for all that they are rather pretty (pink and white.) They are cockatoos. Their name is their cry: “GalAH! GalAH!” at about, oh, 120 Decibels, or so it feels like at 0500 when they are on a branch right above your tent.
And calling someone a galah generally means they’re loud, silly, and a bloody nuisance.
Quietly uses such quirks as ideas in world building and language making. *steals coloful Aussieisms for warping and other nefarious purposes.*
Ummm … what she said, with even more feeling.
Seconded.
Yesterday a friend and I were wondering how high popcorn futures were going to go today as 4chan and others load up to watch the epic pwning unfold. And now “others” are going to try to top that and see just how insane of a bait the Main Stream Media and Co. are going to go for.
They keep saying “4chan claims everything” but no they don’t. They’re like a bratty 10 year old. If the bratty ten year old always says “I put cat pee in your lemonade” even when he wasn’t there or you can’t taste anything funny, you start ignoring him.
He’ll only say it when he really did it. AND after he spends a lot of time giggling to himself.
The “Media” did Main-li go for the Stream story… so yeah, lots and lots of poppety-corn.
I liked @CounterMoonbat’s take on it:
Rolling Stone: No one can top our reputation of poor journalistic standards and publishing fake news.
Buzzfeed: Hold my beer.
Frankly, the story was always unbelievable on ECONOMICS. First, Trump never spends a dime when he doesn’t have to. Second, there are a tons of beds in the US that the Obamas have slept on, and whose mattresses could be got at used-mattress cost. Third he could have got all sorts of non whore right-wing or libertarian women to pee on him on a bed the Obamas slept in FOR FREE.
All it would take would be a discrete add in Craigslist, and being able to be firm with guys who also want to do it.
Aye, and that’s just one way how it all breaks down.
Another is that blackmail information is stuff that one keeps hidden until a payment (not necessarily monetary) doesn’t happen. revealing it before the inauguration even? Destroyed any value it would have had. So: bogus.
However, even if it were true… I’d rather have a President who was more into getting p—ed on than p—ing on the country.
This is what makes it so ludicrous. Putin is KGB. Information is a commodity to him. He’s not going to use it for so little gain.
Yep. “Blackmail, you is doing it wrong. Why don’t you ask Hillary for how-to tips?”
And yep on I don’t care what his kink is. It’s not my lover or my husband. If he had done it and PAID the prostitutes what they asked it’s a a moral thing, and a private thing.
The irony is that it’s the Dems who pushed the whole “who cares what his sex life is like?” thing twenty years ago. A politician’s sex life actually did matter to a certain extent prior to that. Gary Hart dropped out of the campaign in 1988 because of Donna Rice and ‘Monkey Business’. But when Clinton lied about having his pants down, all of a sudden it didn’t matter anymore (something that must have bugged Hart to no end).
Well, IIRC Gary Hart made a very big mistake (actually two mistakes).
He told the News Media to “prove it”.
Then he gave them the opportunity to “prove it”. 😈 😈 😈 😈
True enough. But after Clinton, even after the Miami Herald ran its expose, he could have just shrugged his shoulders and said, “So what?”
True — but how could he have suspected they would?
How often has the News Media broken stories embarrassing to Dems rather than kicked sand over the stinking mess?
Hart & Clinton (and many others) were allowed to get away with such peccadilloes because they steadfastly defended the right of women to abort the children implanted in them by such as Hart, Clinton, etc.
Frankly, my reading of Donald Trump is that he’s probably the most likely individual on the PLANET to say “Publish, sir, and be damned!” and mean it.
The “Are you nuts? I’m a germophobe!” defense cracked me up.
First, because it is a pretty basic point for the opposition research people to have determined. And second, because that is such a New Yorker thing, probably for good reason.
Heck. There are probably thousands that would have paid to do it. Could have become an attraction thru some shell Corp.
As for whether foreign nations have dirt on political and business leaders. NSS. That is part of the job of an intelligence service. You think there were not nice thick dossiers on Madame pantsuit too? TBH Trump may be less susceptible to standard (non illegal/arguable acts like sexual proclivities or bribing foreign nationals) because he’s already known to a point for the former and the latter is business much of the world over. Only time shall tell.
About nations spying on one another. Anybody remember these headlines, from fewer than three years ago:
NSA tapped German Chancellery for decades, WikiLeaks claims
U.S. Spying on Germany Unacceptable, Says Merkel
Angry European and German Reactions to Merkel US Phone Spying
U.S. Allies Still Angry at Snowden’s Revelations of U.S. Spying
France summons US ambassador over ‘unacceptable’ spying
NSA Spied on Allies, Aid Groups and Businesses
US coping with furious allies as NSA spying revelations grow
Yep. It’s a grey world out there
To paraphrase Vetinari: “Of COURSE we spy on our friends. That’s how we stay friends.”
(Why can’t we have him? And Vimes as VP?)
And Retief for Secretary of State?
And Tom Kratman for Secretary of Defense?
Dr, Pournelle to head NASA?
(If he’d take it.)
Not until he finishes the last of the Janissary series. 😉
I suspect he would, if only to implement “Thor’s Hammer” as a recall amendment to the Constitution….. 😎
Dear lord, I’m not sure what Vetinari would make of the process we use to elect Presidents. Let’s start with One Man, One Vote. In Ank-Morph, the Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote. The Patrician doesn’t believe in unnecessary cruelty (while being bang alongside the idea of necessary cruelty, of course). When the Patrician is unhappy, he becomes very democratic – which is to say he finds intricate and painful ways of spreading that unhappiness as far as possible. What the Iron Maiden was to stupid tyrants, the committee was to Lord Vetinari; it was only slightly more expensive, far less messy, considerably more efficient and, best of all, you had to force people to climb inside the Iron Maiden.
“Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions. It’s the only way to make progress.”
‘No civil police force could hold out against an irate and resolute population. The trick is not to let them realize that.’
Incidentally, the actual quote is even better (Thud, I believe):
‘… spies?’ I thought we were chums with the Low King!’
‘Of course we are,’ said Vetinari. ‘And the more we know about each other, the friendlier we shall remain. We’d hardly bother to spy on our enemies. What would be the point?’
That being said, yes, I’d be tempted to vote for him. :-7
Yeah, I remember this. I shrugged when it hit the news, and my suspicion is that the foreign leaders involved were shrugging as well (aside from Merkel, who probably made sure that at least a couple of people were fired for incompetence). But appearences must be kept up, so angry denouncements were made in public.
My impression was that the foreign leaders were “shocked, shocked” by the revelations.
Eh the only actual shock I heard of was how efficient we were at it compared to everyone else. “But I thought you Americans SUCK at this intel thing because… dumb Americans.”
My impression was that they were appalled we were so clumsy as to let the listening in be made public. Sure, everybody does it, but like going to the loo or having coitus, nobody wants to see it done in public.
The dossier on Madam pantsuit can be assumed to contain All of the traffic in and out of that amateur home brew server she was using, among other things. I figure the DNC leaks and the the Podesta emails were meant to make future threats credible. I’m sure there is still intelligence value in those files, just not as much blackmail value without Hillary to kick around.
