Surviving the Cult

499 thoughts on “Surviving the Cult”

1. The paranoid are prone to project.

   1. Prone? Hell, it is hardwired into them.

   2. Who told you that? WHO???

   3. Dear Mrs. Hoyt: Sargon of Akkad has the answer for you. The psychiatric illness from which these very scary cultists are suffering is called “Mystical Psychosis.” The syndrome was formulated in the 70’s from a study of cult members and their behaviors (think Jim Jones and the like.) Whatever therapies were developed for Mystical Psychosis apply here as well, assuming the therapies worked.

2. “”I’d make a very bad politician because “Are you out of your frickin’ minds” is a terrible campaign slogan.”

   Stealing that.

   1. It’s a GENIUS slogan!

      1. I love it!

         1. A Facebook meme I saw the other day has a student teacher startled when one her six year old students tells her that the picture of the large gray animal she is holding is a frickin’ elephant. Before she unloads on the little twerp, she asks him, “Why do you say that?” He points to the lettering beneath the picture, “It says so right there.”

            Sure enough, it said “A frican Elephant.” When the kid is right, he’s right!

   2. Our hostess clearly needs to trademark that one, just like Trump did with Make American Great Again. How many folks here would buy a hat which is 50% blue, 50% red (divided down the middle) with that slogan across the brim? The only problem I see is that the slogan may be a little long for a hat and the initials don’t work so well. AYOOYFM just doesn’t have the same ring to it as MAGA. Shortening it may work, and maybe with a twist – “Out of Our Frickin’ Minds” can be turned into “O OF M” – which could be interpreted a number of different ways. Perfect, I think….

   3. Hypothetical campaign ad:

      (clip of SJW saying something completely ludicrous)

      Narrator: “Are they out of their frickin’ minds? Sarah Hoyt thinks so. This November, vote Sarah Hoyt for Congress.”

      Sarah: “I am Sarah Hoyt and I approve this message.”

      (This message paid for by Huns and Hoydens for Hoyt)

      1. I like it. How far left has her area of Colorado turned btw? That being said, elected office would seriously cut down on her blogging and writing time. 😉

         1. Considering that congresscritters spend most of their time begging for donations? Yeah, I’d rather have Sarah writing.

   4. I want to hear Sarah say “Are you out of your frickin’ minds?” in Russian accent. Like Natasha.

      Then say, “moose and squirrel.”

      Bwaha! ~:)

      1. I don’t HAVE a Russian accent. If you hear my accent and a Russian accent, they’re NOT the same.

         1. Neither was Natasha’s, really. It was fake.

            We still want to hear you say it. Just for grins.

            1. Natasha had a Pottsylvanian accent, of course; which is to say, a bad imitation of Hungarian. (It’s amazing how many Americans think Russians sound like Bela Lugosi.)

               1. I ALSO don’t sound like Bela Lugosi. 😉

                  1. Could you say, “Good evening” into the microphone so we can confirm that?

                     1. I will be doing a reading from Darkship Revenge as soon as I ship it in.

                  2. *starts singing Bauhaus

                     1. “she’s acting her reaction; she’s in parties, it’s in the can”

                        Oh, that’s not the song you meant? 🙂

                        1. undeadundeadundead

         2. All women’s accents sound either British, Australian, or Russian; doubly so if they are attractive and quadruply so if they are redheaded and attractive.

            1. Or Italian, or Latina, or Japanese, or . . .

      2. Would that be “are you out of frickin’ mind comrade?”

         Yeah, I’d pay a couple of bucks to hear Sarah say that.

         1. Are you out of your frigging mind, Tovarish?

            1. Da

   5. I think it’s a great slogan also. Can I use it if I ever run for office? (My wife is opposed to my doing so, out of a well-developed sense of self-preservation.)

      1. Going to warn you (having done it twice) it’s not nearly as fun as it looks.

         1. It’s such an unpleasant process that mainly only sociopaths and the power hungry can tolerate it…. and it’s been deliberately rigged that way.

            1. Problem is, we gave those in office too much power. It was okay when the offices were virtually ceremonial only and they weren’t able to actually cause much damage while holding them. Possible to divest local government of some of that threatening capability if you get yourself elected. Sure, you’ll make lots of enemies. Who was it who said a person’s quality was determined by the enemies they made, and not by their friends?

               It’s also why I chose to give Mr. Trump the opportunity to appoint people to actually dismantle several of those agencies from within. Didn’t see any other electable candidate who might do that. *Keep fingers crossed and keep sending e-mails to the Administration bugging them about it.*

         2. 22 years in the military. I’m used to doing jobs that need doing but aren’t any fun, and get little in the way of warm fuzzies from others for doing them.

   6. My version is “I’d never try politics. YOU try whipping up a mob by chanting “IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE! IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE!”…

3. I feel like I’m being constantly gaslighted by people I have, well, had, some respect for, joked with, met, and suddenly they’ve all gone crazy left as though they’re trying to win some kind of loon contest. And I must have just been really naive not to have seen it years ago.

   1. THIS. They weren’t even that crazy 10 years ago…

      1. They weren’t this crazy six years ago when I met a lot of them in podcasting, or they were better camoflagued. Or I was better at ignoring it. Something.

         1. Right? I’m no longer sure which, either.

         2. Historically (and I am not motivated to research citations for this, so don’t ask) apocalyptic cults have frequently grown in commitment when their predictions of TEOTWAWKI fail to occur as scheduled. When I exert myself I can grasp the psychology of why the failure of Christ to pop up on a Pogo Stick on a given date causes large percentages of cultists to double down on dementia but as I’ve gotten older I’ve become less inclined to put my hands into certain messes as even washing them thoroughly leaves some residue that only Time can eradicate.

            In the current instance we’ve seen a bubble pop and those who cannot adapt are steadfastly claiming the bubble still lives. Because many of the most devout are in the MSM their illusion can be incredibly believable even as their credibility is eaten away by the termites of their dishonesty.

            Most of the nation doesn’t pay much attention to the news media, a fact the MSM and its attendees are incapable of acknowledging. The recent story about the woman evicted from an airplane for berating a Trump “supporter” is both evidence of the cultists inability to recognize how few of them there are and of the disdain most Americans feel for such cultists — as reported by the “victim” of her harangue:

            “As the lady was removed I saw that I was surrounded by blacks, Latinos, Asians, and whites, all who had chimed in asking her to be removed and who had defended me,” he wrote on Facebook. “I was touched and moved knowing later that not all these people were Trump supporters. The black man who took the seat next to me was a registered Democrat and he and I had a very good discussion about the beauty of free speech and coming together when people insult and commit acts of violence just for having differing views.

            “It truly was a great demonstration of AMERICA and its people coming together and standing up for one another.”

            One long-standing characteristic of Americans is we recognize and dislike bullies.

            1. I recall ESR describing this (paradoxically?) as “evaporative cooling” – the saner folks leave as things get clearer, but that leaves the more strident behind so what’s left is a smaller but more dedicated core of True Believers. His example: Climate “science.”

               1. Odd… I would liken it more to distillation.

                  1. Burning the coffee.

               2. The analogy is not original to me. I believe it was popularized by Elizer Yudkowsky. It’s commonly recognized in the rationalist community around the blogs _Less Wrong_ and _Slate Star Codex_

                  1. Ah, well obviously I didn’t go back that much, oops. I just recalled seeing it first on _Armed & Dangerous_.

            2. I believe they were flying to Seattle… Not red-neck-a-stan. For a plane load of passengers to spontaneously break out into chants of ‘USA, USA’ as the woman was removed from the plane going to the left coast speaks volumes about how lost the vile-progs are.
               My Father what asking me what exactly the women were ‘protesting’ about. I told him at least they weren’t breaking windows and cars like the day before, to cut them some slack. Apparently, they were protesting for ‘equal rights’. I wish. What they really want is ‘special rights’.
               I have been in hiding from the Internet, I was hoping that the B.S. would die down. I’ve given up hope of that, but I think every screaming woman on a plane, every child with a profanity laced poster is convincing more people to stop listening.

               1. …is convincing more people to stop listening.

                  It’s the yawn of a new day!

               2. I came upon this somewhere and think it fits perfectly: They are protesting their fears.

                  Whether their fears are rational is left as an exercise for the student. Show your work.

                  1. When I saw the story t’other day about the dimwit who set hisself on fire to protest “a president who has no respect for the Constitution” my initial reaction was a rueful headshake and a muttered “jackass.”

                     But on reflection I realized my deep slowly simmering anger over the hysterics who have so irresponsibly curated such delusions in their fellow citizens. I feel sorrow for those victimized by their own irrationality but a very different emotion toward those who egg those poor deluded bastards on — and then blame the results on their political foes.

                     1. The ox delivers a letter:

                        Dear Sir,

                        Please to be refraining from defaming the good species equus africanus asinus by comparing affirmatively to those so stupid as to set themselves alight. The reputation we have for stubbornness is merely the result of having a solid sense of self-preservation, something self-immolating fools clearly lack.

                        Thank you,

                        Donkey Anti-Defamation League.

                        1. To my Donkey friends,
                           Our heart goes out to you for the unfair use of your name and likeness to denote stupidity. After all, you did not ask to be made the symbol of the Democratic Party.

                           1. I thought the symbol of the Democrats was a Jackass?
                              (OK, that is just the term for a male donkey, but I think it suits them.)

                           2. Nobody is perfect, even Obama wasn’t perfectly wrong. Thus perhaps the ideal symbol for the Democrats would be Kanye West.

                           3. It’s because of Andrew Jackson. His opponents called him a jackass, he said “fine,” and used it as the symbol of the Democratic Party.

                           4. My understanding of it is that the iconography derives from 19th Century political cartoonist Thomas Nast:

                              
                              A question and answer in a Washington Post “KidsPost” article support both answers:

                              “Why is the elephant the symbol of the Republican Party and a donkey the symbol of the Democrats?

                              “A very famous political cartoonist named Thomas Nast is credited with making these animals the symbols of their parties during the 1870s. (The donkey was first associated with the Democrats during the election of 1828, but it wasn’t until Nast used it in 1870 that many people began to link the Democrats with the donkey.)

                              “In 1874, Nast drew the cartoon shown above with a donkey wearing a lion’s skin and scaring all the other animals in the forest. One of the animals was an elephant, and it was labeled “The Republican Vote.” And the rest, as they say, is history.”

                              (CS Lewis drew from the same fable of Aesop for his depiction of the False Aslan in The Last Battle.)

                              Wiki advises:
                              “Elections to the United States House of Representatives were held in 1874 and 1875 for Representatives to the 44th Congress, occurring in the middle of President Ulysses S. Grant’s second term with a deep economic depression underway. It was an important turning point, as the Republicans lost heavily and the Democrats gained control of the House. It signaled the imminent end of Reconstruction, which Democrats opposed. Historians emphasize the factors of economic depression and attacks on the Grant administration for corruption as key factors in the vote.”

                              Which somewhat explains the cartoon’s context.

                           5. The Andrew Jackson thing makes sense. There’s no way that the species would oppose having their name and image appropriated by him.
                              They want to live after all.

                     2. and yeah, their irony is strong…

               3. My mother was one of the marchers here locally. I asked her why (she was quite disappointed I wouldn’t march and didn’t let her take the grandkids). She said it was to let President Trump know that the women of the country would be watching him and not let him remove women’s rights.
                  But she said something else later, after the march, that I think perhaps sums up why she went more than anything else. She said that in the sixties she couldn’t get to the south to participate in the civil rights movement marches and no one thought of marching in solidarity in the midwest. I think she went now because she regrets having not gone then.
                  The desire to be part of something important, something bigger than oneself, something that fixes some problem in the world. That’s what I think the marches were about. Did they fix a problem? Well, no. Though the one in Saudi Arabia may be a good start.

                  1. Anyone willing to take kids to “participate” in such a march is arguably unfit to be entrusted with children. Presumptively too young to properly understand what the protests mean they are being used as props, as non-persons, as little more than the signs those marchers waved then discarded.

                     I’ve long thought that the whole issue of Birth Control and Abortion would be solved if those “defending” such rights would stop spending their money on politics to force the government to be complicit in such activities and instead donate their money and time to charities directed at providing the services.

                     We’re seeing a similar dynamic building over the issue of school choice …

                     … in which the vested interests are doing such a bad job of educating kids that they are losing all credibility.

                     1. Well, we do take the kids to the primaries/caucuses/poll watch type events. The kids ranging from two-fourteen, obviously not the littles in the winter for anything outside. However, I felt that the kids would’ve been used as props more than anything else, though my mom wouldn’t have meant that to be the case. Mom felt that it would’ve been a useful experience in how to protest policies. My husband, coming from Not America, has a deep and abiding uncomfortableness with anything that relies on the inviolability of the First Amendment. Ultimately, they aren’t her kids, so . . . she dealt. Had one of the kids expressed any desire to go, it might have been a different story, but the older three were more interested in Cinderella auditions.

                        1. But they wouldn’t be protesting politics. They’d be protesting an election. Which is what worries me about this.

                           1. At Mom’s age, (72) she’s allowed her illusions about other people’s motivations if she must. She was marching about policies, not the election results, and so were her buddies, though I doubt the majority of the local protestors were. (Which policies? The policies President Trump _might_ enact that she _might_ disagree with.) I’m very much afraid she fell in the ‘useful idiot’ category on Saturday.
                              The kids, well, one of my jobs as a parent is to keep them out of negative limelight, and this is the sort of event with the potential for plenty of that a year or five down the road. However, had one of them really wanted to go, we’d have talked the why of it over with them, and seen what sort of case they could present. “I want to take pictures and write a news article” might well have sold me on one of the older kids attending, husband would be a harder sell.

                           2. Which policies? The policies President Trump _might_ enact that she _might_ disagree with.
                              —————–

                              Reminds me of why the SJWs protested over Jonathon Ross’s hosting of the Hugos – because he *might* have decided to make a joke about women who are overweight.

                              Or in other words, women like his wife.

                           3. I’m not, because they never had support. Just today I heard someone say that of course there were more protestors than those who attended the inauguration: Trump voters work.

                           4. Beyond that, draw a circle with a fifty-mile radius around DC. What are the odds that you can throw ten rocks anywhere inside that circle and hit sombody whose income derives directly from the government, whether as a recipient of aid, a civil servant, a lobbyist or a politician.

                              Now, who in America has the easiest time driving in for the day to attend the ceremonies? Draw a circle around Washington with a radius of …

                           5. RES, I’ve seen claims that those D.C. protests might have been at least partly funded by Soros, by him making donations to groups (well, groups he likes so not ones like the pro-life women) who wanted to go there so they could afford transportation and lodging.

                              How likely is that? Or has Soros just become the goto scapegoat?

                           6. VERY likely. He has been funding things like ANSWER.

                           7. Wellllll … it was reported at a NY Times web site, so low probability of truth.

                              OTOH, it has been corroborated by bloggers in their pajamas (Soros Has Links to 56 ‘Partners’ of the Women’s March on Washington), so pretty likely.

                           8. If ANSWER is the answer the correct question has not been asked.

                           9. I dunno. The first question that comes to my mind is: “Who is first up against the wall, come the revolution?”

                              N.B. – while the group’s name may be spelled ANSWER, its proper pronunciation is “Quisling.”

                           10. And here I thought the correct pronunciation of ANSWER was Useful Idiots. (Useful to whom, I think we all know.)

                     2. My anger boiled over the other day when I saw an interview with a teacher and her class of 5th graders, who had been encouraged to write (IIRC) poems about their feelings about President Trump. i know they’ve trotted out children too young to have informed and considered opinions of politics before, but the insanity of the protests and other things that have been going on for the last several months really turned it into a hot button this time.

                        1. Most kids in that situation will write what they think their teacher wants them to write.

                           1. Exactly. Or perhaps what they think their parents want them to write.

                     3. I’ve long thought that the whole issue of Birth Control and Abortion would be solved if those “defending” such rights would stop spending their money on politics to force the government to be complicit in such activities and instead donate their money and time to charities directed at providing the services.

                        Look at the Vaccine (flame) Wars sometime.
                        If half of the pro-vaccine flame warriors would shut up and bother to educate themselves on how vaccines work and the actual objections of those they are speaking to, rather than “I can’t be bothered to crack a grade school science book” and a Stay-Puft-monster sized strawman, they could do some actual good. Instead, I’ve persuaded more folks to vaccinate their kids– including some of the ones that people like them drove into not vaccinating at all.
                        They might even put money towards there being ethically acceptable vaccines for whatever their pet goal is.

                        But I don’t think that’s really the goal… they really just want a socially acceptable reason to chant “I am smart, S-M-R-T” and pop an arm out of the socket from patting themselves on the back.

                        Heck, look at the abortion activists that will accuse pro-lifers of not caring for kids after they’re born… nevermind that every pro-life center I’ve been into did Baby Care bags, worked with food pantries, would hook you up with private charity and help you get a hand up, rather than hooked on welfare which is the best you can hope for from a “women’s health center.”

                     4. In California, at least, they’ve made it clear that encouraging abortion is the most important thing. Health clinics that do not have an MD on staff are required by law to post a notice stating such (i.e. impugning their credibility) as well as “helpful” information on where to obtain an abortion.

                     5. Not to mention the higher probability of encountering violence during those mass gatherings, the lack of child friendly services, and the fact that predators LOVE those places where young (and some not-so-young for that matter) children can become lost in a heartbeat.

                        1. But they also use them as shields. A few years ago, a bunch of people were blocking the exit to a place (can’t remember the details), and one woman, who had brought her child, was yelling at the cops who were pulling them away from the door that they were endangering her child.

                           I might have some details fuzzy, there, BTW. It might be that someone told her she was endangering her child by bringing him with her, and she blamed the cops, because they shouldn’t be wrestling the protesters away from the door when there was a child where they could hurt him.

                  2. “Selma envy” seems to be a common thing on the left side of the political spectrum. There’s a strong wish among many of them that they could have participated in the great civil rights cause and a determination to find something–anything–else that they can do in its place. Thus the eagerness to participate in marches and declare everything the equivalent of Jim Crow.

                     1. And how many of the younger generation have been so inculcated with the sainthood of the Selma and other protesters that they see this as THEIR time to attempt to grasp the moral glory? Now THEY will be counted among the blessed.

                        As Sarah says, cult behavior.

                     2. Once you fix a problem, or someone else fixes, you have a choice. You can go home and live your life, and engage in quotidian goodness that will not bring you as high praise and cost you more. Or you can fixate on a new problem — existing or not.

                        1. Example of the latter – March of Dimes

                           1. You’d think with inflation that’d be the March of Quarters by now.

                        2. “The main cause of problems is solutions.”

                           1. I’ve found this to be most often the case when the ‘solution’ is provided by government. There also seems to be a positive correlation between level of government implementing the solution and likelihood of the solution being worse than the original problem. 😉

                           2. But if you try to fix those, you have to admit your last solution was perhaps not so hot.

                     3. I have a politically-active uncle (who thinks it’s hilarious that I can refer to him as a “godless communist”—an atheist who lived on an actual commune) who actually was registering black voters during the time period when that could get you killed. I haven’t seen anything from him regarding the marches, but I suspect he stayed home.

                        (He is my libertarian mother’s brother, and they get along just fine. They also find it interesting when their political views actually overlap.)

                        1. My brother and I…

                  3. Bingo. A LOT of them are trying to recreate 68

                     1. They seem to have forgotten that the result of the 1968 riots was the election of Nixon, who campaigned on a “law and order” platform.

                        1. Kinda a sign of the times that in today’s political environment Nixon would be a lightweight corruption-wise.

                           1. Listening to Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe talk about her father’s reaction to the corruption revealed by the e-mail releases was entertaining.

                  4. Sounds it’s more like sort of entertainment. Feelings of togetherness, being part of something with lots of others.

                     They are sports fans, showing support for their team. Exactly what that team is, Democratic party, women, certain ideologies, that doesn’t really matter. What the political or other aims are doesn’t really matter all that much either. They are an excuse, something that makes them feel important and unlike those shallow fans of some entertainment.

                     But the basic underlying reason is the same.

                  5. The desire to be part of something important, something bigger than oneself, something that fixes some problem in the world.

                     You know, I think this is right…

                     I’ve got a family, and religion, and a good sense of self; the only marches I’ve considered going to where direct results of that, and then only for the goal of promoting those other goods.
                     The idea of marching as an end in itself is…abhorrent. It’s like cussing for the sake of cussing, rather than from real feeling.

                  6. Holly, I think you have really got something there. That’s what it feels like is going on with everyone of these protests. The people want to be a part of something, a group, a cause — a self-righteous one! It seems it’s more about how the marching and shouting and all of the other behavior makes them feel rather than how much help it would be.

            3. I have and need to read “When Prophecy Fails”

               1. Yeah, that book is worth reading. I’ve been dipping into it between reading other things on the Kindle. Bottom line, people are strange.

            4. Ive seen the video, and the outburst of cheering as she is escorted up the aisle was wonderful. There is hope, the crazies just get most of the airtime.

               1. …I’m gonna have to look for this.

                  1. #1: This is the story I referenced:

                     Woman kicked off plane for berating Trump supporter
                     The left wing is always a dangerous place for a Trump supporter to be. Even on an airplane.

                     But when Scott Koteskey boarded his flight from Baltimore to Seattle on Saturday, he likely had no idea the woman sitting next to him would berate him in an incoherent and unhinged rant — that was all captured on a video that quickly went viral.

                     “You pretend you have the moral high ground but you put that man’s finger on the nuclear button,” the unidentified woman said after a flight attendant left to get security.

                     [SNIP]

                     “No. I paid for this seat and I’m sitting in it,” she said. “He is in my space.”

                     The woman, seated next to her husband, continued refusing requests to leave.

                     “I’m going home now. My mother-in-law, his mother, died … I’m going home now,” she said. “There’s no way I’m getting off this plane … My husband lost his mother. Have some respect.”
                     — — —
                     RTWT

                     Apparently the fact that the man she was berating had paid for his seat meant nothing to her.

                     Apparently the need to attend that funeral was insufficient to compel reasonable deportment.

                     1. #2: This appears to be a different reprt of the same incident. :

                        There’s New Video of the Hillary Supporters Getting Thrown Off the Airliner
                        Alaska Airlines kicked off a couple passengers because they were being aggressive and hateful liberals. Click here to learn more about this story. Here’s new video of the altercation:
                        [SNIP]

                        If you click on the link embedded in the “Click here” it leads to an extended version of the story, with full FB post from Scott Koteskey. It also includes video from protest at the inauguration which records a protester setting a Trump supporter’s hair on fire.

                     2. As soon as she realized she might be seen in a negative light by someone who had the authority to actually do something about the situation, she tried to use her husband as a shield against the chance she would be held responsible for her behavior.

         3. I think it’s a little bit of all three, actually. Well, at least for me.

         4. When you first met them, if someone had walked in and told them “in 2016 you will be viciously defending the inherent rightness of teenage boys at public schools, at will, being able to walk in to the girls’ showers after PE to disrobe and shower, and any of the girls who objected would be punished, publicly shamed and possibly expelled”– would they have slapped that person?

            There has been a LOT of stuff shoved down the public throat. I’m guessing that they were in the line where they felt they had to support Obama as an inherent good when he was elected…and there wasn’t any point where they felt like they could really go “um, no, jumping OFF of the hayride, that’s too much.” (I think that’s usually because of the logic applied by the liberal left– emotive/appeal to nice, rather than principles and logic.)

            1. “That’s not who we are.”

      2. There’s a few that weren’t this crazy six months ago.

         1. WHAT in heck is wrong with them, other than “Utopia failed to materialize?”

         2. Trump “broke” the Wave Of History!

            The Glorious Hillary was the True Heir of Obama but the Evil Donald The Trump stole Her Rightful Place In History! 😈 😈 😈 😈

            1. PRECISELY.

               1. She hasn’t found her true place in history until her entire wardrobe consists of government issue orange.

                  1. Trump’s not going to prosecute her. And I wouldn’t be surprised if knowing that she’ll never be president has hurt her more than prison time would. She came sooooo close, and still failed.

                     Twice.

                     1. I wouldn’t be so certain. Or, rather, he’s not going to prosecute her personally… but the Clinton Foundation is still being investigated.

                        He may have announced he’s not going to (personally) prosecute her over Scandal X, but that woman has scandals enough to fill A-Z and head into Greek letters. So if an investigator should bring her down on another scandal during his presidency, well, that’s just the wheels of justice. He’ll wash his hands, and smile.

                     2. It would be painted as using government power to settle his personal grievances. No matter what the evidence, no matter who uncovers it. If anything gets done that evidence better be overwhelming and beyond doubts, and very easy for even your average internet sleuth to check, something that would make everyone except the most rabid supporters to be dumbfounded that nothing has been done or is being done before something does get done over it or it will become a problem for Trump.

                        He might best wait until he has been re-elected, maybe even make sure it is left waiting until he is out of office or almost out of office of that potential second term (and the evidence still better be overwhelming).

                        1. Perhaps if Trump pardoned her? To ensure the pardon was comprehensive he would probably have to immunize her against prosecution for an extensive list of sins against the American people: Whitewater, coercing her husband’s sexual victims, the White House Travel Office corruption, attempting to misdirect the attention of a nation rightly concerned about her husband’s misuse of the power and charisma of his office to sexualy assault women by attempting to redirect attention to some imagined Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, for her theft of White House furnishings, for her pressuring her husband to grant pardons to convicted terrorists (FALN) to curry political favor, for her incompetence as SecState and lying to the public about her role in the Benghazi slayings and conspiring to imprison a hapless video filmmaker as scapegoat, for her flagrant violation of National Security protocols by deliberately establishing an unsecured private server, for her selling of access and government appointments in exchange for Clinton Foundation donations, for her transgressing campaign fund-raising regulations and for being a nasty woman so desperate for the presidency that she repeatedly lied to the public.

                           I am sure I’ve left a few things out — the entire list could fill several books — but it would be appropriate use of his pardon power to absolve her from fear of prosecution for any and all possible past actions of dubious legality, including double-parking or using government assets for her personal benefit.

                           It would be an act of incredible graciousness and remarkable largess.

                           1. Ah, that would be brilliant. Great thinking. 🙂

                           2. trump can only pardon her for federal crimes.
                              the states can go after her themselves (for non federal crimes)
                              I have a (small) hope that the feds would go after not only she who should be jailed, but also the other major dems that have floulting the laws for decades. go after them using RICO. go for the money. that will really hurt them.

                     3. President Trump doesn’t need to go after her. The Justice Department can decide what they want to do with her without The Donald’s input. And that would be politically safer for Mr. Trump to say out of it.

                        1. One nit.

                           Even if the Justice Department goes after her without his input, the News Media and Democrats (yes they’re the same group) will blame Trump.

                           Mind you, Trump likely won’t care “what they think” and won’t stop the Justice Department. 👿

                           1. The Media-Democrat Complex will go after Trump with equal venom no matter what he does, or if he does nothing at all. He can do whatever he likes without having to fear any change of consequences; and I believe he knows this and banks on it.

                           2. Banks on it?

                              It is at the core of his strategy. He is making them into annoying little bitches that yap at everything all the time.

                              Did you read the reports on their reactions to Spicer not adhering to their established pecking order at yesterday’s press briefing? He called on the New York Post before the AP?!??!! They’re just a tabloid!

            2. Sounds like the reaction to Al Gore losing in 2000.

               1. Worse IMO.

                  IMO the narrative went “the first Black President must be followed by the first Woman President”. 😦

                  1. But Obama was the first pu$$y President!

                  2. Which is why I was hoping it would be Fiorina.

                     Sadly, no…

                  3. First woman and most qualified person evah!

                     Applies only to certain definitions of qualified, qualifications in mirror may appear greater than they are, some limitations may apply, qualifications do not necessarily include demonstrated good judgement or sympathy for those affected by her policies (especially under-capitalized businesses.)

      3. Yes they were; they just didn’t want to show the rest of us just how crazy they actually were/are. But they have been that crazy since the days of the AuH20 slandering; they just had the media in their pocket so until the invention of the internet nobody had a clue.

         1. AuH20?

            1. Goldwater.

               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater

         2. You know, I’m not talking about the core. I’m talking about people like my colleagues. Considering their habit of blurting whatever crosses their mind, I don’t think they were hiding it.
            I think the “directives from above” on what they have to support to be a “real” progressive have just gotten so crazy, they’ve been pushed over the edge.

            1. You have to view it through the Overton Window, which the Democrats & MSM (BIRM) had successfully inched well to the Left since Reagan’s day … and went Full Proglodyte* during the Obama Imperium. The folk like your colleague were just going with the flow, fitting in with where they understood the “smart” folk to be.

               Trump has yanked it back toward the Center, but the Progtards are so off-center they think it’s been pulled to the Far Right.

               *You never want to go Full Proglodyte.

      4. You wrote: “It’s not that I have children and (for now) adopted grandchildren, . . .”
         I know that grandparents of adopted kids tend to be less loving with them than grandparents of their biological kids’ biological kids…..
         But I hope you will go easy on yours and let them stay in the family and not judge them so quickly and keep them on such a short leash….it’s a form of abuse.

         1. No. Their father is a friend half our age, we “adopted” so we could have grandchildren, while we wait for our kids to finish very lengthy professional training. I “adopted” their father in his thirties. Most people on the blog know that, so it was a nod to that, so they didn’t think my still-in-school kids had children.
            I also call them “practice grandchildren.” And yes, I love them dearly, but it’s not QUITE what you’re imagining. I don’t want to impinge on their real, blood grandparents (and they have a full set.)

            1. Yeah, I was teasing over the convoluted phrase implying you might cancel your grandmotherhood.,….”for now”……… sounds like “don’t make me come down there….”

               1. for now I only have adopted grandkids. My biological sons might EVENTUALLY decide to reproducing.

   2. Yep. My list of entertainers/actors/writers/singers whose work I am never, ever going to support again with my consumer dollar has about doubled in the last week alone, due to all the insanity now on display. It’s like a horrific multi-car pileup on the highway. You really wish it hadn’t happened, don’t want to gawk, but you just cannot look away.

      1. Sadly, Joss Whedon seems to be climbing over others to get on that list. I used to respect him for a willingness to follow characters and story rather than imposing his politics but his personal deportment indicates that phase of his career is passed.

         OTOH, a quick check of his IMDB profile indicates he’s not got anything professional for me to ignore.

         1. 😦 Some of us like Firefly. Which you can give credit to Tim Minear for, I guess.

            1. I have generally found Minear’s subsequent work worthy of interest (really enjoyed Wonderfalls) even if his current success (American Horror Story) is in a genre that holds less than no interest for me.

               I do wonder what became of his effort to adapt a screenplay from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (reported in 2004.) Probably not a good book for a movie, but I can imagine it working as a GOT-style mini-series … say, twelve episodes or possibly two seasons of eight each/

               1. Maybe we could pitch it to Amazon as their next project after Man in the High Castle. The Expanse seems to be doing well, we could play off that.

         2. I wonder if Whedon has been hanging with Charlie Sheen of late …

            ‘Avengers’ director Joss Whedon blasted for calling Ivanka Trump a dog
            “Avengers” director Joss Whedon went after President Trump‘s daughter Ivanka Trump, likening her to a Pekingese dog, and called her husband Jared Kushner a “Voldemort in training.”

            The filmmaker tweeted alongside a picture of Kushner, “Hey, keep your eyes on this f–king prize too. He’s a Voldemort in training, & unlike the Pekingese he married under, can play the long game.”

            Fans immediately called out the self-proclaimed feminist Whedon for comparing Ivanka Trump to a breed of small, yappy dogs.
            [END EXCERPT]

            Amazing how so many “self-proclaimed feminist” guys immediately resort to going all judgmental on appearance when they want to insult a woman.

            1. She’s married to a Republican thus she’s not a Real Woman! 😦

      2. Yeah. Who thinks “I’ll endear myself to many in the country by out loud wishing that a politician be f-ed to death by a rhinoceros. What a great idea!”

         1. Who said that?!

            1. Jose Wheaton not only said it, he explained it wasn’t to be violent. He just thought it was a hilarious image.

               He is losing touch with reality.