Yep. Reason I actually liked Trump challenging the Russians to release the files. The horse was out of the barn, lived a full life and was being rendered into glue. But releasing it would mitigate a significant chunk of the power of it.
N.B. (not that anyone here needs the reminder): Trump did not ask the Russians to hack Hillary & Co. — his assumption was that they already had.
That the dummy spitters refuse to recognize that says all that wants saying about their intellects and integrity.
Hence ‘release’
Yep. The Wikileaked stuff was merely the cyber equivalent of accompanying the ransom note with a middle finger.
Which given spirit cooking and the WEIRD obsession with “pizza” means what they have besides has to be amazing.
But yes, “We’ll release this to give election to Trump was NEVER credible. The online reading public, much less those who read Wikileaks are negligible in a national election.
It was particularly not credible since RT then proceeded to publicize Stein’s recount effort. If Putin had been serious about trying to get Trump into office, then he wouldn’t have turned around and had RT publicize an effort to make Trump look less credible.
My guess is that Putin was less concerned about who ended up in the White House than he was in crippling the eventual president. If Hillary got in, then the leaks would have crippled her. The fact that the leaks have Russian fingerprints all over them (even though there’s a slight chance that the leaks were in fact the result of a disgruntled Sanders supporter as WikiLeaks claims) makes Trump look like a puppet, and therefore weaker. Publicizing Stein’s stunt made also Trump look a little less effective as a strong leader (even though nothing ever came of said stunt, aside from some irregularities in voting districts that went Dem…).
In short, Putin was hoping that no matter who got into office, he’d win.
More than that, that he was so blatant and naked in his intervention shows his contempt for Obama, Clinton, Trump and the American people. In theory, we might have nominated someone that Putin feared enough that he wouldn’t risk pissing them off. Clinton was not someone who as President would have hampered Putin’s agenda in any great way. Clinton’s qualities of abject weakness were among those that caused the Russians to calculate that they would experience no consequence.
Putin has either slipped into delusional thinking, or he has a specific agenda that needs a little bit more American weakness over the next four years, and is trying to make sure he has enough weakness.
Factor in that Putin undoubtedly has less understanding of America’s political process than your average SJW and would never believe that the election wasn’t fixed just as the primaries had been.
Given Dem control of the media and the “get out the vote” process Putin is probably gob smacked by Hillary’s incompetence, confident that with her advantages he would have won by 350+ electoral votes.
Yep.
But Putin is KGB. Knowing thy enemy is standard with intelligence agencies. It was a retired CIA man who encouraged us to read the Communist Manifesto, for that very reason. I suspect Putin knows quite well how the US political system works.
Yes And No.
He might know how it works (better than the SJWs) but doesn’t actually believe that’s how it works.
Drake’s right on this… There’s a Russian tendency to think that everything that comes from a person has an ulterior motive. Usually many. This predates the USSR. It’s also not a good mindset (especially honed by years of KGB) to really understand Americans as a whole.
Yeah, but what did people think who had studied how American elections work?
There are basically the ‘gut instinct’ school and the numbers school. While ‘gut instinct’ seems to have produced most of the correct forecasts this time, I am skeptical that it is at all reliable for foreign nationals who are not immersed in American culture.
Which seems to suggest that the Russians would have had to rely on a numbers model. In which case, did they commission polls? Would their polls have the same issues ours did? If ours were caused by anti-Clinton types being unwilling to admit to such, theirs would likely have the same issue.
I guess Putin might have had long term agents living in the US who might be able to satisfy the ‘gut instinct’ requirements.
Still, I think Putin might’ve needed a long term investment to call the election accurately enough to intervene in a measured manner. As in sources and methods calibrated over more than one presidential election. Which is barely possible, if he decided he really needed to capitalize on the opportunity Obama provided, and would need that information to shape the post Obama situation.
However, I think it more likely that he sensed weakness and is simply taking every opportunity to undermine United States, rather than calculating towards a specific end. Simple broad plans are less likely to malfunction than complicated specific ones.
I still occasionally look at the further updates about the Pedosta stuff. It’s not something I do often because honestly, it’s hair-raisingly horrible.
… Podesta. That was an honest typo but holy crap. O_O
Right? Your subconscious KNOWS.
It’s sickening, isn’t it.
yeah. there’s this massive infographic that was put together recently and its… *shudder*
Then there is believing the Secret Service is so inept they let Obama sleep in a bugged room in Moscow.
Given some of the Secret Service screw-ups over the last several years, this part wouldn’t exactly surprise me…
Yeah, you can tell a lot by how well those guys and gals do their work. The Service had many guys who actually kinda liked Bill, so they did their jobs for him. (it was AlGore and Hillary they hated though I know of one fool who liked dealing with her. AlGore had a hard time getting voluntary guards to go anywhere with him. The guy I knew was with Gore only because he used the trip to visit his aunt.)
Huh. Didn’t know that they disliked Gore. Hillary’s attitudes toward the “help” has come up repeatedly. But Gore is new.
Bill’s always managed to project an image of the kind of guy who’s smart enough to know that he should be at least somewhat friendly to the help.
Especially when the “help” assist Bill by warning him when Hillary is coming back (in order that his lover can leave before Hillary gets back).
Apparently, there’s a woman who pays Bill a visit whenever Hillary is away on a trip.
The staff (and Secret Service) know her and are willing to cover for her. 😉
Yeah, I’ve heard that he basically has a girlfriend at this point. And given that Hillary’s presidential aspirations have finally come to an end, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them permanently take up separate residences.
yep.
I suspect Bill is secretly happy she lost as being First Gentleman would have cramped his dating life.
Not necessarily. The press and the Secret Service probably could have been relied upon to look the other way (the former, because “Democrat”, and the latter because they actually like the guy, as opposed to his wife).
Yeah, They get assigned an amount, then the rest are “pick-up”, and most you see are actually Military on duty but in Civies (The guy I knew was Air Force). If the minimum needed don’t volunteer, then some are assigned . . . say they need 50, would prefer up to 80. The VIP had their assigned group, and then sorta like voluntary OT they took who ever said “I’ll go”, and if they only got 52, that is what went, if 100 said it, they picked and choose up to 80. Gore mostly only had his assigned group. Same with Hillary, but she was more abusive (again, though, the guy I knew actually liked her for some stupid reason, and she got the odd extra more often than Gore) AlGore they just didn’t like or respect at all. Same guy liked GHWB, but really liked Barbra, and spent most of his short time with them on her detail. He also said the Doles were nice folks.
IIRC in “First Family Detail”, there’s a comment about Nancy Reagan being “hard to get along with” but she was still liked because she wasn’t interested in “what she deserved” but was more interesting in protecting “Ronny” (ie her husband).
Especially after he got an extra hole from the loon. I understand she got close to paranoid after that.
And they don’t even correlate that, which means they’re not just crazy, they’re stupid.