               1. Josh. though Jose is funny.

                  1. Damned auto-corrupt. That’s why I usually don’t comment on my phone

                  2. Joss.

                     1. and “Whedon”

                     2. He’s “a thin wooden stick covered in a substance that is burned to produce a pleasant smell”?
                        http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/joss-stick

                        I seem to recall an Australian meaning for that Joss, but can locate nothing at moment …

               2. Well, he probably has enough money to comfortably insulate himself from reality. Most celebrities do.

               3. Oh, and that’s Whedon; Will Wheaton aka “Shut up Wesley” is another moonbat from a sci-fi TV show.

                  1. No doubt Wheaton agrees with Whedon.

                     1. I used to watch Wil Wheaton’s Youtube series where he would get together with some friends (often other celebrities) to play a board game, talk about the game rules, and film the whole thing documentary-style with good, professional video work. Good production values, good board games (some of them not to my taste, but that’s fine), what’s not to like?

                        Then the episode happened where he had John Scalzi on as one of the people playing a game. Now, at the time, I knew nothing about Scalzi except that he’d written that infuriating essay that claimed that abortion opponents were helping rapists, because they got to victimize a woman twice. (In fact, the truth is the exact opposite: rapists benefit hugely from the fact that abortion exists, because they are far more likely to suffer no consequences). But that was enough to make me lose interest not just in that episode of the show, but in the show itself. Because if Wheaton would bring Scalzi onto his show, who’s he going to bring on next?

                        1. Wow, the guy really _does_ look like a pre-adolescent girl could out-bench him, doesn’t he?

                           1. He always has. Did you ever watch Star Trek: The Next Generation?

                           2. I think he was referring to Scalzi, who has gained some notoriety over at the Diurnal Voice’s blog for 1) having his teenage daughter literally outlift him at the gym, and 2) bragging about it, instead of going “Oh wow, I must be out of shape”. Nothing wrong with a girl who wants to stay healthy and strong, but if a grown man can’t outlift her with his inherent testosterone advantage, he’s MASSIVELY slacking off on his own strength training.

                           3. His blog reads like something written by a scrawny little man. Lots and lots of nitpickery and rules lawyering.

               4. He was just Joshin’

   3. Insanity is not necessarily a constant.

      Yeah, there are people who neither degenerate nor find better methods of coping or treatment. But this does not describe all mentally ill people.

      It is possible for someone to exacerbate minor problems into severe problems. They may have been functional enough that their problems were below your threshold of detection.

      Leftism may well amount to a very poor system of managing one’s mental issues, and particularly be fragile in circumstances such as this.

   4. Yep. All the folks who have gone hard nuts can be exasperating. Acting like going to outlaw homosexuality, birth control, etc. How repealing a poison pill EO about FHA is ripping home ownership from millions (rate reduction between $500-$1000 per year which IMO if you can’t swallow that you don’t have sufficient cushion in case something breaks.) And so on. How the long-standing Mexico city policy is now horribly bad (why are we paying for orgy (this was autocorrupt for birth but it works) control overseas anyway?)

      Plus how saying that assault is bad means you are a Nazi. Bleh.

      1. The FHA EO that was repealed was for a pending rate cut-one that the Obama administration announced a week before.

         1. Oh I know. As I said a poison pill EO like Clinton’s arsenic

4. They thought they’d won. BHO was their crowning achievement and Hillary would carry the country over the finish line to that glorious socialist paradise where we were just like any other Western European country. Of course the fact that they found Hillary to be their perfect choice in and of itself spoke to their utter lack of rational thought.
   So the grownups stepped up and voted their consciences and put a flawed businessman into power. And he’s picked business and military people to advise and help him govern. People used to making hard choices, decisions that matter, and getting results. And what a difference that will make if they manage to bring it off in spite of the extreme resistance of entrenched bureaucracy.
   As for the SJW, precious snowflakes, and others of their ilk, I fully expect some of them to step over the line and commit acts with consequences, consequences they’ve never had to deal with before. That should be a popcorn worthy spectacle indeed.

   1. Like the DC DA telling all those arrested on Friday that they will face 10 yrs/$25K fines. I hope he follows through with that threat….

      1. The US Attorney, I think, not a local prosecutor.

      2. If he does, a whole lot of special snowflakes are going to be really, really surprised when they figure out that breaking local laws in DC is a federal felony… and unlike a state prison, things are a whole lot harsher. Their moments of stupidity will have lost them a whole lot more rights than they ever contemplated before they started picking up bricks and setting fires.

         1. Felony. Loss of voting rights. Hard lesson.

            1. So they just move to California or Ohio and vote as often as they want…

               1. Not for another ten years when they get out of prison. And in the meantime, we might figure out a way to break the Left’s stranglehold on California.

                  1. Let me know when you figure that out. 2 problems: 1. just as money can insulate individuals from reality, it can insulate companies/cities. There’s so much cash in tech that the owners can screw up/pander/bluster for years and not see an effect. (I’ve consulted for a few – woah. Levels of incompetence that rival government.) 2. Teacher’s union basically runs the state, as in you can’t cross them and hope to be elected. Other unions along for the ride. (Used to work with a company that worked with the California teacher’s union leadership – never met nastier people in my life, and that’s saying something.)

                     1. I don’t know if the state can paper over how far into the red it is for much longer.

                        1. No biggie – so long as CALPERS keeps earning returns on investments of >9% there should be plenty of money for those unfunded liabilities.

                           Report: California’s Actual Debt At Least $848B; Could Pass $1.1T
                           SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – The combined debt of California’s state and local governments is at least $848 billion and could escalate past $1.1 trillion, according to a new report.

                           The California Public Policy Center – focused on the analysis of California’s financial information on the state and local government levels — based its findings on official reports from the offices of the state controller and treasurer.

                     2. never met nastier people in my life,

                        The same can be said of the Illinoisy teacher’s unions leadership, especially those in C(r)ook County…….

                  2. AND…Soros would have to cough up $25K for each one to pay their fines…..

         2. Oh yes, please! Pity that the feds don’t have chain gangs 🙂

         3. Did you know that “snowflake” is a racial slur targeted at Jews because it is six-pointed like a Star of David and also Holocaust or something? I know this because Twitter told me so. /sage nod

            1. I thought every snowflake was unique and beautiful in it’s own right, but they all melt into the same slush. Boy are they reachin’…

   2. Apparently the Clintons are working on Plan B. Slow learners.

      1. Plan B as in another run in 2020, or plan B as in try to overthrow Trump?

         1. Yes.

         2. Plan B as in whatever lets them continue to milk the public teat.

   3. “As for the SJW, precious snowflakes, and others of their ilk, I fully expect some of them to step over the line and commit acts with consequences, consequences they’ve never had to deal with before.”

      They had one of those “Pussyhat marches” in Dallas this weekend, and 2-3 of the special snowflake attendees decided to attend openly carrying guns. The Dallas Observer caught up with one, and his comment was (paraphrased) that he didn’t actually see himself using it, he just brought it along to show that they were serious.

      This jackass thinks his gun is a magic wand; the consequences of his learning differently are going to be tragic for him and everyone around him.

      1. Once knew a proto-SJW back in the 80s, Harvard grad (she checked a good number of AA boxes, which was sad, because it made it hard to take her seriously, thus defeating whatever it is a Harvard education is supposed to produce) who was involved in hiding illegals from central America. Whatever the merits of her work, I remember her shock in discovering that the law intended to put her in jail for a good long time – like, it had never occurred to her that breaking federal laws might, you know, get you punished.

         1. I find it even more pathetic given the people they claim to be imitating all knew they could (and probably would) get arrested and tossed in jail and accepted that what they were doing was worth paying the consequence for. (Others may have disputed the ‘worth it’, but at least they were walking in knowing.)

      2. > magic wand

         Forty-odd years on, Donald Hamilton’s books are definitely preachy, which I didn’t notice back then. But at least his preaching made sense.

         Line of Fire:
         They’ve built up the handgun in the public mind as a kind of magic wand; all you have to do to get the most amazing co-operation out of people is to wave a pistol at them. It never seems to occur to anybody that the only really effective thing you can do with a gun is to shoot it

         The Revengers:
         He’d pointed a gun at me, that symbol of power, that magic wand, again he’d pointed a gun at me, and I still hadn’t done what he’d told me to do. The TV formula just wasn’t working at all

         The Terminators:
         And remember, a firearm is not a magic wand, and you’re not anybody’s fairy godmother.

         The Detonators:
         It’s only in the movies that a pistol, or whatever, is a magic wand that bends people peacefully to your will. The cops have to try it because they’re supposed to bring ’em back alive if they can. We don’t.

         1. A different book I have (The Doomfarers of Coramonde), which coincidentally is also 40 years old this year, has a similar bit about people thinking guns were magic wands. In it, the recently discharged soldier was thinking that as he took away the gun that an academic had been holding on him.

            1. Yep. Though I was more impressed with how an APC and .50 cal dealt with large reptilian opponents…

               1. Well, he wasn’t really all THAT large.

                  1. True. 😈

            2. Gosh. First time I’ve heard anybody mention the Coramonde books in… well, pretty nearly 40 years.

               1. *small voice* I have trade paperback copies of both the Coramonde books. Bought them … some time ago. Likely in the Stars and Stripes bookstore of whatever base I was stationed at, at the time.

                  1. They are available in e-format. 😉

         2. I loved that series though it’s timeline was ludicrously long. Toward the end poor Matt Helm was hobbling along in a walker. 😛

            1. I sometimes wonder whether film & television industry appreciates that the US has to go to war every few decades in order to create “veterans with troubled backstories” for their use? Had we not fought in Vietnam there would have been no Magnum, P.I., no Lethal Weapon, no Rambo and uncountable literary detectives who would have nothing behind them except for that war. Now, thanks to Iraq & Afghanistan it is possible to update those veterans by making Lethal Weapon‘s Martin Riggs a veteran of combat in the ME, to produce a Bob Lee Swagger for a present generation.

               More than that, think of all the stories which hinge on a traumatized veteran, stories in which the writers would have had to come up with an actual credible motive were such veterans not available.

            2. Nah. Comic book time. And at that, Hamilton did let him age a *little.*

               Nero Wolfe started in his fifties, Archie in his thirties; and they (and their supporting cast) never aged a day. He even made a joke of it at least once. In A RIGHT TO DIE, a middle-aged black man comes to Wolfe because he is concerned that his son is being taken advantage of.

               He came to Wolfe because Wolfe had once made a speech that had impressed him. He was eighteen at the time. He was now in his forties or better. And neither Wolfe nor Archie had aged a day…

   4. The beginnings of the Trump Justice department has already said that anyone who committed a felony during that gross stupidity that passed for protesting will be charged with a felony. The wailing over that will be like icing on the cake of liberal tears.

      1. Because it is DC, there is precedence for it all to be Federal Offenses.
         That means Fed time for convictions. Be fun if it happens.

5. c4c

6. “Are you out of your frickin’ minds?” is a GREAT campaign slogan. You should trademark it before Trump does.

   1. Were he still around, I’m sure Hunter S. Thompson would approve.

7. c4c

8. This too is cult behavior. “If only they saw the light. We’ll go and preach.”

   And the “Oh, yeah” response to that idea, demonstrated: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/blue-red-state-democrats-trump-country-214647

   1. Remember that story about the Sillycon Valley CEO denouncing “Rural America” as a bunch of rubes, racists and retards who needed to realize that “no educated person wants to live in a shithole with stupid people.”

      I don’t usually mention my Phi Beta Kappa Key, but it does attest to my ability to have played and won the Educated Person Game and frankly, I find the most bigoted, the most parochial Americans tend to cluster inside their bubbles muttering about their superiority over those outside their bubble.

      Of course, Ms Byerly is probably too ill-educated to realize that the “no true educated person” argument is a logical fallacy.

      1. *chuckle* That first quote is pretty much why I live in “rural America.” Oh, the clean air is nice, the long drives on twisty roads make me happy, the folks are decent, honest, and hard working… But, well, not having to deal with folks who seem to think they know what I need better than I do (and them packed cheek-by-jowl for many a city block…), that’s a big part of it.

         1. God Bless Mike Rowe and his crusade to show that rural people and people who work with their hands aren’t idiots.

         2. A common idea among the cliff-dwellers is that it not only is the best possible way to live, but that they should somehow force everyone else to live the same way.

            They would probably then object to ordinary activities like my machine shop, my foundry, and occasionally firing up an unmuffled racing engine to run it in.

            1. “They would probably then object to ordinary activities…”

               {Beep. Button activated.}

               Oh yes. They would.

               I have had the cops summoned by “neighbors” because I was trimming trees. On -my- yard. The cop told me I should put up a fence and paint uncomplimentary things on it.
               I’ve had different neighbors complain bitterly about the noisy noise of my table-saw, operating -inside- the garage, with the door shut, at 11AM. On a weekday.
               I’ve had the city inspector come around for a chat because of a “garbage” complaint. Turned out the “garbage” was my car, up on jack-stands overnight because I was fixing it, and my hot-rod project. Too junkyard, apparently. That was designated a “rustic structure” by the inspector, he liked it.
               God help you if you have to cut something with a sawzall or a grinding wheel. The SWAT team might come. Permit needed for chainsaws, no doubt.
               In that place there were literally people from up the street who patrolled the area with a camera and a clipboard looking for stuff to complain about to the city.

               So I moved to the country. Now, should the town inspector be called by me to come inspect some bit of building or other, I get compliments on my junkyard project. Best part, I don’t even know who most of the neighbors are. They’re too far away to hear the table-saw and suchlike, even with the door open.

               1. Time: 1960s or early 1970s. Situation: We got dragged, as a third party, into a mess between two people at a neighbors. Cop came out and asked us some questions about it. Cop then casually hinted we should burn the troublesome neighbors out.

               2. Got into a conversation once at a party where some people were house hunting. This couple absolutely rejected any house that wasn’t part of a restrictive HOA. I mean what if a neighbor painted their house some ugly color or wanted to park their boat or RV in front. I said that people like them were why I could never live with an HOA. I also tend to work on projects.

                  1. I could sort of get “what if they let the yard get overgrown and full of vermin” but paint color?

                     So glad (and astounded) we found an HOA-free place.

                     1. Well, as for “full of vermin,” a cousin of mine had that happen. Plague of cockroaches spreading out to attempt to infest neighboring homes. It turns out, yes, there are ways to address that with the laws we have without submitting oneself to restrictive HOA (I think that acronym was mistyped the first time and never corrected- it should be PITA, not HOA).

                        Endpoint being, if the owner of the place wanted to raise baby cockroaches, all well and good. But once they left his property and began infesting the neighbors, he was liable for damages due. Cousin got free pest control (the roaches never did make any headway at his place, his wife ain’t a neat freak but she does demand that the place be kept up to a certain level of cleanliness- and is willing to escalate matters if such a simple demand is not met), and got a minor claim of damages. Four other neighbors got the same.

                        As far as I’m concerned, what goes on on my property ought to be my business. If my business interacts with other individuals, well, then matters are no longer *just* my business. HOAs get these ideas into their heads that they get to decide what other people should want in their own lives- and those people who foolishly signed the contract have given over the power of those decisions to others who may not have their best interests in mind… *shakes head*

                        It’s the lack of understanding the interrelationship between freedom and responsibility that gets me. If you are free, you are responsible. Responsible for your actions, without doubt, and *should be* responsible in the other sense of judging consequences as well. Restricting responsibility restricts freedom. Always. And that can’t but be a bad thing when adults make this a habit in the essential parts of their own lives where the lack of responsibility leads to things like, well, plagues of cockroaches among other things.

                  2. As my husband says, HOAs are fascist by definition. Public control of (theoretically) private property. Luckily, our area has enough good HOA-free areas that we were able to get a house in a nice neighborhood without undue difficulty.

                     1. I think I have mentioned it here before, but the only HOA that made sense to me (we actually put an offer in on a place in the neighborhood). The place ONLY had a dirt road that got very, very bad during rainy season. So they collected enough from everyone in the neighborhood for a load of gravel a year (or two,I don’t remember well enough to recall if it was just spring or spring and fall) since it was listed as a ‘private road’ and the county wouldn’t maintain it. The fee was reasonable and it was in the housing contract that that was the ONLY thing it could be used for: Road maintenance. And the only thing they had say over.

      2. “[N]o educated person wants to live in a shithole with stupid people.”

         Thus the exodus from California. }:o)

         1. Actually, the large number of H1B visa folks coming to CA from various third world paradises indicate that, as long as the hole you hie from is actually more excrementy, and the people there are actually more stupid, everything really is relative.

            1. It also helps if you’re being sold a pig in a poke. You don’t get to tour California before accepting your job, because the visa comes after.