I’m pretty sure that despite the temptation to make a bargain with their Russian counterparts for later entertainment material they’d have done the professional thing.
Or disliked him enough, and Michelle, too…
Well, there have been reports that the Secret Service don’t dislike him and Michelle.
Whatever Secret Service’s view of their Politics, they have treated the Secret Service detail politely.
Haven’t heard anything regarding the attitude of the Service toward the current First Couple. But it’s still too recent for rumors to start leaking out.
But there have been some disturbing lapses in security over the last several years. Whether or not the Service likes the Obamas, there have been some pretty big screw-ups.
See: https://www.amazon.com/First-Family-Detail-Service-Presidents/dp/080413961X
They named him Renegade. That should mean somehting.
Depending on who did the naming, though, that might be a term of approbation.
That’s one of those words whose colloquial meaning is not always what it used to be.
First rule of news reading: Consider the source.
BuzzFeed Editors Cry During Obama’s Speech After Publishing Unverified Allegations Against Trump
[SNIP]
“Will I ever stop crying,” BuzzFeed senior editor Lara Parker tweeted.
Tanya Chen, an editor at the outlet, tweeted, “I’m crine[sic].” Chen later added, “This is the saddest series finale ever shown on television.”
Another editor, Elamin Abdelmahmoud, wrote, “Aaaaand tears” during the address.
Jessica Lima, a BuzzFeed Spanish editor, tweeted, “Yup, I’m crying and I can’t stop.”
The site’s executive editor Saeed Jones said that he hadn’t cried as much as he did during the tour since Beyonce’s recent tour.
I am…most amused.
Lest we forget who Buzzfeed be …
Chip and Joanna Gaines are Role Models, Not Bigots
Chip and Joanna Gaines are known for being the sweet and funny couple with four adorable kids making people’s dream homes come true on HGTV’s show, Fixer Upper. Or at least they were until Buzzfeed decided to drag their names through the mud with a baseless attack. The article claimed that the Gaineses might possibly be against same-sex marriage, with no evidence other than that the pastor of their church, Jimmy Seibert, is against it. That’s right: The Gaineses have never uttered one word against homosexuality or against same-sex marriage, but because someone they associate with is against same-sex marriage, that’s all the evidence Buzzfeed needed to write an article criticizing them.
The article endeavored to look at what it called “the severe, unmoving position Seibert and Antioch [Church] take on same-sex marriage.” The article goes on to talk about Seibert’s stance on same-sex marriage for more than 700 words without mentioning the Gaineses a single time. The article is a textbook example of hearsay, something you’re taught to avoid in journalism, but as a click-bait-driven website, perhaps Buzzfeed doesn’t feel the need to follow journalistic norms.
Wowsers! *That* whole article needs to be redistributed fae and wise!
Jeepers! “far” and ‘wide’.
Hey, the elves should see it too.
And various wizards.
You know if you hadn’t commented, I would have continued to think that you did it to be funny. 😀
I don’t know. Fae and wise has a certain ring to it.
Yep. 😀
There is a story, one at least, in there somewhere, it seems like.
Plot bunnies everywhere!
First rule of news reading: Consider the source.
———————-
A friend of mine has been posting links to anti-Trump stories on Facebook. So today, along some pushback, I noted that he should probably try to find sources that are a bit more serious than Gizmodo and The Daily Show.
iO9? Oh, no, got it: National Geographic.
Not being very good at this, I’m confused at what could be going on below the surface. I have a sense that someone’s being played, but don’t know who, or who the player might be. The motivation to release the golden details might be a simple desire to publish a Trump scandal and to discredit him, but I think Buzzfeed ended up being used here. That “dossier” was probably tossed out there thinking someone would take it, and Buzzfeed just happened to be the one to do so. My own speculation ranges from asking who would profit most from continuing US – Russia tensions to an effort within the US government to discredit Trump to simple DNS sour grapes to Trump himself: to discredit the press, or a preemptive strike on a real blackmail threat based on different info, or to inoculate the public against real sordid tidbits should they leak.
Well, I said it was speculation. Heck, I don’t know. I’ve even wondered about China and whether they’re afraid of loosing influence in our government that we don’t know about.
Most of what I’ve seen about this dossier is that it has been in circulation for quite some time and that most news organizations refused to touch it (although I am confident it got passed around salaciously as “inside poop”) until CNN found a way to tie it to reports on Trump’s intelligence briefing, opening the way for Buzzfeed sobbing sisters to drop it in the name of “letting Americans decide.” (Any bets being taken on their willingness to report poorly sourced stories defamatory of Obama under the same guiding principle? Were it not for double standards …)
Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff get to the crux of the story in asking WHICH DEMS ARE BEHIND THE FAKE BUZZFEED STORY? The question is not the plastic turd in the punchbowl, the question is who manufactured this turd and dropped it there. The MSM know who has been peddling this dossier and owes no fealty to protect source anonymity for such maliciously mendacious work. When a source deliberately burns you the only proper response is to name the names.
I tend to doubt that it was originally compiled by Democrats. If I were looking for the original source I would be looking at #NeverTrump members of the consultant class who saw Trump as a threat not only because he wasn’t conservative, but because if he could win without a large cadre of consultants collecting consulting fees (and commissions for having ads made, and commissions for having ads placed,) then their business model was in danger.
These people were so invested in defeating Trump that they brought forth McMuffin to try to defeat him. (Yes, they SAID the idea was to get it into the House and get the members of the House to commit political suicide by bypassing Trump there, but from the standpoint of protecting their business model splitting the vote so that Hillary won would do almost as well.)
Really? Why? The firm used has ALWAYS worked for democrats. The other thing is, I think, a distraction and an attempt to get an inter-gop fight going.
The people behind the McMullin candidacy have never ceased the inter-GOP fighting. They are still #NeverTrump and still attack Trump at every opportunity. I learned long ago to watch out for the “Let’s you and him fight!” people and this isn’t that. These are people who largely out of conservative convictions but partly to defend their importance in the process (possibly not as much as my cynical side says) have always been, and still are opposed to a Trump presidency.
From where I sit it looks to me like the #NeverTrump Left, in the person of BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith, used the mention of the opposition research in a security breifing as an excuse to finally publish something that both the #NeverTrump Right and the #NeverTrump Left had been trying to sell to the press without success because it could not be verified.
There also may be a question about when the PeeGate stuff became a part of the document. It may not have been a part of the oppo research when it was being circulated by the Republican operatives.
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It’s the Slimes claiming NeverTrump hired them, so yeah. OTOH, we’ve seen some pretty severe cases of TDS, and I have no doubt this crew would work for anyone with enough cash.
I just keep getting this “It doesn’t work that way” feeling. It’s not that they wouldn’t work for anyone or that the crazies wouldn’t hire them. It’s more a “the contacts wouldn’t be there.” DC is a bunch of segregated groups, if this makes sense. This feels “not right”
Did you read the linked piece?:
So yes, begun by #NeverTrumpers but injected into the political blood stream by Dems (who are much more experienced at leaking such things.)