         2. Hey! The weather is *really* nice! And the produce! And you can sorta avoid the Bay Area. It’s also good to remember that agriculture is the largest industry by quite a bit – thousands of square miles of farms in California. Once you get away from the coast, it’s pretty much Not Blue.

            My daughter was answering security questions on some site, one of which was ‘What was the first beach you visited?” She tilted her pretty young head and asked: “who would remember that?” Then she remembered not everybody lives in California.

            1. Well, if you live in a Great Lakes state you might have a couple choices… beyond all the smaller lakes you can see across. My reaction to ‘the ocean’ was “Oh, water you can’t see across, like a Great Lake. Got anything interesting?”

            2. And the produce! And you can sorta avoid the Bay Area. It’s also good to remember that agriculture is the largest industry by quite a bit – thousands of square miles of farms in California.

               Won’t be for much longer if Gov. Moonbeam and the enviro-whackos keep cutting off more irrigation water that keeps the Central Valley from being just another semi-arid grassland…..

               1. We’re kind of hoping that Trump will gut the EPA and put an end to that nonsense.

                  1. Won’t help. California has its own organizations, like the AQMD, that the EPA looks to whenever it needs ideas or inspiration.

               2. Yeah, this year at least, in northern California, water is not going to be a problem. Or rather, lack of water. My backyard gauge total just surpassed the annual average rainfall for the entire water year (water year runs Oct. through Sept.).

                  1. And they’re doing some orchard tests, where they literally flood them, to see how various kinds take it. Farmers are hoping that they can replenish aquifers that way, if only in a small manner.

                     1. A local rancher in Glasscock County TX (where I grew up) stored runoff water in the mostly depleted shallow aquifer that was suitable for pumping from with windmills. He built a dam across a local creek (runoff flow only)that would impound about a 20 acre pond. He then drilled several wells into the pond floor and backfilled them with sand and gravel. When we got heavy rain, the water would be collected and when full, the wells would drain the pond in a couple of weeks and store the water in the shallow aquifer. He was careful not to use pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer on the parts of his ranch drained by this creek upstream of the dam

                        1. And now the EPA will declare it all wetlands and fine him a fortune.

                           1. He did this over 50 years ago. Before the EPA was created….

               3. Something to keep in mind is that it was the Federal government that first got the ball rolling on the ruining of the Central Valley.

               4. Won’t be a grassland. It’ll be a dune field like the Imperial Sand Dunes. Crops keep the soil in place. No crops, no soil.

            3. agriculture is the largest industry by quite a bit – thousands of square miles of farms in California

               Which explains their fervent desire to protect an itty bitty fish at the expense of water for those very farms.

               1. As noted by many, facts don’t enter into it.

            4. And agriculture will stop being a large industry once the leftists in charge start removing the dams and reservoirs to return the watercourses to their “natural state”. After they’ve emptied the reservoirs to save the smelt.

               1. And the states that sell water to California are no doubt rubbing their hands with glee… those 40M people along the coast have to dring something…

                  1. Lots of states are saying “Fuck California”.

                  2. They can buy Israeli tech to build desalination plants.

                     1. Ironically, they probably couldn’t. I suspect that if a serious attempt was made, we’d start hearing about Isreal Divestment bills in Sacramento.

                        ^^;;

                        1. Sigh.

                           

                     2. Powered exclusively by wind/solar power. Cheap, plentiful water 24/7… /sarc

                        1. 24/7 for sure.
                           24 days a year, for 7 hours max

                     3. Oh, didn’t you hear about the protests at the desalination plant they were building in San Diego several years back? Apparently they were worried about its effect on ocean life.

                        If the California Water Project canal were to be shut off, they would run out of water in a day and a half. You’d think that would be impetus to look to local solutions…

                        1. Give Californians a gun and they’ll shoot their own feet off. No wonder it’s such a big gun control state.

                        2. Is it bad that I’m now envisioning a technothriller where disrupting that water flow is a terrorist plot?

                           1. I’m really shocked it hasn’t been done yet. Also note that large portions of the canal are open to the air, which presents alternate methods of terrorist disruption. (P.S. Be careful. You don’t want to give anybody ideas.)

            5. I make up a random response to each question, then write it down in my little pocket notebook.

               1. First beach: LANDSAT; First pet: Transcendental Idealism; Place met spouse: collective unconscious; Place born: Isles of Langerhan; First car: booger.

                  Hey, this is fun! 😉

                  1. My sister came up with the “song lyrics it reminds you of” method.

                     So “what do you want to be when you grow up” might be “a mighty king,” or it might be “in a year or two or three.” (Lion King or Shirley Temple.)

         3. I resemble that remark

      3. Of course, Ms Byerly is probably too ill-educated to realize that the “no true educated person” argument is a logical fallacy.

         “No true Scotsman” is only a fallacy if it’s used about a group like Scotsmen, or educated people — groups whose membership can be proven via some undisputed criteria external to the point you’re making.

         However, there are other cases when “no true Scotsman” is not a fallacy: when the point you’re making is about the membership of the group.

         E.g., if I were to say “No true Christian would deny the divinity of Christ”, I am making the claim that part of the requirements for being a Christian is to believe that Christ was (is) divine. Now, that’s a claim that some people would disagree with — plenty of people claim to be Christians while denying the divinity of Christ. But since my statement is specifically about the conditions for truly being a Christian (as opposed to incorrectly claiming that you are one when in fact you are not), then it’s not a fallacy, simply a statement of the form “If you do not believe X, then you are not in category Y.” Which is exactly logically identical to the statement “All who are in category Y will believe X.”

         Or, to use a less controversial statement: “No truly educated person would deny that 2 + 2 = 4.” (Hush, you. Yes, you, the one in the back who’s about to talk about base three. Hush. 11 base 3 is still the number 4. It’s written differently, but it has the same value.) This is closer to the logical fallacy, because you could in theory find someone who’s been educated who would disagree with that statement. But the central claim that I’m making is that if you deny that 2 + 2 = 4, then you are not in fact educated, however many credentials you might advance.

         And then there’s the other flavor of “No true Scotsman”, which again is not a fallacy. An example of this would be “No true American would deliberately go against the Constitution.” In making that statement, I’m fully aware that there are people with American citizenship who do go against the Constitution. But the claim I’m actually making is that there are two groups: those who are true Americans, and those who merely happen to have American citizenship but aren’t true Americans at heart. It’s a categorization that one could disagree with (one could say, for example, that it’s possible for the Constitution to be wrong and need to be amended, and so a true American might go against the Constitution if it mandated prohibition). But I’m not saying “No American would …” and then when presented with a counterexample, saying “No true American would …”. Rather, my statement is specifically about the definition.

         Now, Ms. Byerly’s statement is the fallacy, because she doesn’t even realize that counterexamples exist, and if presented with one, will almost certainly retreat to “Well, no true Scotsman…” in an attempt to maintain her position. That’s shifting the goalposts, as well as being a fallacy. But if she had started out by claiming “If you want to live in (what she considers to be) a hellhole, you are not truly a member of the Educated Caste”, then not only would that not be a fallacy, I would probably say, “You’re right! I agree with you! I’m not a member of your little club for bigots that you call the Educated Caste, and I’m very happy about that fact.”

         Whoops. How did the teleporting soapbox show up under my feet again? I was sure I’d locked that thing up in the anti-teleportation field properly this time. *sigh*

         1. “If you want to live in (what she considers to be) a hellhole, you are not truly a member of the Educated Caste.”

            Contrary #1: One can be educated but filled with missionary zeal to bring enlightenment to the benighted.

            Contrary #2: She is engaging in a tautological argument, which proves nothing something other than what she thinks it does.

         2. there are people who say “No true Scotsman” when you say that a person who was not born in Scotland, has no Scottish blood, has never been naturalized in Scotland, or even lived there, is not Scottish.

         3. The delicious irony is Ms. Byerly’s company is a marketing agency, and its website bills it’s open to clients from any location. Apparently Ms. Bryerly isn’t willng to put her money where her mouth is. Too bad: I don’t see her getting clients from the vast region she’s insulted – or from the astute city folk who’s watching her p*ss off over half the country.

   2. You have to engage with people with whom you disagree. We have to figure that out—if America is going to survive as a democracy. It sounds dramatic to say, but that’s really where we are.

      What a concept! Interact with people in actual conversations, spirited back-and-forth exchanges of ideas and viewpoints rather than the usual Prog. form of ‘conversation’ which means “Sit down and shut up while I lecture at you.” Maybe you’ll discover that all your non-HRC-supporting neighbors are *not* X-ist, Y-ist Z-ophobic hicks and rubes.

      And this is only dramatic, and traumatic, to the Progs because they are just now beginning to get an inkling that the ideals and causes to which they’ve dedicated their lives may not be in synch with the ‘Heartbeat of America’. The best of them may be starting to re-examine their beliefs, the worst are going to double down.

      And, of course, the USA is a republic, not a democracy.

      1. There is a program going on from our local public radio station; a push to sign up to some prog website wherein one pledges to listen to those who have other opinions – but whom can remain respectful and understanding. And civil. Oh, yes – they advertise and promise how civil they will be, in entertaining opposing opinions!

         Those spots send mine and my daughter’s teeth on edge, every time we hear them – for their air of superior-minded smug sanctimony.

         1. Invariably they discover that people’s “different opinions” are inherently not respectful, understanding nor civil. Because only Nazis could hold those opinions, and it is perfectly okay to punch a Nazi in the face.* It’s a kafkatrap, as the range of opinions they find tolerable runs the gamut from A to B.

            *Not true; punching anybody in the face is a good way to do serious damage to your hand. Hit zim inna labonza.

9. c4c

10. Heh. Day 1 headlines from the NY Post:

    Trump ends tax dollars for NGOs that provide abortions
    Trump freezes federal hiring on first day in office
    GOP senators propose letting states keep Obamacare
    Trump sued for allegedly violating the Constitution
    Trump withdraws US from Trans-Pacific Partnership
    Trump has already redecorated the Oval Office
    Trump to nominate Heather Wilson for Air Force head
    Team Trump is pushing ahead with Israel embassy move
    Trump: I’m cutting 75% of regulations, maybe more!
    Boy George defends Melania Trump

    “You know what — as somebody who has a past — I think it’s really wrong and mean-spirited of women to be so abusive.”

    The horror, the horror!

    1. Dang – wish there was an app that would automatically insert the “end” slash when I copy/paste HTML tags. If nothing else it would prevent nested blockquoting.

    2. oy. RES, my schadenboner was JUST going down…

       1. That’s another new word for my vocabulary…

          1. Heh. I seeded another batch of people with that one just a couple of days ago.

    3. Minor note, I understand that it is standard White House practice to redecorate the working areas on every change in administration. Yet somehow this becomes Trump’s fault.

       1. Of course, how dare he destroy the sanctity of the Temple of Obama!

          1. Winnie’s head is back where it belongs – Theresa May is the first foreign leader that will visit the Oval Office – the list is “America First, Allies Second, ‘Neutrals’ Third” – and enemies are on the otherlist.

             Decent start…

             1. Yep.

    4. Speaking of GOP Senators (and Representatives, I believe), the wife told me last night that they hate Trump’s guts and are “letting him have enough rope to hang himself”. I opined that he’s used to power games and they aren’t likely to trip him up too badly.

    5. A note on that first headline (particularly significant as this weekend’s MSM (noon)coverage of the March For Life will be held in stark comparison to their Pussy Parade coverage:

       Over 80 Percent of Americans Support Mexico City Policy

       This morning, President Trump issued an executive order reinstating the Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule, which prevents groups that provide or promote abortion overseas from receiving U.S. aid money. The policy was instituted under Ronald Reagan and by every subsequent Republican president; both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama rescinded the policy during their presidencies.

       This news — which some have hailed as evidence of Trump’s authentic pro-life sympathies — comes on the same day as the release of a comprehensive Knights of Columbus-Marist poll, which found that significant majorities of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. In fact, the poll found that Americans overwhelmingly oppose using federal money to fund abortion in other countries, presumably indicting that they would support Trump’s decision to reinstate the Mexico City policy.

       Eighty-three percent of those surveyed said they opposed federal funding of overseas abortions, including nearly 40 percent of people who supported Clinton in the 2016 election. Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of Americans oppose federal funding for abortion within the U.S., including about 40 percent of Clinton supporters and 40 percent of self-described pro-choice individuals.

       Furthermore, the poll found that 74 percent of Americans — including 54 percent of pro-choice individuals — support placing some restrictions on abortion, whether limiting it to the first three months of pregnancy or to the so-called “extreme” cases of rape, incest, or the mother’s health. A full 55 percent of Clinton supporters said they favor placing significant restrictions on abortion, and nearly 80 percent of black and Hispanic Americans support such limitations. These statistics reveal how out of touch progressives have become: Last year the Democratic party and its nominee supported ending the Hyde Amendment, which forbids taxpayer money from funding abortion.

       The revival of the Mexico City policy means that many non-governmental organizations and non-profits will risk losing their federal funding for foreign-aid programs unless they cease providing or advocating abortion in other countries. Though they tend not to be vocal about it, a large number of well-known, global non-profits — such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Oxfam, for example — fund increased global access to abortion procedures. Abortion-rights groups such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL also risk losing federal funding for their global work, and it seems unlikely that they will cease providing abortion around the world in compliance with the policy.

       N.B. — while more than 50% of Clinton’s voters support restricting (and oppose taxpayer funding of) abortion, 100% of Clinton’s donors support unrestricted (and taxpayer funding of) abortion.

11. Well said. I told some co-workers who were freaking out: Nothing to worry about, since we’re all dead already, because Reagan started WWIII and got us all nuked. They don’t get the joke. Hell, we were told freakin’ milktoast *Romney* was the antichrist! Unhinged, indeed.

    How could so many people be rendered incapable of thought? Continuing my one-note samba, here’s what was said by Fichte, the guiding light of all modern education, back in 1809:

    “Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished.”

    Von Humboldt put him in charge of the University of Berlin in 1810 – the place all hip and happenin’ early 19th century American intellectuals went for their PhDs. Those folks went on to found University education departments and waged war against the very successful and locally controlled one-room schools and installed what we have now.

    1. Yet one more reason to damn Bonaparte, whose humiliation of the Prussians led to such demented pedagogy.

       1. True – Fichte made that statement in a lecture delivered while Napoleon’s troops still occupied Berlin (all those prissy French behinds sitting on good solid German chairs inside noble German buildings, and handing down the law – Outrage!) . But the general German passion for order and state power predate Bonaparte. Even Luther floated government monopoly of schooling.

       2. The demented pedagogy of which you speak was a pet project of Frederick the Great’s, and he died several years before the French Revolution.

          It would be nearer the truth to say that the philosophes whose writings filled the Jacobins with incendiary mush were mentally deformed by their uncritical admiration of Prussia. Old King Fritz’s little domain was the Soviet Union of its day – totalitarian, militarized, and highly adept at hiring foolish foreign intellectuals to spread its propaganda.

          Both Voltaire and Rousseau were enthusiastic boosters of the Prussian regime and received substantial backing from it – and both were quickly expelled from Prussian soil when they tried to peddle their fool ideas there. Fritz was glad to pay them to subvert French society, but he was not such a damned fool as to let them subvert his own.

    2. Small grass strip rural airport (Haymeadow Field, John Hatz) in the 1980’s… a few times someone landed hard and the switch on the ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) flipped on and wasn’t caught. Soviet satellites caught such a couple times, to the owner’s annoyance. Pa suggested making a big prop outline of some strange craft for spy satellites to see…

       Airport owner: You want us to be nuke target?
       Pa: Would being a downwinder really be better?

       1. That reminds me of the arguments when Reagan and Thatcher wanted to deploy American cruise missiles and Labour’s leader complained it would make Britain “Ground Zero in the event of nuclear war.”

          Me: In the event of nuclear war, Ground Zero sounds like a great place to be. Get it over quickly rather than the long lingering death of radiation sickness, contaminated water, starvation and Mad Max type anarchy.

          1. I once stunned a door-to-door proselytizer…

             Year: 1983
             Him: Aren’t you concerned about the End of the World?
             Me: No. Your book says things get better after that.

             1. I like that one.
                Out here in the boontoolies, Gladstone High School, maybe ’82:
                smarty know it all girl: “It isn’t fun living in the sticks, but at least we won’t get bombed here!”
                Me, and Teacher: “What?!”
                Teacher: “We are likely a first hit target” me: “Well close enough . . . we’ll all fry for sure”
                girl: “Why?”
                Teacher looked at me so I went on: “Well first off, there is K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base just up the road about 35 miles and the Iron Ore docks in Esky, 7 miles away so we might not be right at ground zero, we are close enough it counts with Nukes!”
                I forgot about the ELFS sub communications that was (not) built out in the sticks (it’s cool, there are news paper stories about the project starting, hiring workers, how long it was going to take, and even a slight explaining how it worked, then once it was done. . . “What communications system? Doesn’t exist! Don’t go trespassing over there! NO, the low noises keeping you awake are not the system at work.” . . . it officially never happened.), so I am sure that we are still a ground zero. My house is too. I’ve moved 60 miles from where I grew up, but the river houses Marinette Marine, makers of Freedom Class Navy ships less than a mile form where I’m sitting.

             2. Had one who asked me wouldn’t it be good if there was no more war. Told him I didn’t know. I might have invested in arms companies.

                1. “Wouldn’t it be good if there was no more war?”

                   “Depends on the fashion in which it was achieved and maintained.”

                   1. “Wouldn’t it be good if there was no more war?”

                      Wouldn’t it be good if I could eat baked beans and never have to fart?

                   2. Wouldn’t it be bad if you were in a concentration camp, and there was no more war? Or living in an oppressive government, and there was no more war.

                2. The one guaranteed way to make sure there’s no more war is to ensure that everything on Earth is dead.

                   Ants make war too.

                   1. Remember, they like to pretend that only humans make war. Two tribes of chimpanzees hitting each other with sticks over use of a watering hole isn’t war, either.

                      1. Corals make war, for that matter. Chemical warfare at that. But the darling little snowflakes don’t know about it, because it happens slowly and quietly and they were not taught the requisite marine biology.

                   2. There was an episode of THE X-FILES in which Mulder crossed a genie, who imposed three wishes upon him. The last half of the episode was him trying to figure out wishes that wouldn’t backfire horrifically.

                      His first try was “World peace.” Suddenly he was standing in an utterly empty city, saying “I suppose I should have expected this…”

                      (The genie immediately showed up and said “Bet you wish you hadn’t wished that.” He agreed, and they were back at Square One.)

12. I think there’s a good chance at a peaceful revolution, and I suspect the next four-to-eight years will look like this:

    In ’18 (and possibly in ’20 as well) however skillfully the local races are handled, the national message of the DNC will be some variation on, “HAVE YOU DUMB, INBRED, RACIST MISOGYNISTS LEARNED YOUR LESSON YET?!?” This will have the expected result at the polls (possibly even overcoming any damage Donald does to his reputation, the economy, or the nation at large).

    About this time, the folks who make their livelihoods off running the Democratic Party will realize that they will no longer win elections and wallow in giant piles of cash so long as they are saddled with Progressives who have made themselves so horribly despised by roughly half the population and far more than half of the counties in the US. In short, they have a demographic catastrophe that is unlikely to fix itself.

    But if they embrace the Populist label, they could potentially steal it from the Republicans (especially in ’24 when Trump won’t be running). So expect them to jettison the “dead weight” of Progressivism: the presidential candidate will be Pro-choice, but the opinion of the VP candidate will be “evolving;” the platform will embrace some flavor of Right-to-Work; more autonomy for ISDs; trade warfare and open hostility to H1-Bs; Climate Change won’t even be mentioned. There will probably be a racist component to the platform since they’re so convinced that the hicks in flyover country are easily lured with such; it’ll probably be aimed at Asians.

    It’ll take an election cycle or two for the press to realize that “their” party has abandoned them, but by then there won’t be much of what we recognize today as the press left. Hollywood will go into a tailspin when they realize that they’re not being invited to public events and the DNC doesn’t really want to be seen with them. There will be a brief attempt to retake the Democratic Party, but we’ve already seen how those fare (Bernie Sanders), so the next goal will be to supercharge the Green Party with the talent and cash of the Progressives. That won’t get very far either. And then the movement, bereft of attention and power, will slowly wither on the vine.

    1. One can hope. Read a book once called When Prophecy Fails – in it, the authors claim (based on admittedly thin data) that it takes a more than one severe ‘disconfirmation’ before the cult will collapse. After the first serious disconfirmation, the cult tends to double down – they look to each other for support, and start proselytizing to convince others of how right they are. The existence of a crowd of believers is a comforting barrier against reality. After the world *still* doesn’t end, they start losing members, until, in the end, only the pretty much certifiable remain.

       As a strategy, I’m trying to create as much cognitive dissonance as possible: Agreeing with people upset with the supposed lie! Lie, I tell you! about the size of the inauguration crowd, and saying it really upsets me when Presidents or their administrations lie, like in telling me I could keep my insurance if I want to.

       Who knows? Might help undermine the dam a bit, even if it doesn’t break for a while.

       1. Yeah, my prediction is based on the idea that there’s a cabal of Folks-in-a-Smoke-Filled-Room types that have the power to actually decide the fate and flavor of the Democratic Party. I think that’s not unreasonable as we saw their hand in Bernie’s defeat. But I’m also assuming that enough of them haven’t drunk the Cool-aid in order to make the level-headed, bean-counting decision to jettison the old brand in exchange for something more profitable.

          1. The Superdelegate system suggests there’s something to your idea. Superdelegates are an easy way for a backroom group to exercise control.

          2. There’s a cabal of Folks-in-a-Smoke-Filled-Room types that have the power to actually decide the fate and flavor of the Democratic Party?

             Codswallop! Bullpuckey! Utter nonsense! Balderdash. Poppycock! Horsefeathers!

             Democratic donors plot the future — out-thinking the right
             AVENTURA, Fla. — David Brock’s message was simple: Democrats, including those on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, had let her down. Media Matters for America, his watchdog group, was “never going to overcome the powerful commercial interests” that helped President Trump dominate the campaign. American Bridge, his super PAC, had gathered “reams of evidence of Trump screwing over Americans” that went unused.

             “Mitt Romney was also well-branded as a successful businessman until he wasn’t,” Brock said. “Did Hillary’s own campaign rob her of the only anti-Trump argument that would have opened up the all-important economic issue to her advantage? That’s the inescapable conclusion.”

             Brock’s speech was a centerpiece of Democracy Matters, a conference he’d organized over Trump’s inauguration weekend. About 150 donors and activists made the trip to south Florida’s Turnberry resort, wandering its stucco collonades and sunlit pool for what had been billed as a conversation on how to “kick Donald Trump’s a–.” It began with a “fire-and-brimstone” (his words) speech by Keith Olbermann and ended with “community building” over bocce ball.
             — — —
             Pay no attention to the reporting in the Washington Post.

             1. Ooooh! Keith Uberdolt. He is the posterboy for TDS.

             2. Exactly. Because Democrats are the biggest opponents of second-hand smoke, and wouldn’t be caught dead in such a place.

       2. Hell, the Seventh Day Adventists are still going strong 174 years after Miller’s prophecies failed the acid test.

          1. But it has not failed the on acid test

             1. Did Jesus appear in 1843?????

                1. Joke – if you’re *on* acid…

                   1. OOPSIE! Need to read a little closer …….

          2. Which reminds me, I have a (silly, unwritten) story on the lumber pile in my brain. One of the characters is a Fourth Day Adventist pastor. He came from a fanatically religious small town with too many preachers; decided to cater to the crowd who couldn’t get from Sunday to Sunday without a fix, and proclaimed that God had told him to hold services on Wednesdays. Turned out it was a better living than preaching on Sundays to a congregation of six.

             1. Pick your town carefully. Most of the places I know, all the small towns already have Wednesday night “prayer meetings.”

13. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
    -Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg Address (from Wikipedia)

14. Chortle. Shovel-ready job?

    
    HT: Steven Hayward at Power Line

    1. Instapundit (I think) had a note about someone in a MAGA hat doing the same.

    2. Why, it’s practically a metaphor!

15. NRO’s Jim Geraghty noted in Friday’s “Morning Jlt”:

    In my adult life, there have been only two possible outcomes to a presidential election: A Democratic win or a Republican win that Democrats believe is illegitimate.
    If you believe that the past three Republican presidential victories are the result of cheating, you have a child’s view of the world, where your side is always right and your side should always win.

    a view that is echoed in the NY Post’s Kyle Smith’s reminder:

    [L]et’s not mistake the new president for our guiding light and spiritual leader. The president is not, as Chris Rock said of the previous chief executive, “our boss” or the “dad of the country.” We don’t need North Korean-style displays of adoration.

    The children are acting up and mostly they are annoying everybody trapped in the same country as them. Nobody approves of child abuse, but should these brats get a “good ass-whupping” few will consider it unmerited.

    1. They got one in November and have been crying ever since.

    2. *Looks at all the cans of gold paint for the house and barn* Well…shit.

16. “It’s been three days since Trump’s inauguration and I haven’t lost it and bitchslapped anyone in public, but it’s a difficult thing,…”

    I wish to give you the words from a fortune cookie I got: “Your capacity for patience will be rewarded…sooner or later”. I’ve been living that.

    1. “It’s been three days since Trump’s inauguration and I haven’t lost it and bitchslapped anyone in public, but it’s a difficult thing,…”

       “Gentlemen, place your bets.”

       1. Are we betting on a textual or a physical bitch-slapping? One would of course carry higher odds…

       2. I got February 5th.

       3. the Wunkteenth of Frocktober.

          What, you don’t use a glakod calendar?

          1. Is that like the calendar of Muntab?

             “The calendar of the Theocracy of Muntab counts down, not up. No-one knows why, but it might not be a good idea to hang around and find out.”
             ― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

17. I know what I am going to do.

    ‘Trump is far more likely to be a competent reforming centrist than to put gays in camps. Note that I am not asserting that he is competent, reforming, or centrist.’

18. “I’m sitting here wondering how we get the cult members to think.”

    Honestly, I’m not sure we can. I’m reminded of Upton Sinclair’s acid observation, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” This remains true but has been trumped (pardon my pun) by something even more critical — it is virtually impossible to get someone to understand something when that person’s self-image depends on not understanding it. Admitting that everything you defined yourself by for better than eight years was just a mistake and a waste of time is agonizingly difficult for anyone.

    The only way I have ever seen people leave cults is when the experience of being in the cult, in and of itself, finally came to be seen as the single biggest source of the person’s suffering — and they finally grasped that they had the option not to endure it. Even were it moral to inflict that suffering so as to bring that realization about, which I very seldom think it is, suffering inflicted from outside seldom disabuses a cultist; it has to come from inside, and it has to be great enough that even the agony of admitting your mistake is preferable to still enduring it.

    This is one of the reasons why we have to pray for Providence, I think, and are explicitly charged against seeking vengeance: pain is sometimes required to change minds, but we fallible humans are far too prone to liking to deal out pain for its own sake to be trusted to administer it with dispassionately therapeutic precision.

    1. “The only way I have ever seen people leave cults is when the experience of being in the cult, in and of itself, finally came to be seen as the single biggest source of the person’s suffering”

       You’re postulating the Progressive cult as a form of domestic abuse? That … explains quite a lot, actually.

       1. Mostly psychological only, but yeah, I think the tactics are quite similar: the cult finds a profound psychological need going unmet in its recruit and meets that need with a heavy dose of short-term reward tactics that essentially addict the recruit to those mechanisms specifically. For classic cults this was personal love and validation. For progressivism, it’s a combination of alleviation of the guilt felt by the prosperous for the luck of their circumstances and a ready-made purpose for them to prove their value, worth and relevance to themselves and the world through accomplishing something virtuous and important, like saving the planet.

          (I have speculated before that one of the reasons so few mathematicians, electricians or engineers become revolutionaries in prosperous societies is because they can already see their value to society. A society dysfunctional enough to make revolutionaries out of its engineers is a society that needs that revolution, probably sooner rather than later.)

          1. “…so few mathematicians, electricians or engineers become revolutionaries in prosperous societies is because they can already see their value to society.”

             To generalize: people who hold their jobs because of obvious, objectively measurable competence are less likely to become progressives than those for whom having a job is like winning the lottery. In academia and government, as often as not, there are many people who could do a given job but don’t get it for reasons out of their control. A CompLit professor I knew at Stanford once “joked” that he got his job because the department needed a straight white male. All those “studies” and diversity officer jobs are not gotten by people who have objectively achieved anything. It would be both delusional and cruel (in their lights) to imagine the ‘best’ person for the job got it because they were objectively better.

             And they know it. So they tend to believe jobs and success are somehow given out by a just and fair Universe that recognizes deserving people. If any deserving person does not have the job they ‘should’ have, injustice has been committed.

             Meanwhile, some of us are grateful to have jobs to support our loved ones (and buy books! – kinda the same thing). If we’re smart, we found fields where people will pay for a certain set of skills – and then got those skills. We are employed because we are able and willing to do something other people are willing to pay for. The universe is indifferent.

             1. This also suggests a reason so many of the jihadis come from professional ranks — engineers, doctors, etc. They live in a society which does not value their achievements and offers little space for developing their skills. Such forms of work is essentially haram, is a mark of second-class citizenship.

          2. And I give you as an example, Lech Wałęsa. An electrician.
             There was a place in dire need of a revolution.

             1. The Left here in America is quite revolting already.

                1. But we could get Lech to help electrify things and add volting volts for the revolts

                   1. Ohm my God, those jokes were shocking.

          3. For Progressives “privilege” is Original Sin and one can only be cleansed by acknowledging and repudiating such privilege. So their system imputes guilt for that over which one had no control and salvation only comes from battling for Social Justice, a nebulous term which is redefined at a whim.

             It is a closed loop ideology which justifies its failures by blaming those who have not joined the cult. All devastation which befalls is due to resistance to the cult, by reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries and bystanders. All correct status is bestowed by the collective, for service to the collective.

             See also:
             Why more minorities should pursue a career in mathematics
             By Naomi Schaefer Riley
             There’s a moment toward the end of the movie “Hidden Figures,” which topped the box office again last weekend, where Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson) stands at a blackboard trying to calculate exactly where in the ocean the Navy should plan to retrieve the space capsule after astronaut John Glenn completes his orbits around Earth. Standing in front of a room full of military brass, intelligence personnel and astronauts, the African-American Johnson calculates the figures in a series of complex computations and wows the dozen or so white men watching.

             Math is powerful stuff — and not just because it helps get us to the moon and back. Knowledge of math has also aided countless members of marginalized groups to succeed in America. A few years ago, I interviewed Ben Chavis, who led the American Indian Public Charter Schools in Oakland to become among the top performing public schools in the country according to a Washington Post survey. I asked him at one point about the intense focus he put on math for the inner-city kids at AIPCS and at a math academy for impoverished rural Indians in his native North Carolina.

             “Math is objective. You can trust the numbers,” he told me. Chavis cited the extraordinary percentage of Ph.D.s in this country that are awarded to foreign students. You don’t need to speak English well to succeed. You don’t need to have a certain kind of educational pedigree. You don’t need to be able to impress interviewers with nice clothes or family connections. Poor Jews from Eastern Europe could do it. And so could Chinese kids whose parents came here with nothing. And so could a black woman in the Jim Crow South.

             1. And like a lot of cults, the leadership doesn’t practice what it preaches.
                Privileged is the original SJW sin, but with a small amount of lip service, you don’t have to actually worry about about it in your own ranks. How many honest to goodness actual disadvantaged background minorities are in places of real power in the Left? And how many of the few people of color in those positions are the “right kind” of people- educated at the right schools, with the right fashionable beliefs and ect.

                1. Reminds me of another one the slightly less insane coworker brought up the other day – Apparently CNN (I think) has decided that they need more diversity, so they’re going to hire more women, black (other minorities I can’t remember specifically) and non-Americans.

                   I tried to explain that their concept of diversity is only skin deep, and that they would all hold the same political stance, but he appeared to refuse to even understand what I was saying.

                   1. One of CNN’s new Diversity Hires is the daughter of Valerie Jarrett.
                      The perfect illustration of privilege masquerading itself as diversity.

                   2. They may appear diverse but they will all be singing from the same hymnal, adhering to the same narrative, preaching to the same choir.

                   3. I’ve not forgotten when a group of school kids toured CNN and the guide didn’t know where they were from, despite a major story CNN had reported from there two to four weeks earlier. That . . . is CNN.