I don’t believe it. More than one person has said that this company is a wholly owned dem party subsidiary. I think it’s dizinformazia.
@LizMair was apparently a big #NeverTrump coms type. Spent a lot of time trying to get funds to gather and distribute anti-Trump oppo. Apparently felt people mostly weren’t spending, but maybe it wasn’t on her. (If my information is correct, during the general she was being funded by Johnson.) Before the election apparently was expecting some big stuff that never showed up in media. Has some stuff on her feed if anyone is deeply interested.
It should be noted that Russia and China share one common attribute: they respect only strength. As Rex Tillerson noted in his Senate confirmation testimony, the only way to deal with them is with a strong hand. That means ignoring such trivial provocations as that dossier and responding forcefully to any efforts to breech boundaries. Red lines must be seriously drawn and held, and there can be NO pleas that they “don’t call my bluff.”
I don’t get the impression they care, as long as their preferred audience still pounces with cries of glee.
For those of us who haven’t been paying attention because RL got in the way, what’s happened/happening?
Buzzfeed published a “dossier” of anti-Trump information. The 4Chan community claims that they manufactured everything in it to troll the media. I don’t know the contents personally (though based on some of the above posts, I can speculate), but apparently it passed through a number of hands and was ignored by all of the big media networks before Buzzfeed decided to publish it.
Guess they want it so badly to be true because it fits their narrative so neatly.
…
How many times have they gotten trolled like this before? I recall that they completely ate up Godfrey Elfwick’s essay claiming he ‘woke up’ and ‘away’ from Trump supporterhood – it was a work of obvious parody, but they swallowed it hook, line and sinker, and published it.
The big media organizations ignored it.
Buzzfeed went after it, but this is Buzzfeed we’re talking about. All they care about is clicks. And managing to avoid the precipice that Gawker went over.
Then CNN published Buzzfeed’s “story”.
Thus showing how stupid CNN is.
Perhaps CNN really stands for Credulous News Network?
Quibble: Why would ‘News’ be part of the name? Blatant false advertising, if ’twere so.
A summary of the opposition research was included in a security briefing to both Obama and Trump. As a primary source was apparently a former British diplomat who had worked in Moscow it was included under the heading of Russian interference in the election.
CNN reported that the summary was included in the briefing. Buzzfeed used that as a fig leaf, saying that since it was in a presidential security briefing it was news and therefore the whole world should read it even though they couldn’t verify it and thought some of it was false.
The Buzzfeed story, along with the 35 page “report,” are archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20170113043244/https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.roZWQWXlG7#.dyeY7YXyV5
Word now is the PGatecstuff WASN’T included in the briefing given Trump.
There is some slight amusement to be had from watching those who think “History is on our side” being emotionally crushed under the turning of the wheel. The concern, of course, is that they will eventually manage to create a scandal, the way they did when the hung the Katrina Charlie Foxtrot around Bush’s neck.
Heh.
Soros Lost Nearly $1 Billion After Trump Election
Billionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros lost nearly $1 billion as a result of the stock-market rally spurred by Donald Trump’s surprise presidential election.
The schadenfreude, it just keeps flowing.
RES, that’s not very nice. I want you to go over in the corner and write, “I will not laugh at the misfortunes of others” 500 times.
*chortle* *snort*
Now, if, you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my own corner. I still have 450 lines to go…
That image is…disturbing.
But probably not half as disturbing as if it were full-length!
*channels our hostess*
You are a bad man.
Scale problem. If you saw it full length you couldn’t still see the human.
That and the fact that WP didn’t go boom.
So that would be the Misfortune 500?
Earlier today someone who often asks me “What up?” and gets a reply of “Verbs” asked “What’s up?” Since the verb was included my answer changed: “The Dow Jones Industrial Average.”
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Don’t laugh so hard — he still has about $24.9 billion left (assuming Google drew from a current source.)
Hopefully the next few years will drain his coffers.
All depends how many times they step on their crank like this.
I exp ct t see them tap-dancing on it before too long….
They better put on hold shoes
Tap-dancing on a landmine… (was listening to old Aerosmith recently)
Which is why I tend to say the path of history is littered with roadkill who thought it was on their side.
Nice.
I think I’m paraphrasing it from some novel I read but I can’t remember where I saw it.
Dammit. Now I recall reading it too. Just not where, and for some reason, I’m thinking either Flint (or maybe Weber) in 163x, Weber (or Flint) in HH, or Ringo.
Probably Honor Harrington. I now remember something like it being said by Hamish Alexander in one of the little quote blurbs Weber throws in-between some chapters on his later novels.
Now that you mention it . . one of the later ones?
That’d be why I can’t recall it well then. Not been rereading them right away like I did the older ones. I’ve been reading the later ones, but hit the end of a chapter, turn the page on the kindle,
and …
DAMMIT! it’s the end of the book!
Flint has been doing a bit of that too lately.
The difference is that then, they hadn’t managed to convince ~50% of the country that everything they say is a lie.
I wonder if 2 years of Australian would cover my son’s language requirement for college.
AND prepare him for life.
I don’t think they teach that anymore.
If you send him to TAFE, prolly. And maybe to university somewhere that is not Sydney or Melbourne.
TAFE?
Technical school.
NEWS ALERT: Hollywood Actress Talks Sense!!!!!!!!
Nicole Kidman encourages everyone to support Donald Trump
Nicole Kidman has a message to those still in denial over Donald Trump’s election – get over it.
The Aussie actress, who has dual citizenship, addressed Trump’s surprise victory in an interview with the BBC.
“I just say, he’s now elected, and we as a country need to support whoever’s the president because that’s what the country’s based on,” she said.
The mom of four admitted she’s usually tight-lipped about her political views.
“I’m always reticent to start commenting politically, I’ve never done it in terms of America or Australia. I’m issue based,” she said.
She said she’s speaking out now because the election is over.
“Whatever, however that happened, he’s there and let’s go,” she said.
Kidman, a UN Women goodwill ambassador who stars in the Golden Globe-nominated flick “Lion,” added that she’s “very, very committed to women’s issues.”
She’ll lose that UN Women goodwill ambassador slot as she is now both white and committing the sin of not supporting the most important women’s issue: whatever is upsetting leftists this week.
It can’t hurt her career. That’s been circling the drain for a while.
A useful test of the “There’s no such thing as bad publicity” maxim.
Dayam, Kate!
Now I can see the proof of what Dad said, Aussies are even more plain spoken than us Texans.
Hee hee.
“Dummy Spit”… why hasn’t this entered the American vernacular before?
I don’t know. Let’s correct that!
Probably because y’all don’t use “dummy” to refer to a pacifier, and pacifier spit just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Yeah, binky spit doesn’t have quite the same ring.
Aye. While I have seen ‘dummy’ used thus (*world* wide web…) I always have this odd moment of pondering ventriloquism.
We do have “spoiled brats.” That’s what one liberal – yes, liberal – called them.
Got to love a straight (applies corkscrew) talking Aussie. 😀
I definitely need to use that term– It is quite descriptive lol– and I need something so insulting right now.
Kate, you yet again prove what a truly wise move it was when we all voted to get you to change flags.
I do find it a bit disturbing that this poor humble midwestern boy not only followed your entire rant, but found it to be spot on target.
Good on you, darlin.
Thank you! People have this idea that Aussies are racist etc. They don’t realize it’s all in how the words are used. When you routinely insult your best mates with the most offensive language imaginable, and they reply in kind, you tend to have a slightly… different… relationship with how words are used.
It’s when they start using the insults and nicknames in that affectionate tone that you know you’re accepted!
Oddly enough, snarling epithets and threatening immediate smashy death on computers apparently works in getting ’em to behave.
As my Aussie mates will tell you, if they’re not slagging you, they don’t like you.
Oh, absolutely. And if they go icy, painfully polite, it’s too late to start running.
Rather like Weber’s description of hradani dealing with the Rage… 😎
I’m on Twitter mostly for some fandom stuff, involving comics, TV shows and some other niche stuff. Unfortunately most of the people I interact with through those circles are very nice when it comes to posting creative things related to shared interests, and absolutely hysterically sobbing liberals when it comes to everything else.
I wish I could share this with them without losing half of my followers.
Yep. Gotta love all the folks going on and on about tolerance and love and acceptance. Aaaaand then saying they can’t wait for all those icky old Republicans to die.
Tolerance, love, and acceptance for those who think like them or accept their superiority. To the Gulag with anyone else.
Yep.
then the nice young Dems can take back over because Biden, Hillary, Feinstein (new pacemaker!), etc. are the picture of Youth.
It’s not the politicians they want to die. It’s their voters
Yep
The Left has lost all rights to “you’re afraid”, “you are just a hater”, and “you sound angry” as modes of attack.
The Right has never thrown an Angry Fear & Hate orgy like the Left has this year.
Yes, but the lefties will tell you that they have *legitimate* reasons to be afraid, as opposed to all of you right-wing Hatey McHatersons.
Yup. Howard Taylor has been going on and on about how the Evil Republicans are going to steal health care from 20 million people. 😦
One small sample: https://twitter.com/howardtayler/status/819565935015010306
They’re too late: The Democrats ate my health insurance, and their regulations (OK, the sclerotic bureaucracy run by people who wouldn’t know patient care if it walked up, slapped them around a few times, and shoved a pie in their faces) ate my health care. The 20-25% cash discount everyone gives says a lot about the in-office costs of compliance. That and not making eye contact with your doc because he is too busy logging the visit on federal forms.
I hate to say it, but he’s losing it… That became clear when he posted his Brexit rant on his front page.
One cannot follow the ‘logic’ of cognitive dissidents.
(Farther down the page)
“Universal health care transfers power away from corporate employers, and back to the people.”
Ummmmm . . . No.
Mr. Tayler is yet another one of those gentlemen, like Joss Whedon, who does not understand that his writing is in direct conflict with his politics.
Not so much anymore. The story that had Earth getting attacked ended with the government people that had been after the Toughs getting “dealt with”. Ever since, the view of the government in the comic has been purely positive.
What
It does entirely the exact /opposite/ of that.
I’m about as surprised that Taylor would say that as I am dogs marking a fire hydrant.
I stopped reading Schlock Mercenary back in July.
I haven’t stopped, but if this new tale is as long, undisciplined and unfocused as the last one was I doubt I will ever get to the end of it.
Thank you for your words. If only some on the other side would listen.
It strikes me that when things do get really hard, economically, the whingers will be either toughening up, or dying out. All this complaining reminds me of children crying because they didn’t get what they wanted.
You’re welcome, and yes, it does.
Epic whinging is not something to be proud of.
Ha-ha-ha-hardy-haw-haw! Cannot wait to hear this!
Troll Level: Master
His Way! Inside Paul Anka’s Top-Secret Performance Plan For Trump Inauguration
A source close to the “(You’re) Having My Baby” crooner, 75, told Radar exclusively that he will buck the trend of most singers and perform his song “My Way” at the Inauguration January 20. . .with lyrics re-written for the incoming Commander-In-Chief!
“Paul was asked by the members of the Trump inauguration committee and he was only too happy to do it for his longtime friend,” said an Anka insider.
“While everyone else was running scared from performing at the inauguration, Paul stood fast,” the source added. “He wasn’t about to be intimated by anyone!”
Anka wrote such well-known music as the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and one of Tom Jones’s biggest hits, “She’s a Lady.”
He also wrote the English lyrics for Frank Sinatra’s signature song, “My Way,” which has been covered by many including Elvis Presley.
“Now, Paul has re-written those lyrics especially for Donald Trump, which he will perform during the inaugural dance for Donald and his lovely First Lady, Melania” said the source.
“Paul won’t let the cat out of the bag or reveal his new lyrics yet, but will be tailor-made for President Trump. . .and it will be huge!”
Get Sal The Voice to sing it.
The collective hysterical insane screeching from the leftward side of the country at the election of Donald Trump is truly wondrous to behold. It seems that on a daily basis, some public figure or other demonstrates such a tenuous grasp of political (or any other kind) of reality that one is tempted to offer the name of a psychiatrist.
In my lifetime, NO election has ever had the media/celebrity complex freaking out like this. And we’re two months past the election!
There are elements of this which remind me of Reagan’s accession (which is not to say Trump can carry Ronald’s notecards) but this is the first time since 1950 (IIRC) that the GOP has held control of the presidency, the Senate, the House and (coming soon) the Supreme Court.
The only estate remaining to the Dems is the Fourth, and it’s foundations are rapidly eroding.
No wonder they’re hysterical.
Can’t be 1950. Truman’s term didn’t end until early 1953.
There was a two-year period during Truman’s term when the GOP held the House, but after that there wasn’t a Republican Speaker until Gingrich. But you’re right, Truman held the White House (I don’t recall who held the Senate and it isn’t worth looking up.)
I think there was a time during the George W. Bush administration when the GOP held the Executive and both Legislative branches, but the distractions of war and the retention of the filibuster limited the party’s ability to work its will.
There is yet the “deep government” to be rooted out, the unelected, unappointed and unaccountable bureaucrats — but in Trump we have a president who owes them no favors and knows they are not his friends. With Mick Mulvaney at OMB he may have found the man to follow Scott Walker’s lead in gelding the bureaucracy.
Making some heads roll at the IRS would be a good start and please the base. Congress having reenacted legislation allowing it to cut individual civil service salaries should also prove a useful prybar:
House Republicans revive obscure rule that allows them to slash the pay of individual federal workers to $1
House Republicans this week reinstated an arcane procedural rule that enables lawmakers to reach deep into the budget and slash the pay of an individual federal worker — down to $1 — a move that threatens to upend the 130-year-old civil service.
The Holman Rule, named after an Indiana congressman who devised it in 1876, empowers any member of Congress to propose amending an appropriations bill to single out a government employee or cut a specific program.