       2. “You’re postulating the Progressive cult as a form of domestic abuse?”

          Actually, the definition of a cult in general includes such markers as coalescing around a charismatic living figure, cutting off its members’ access to outside ideas, and bringing in money that does not benefit its members or society. Those are also markers of abusive relationships, which means a cult is to religion as an abusive relationship is to a healthy one.

          Note that if you can’t control the outside flow of information, it’s harder to cultivate the devotion. Note also that the vast majority of politicians from all stances have yet to realize this.

19. There have been only Two occasions when I have been Grateful to G_d that my parents (and certain very good friends) are no longer with us: the first (concerning my parents and other WWII gens) was when the book “A Question of Character” came out and revealed what sort of fellow JFK was (this does relate, he’s part of the Progressive Pantheon); the second was when this sh*t came down.
    I believe that this most recent PAIR of events (‘anarchists’ ((yeah, sure)) rioting and burning cars; pussies carrying signs and then littering) is merely the beginning of a see saw back and forth culminating in a … General STRIKE and overthrow of Von Trump by … The Committee of/for Public Safety.
    Dear Evil (and _well preserved_ ) Space Princess, you were inconveniently born in Europe. You have heard of a region called the (I am bound to misspell this) Vendee.
    What if the Vendee were armed and had leaders like Kratman , Allen West, and Ringo?
    D we find out? Is there any way short of a Miraculous Medal Appearance (I m an athletic Christian myself) to avoid it?

    1. The left here in the US, and their attendant globalist fellow-travelers, are in the process of delegitimizing themselves in the eyes of the center-majority in the electorate. There won’t be any real “Committee for Public Safety” crap happening, unless something really weird goes on. They are, instead, going to start shedding more and more adherents, as it becomes clear that Trump isn’t going to herd gays into camps, and use them to make Trump(tm) Soap. In the end, they’re going to be a rump remnant of today’s Democratic Party, and whatever Trump winds up leading is going to be the majority centrist one.

       The idiots assassinating him, or getting more violent will only accelerate the process. That happens, and I’m not betting on a damn thing past the assassination and the ensuing purges of the left in public life.

       I suspect we’re living in historical times, ones that are going to be debated and argued incessantly in academia in a few generations. Where it ends? No idea, but I don’t think there’s going to be some vast fantastic left-wing takeover. Trump is pretty much the reaction to the attempt they made to do it by way of the ballot box, and after 8 years of Obama, enough of the public is fed up with the bullshit to make a huge difference in how that works out.

       Looking back on everything, I kind of predicted to myself that this would happen; Obama got in, got reelected, and ran things so far, so fast, and so hard left that the majority of the country finally saw the implications. Let the left have their tantrums; they’re only going to drive more people out of their camp as the predicted horror shows don’t happen, and then when Trump actually turns out to be more in tune with the center of things than either party, guess what? New party, probably formed from the revenant corpse of the Republicans. If the idiots hadn’t have run Hillary, and had instead picked a more centric Trump as a Democratic candidate, they might have had a chance. As it is, I think the center has spoken, and the elitist fools that have been running this country for the last few generations had better start listening. The Tea Party was a wake-up call; they hit “snooze”, and now we’ve got Trump to show for it. They take him out, or somehow stop him the way that the legislature in California did with Schwarzenegger? They’ll eventually rue the day, depending on how they did it. Only thing that will be different in terms of that “ruing” will be how they did it–Through violence? You’re gonna see a spasm of like violence run through this country like nothing any of us have experienced in our lifetimes, and the end state will have men like William Ayers dangling from lampposts alongside men like Soros.

       1. “In the end, they’re going to be a rump remnant”

          Heh-heh-heh … I see what you did there.

          A-holes.

       2. I think the correct analogy is to Nixon (though hopefully without Watergate). Both the 60s (note – I was born after them) and 10s had the left surging and also had people thinking that society was spinning out of control. Both almost directly resulted in a very moderate Republican candidate winning the presidency.

          Reagan came after Carter, and it’s quite possible that Carter only got in because of Watergate. So if Trump can avoid a similar mess, I’ve no idea where we’re going from here.

20. The interesting effect all this is going to have will be on the center of the country’s electorate, which is classically not too tolerant of the edges getting all violent.

    If the psychotic left thinks it is gaining popularity and adherents with these demonstrations of violence, like the agitators in the streets burning limos and trash cans, breaking windows, and all the rest, they might want to rethink that idea. The actual effect they’re going to get is going to be marginalizing themselves, their causes, and everything they think they are standing for.

    Trump is, I think, far more of a centrist than he is anything else, but the idiot left seems bound-and-determined to push him as far rightwards as they can. If you think Trump is looking at all the nasty Tweets directed at his 10 year-old son, Barron, and thinking “Oh, yeah, I’m going to do whatever I can to make these people happy…”, you’d be what I’d term delusional.

    The left, and the globalist causes they’ve embraced, are in the process of committing suicide before our eyes. Let them get really stupid, and turn Trump into a martyr by either killing him or hurting his family? You’ll only see this crap accelerate, and go further right. Put Pence or another successor from the cabinet into office, after some leftard manages to off Trump?

    You’ll see what the South got after Booth succeeded in killing Lincoln. And, that won’t be at all pretty, for the violent idiots sponsored by Soros.

    I actually think that what we’re seeing here is a de-facto centrist takeover of both parties; the Republicans are just the vehicle for it, as they were with the Tea Party. Trump is mostly a social liberal, and a fiscal conservative, which is what I think really resonates with most of the country. As well, he is unequivocally American, in terms of interests and goals, which the last few Presidents haven’t actually been. Obama was a creature of the globalists; Trump is the repudiation of that whole school.

    1. “Bottom up, Top down, Inside out.” IF the left does something really crazy, it’ll be all too tempting to do a big-time authoritarian crackdown. If that happens, and it’s not insane to think it might, and couple that with economic uncertainty as we’re dealing with the consequences of years of crazy economic policy, and I don’t know what comes out of it. I don’t see major disruptions leading to Reconstruction style policies – largely because the people making the policies tend to live in those areas where the left is most concentrated. But I can see it leading to a second Patriot act, something even more onerous than what we have now. I can see it expanding a domestic surveillance apparatus and all kinds of bad stuff follows that.

       1. The big-time authoritarian crack-down ain’t going to come in response to the left wing getting violent; it’s going to come after the mass of the center says “Enough…” and starts taking matters into their own hands.

          I don’t think we’re too far from the point where bystanders just start walking up and putting bullets into the heads of these dipshits who block access to public venues in “protest”, or who break windows and start fires. If that shit had happened anywhere other than the gun-free capitol zone of the US, I think we might have seen some violence going the other way. The mood is getting that bad–Let those idiots get really stupid, and there will be a mass-driven pogrom the likes of which none of us have seen in this country, and I don’t think that the government is going to be running it. There are a lot of people who are running out of tolerance and patience, and quite a few of them are at a point where I honestly don’t think they care about the left’s civil liberties, any more.

          So… Left-wing violence begets centric counter-violence, and then the government is going to have to crack down.

          We have to remember that this is the US; the model you need to remember is not the sort of Argentinian-style authoritarian death squads run by the government. The model you need to remember is the San Francisco “Committee of Public Vigilance”, and also bear in mind that the average American who is likely to get involved in this shit isn’t going to be at all prone to see the government as a solution or participant. It’s all far more likely to be self-organized, de-centralized, and a hell of a lot more informal than what you would see in other countries/cultures. The violent anarchists of today are going to be the ones seeking government protection tomorrow, mark my words.

          What happened in DC this last Friday is something that could only have happened in one of our major victim-disarmament zones; anywhere else? I think there would have been a few motorcycle helmets with brains spattered on the inside. Frankly, I’d have been tempted to participate, myself–And, we’re not too far away from a point where that attitude is not only common, but condoned by the rank-and-file of the police departments.

          The fools on the left don’t even know what they’re enabling, here. But, they never do, and the playing with fire always leads to them going up against the walls first, with surprised looks on their faces, no matter which side they manage to get into power.

          1. Look at the N. Dakota bill to indemnify drivers against charges of assault for running over protesters who attempt to block roadways. Even if the law is not enacted, what happens when a ury hears a case in which a soccer mom explains why she ran down those protesters throwing rocks at her minivan laden with third-graders.

             1. In North Dakota?

                I’ve been assuming the bill for the benefit of out-of-state visitors; I figured any North Dakotan would be astonished if they even got a ticket, much less hauled in on charges.

                1. It is more a codifying a likely current practice, as well as give the maronies something to think about the next time they act like baboons who’re gonna possibly bring harm to someone just driving by their target
                   Texas did something similar not long ago with it’s “Castle Doctrine” style laws, before the law, you were not likely to get more than an “Attaboy! What Ammo did you use?” when ridding society of a waste of oxygen who attacked you, the law prevents the current practice from being easily changed.

                   1. In Texas it was sort of codifying that Austin could not make illegal that which is legal throughout the rest of the state. The same reasoning applied in the battle over NC’s HB2 bill which was enacted to prevent Charlotte from imposing its (lack of) values on all the rest of the state.

                   2. Yep. Montana did the same a few years ago. Now one not only has no duty to retreat, one may also stand their ground in defense of persons or property. Which does indeed merely codify into law how people behaved anyway, but now defines it as lawful behavior.

          2. Definitely something like the San Francisco’s two rounds of Vigilance Committees in the 1850s. The second committee, BTW – was kicked off by the murder of a crusading newspaper editor, who had been energetically railing against big-city political corruption. The committee recruited, organized, drilled ,,, and cleaned up the town.

             1. Precisely the precedents and model I was thinking of. They weren’t the only occasions where that happened in the West, either.

                More contemporary to our times, however? The returning veterans cleaning up Athens, TN.

                This stuff isn’t going to end where these bright lights think it will.

                1. In the end, political power always comes down to force. If your class shuns the tools of force, and refuse to serve in the various armed forces, your class will not retain political power.
                   The Left has abandoned the means of using force- partly because the draft dodgers of the 60’s wanted to justify their cowardice, and partly because that’s what the Soviets wanted.
                   Which means that the Left wants someone else to come and change things for them, because they are not able to.

                   1. Indeed. And, one of the things we have forgotten, because we have not seen it exercised, is that force can be applied in a very (small-d) democratic way; the American experiment has shown that order has flowed from the bottom up, in the past.

                      Yes, this can take on overtones of lynch mobs, but the left ought to be very wary of the manner in which the populace in more than a few Western towns chose to go about creating law from chaos; it was not a pleasant experience for those who were on the side of chaos.

                      Hollywood has done the Old West a horrendous disservice, focusing on the very limited amount of real lawlessness that was present. In actual fact, you were in more danger from criminals in the East than you were in the West, and that came down to the fact that in the West, people took responsibility for themselves and their own security, leaving a very narrow margin for the criminal to flourish. When they got out of control, very often the public got itself organized, and then took matters into their own hands.

                      I forget which western town it was, but I remember one story of a case where they got organized and hired a town sheriff, who was promptly killed by one of the visiting cowboy ne’erdowells who objected to having his fun interrupted. The town fathers and citizenry took offense at that, and promptly ran he and his buddies down, held a very quick little trial, and then hung them from the nearest tree. That was, if I remember right, sometime in the 1870s. It was the 1930s before someone was stupid enough to kill another of their city police officers.

                      Then, there was the Northfield raid…

                      1. “You can’t tree a town.”… Frank James, post-Northridge

                         1. Damn near every man in the West was a veteran of the bloodiest conflict known to man to that point in history. And they lived in a part of the country where real dangers were somewhat common.
                            Oh, and the James/Younger gang made the serious mistake of hitting the Northfield bank during the first week of hunting season when most men had their hunting long guns close at hand even during working hours.

                         2. No, you cannot. And, when you try to translate the terror tactics that work against the poor white trash in Missouri into something that will be effective against middle-class burghers in Minnesota…? Such things do not always come across.

                   2. I would argue that the Left has *not* given up the use of force. What they’ve done is embraced the understandable desire to limit the use of certain kinds of force. Shooting the wrongthinking bank CEO is out. Herding masses of the unwashed into a bank lobby to drive customers away is in.

                      And, of course, posting the CEO’s address on Twitter so that crazies you’ve never met before can terrorize him is also in.

                      The violence is okay provided you can claim distance from it.

                      1. The other way they are distancing themselves from it is to promote the idea among their ethnic minorities that for those minorities to commit crimes involving violence against their “oppressors” is a natural and justified reaction to the treatment of their ancestors.

          3. I mostly agree with you, Kirk, but I think that backlash will be reached when today’s special snowflakes take a page out of Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn’s playbook and start playing Weather Underground. I think we’re dangerously close to that now, especially given idiot celebutards like Madonna egging them on, idiot politicians deliberately inciting racial and political violence for electoral gain, and a malicious mainstream press that has been normalizing and mainstreaming Democrat radicalism, thuggery and violence for decades while portraying people like Ayers and Dohrn as civil rights heroes.

             Everything old will be new again:

             https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/

             The author of that above linked article – partly book review, partly an attempt to grasp the shape of things to come by looking at the recent past – makes some damned good points. And some scary ones.

             Everybody is equal before the law or they are equally lawless. The Democrats haven’t quite figured that out. And they probably won’t until the white middle and working class has had enough and starts rioting right back.

             1. “Everybody is equal before the law or they are equally lawless.”

                That’s what Jeff Sessions said in his confirmation hearings, and it is why the Democrats are so adamantly opposed to him as Attorney General.

             2. That’s exactly the point I’m getting at; the leftards are going to get overtly violent, there’s going to be a massive reaction from the center, and who knows where that ends?

                This time around, though? I don’t think the mistake is going to be made, where we let the ones like William Ayers and Dohrn live on to burrow into the realm of academia and become little nodules of cultural cancer, waiting to metastasize again when the conditions are right.

                With the right spark, the whole thing could get downright interesting…

                1. William Kunstler isn’t around to defend the modern equivalent of the Chicago 8 -1 +2. Though the MSM might turn it into a circus anyway.

                   1. This next go-round? I don’t think they’re gonna make it to a courtroom…

                      The truism that the law exists to protect the criminal from the law-abiding is lost on these types, and as we observe them act out… I suspect that the next generation of law-abiding types will be coming to question their commitment to the rule of law, if the other side isn’t going to abide by it.

                   2. The MSM doesn’t know it yet, but they are on the target list should things go kinetic. Like Mike Vanderboegh liked to say, Clinton rules are in effect.

                2. The legal/justice system does not exist to protect good people from criminals, but to protect criminals from good people doling out vigilante justice, i.e., saving us from ourselves.

                   1. PRECISELY and this is exactly where we’re headed unless we get very lucky.

                   2. Distinguo: The legal system exists to protect good people from the very nasty friends of the deceased criminals, who are eminently possessed of the skills required to take violent and excessive revenge. This goes back to Hammurabi. ‘An eye for an eye’ is not an encouragement to violence, but a limit; the alternative is blood feud.

                   3. Data Point 1:

                      http://myfox28columbus.com/news/nation-world/police-man-commuted-by-obama-murdered-suspects-at-large

                   4. Data Point 2:

                      http://www.abc12.com/content/news/Masked-gunmen-shoot-kill-man-who-had-his-sentence-commuted-by-Obama-411645985.html

                   5. Interpretation of Data Points 1 & 2:

                      I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that two guys with assault rifles might, just might, not be gang-bangers, and probably represent a somewhat more organized group. Like “vigilantes” or “pissed-off cops”.

                      This guy’s killing strikes me as being a bit too… Restrained? Organized? Targeted? Gang-bangers would probably not have felt too much in the way of qualms about just killing a bunch of random strangers in a halfway house, and once they get spun up, they usually do more than shoot one select guy, and call it good. Not and leave 20-odd witnesses behind.

                      I think it might well be interesting to track the future trajectories of the beneficiaries of Mr. Obama’s munificent pen, and see what happens to them, and whether or not they mostly straighten their lives out.

                      1. Nod but I think that was the point.

                         It was vigilante justice not “gang-bangers”.

                      2. It would fit with organized-and-head-down Mafia/Cartel/whatever model, though; it makes it so that the folks who need to fear them do, and Normal People don’t need to worry about it, which means less stuff headed at them.

             3. At my job some people were (hostilely) discussing Trump and the Women’s March on Washington, and they were actually, unironically COMPLAINING that Trump was “wasting his time” by talking to Putin and plannning to discusss security issues with Netanyahu instead of meeting with the WMoW leaders.