The use of the rule would not be simple; a majority of the House and the Senate would still have to approve any such amendment. At the same time, opponents and supporters agree that the work of 2.1 million civil servants, designed to be insulated from politics, is now vulnerable to the whims of elected officials.
The revival of the Holman Rule was the brainchild of Rep. H. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), [known as the unofficial parliamentarian in the hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus] who is intent on increasing the powers of individual members of Congress to reassign workers as policy demands.
[SNIP]
Democrats and federal employee unions say the provision, which one called the “Armageddon Rule,” could prove alarming to the federal workforce because it comes in combination with President-elect Donald Trump’s criticism of the Washington bureaucracy, his call for a freeze on government hiring and his nomination of Cabinet secretaries who in some cases seem to be at odds with the mission of the agencies they would lead.
“This is part of a very chilling theme that federal workers are seeing right now,” said Maureen Gilman, legislative director for the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 federal employees.
The rule is particularly troubling to Virginia and Maryland lawmakers and the District’s nonvoting delegate, who represent large numbers of federal workers in the capital region.
[SNIP]
Republicans and Trump advisers have been quietly drawing up plans since the election to erode some of the job protections and benefits that federal workers have received for a generation, starting with a hiring freeze Trump has pledged to put in place in his first 100 days in office.
Those plans include an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, less generous pensions and a ban on union business on the government’s dime.
Conservatives were thwarted from making these changes under President Obama, but with unified Republican rule in Washington and Trump pledging to shrink big government and shake up a system he has characterized as awash in “waste, fraud and abuse,” they are more emboldened than ever.
Federal unions and their advocates in Congress — and even the Republican behind the rule — scrambled Wednesday to understand how the Holman rule would work.
There is hope that Trump’s team has learned from the Obama Administration’s “Flood the Zone” strategy and is planning to cut so widely and deeply that the opposition is unable to focus its efforts. I may need to look into investing in popcorn producers …
Trump has a plan for government workers. They’re not going to like it.
President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress are drawing up plans to take on the government bureaucracy they have long railed against, by eroding job protections and grinding down benefits that federal workers have received for a generation.
Hiring freezes, an end to automatic raises, a green light to fire poor performers, a ban on union business on the government’s dime and less generous pensions — these are the contours of the blueprint emerging under Republican control of Washington in January.
These changes were once unthinkable to federal employees, their unions and their supporters in Congress. But Trump’s election as an outsider promising to shake up a system he told voters is awash in “waste, fraud and abuse” has conservatives optimistic that they could do now what Republicans have been unable to do in the 133 years since the modern civil service was created.
[SNIP]
Top Republicans on Capitol Hill say their first priority will be making it easier to fire employees regarded as incompetent or who break the rules.
“It’s nearly impossible to fire somebody,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “When the overwhelming majority do a good job and the one bad apple is there viewing pornography, I want people to be held accountable.”
Chaffetz said he plans to push through wholesale changes to the generous retirement benefits that federal workers receive, by shifting to a market-driven, 401(k)-style plan for new employees.
He said the model would be his home state, which six years ago replaced the defined benefit pensions that have disappeared at most private companies with a defined contribution plan for new state and municipal workers.
[SNIP]
Gingrich said the Trump administration probably would look for guidance from Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who stripped public employee unions of most of their collective-bargaining rights and forced workers to pay more into their pensions and for health care in what became a bitter political fight.
The White House also can look for lessons from policies advocated by Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
As Indiana governor, Pence battled public employee unions and approved pay increases for state workers who receive good performance reviews, a strategy tried at the Defense Department under President George W. Bush but which was poorly managed and eventually abolished. The pay-for-performance idea is nonetheless a rebuke to the government’s system of raises based on longevity.
[SNIP]
Democrats and federal employee unions are preparing to fight the image of government workers as a privileged class and the bureaucracy as a bloated mess.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D), whose Northern Virginia district includes thousands of federal workers, said: “What study are they citing saying there are too many federal employees? Are you going to make a bunch of exceptions, in which case your plan looks like Swiss cheese?”
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the oversight committee, said in an email that he would “fight any effort to roll back civil service protections” — and worried that whistle blowers could lose their legal right to be immune from retaliation.
Others raise the specter that Republican proposals could allow political favoritism to creep into a system Congress created in 1883 to remove federal jobs from patronage ranks.
“Of course we want accountability,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who will enter the Senate in January, “but we also want to protect against political favoritism. It’s important that we not allow the civil service to be politicized.”
[SNIP]
And Democrats acknowledge that senators who are nervously looking to reelection bids in 2018 and represent red states friendly to Trump may not fall on their swords to defend federal employees, whose presence is more diffuse outside the Washington area.
Many inside and outside government agree that change to the way federal workers are hired, promoted and disciplined is long overdue. Employees under investigation for breaking the rules can sit at home for years — collecting paychecks and benefits — while their cases drag on. Performance rankings are widely panned as a joke, because the vast majority of workers are rated as exceeding expectations or doing outstanding work.
Federal workers are seldom fired for poor performance — and it can take years for managers to make a successful case for dismissal for misconduct. About 0.5 percent of the civil service gets fired every year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The civil service system fails at almost everything it was designed to do,” said Paul Light, a civil service expert at New York University. “It’s very slow at hiring, negligent in disciplining, permissive in promoting.”
“There’s a private awareness among Democrats and Republicans alike that we need to do something about this,” he said.
During the primaries, and during the run-up to the election, I was repeatedly saying, in the comments section at Instapundit and in a few other places, that it would be a major mistake for the GOP voters to pick Trump as our nominee because he was lying about being a conservative, and was still a Democrat at heart.
It’s looking more and more likely that I was wrong about that — and if I was indeed wrong, I will never have been HAPPIER to have been wrong in my life.
Same here.
So far, President-Elect Trump appears to combining really old-school Republican policies with a dose of Populism. I certainly don’t agree with anywhere near all his policies – he’s still too Big Government for my taste, and I have concerns about trade policy – but so far he’s bearing little resemblance to a Democrat. Also, I’ve got some second-hand stories from people who’ve met the man, and with respect to how he treats his workers, even the lowly ones, they’re all positive. I’m keeping my fingers crossed but am cautiously optimistic.
and with respect to how he treats his workers, even the lowly ones, they’re all positive
Yep, I heard those stories as well.
The major reason that I believe them is that the Press would love to publish stories about “how evil Trump is toward his workers”.
Since the Press hasn’t found such stories, I think that there are no stories about “Trump mistreating his workers”.
Press heck! You don’t doubt the Dems were offering bounties for Trump employees to step forward and bad-mouth him, do you? And all they got were a few disgruntled beauty pageant b-aitches (possibly not the most self-effacing, demure, mentally stable group in the human lottery.)
My thought is that there is a possibility that he ran a significantly better deception operation than I anticipated, and the uncertainty from that covers a lot of good possibilities.
One of the current models is that he has no real political ideology, and is talking with people across the spectrum to figure out who is scamming. Which might result in a centrist reformer.
My entrail reading is shit for him, so I’m watching and waiting.
I’ve got a shiney $20 that says if the House uses it the affected person will sue claiming it is a bill of attainder.
I’ve a shiney Krugerrand that says if they do it gets to the SCUS and Chief Justice John “Whatever the DC libs tell me to do” Roberts will author the opinion agreeing it is (however, it may not be a majority one).
Well, they might have a pretty good case. Actually, bill of attainder was the very first thought I had on reading of the Holman Rule. Apparently, it refers only to crimes and punishments thereof. Reducing someone’s pay because they’re superfluous or useless doesn’t fit the definition. It’s not punishment per se. You can keep working- it you want to- it’s just that your services aren’t valued very highly.
Republicans also controlled the House for for the first two years of Eisenhower’s Presidency. (The Speaker was Joe Martin of Massachusetts, known for referring to his Democrat counterpart as “The gentleman from Rayburn, Mr. Texas.)
Republicans controlled the Presidency and both Houses of Congress from 2002 to 2006, and could be said to control the Supreme Court. That is, a majority of Justices were Republican appointees, which has been true since 1970 or so. However, Souter and Stevens were reliable liberal votes while O’Connor and Kennedy were swing votes, so “control” was dubious.
Much as I know the Holman Rule would be challenged in court, the more I think about it, the more I think each new agency head appointed by Trump should be asked to give an initial list of people he’s like to get rid of to Trump, who can then ask Rep. H. Morgan Griffith to kindly use the list of names as he sees fit…
The entertainment value itself would be worthwhile.
Uhm, GOP House and Senate plus Bush 2003-2007…which I think was the sowing of the Trump seeds or at least plowing the fields for sowing.
No, they still have the bureaucracy….. which is where this attack is coming from.
You want to be careful with that schadenboner. If it lasts more than 4 years you may need an election.
the way it is going, they are working hard to make it 8+ (Pres Pence? I’d put up with it).
I can only hope . . . and I don’t even like DJT
I have a slightly different takeaway from this piece…
Kate, would you [i] PLEASE [/i] teach us about writing foreign dialects?
Heh. The super-short version is: use the dialect words in a context where they can be understood. Don’t try to render them phonetically. If you must screw with grammar, choose a relatively innocuous grammatical quirk and use only that.
Sure that ain’t a load of bollocks?
I am a member of a Texas 6 man football board and there is a guy there who posts in Central Texas Redneck dialect who goes by the name of Goob. Highly amusing and well done.
http://www.sixmanfootball.com/board/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=goob&start=15
BTW….Goob is a sharp Baptist Preacher with a doctorate in theology…..
Anyone noticing the similarities here between the fall of the Soviet Union and the implosion of the entrenched interests of the elites here in the US?
The more I watch of this crap, the more I’m thinking I’ve seen this somewhere, before… And, I just realized I have. Remember when the masses in the Soviet Union “quit believing in Communism”? Yeah. That.
What was actually happening was that the vast majority of Russians finally caught on to the bullshit, and quit being True Believers ™ in the system. Enough of them did that, and became aware of all the others that had…? Preference cascade, and the whole house of cards crashes.
That’s what’s happening to the capital-L Left in the US, and in Europe: All their pretention, all their self-serving lies are becoming clear to the people in the middle, and the whole house of cards is collapsing under them.
The irony of it all is this: The Soviets more-or-less folded their tents and went away peacefully. The tranzis here in the US, and Europe? Because they’re further away from the memories of what the Russian Revolution was like, and the massive slaughter that was WWII, they may be less inhibited about bringing violence to bear, to maintain power and the facades of power that they are accustomed to.
Interesting times, interesting times…
When I came here in ’99 and one fella asked me “Did Reagan Really help destroy the Soviet Union?”, I was, frankly, surprised that someone could believe that he did not. Of course, Gorbachev helped to start it, too, and as I read recently in one of his interviews, he HIMSELF for the first time in the Soviet Russia decided to step aside to ‘prevent bloodshed’ (his words). I think, that was unprecedented in the Soviet history before him.
One more thing. Before Soviet Union fell apart, people went on the streets of Moscow against tanks (during a 3-day coupe), without any means to protect themselves or hope that they would actually succeed.
I doubt that any of these snowflakes would have the guts to do something like that. Not if they knew that they would actually be shot at.
Do you see/feel the loss of faith in the “established system” as being parallel, in some ways?
Watching the fall of the Soviet Union from the outside, it looked to me as though a huge part of what was happening was that the average person quit “believing” in the system; the Stakhanovites had become objects of derisive laughter, rather than folk to be emulated.
To a degree, I think every political system relies on the magic of “everyone believes” being true for the majority, and when enough of the majority ceases to believe…? The whole thing comes down in a preference cascade. From an outside perspective, that’s what seemed to be happening in the old Soviet Union.
Frankly, I never believed it would go away peacefully. When it did, I was shocked–I think that it may be an entirely unprecedented thing, in world-historical terms, that so massive an empire has collapsed so quickly without having first had a few equally massive wars along the way to collapse.
Which is something think the Russian people and Gorbachev ought to be quite proud of, to tell the truth.
From a comment by National Review‘s Jay Nordlinger about Russian dissident Ildar Dadin (imprisoned for the crime of “regular protest of the government — without the permission of that same government”) and his wife, Anastasia Zotova.
A Political Prisoner’s Wife: Meet Anastasia
[SNIP]
She paid a price in marrying Ildar. Her own mother disowned her. “You are marrying an enemy of the state. I have no daughter anymore.”
I asked Anastasia why Ildar does what he does — why he doesn’t just keep his head down, keep quiet, and keep out of jail. “It is important for him to stay human,” she said.
I also asked her to explain to me a contradiction, or seeming contradiction: Everyone says that Putin is wildly popular. At the same time, he punishes nobodies like Ildar Dadin with prison. He sometimes murders his political opponents (such as Boris Nemtsov). That does not suggest that he is very secure in his popularity, if popular he is.
Anastasia gave me an interesting answer. She said — I am paraphrasing — “People don’t care who the leader is. They admire the leader. The government is the government. Today the leader could be Vladimir Putin; tomorrow the leader could be Alexei Navalny [a major democratic opponent of Putin, not yet dead]. It’s like Soviet times. Everyone has to have the same thoughts, period. If the government tells you you have four fingers, not five, then you have four fingers. And you had better not say otherwise.”
People such as her mother? They are not pro-Putin. They are indifferent to Putin. They are pro–getting along. Pro–not rocking the boat.
And that is what these overgrown babies want over here.
Along with a hefty dose of “Go to Gulag. Go directly to Gulag. Do not pass Go. Give us all your money or we take it.”
Bill Whittle’s (lovely looking) new lady is giving him that lesson. iirc “Putin loves Russia, he doesn’t love Russians” was one of her statements.
My historical observation regarding Russia is they love a strong leader even if he or she is cruel, but a weak leader will be despised, and eventually disposed.
And, I just realized I have. Remember when the masses in the Soviet Union “quit believing in Communism”? Yeah. That.