                My mind was boggled. Yeah. “Wasting his time” by negotiating with the second or third most powerful country in the world, and preparing to negotiate with our most vital Mideast ally, as opposed to being lectured by a bunch of random women whose march is most notable for wearing vagina costumes.

                Then, someone said darkly that “it’s not as if the Women’s March is going to go away.” Um, first of all, none of these women have anything better to do or that they want to do more than hang around Washington DC complaining about Trump? Or, rather, MOST of them don’t have anything better to do?

                And, second of all, what exactly are they going to DO to Trump if he ignores them forever? Keep marching around in giant vagina costumes? How does this impose pressure on Trump? It’s not as if he’s going to lose their votes — they never were going to vote for him.

                There’s a certain lack of acknowledgement of reality among them.

                1. And I bet these very same people chuckled loudly when Romney and Palin were mocked for pointing out that Russia was still a serious geo-political enemy. You’d think there’d be apologies by now.

                2. Then, someone said darkly that “it’s not as if the Women’s March is going to go away.”

                   But Russia and Israel are? I mean I know most of them are hoping for the later but Russia?

          4. So you’re describing the Bubba effect, which justifies every single prejudicial stereotype the left has about the right, vindicates the SLPC’s putting Tea Party groups on terror lists, all kinds of crazy stuff. This is not a thing to be wished for.
             Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail, and we don’t get to that point.

             1. When the fit hits the shan, it won’t be “Bubba” doing the deed; it will, instead, be guys like my neighbor, who are just ‘effing tired of the BS. And, I don’t think it will be anything organized in some formal way, either. The left is who does “organized political violence”; the folks I’m concerned about aren’t going to do much formal organizing. They’ll just act.

                Think “preference cascade with guns”, and you won’t be too far off.

                1. I told my husband a while back that for the past few years, I’ve been scared of an impending Cultural Revolution within ten years. Now I’m scared of a shooting war in three.

                   Not HAPPY about. Not “ooh, we’re gonna get those bastards”. OTOH, Mao has been my personal nightmare for years…

             2. “So you’re describing the Bubba effect, which justifies every single prejudicial stereotype the left has about the right, vindicates the SLPC’s putting Tea Party groups on terror lists, all kinds of crazy stuff. This is not a thing to be wished for.”

                When it gets to that point, do you think we will care about your stereotypes, or what lists the scamsters at SPLC want to put us on? I don’t particularly care NOW. No, at that point we’re going to reduce it to the same choices the Founders gave the Tories: “Leave for wherever will have you, stay and leave us alone, or die. Those are your choices and there are no others.”

                It would be well for you not to push us that far.

                1. Stereotypes or no, a breakdown like that in the social order is not a thing to be wished for. It will have horrifying consequences for more than just the vile progs, and I suspect what comes out the other end won’t be anything like what the founders were able to put together.

          5. I don’t think we’re too far from the point where bystanders just start walking up and putting bullets into the heads of these dipshits who block access to public venues in “protest”, or who break windows and start fires.

             There have been at least 3 cases, in the last six months, of bystanders shooting (and, I believe, killing) the guy who was assaulting a police officer.

             In every case, the guy who did the shooting wasn’t there when it started, showed up, and took care of stuff.

             The Arizona one, the most recent– watch the cop’s supervisor talking to the press. I both utterly empathize with why he made some word and phrasing choices, and have a severe case of black humor. Things like “the bystander inquired if the officer required assistance, and when the officer indicated he would, returned to his vehicle to retrieve a firearm.”

             This is good, no buts about it. It also suggests that people can and will start taking over their own protection when those who have monopoly on enforcement demonstrate they are refusing to abide by their part of the bargain when it comes to rioters.

             1. HE should have been carrying it.

                1. Don’t know the case involved but the Police Chief may have been joking about “going back for his gun”.

                   After all, I doubt that the gentleman asked the policeman “do you require/need assistance”.

                   IE It was obvious that the cop needed assistance. 😉

                   1. Even if he wasn’t carrying it, he could have been heading for a place where he wasn’t allowed to carry it.

                      1. Since he was driving to California, it might be that the head trooper is making sure nobody tries to screw with the good Sam who just saved his guy’s life. We both know there are monsters out there who can and will destroy a hero’s life because it advances their goals.

                         So even if the gun was loaded, cocked and on the seat, and the Uninvolved Third Party “left” his vehicle in the contest of cracking a door and yelling, gun inches from his hand– that becomes “returned to the vehicle for his weapon.”

                   2. Actually, “Do you want help?” “YES!” “BANG!” was the way I saw it reported, but who knows these days.

                   3. To borrow a phrase from Larry Ringo & John Correia’s Monster Hunter Memoirs: Sinners: SOCMOB.

                2. Nah, that’s a good way to get killed by the cop’s partner that you didn’t see. How are they supposed to know that Random Dude bailing out of his car with a gun is on THEIR side? That’s the whole point of uniforms.

                   I’m pretty sure it was something like:
                   *slams on breaks*
                   *bails out, still hanging on the door*
                   “Oh, my diety! Officer! Do you need help!?”
                   “YES! I was laying flares for this roll-over!”
                   *reaches back in car, grabs gun*
                   “GET AWAY FROM THE COP!”
                   *bad guy keeps trying to beat cop to death*
                   *bang* *bang* *bangbangbang*

                   1. Yeah, not in his hand. 🙂

             2. Here’s the page with the supervisor of the Arizona trooper– minutes after he left the guy’s side at the hospital, where the trooper’s first words were to the effect of “boss! You don’t need to be here….”

                http://www.cbs5az.com/clip/13024124/raw-video-col-frank-milstead

       2. Historically the Left has pushed the envelope deliberately inviting a crackdown to justify their opposition and claims the government is fascist.

          Sane Person: The government wouldn’t be employing excessive force if you were not challenging its authority.
          Marxist: That is just proof that the government is authoritarian and must be resisted.
          S.P.: The government wouldn’t be authoritarian if you were not resisting it.
          M.: When we are in charge there will be free speech for all responsible citizens.

          Remember, the Left’s motto has long been, “The worse the better!”

          1. But they would likely sing a different tune if the crackdown were not coming from the government.

    2. If the psychotic left thought it was gaining popularity and adherents with these demonstrations of violence, the MSM coverage would focus on those elements rather than kick metaphorical sand over such.

       1. Good point, but it’s also indicative that there is dissonance between the people running these things like Black Bloc, and the ones who are doing their PR work.

          Trying to damp down on this crap, in terms of coverage and discussion, just like the way they try to hide black-on-white violence, is not going to work or be at all healthy for the Republic. The counter-reaction to the media literally white-washing all the black-on-white violence, like at the various state fairs in the Midwest over the last few years…? Well, that was Trump. If they keep hitting the “snooze” button, and don’t deal with this stuff rationally, it’s going to spin out of control, and then we’re going to see real, live racist extremist groups doing really ugly things to innocent people in reaction. Blacks in the US simply do not understand the implications of them only being 13% of the population; they allow themselves to be co-opted by the radical left, as they have pretty much been, and the end-state is going to be monumentally ugly for them as a group. I don’t have a particular brief for or against, but I can see the tension building up in the spring, and the recoil ain’t going to be pretty. For any of us, regardless of the melanin content in our skins.

          Likewise with the violent left; the more they cover it up, the more that credence will be lent to the conspiracy theorists. Once you’ve seen with your own eyes that they covered over the violence you witnessed and experienced, it will be all too easy for rumor and insinuation to turn minds against these groups, and to see them as dire threats. Once the process begins, of delegitimizing the “official sources”, turning this shit around becomes exponentially harder. All you need is a believable demagogue, and the whole thing will turn into an impromptu pogrom.

          Hell, these days, it might not even take that: Imagine the firestorm that could erupt out of something like that story 4chan supposedly floated about Trump and his “piss prostitutes” were to happen to hit just the right note, at just the right time…?

          We live in interesting times, my friends, interesting times.

          1. The Radical Left wants to use minorities as cannon fodder for the Revolution. The over educated, white leftist hope is that the Blacks and Moslems and Hispanics will do all the nasty wet work, and then happily turn power over to them.
             Which shows that the white leftist really hasn’t thought things through- a surprise to us here, I know.
             The fact is that Rule of Law is not suppressing the inevitable rise of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Rule of Law, even tattered and full of holes, is what’s keeping the regular people of the USA from destroying the silly leftist.

             1. Stated more succinctly than I was putting it, but exactly what I was getting at. Both sides of that equation are going to wake up in the aftermath, even if they win, and realize they were had. Only, then it will be too late, and either the centric forces will have crushed them, or the Soros types will have coopted power out of their hands.

                Bolsheviks vs. Mensheviks: The only way to win is to not enable the sociopaths, period.

       2. Malcolm X is supposed to have said something to the effect that whites talked to Martin Luther King because they didn’t want to talk to him. In other words, it was fear of the black power movement, rather than an innate desire for justice, that motivated whites to advance civil rights. The idea is almost certainly garbage, but I’m sure that many on the Left buy into it. That explains both the Black Bloc and the lack of coverage. The “anarchists” think they’re helping by sparking the revolution while the media know that low-key coverage is more effective. Just enough to trigger some concern, but not enough to inspire Joe Sixpack to Do Something about the threat.

          1. Malcolm X would have said that because — true or false — it would have served to legitimize his stance. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have denied that because — true or false — it would have served to legitimize his stance.

             Most White Folk arguing for Civil Rights liberalization would have agreed with King because that reflected best on them. Most White Folk arguing against Civil Rights liberalization would have said that the threats from Malcolm X were why they shouldn’t negotiate with King.

             Funny how the arguments folk make so often serve to justify, legitimize and ennoble what they do.

             1. It’s almost as if we’re rationalizing rather than reasoning animals.

             2. I am pretty sure that most people had never even heard of Malcolm X until after MLK died.

    3. Read that Chelsea Clinton was defending Barron Trump. Did not click through to the article, but thought “Good for her.”

       1. She did; someone posted the tweet elsewhere. Sometimes I wonder if Chelsea is more caught in a bad family than part of the problem.

          1. That’s kind of my take- she’s an ordinary, normal lady who just happens to have the Clintons as parents.
             And since the Left has a closet Aristocracy fetish, they’re wanting to push Chelsea into a political limelight she doesn’t have the chops to handle.

             1. I’m going to disagree with your first paragraph. Young Ms. Clinton is almost certainly not normal–being raised by those two, how could she be?–but she wants out because she’s seen what overweening political ambition does to people.
                Frankly, she probably doesn’t have the ability to handle the limelight because she doesn’t want to. It would probably be best for her and everyone else if she were put to running the much-diminished Clinton Foundation and managed her parents’ speaking engagement fees and whatnot.

                1. I mostly agree, but think “normal’ in that nothing really stands out about her, in personality, in looks, in drive, or charisma. Think common/garden/average.
                   And kudos to her for not going off on a self destructive tangent like many spawn of political families. Such as the Kennedy hive.

    4. You do realize that the psychotic left started Trump’s reelection campaign on Nov 9th, right? Their unending hysteria and psychosis makes Trump seem normal and reasonable. Numbers aside, the Dems in Congress need to pick their causes carefully if they don’t want to be tarred with the same hysterical/psychotic brush.

       1. Theory I heard was that the big stuff was supposed to be to go celebrate Hillary’s coronation– money was already spent, so they just slapped some justifications on it and rolled with it.

          1. This would explain much.

       2. I was ambivalent about Trump until the left started melting down. (I voted based on which candidate could be most easily impeached and removed, so I did vote for him.) The full on tantrum they’ve been throwing since actually has me supporting him, however vile he may be personally. Four years of watching the snowflakes I loath twitch and squirm is an appealing proposition.

          Despite Trump being a reflexive Northeastern lib his cabinet picks have been fantastic. I suspect he’s doing it for spite. Someone’s whispering in his ear, “They called you a nasty name again. Scott Pruitt at EPA would make them pay for it!”

          1. This, precisely.

21. There was a clip of Mia Love (obviously either a perpetrator or a victim of While Male Privilege) talking about how current banking regulations hurt people trying to start their own businesses and break out of poverty that showed up in my feed on Facebook.
    I think I’m starting to see more adults coming out of the closet in the last two weeks. I hope this is real and not an illusion.

    1. Privilege while male? That’s even worse!

       1. My inner editor is incompetent and ought to be fired and replaced. Easier said than done, though.

22. As usual, you’ve nailed it. I had been thinking of the unhinged left as Antinomians, but you’re right: they’re more cultists than heretics. (Although a number of heresies did engender some cultish behavior.)

23. A YouTuber named Sargon of Akkad who did a really good video on feminism and cults. Definitely worth the watch.

    1. Sargon’s pretty good, but like a lot of Youtubers, he’s slow to make his point, and then overly repetitive. Most of his videos that I’ve seen would be much better if he edited them down to about half their current length.

24. If a cult is a religion without political power, then the Anti-Trump movement is more a religion, turned into a mass hysteria by the perceived threat to that power.

    1. the definition of cult is more slippery than that. Control and reality denying and not allowing perceived apostates are more part of it.

       1. Short version: Any tactics used in an abusive situation apply exactly for cults.

25. “they were taught, and believed it, that no Republican, ever would win again.”

    We’re watching what happens when prophecy fails. It ain’t pretty.

26. I still like Tom Kratman’s description of Progressives as Cultural Aids

    1. Or a computer virus. yes.

    2. Cultural Aids, no, for they are destroyers of culture, not aids of it. Cultural AIDS, OTOH…. not a bad description.

       1. Cultural clap.

          1. That makes sense, given the claptrap they produce.

27. I’m having this problem right at work. One coworker is merely turning into a pretzel bending over backwards to excuse or explain away the hypocrisy, manipulation, and outright lying of the VileProgs, while the other one has gone full Trump Derangement Syndrome, declaring everything from how horrible Trump’s cabinet picks are to now declaring that Trump is OBVIOUSLY refusing to release his tax returns because there are smoking guns about his illegal dealings in them.

    1. Tell him Trump will release them when Obama releases his college transcripts. Then smile.

       1. Sadly, he’s too smart for that too even slow him down.

       2. I said something similar to a FB friend of a FB friend. The response was basically, “No one cares about grades, but releasing tax records is traditional.” I then pointed out that releasing grades was traditional enough that it was one of the things that got him in trouble during his 1988 run.

          (Biden ran an ad stating that he did well in Law School; spoiler – not as well as he’d claimed)

       3. Or when Kerry releases his military records.

          1. But for which side?

             1. Right?

                1. I’m not sure he was ever on the right side.

                   1. I think she meant it as in, “I know, right?”

                      1. I did.

                2. Was thinking US or Soviet. The Vietnam vets I know have a strong negative opinion of him.

                   1. I know. I got that. That’s what I was saying. He might not have been a traitor. He might always have been on the other side.

                      1. Oh, I think we can be confident that Kerry was always on the Right Side of History.

       4. I liked the reply to the ‘demands’ for hearings/vote on that Supreme Court nominee… “We’ll talk about after a proper budget is passed.”

28. ” and I haven’t lost it and bitchslapped anyone in public”

    Give it time. 4-8 more years of this crap every. Single. Day.

    1. There’s all sorts of ties back to Soros money behind the violence. It’ll stop when the money stops. And that probably won’t happen unless it gets chased down for terrorism and subversive activity, or whatever it’d properly be called.

       1. The Koch brothers are libertarians, yet they are epitome of evil according to whoever owns Harry Reid’s treadmill. Soros is a billionaire Marxist activist so he is a libtard hero.

          1. They just mindlessly chant: “Koch brothers” with no actual understanding of what the Koch brothers actually believe.

             1. Binders!

29. I love you, Sarah (platonically, Dan!). Therefore I have a note on the monitor to figure out at least two books I haven’t bought yet – I really don’t want to see you resort to rummaging in the gutter of political office…

    (For one thing, there’s that little matter of the blood pressure – I fear your career could be brilliant – but all too short.)

30. Two points.

    1) There may be some “evaporative cooling” going on. In physics, “evaporative cooling” occurs when the highest-energy molecules in a mass fly away, so that the average energy (the temperature) of the mass goes down. This can happen as as the result of energy inputs – paradoxically.