That has been the one thing that I did not see coming out of a Trump win (and I was a firm “Trump is shaped like my middle fingers GOP” Trump voter after the primaries).
What I didn’t suspect was that his winning would be the little boy pointing out the Emperor has no clothes. Yet overnight it seems like a lot of people have decided VD was too polite when he said “SJWs aways lie” and have decided not to put up with PC BS anymore.
I figured a Trump presidency would be at best four full years of punting the end further away than the Dems would have made it (the GOPe seemed to have fallen to a “push it 3 months further for a year of governance) and at worst been at least an entertaining drive over the cliff (as opposed to Hillary’s goal of making America Grate again).
Now I am…very guardedly optimistic that it’s a chance to at least get a fair hearing of Progtopia versus Realville in terms of our direction.
I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh, Lord.
‘Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.’
I had that thought election night – the preference cascade built up and started rolling across right under the House of Clinton’s radar, and that of the media (but I repeat myself), which is why they all looked so shocked – the very foundations of their worldview ripped out from under them.
My thought too, as I went to bed, rather schnookered (we watched the results roll in at the vodkapundits) was “This is a rejection of the entire progressive project.”
I’m cautiously optimistic, but we’ll have to see what happens. If the establishment/Deep State/government-education-media complex breaks Trump before the people have broken the establishment, the Progressive agenda may get a boost. If Trump and other opponents of the establishment get a good run in, it will be a major setback for the Progressives. But eternal vigilance is the order of the day either way; Progressive stupidity never sleeps.
I’ve been more jittery since that nice. I’m hoping the alcohol was right.
The happy thing is that Trump is not cowed by the Establishment, and fights back. And since a good majority of the American people hate the Establishment, there’s a good chance Trump will break them instead.
I would be a little bit happier if he had taken the popular vote also. But the fact that her entire popular vote margin comes from the People’s Republic of California, where non-citizens can vote without penalty, mutes that thought somewhat.
Precisely.
Not only can non-citizens vote without penalty, but plenty of people who might have otherwise been inclined to vote appear to have stayed home because Trump was the only Republican in their voting district (and it was pretty much a given that he was going to lose in California) thanks to the stupid “two highest vote getters in the primary run off in the General Election regardless of party affiliations” law.
That was one of the design goals.
Of course, it is only a matter of time before CA Dems schism into Far Left and Farther Left parties. That might let the state GOP recover the Moderates (those that haven’t moved to Texas.)
Go to the map at http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-california-neighborhood-election-results/ and zoom all the way out to look at the entire state of CA – the voting pattern is that Democrats carry the very densly populated urban areas in SF and LA, and the rest of the state gets swamped.
So if anyone were to look for vote fraud, obviously anyone should concentrate solely on distant rural areas of California, never downown LA and the SF Bay Area.
Oops, I think my sarcasm bent the comment section again.
This is why, when leftists have said they should take the state and leave, the correct response is that as long as they allow the West Virginia solution — don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Cases like this are why I’m a fan of tossing top and bottom values in any averaging scheme. One outlier biases everything. Iirc if you dropped TX & CA (Drop top votegetter for each) it would have been Trump.
Ignoring the slippery laws of Lala land if we had a popular vote system, it would basically mean rule in favor of the West coast and Acela corridor. Maybe some Chicago influence as well. But energy, work, way of life for central states would be solely up to the graciousness of the progressive class…And we’ve seen how gracious they are.
“You really want the Presidency decided by a handful of nuclear targets? There’s a simple solution for that. It’s ugly and evil, but it is a solution.”
Except any national launch would hit me first wave. And I’m not in any of em
That “ugly and evil” bit is an understatement.
Some days, I really do have to remind myself that it is wrong and evil to hope North Korea hits Los Angeles with a nuke.
Though at best wildly improbable, a 1,302 square kilometer custard pie…
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
LA’s bad, but the Bay Area is worse. LA still has pockets of conservatives scattered here and there. And LA tends to not be quite as insane in its “progressiveness”.
The film and television industry has a large number of stealth conservatives, I am told, largely among the trades/tech portion of the business. People who are critical but interchangeable, such as grips, lighting technicians, cable layers, set construction and so on.
They keep their opinions to themselves because they know they are not on set to “upset the talent” nor do they feel it proper to spend work time gabbing — and these are very hard-working people, not permitted the luxury of sitting in a trailer dressing room between takes.
Because they are involved in the trades portion of the business they know that there is little forgiveness in this world for electricians who can’t lay cable correctly, grips who hang lights or gels haphazardly or set carpenters who miscalculate a platform’s load-bearing capacity. They’re conservative because they deal with reality and understand the stage is an illusion.
Gawd I love a good Strine rant. Haven’t heard one since I listened to a RAAF flight engineer addressing his C-130 back on Kwajalein. Thank you Kate; you’ve made my day.
And Judge Posner is still a moron.
Thank you! Strine can be wonderfully expressive, but alas, I have to tone it down most of the time. ‘Merkins just don’t get it.
What? 😛
It’s ‘Murcans, and don’t you forget it!!
Thank you! Just what I needed for today. :))))
C4c
Too bloody right!
Good on ya, Katie
Thank you! The emotional maturity level there is really rather painfully obvious, isn’t it?
That’s the good stuff, Kate!
Wow!!! A Federal judge just handed Trump EPA nominee Scott Pruitt an industrial leaf blower and permission to clear the place:
FEDERAL JUDGE DENOUNCES EPA AS ROGUE AGENCY
[SNIP]
The judge said the EPA is required by law to analyze the economic impact on a continuing basis when enforcing the Clean Air Act and McCarthy’s response “evidences the continued hostility on the part of the EPA to acceptance of the mission established by Congress.”
[SNIP]
Bailey ordered the EPA to identify facilities harmed by the regulations during the Obama presidency by July 1. That includes identifying facilities at risk of closure or reductions in employment.
The EPA had contended that analyzing job loss won’t change global energy trends.
[SNIP]
Bailey wrote that the EPA can recommend amendments to Congress if it feels strongly enough.
“EPA does not get to decide whether compliance with (the law) is good policy, or would lead to too many difficulties for the agency,” Bailey wrote. “It is time for the EPA to recognize that Congress makes the law, and EPA must not only enforce the law, it must obey it.”
Too right Kate 🙂 And when are the bloody Americans gunna work out that all pollies are a bunch of Ned Kellys regardless.
John McCain is really trying to displace Benedict Arnold as “former American war hero turned traitor because he was dissed”, isn’t he?
If you’re willing to accept a ludicrously loose definition of treason, anyway.
Right now he’s competing with John Glenn for the title of “Best example of personal heroism not translating into political good judgment.”
McCain is the dumb kid that despite being the butt of his “friends” jokes& pranks, still tags along with them.
McCain likes being the Media’s favorite Rep. It’s funny. When he ran in 2008, the Media loved him right up until he became the nominee, then turned on him like a pack of rats. He became Literally Hitler, and that confused him. He thought they were his friends!
And he never learned a thing from that . After Barack was safely enthroned, McCain was happy to rejoin his friends as the token Rep again.