    Human cults can undergo a similar process. A cult is based on a shared belief and/or the authority of charismatic leaders. Something may happen which explodes that belief or discredits the leader. Many people leave the cult. But the devotion of the remaining members is even stronger (on average); it is the doubters and weakly associated that leave.

    I think that’s happening now with the Left.

    My other point: see The White House and the Pauline Kael Syndrome, an essay by Charles Murray. Short version: In 1973, all six major US class segments were centrist. Over the next 35 years, five of the segments moved slightly to the right, but “Intellectual Upper Class” moved far out to the left.

    RTWT, of course.

31. In 1992 the Democrats were able to convince Americans that the economy was in serious trouble, not just correcting from the ’80’s bull markets. In 1996 they were able to convince Americans that the President looking the country in the eye and bald-faced lying was just an amusing personality quirk. In 2000 they were able to make people believe that W. was dumb (stupid people don’t get into the cockpits of jet fighters. They certainly don’t climb out of them). In 2008 they convinced Americans that Obama was a moderate. And in 2012 they managed to demonize Mitt Romney, possibly the most inherently ethical person to run for President in a generation. But in 2016 they couldn’t successfully demonize Donald Trump. Donald. #$@#$ing. Trump. The most powerful weapon in the Progressive arsenal, the control of the media, had been proven impotent. What we’re seeing now is similar to the reaction in the German trenches when the first tanks came crawling out of the smoke. And the worst part (for them, it’s pretty awesome for Americans) is that it’s not going back. People are abandoning the traditional propaganda media outlets and finding other, more trustworthy sources. The Democrat’s ability to shape the conversation is coming to an end.

    1. Not so much that as that everyone realized that they’d been sold a bill of goods in 2012. Throw in the “Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes” regarding certain events on the street, and, well…

32. On “teaching the small towns”. A couple I know knew did that with our small hamlet (500 or so people within a 10 mile radius). They came down from the Portland area. Lasted about 12 years, and they’re back up in Portlandia. No leftward drift in Deepest Oregon that I saw. Bless their hearts… 🙂

33. Like most men who sleep around, he likes not having to support any accidental products. (What? Did I say he wasn’t an asshole?)

    It’s more likely to horrify them because, gosh, you’re not supposed to point that out. It’s just ducky that women are expected to fight for the “right” to be a sex toy, with the reproductive act having no more of an outcome than if they were a blow-up doll.

    Same way that pointing out that a vasectomy on a guy is safer, cheaper and more effective than hormonal, barrier, chemical or surgical measures on a woman just gets a bunch of incoherent and/or biologically ignorant ranting. (How come it’s horrific for a guy to get a vasectomy when he’s a 20 year old man-whore, but horrific for a guy to not get one when he’s a married guy with two kids of the appropriate sexes, or three of any?)

    1. “How come it’s horrific for a guy to get a vasectomy when he’s a 20 year old man-whore, but horrific for a guy to not get one when he’s a married guy with two kids of the appropriate sexes, or three of any?”

       Well, for one thing, a vasectomy is not an effective preventative against transmission of disease.

       But that hardly qualifies as horrific.

       1. Neither are tubals, depo shots, birth control pills, and from memory spermicidal foams might partly do so it’s less effective than old wives’ tale type birth control.

          Even condoms don’t do much for those spread by, ahem, contact or from very small amounts of fluid.

    2. I’ve got 5. Never even thought of having a vasectomy. It closes off future options. And I can tell you for sure, none of the Mennonites or Amish near me think it’s horrific for a guy to not get one after 3 or 4 or a dozen.

       BTW, my standard answer for why I have 5 kids, since it is asked a lot, is: “That’s what happens when you’re married to a good Catholic.” As for the spacing, 2 of 5 were planned. None of them were unwanted.

       1. I get total strangers walking up and inquiring about why my husband hasn’t been “fixed.”

          We don’t have very many…well, pretty much ANY observant members of religions that value reproduction. Even the Catholics tend to be shocked at more than three kids.
          (It’s getting better, and several of the Asian subgroups were actually kinda envious, apparently the folks in our area have a very hard time, maybe because of how many were boat people…no idea.)

          An amazing number don’t care for the response where I look over our kids and say “…I think he’s working quite well, thank you for asking.”

          (Yes, I did practice it, after the first several times; same with the “yes, and we quite enjoy it, thank you for asking” response to the “you know, they know what causes that these days” version. Mom keeps trying to get me to practice the “yes, do you need tips?” version, but it’s just not my style.)

          1. Culturally, the Latter-Day Saints don’t complain about families with lots of kids. However, you don’t see many LDS families with more than 2 or 3 kids these days.

             1. Yeah, we had some awesome neighbors whose kids zippered with ours– their eldest, our eldest, their second, etc.

                They were awesome because they were basically the Mormon version of our Catholicism… total religion geeks.

          2. My reply to the “Do you know what causes it?” was “Yes. We practice frequently so we don’t forget.” Usually stops further inquiries that are really none of their business.

             1. “You don’t? Do you need me to explain it to you?”

          3. I’d probably pay a dollar to watch video of the “yes, do you need tips?” version, though, to see their faces.

          4. We don’t have very many…well, pretty much ANY observant members of religions that value reproduction.

             I can think of a couple of independent Bible churches near Houston, TX that do value kids. In both of those churches, I personally know a family with more than six kids. (Seven and eight kids respectively).

             My personal rule of thumb: the closer a family is to what used to be called “fundamentalist” Christians, back before fundamentalist Islam stole the original meaning of the word away from most people’s minds, the more likely they are to value having children, and to personally have quite a few more children than the American average (often around 4 or 5).

             1. We wanted to have eleven. It didn’t work out.

                1. I believe I heard my Mom state that she originally wanted five.

                   She ended up with 9.

                   1. We REALLY wanted 11. But I have the fertility of a small rock. In the desert.

             2. This is something I file under “None of My Business.” It says much that liberals don’t.

          5. I get total strangers walking up and inquiring about why my husband hasn’t been “fixed.”

             The next time, ask them why haven’t they been shot.

             1. “put down”, I think.

34. The thing about the whole ” teaching the small towns” deal is that the Leftist’s don’t get that they’re essentially trying to reprise the same song of the missionaries to the Indians who they so despise.
    Worst part of it is that they that they misheard the words and the tune.

35. At my job some people were (hostilely) discussing Trump and the Women’s March on Washington, and they were actually, unironically COMPLAINING that Trump was “wasting his time” by talking to Putin and plannning to discusss security issues with Netanyahu instead of meeting with the WMoW leaders.

    My mind was boggled. Yeah. “Wasting his time” by negotiating with the second or third most powerful country in the world, and preparing to negotiate with our most vital Mideast ally, as opposed to being lectured by a bunch of random women whose march is most notable for wearing vagina costumes.

    Then, someone said darkly that “it’s not as if the Women’s March is going to go away.” Um, first of all, none of these women have anything better to do or that they want to do more than hang around Washington DC complaining about Trump? Or, rather, MOST of them don’t have anything better to do?

    And, second of all, what exactly are they going to DO to Trump if he ignores them forever? Keep marching around in giant vagina costumes? How does this impose pressure on Trump? It’s not as if he’s going to lose their votes — they never were going to vote for him.

    There’s a certain lack of acknowledgement of reality among them.

    1. Probably a bug in their thinking. It is quite possible they have a protest-???-profit assumption. Like like leftwing dogma’s over estimation of the effectiveness of terrorism.

36. From the Wall Street Journal, so [SearchEngine] for the subhead text:

    Trump Foes Egged Me On to Support Him
    While walking to an inaugural ball, I heard shouts—and felt yolk run down my hair.
    By Barbara A. Smith
    It happened Friday night in the heart of gentrifying Washington. I was en route to an inaugural ball, but nearly every road in D.C. seemed to be barricaded, my Uber driver said. So I got out of the car to walk, although, like Cinderella, I was late and without an overcoat.

    The night was chilly, and I moved swiftly, my ball gown billowing and swaying with each step. As I passed an apartment building, someone started yelling—really yelling—out an open window: “Go back to where you came from!” And then I found myself covered in raw egg.

    The snap of eggshells breaking stunned me. Slimy, sticky yolk covered my face, dripped down my hair, and saturated my dress.

    I froze. Emily Post is silent on the proper way for a lady in a ball gown to respond to an aerial assault. I had to wing it. First, I yelled back. I had spent six years living here, I shouted, and Washington was as much my city as the place I now call home. But then I, too, began to crack, and the egg yolk on my face mixed with tears.

    [SNIP]

    I don’t expect to agree with all of his administration’s policies or even the rhetoric that Mr. Trump employs to make his case. But being assaulted based on an assumption that I supported him had a way of breaking through my reservations.

    I choose to stand with the ridiculed, the insulted, the belittled. I stand with those who voted for something new and different and a little scary. I stand with people who are tarred as bigots and misogynists—or even egged—simply because of their views on taxes, health-care reform or government entitlements.

    [SNIP]

    Ms. Smith is a lawyer in St. Louis with Bryan Cave. She worked in the White House Counsel’s Office for President George W. Bush (2007-09).
    — — —

    Sometimes it matters less who you stand with than who you stand against. The Anti-Trumpets are not doing a very good job of persuading adherents to their side.

37. “yes, yes, I KNOW exactly the texts you’re going to send me about brawny camp guards in snazzy uniforms. Just not in the middle of the night, okay, no matter how funny they are. I love you like a brother. I don’t want to kill you.”

    I wasn’t going to.

    OK, I was. But I won’t now. You spoiled it for me.

38. I loved “All You Zombies–“, but I don’t quite get the last line of the story. Can you help me out here?

    1. Zombies in this case means people NOT aware of what is really going on.

       1. Sad – my first thought was the Hooter’s song, not the Heinlein story. However, check out the last lines to the song:

          All you zombies show your faces,
          (I see you out there!)
          All you people in the street,
          (Let’s see you!)
          All you sittin in high places,
          It’s all gonna fall on you!

          Hmmm.

39. To understand most leftists you have to keep in mind a couple of things:
    1) Leftists are masters of projection.
    2) Leftists that aren’t virtue-signaling betas are nihilist alphas.

    Those characteristics pretty much explains all the crazy you see out there.

    1. except humans, particularly in the current age, don’t REALLY fall into those classifications. Oh, sure, some do, like the prison population, but that’s a population that’s not exactly adapted for modern life.
       Most of the people I meet are “goats” i.e. those who wouldn’t have fit the hominid band. Civilization has allowed us to out-breed the normals. Which means applying those classifications makes you feel good, but does bloody nothing.
       Most of the left are, rather, psychotic goats or what Dave Freer (who is an actual biologist) calls “fast, sneaky f*ckers” i.e. the tiny, not particularly masculine looking guys who impregnate the females and leave others to raise the children.

       1. Thag strong. Thag take mate.

          Ogg smart. Hit Thag with rock. Take Thag’s mate.

          Bernard smarter. Shoot Ogg with gun. Take Ogg’s mate.

          Nigel very smart. Manipulate Bernard’s financial situation, subvert Bernard’s mate with Bernard’s own money.

          And who is smarter than Nigel?

          1. Ox keep head down, ignore Thag’s mate. That Thag’s problem.
             er… Ogg’s problem.
             er… Bernard’s problem.
             er.. Nigel’s problem.
             Still Nigel’s problem.
             Poor Nigel.

             1. THIS. And meanwhile Moonella sees Ox is smart. Moonella makes moon-eyes at Ox. Next thing you know they’re married and couldn’t care less about the displays and show offs of the rest of the world. the end.

          2. Thag hide behind tree after recovering from rock-attack, catch Nigel alone, break Nigel’s neck, take back his original mate, and smugly congratulate Nigel as he lies dying for being so smart as to forget that money is only as good as people are willing to believe.

             (If Nigel really smart, Nigel have lots and lots of people on payroll to protect against attack like Thag’s. But people like Nigel often forget that people on payroll sometimes learn to hate people like Nigel just as much as Thag ever did.)

             1. Thag’s wife drives sharp bone through temple as he sleeps, cleans up the blood and covers the end of the bone with his hair. She mourns Thag and finds another victim at the funeral.

                1. From CSI Pithecanthropus: Horatio Gorg put on smoked-glass spectacles and say, “Looks like someone was bit slow . . . to get point.” (YEEEAAAGGGHHHHH!!!)

40. What’s hilarious is seeing the Left push the Pussyhatters as the new Tea Party, after the Left did everything in their power to defame the original.

    1. And they’ll do everything in their power to lionize this group. It’s enough to make a man want to go all Mencken and hoist the black flag, etc.

    2. And the Pussyhatters actually ARE racist and sexist. Their targets are just white and male.

       1. Actually, some on the Left are whining that the Pussyhatters are too quite, and that they discriminate against trans women.

          1. “too white”

             Sigh, it seems Confutus’s spellchecker is moonlighting.

             1. But not too Hamas, it would seem.

41. Trump claims that he has changed his mind on abortion, not because of his own kids or grandkids but because of something said by an acquaintance couple about their kids. I don’t understand the details, but it sounds odd enough to be true.

    1. I don’t actually care where Trump’s mind (or heart) is on abortion, just so long as his laws are in the right place. As Milton Friedman said:

       “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.”

       1. Live Action strikes again, reporting the news the MSM doesn’t want yu to see:

          Want prenatal care? Don’t go to Planned Parenthood
          Ask the President of Planned Parenthood what her organization does and Cecile Richards will tell you she runs a women’s health organization first, and an abortion provider second. The line is critical to their image, essential to their federal funding, and demonstrably false.

          Republicans will soon move to defund the abortion giant. Normally, Planned Parenthood would offer its reliable rebuttal that they’re more than an abortion provider, for instance, that they provide prenatal care to desperate women in need. But Live Action just exploded that excuse.

          Going undercover as pregnant women looking for prenatal care, the group contacted 97 Planned Parenthood clinics. They were turned down in 92 different clinics from Arizona to New York.

          Politicians might be confused about the mission of the organization. But the clinic employees surveyed by Live Action were clear on the concept, like the receptionist at the Tempe center who explained that “Planned Parenthood offers abortions, so they don’t offer prenatal care.” Put another way, they take babies out of this world. They don’t bring them into it.
          [END EXCERPT]

          Vid at link.

42. In support of Sarah’s observation:

    Study: Anti-Trump riots will make America more conservative
    Every time a rioter smashes another Starbucks’ window, a conservative voter is born. This has been America’s general reaction to the violent protests by the left over the last half century, according to a new study by Princeton University.

    Omar Wasow, an assistant professor at the Department of Politics at Princeton, found that hostile protests result in a far-right swing in the nation’s politics. This dates back to the Nixon administration and the Weather Underground domestic terrorist attacks.

    The coalition of “New Deal” voters that won the Democrats the White House in seven out of nine elections fell apart when Richard Nixon came onto the scene. He was able to campaign on law and order after violent protests erupted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

    This was also true of the violent radical Black Panther attacks during the late 1960s. The Black Panthers had a counter effect on the Civil Riots movement, which was largely non-violent.

    “I find that black-led protests in which some violence occurs are associated with a statistically significant decline in Democratic vote-share in the 1964, 1968 and 1972 presidential elections,” Wasow wrote. “Black-led nonviolent protests, by contrast, exhibit a statistically significant positive relationship with county-level Democratic vote-share in the same period. Further, I find that in the 1968 presidential election exposure to violent protests caused a decline in Democratic vote-share.”

    So the effects of Black Lives Matter and the violent protests after Trump’s inauguration may upend all the efforts of the non-violent protests against the new administration.

    1. Schadenfreudaliscious.

       Good links, thanks.

43. because “he held the rainbow flag upside down and it was a dog whistle”

    Oh, fuck me…I do most of my out of the house drinking at a leather bar and I couldn’t have told you it was upside down. How am I supposed to believe the stereotypical evangelical would know that?

    I mean, I can even make our hostess lose sleep with some of the weird stuff I know 😉 and I didn’t catch that dog whistle.

    1. DUH. Probably half of my male friends are gay, and none of them could believe this. My favorite was when they said it wasn’t made by a “certified” gay person. At least one of my friends wants the certification rights.

       1. And I am still embarrassed to admit I personally know the person who said it. 😦

          1. Not your fault. I admire you for not having killed the idiot yet.

             1. Oooh. Is Milo an UNLICENSED gay? The rebel!

                I don’t have a number tattooed on my arm yet. Is this because I’m an unlicensed bisexual, or because someone in the giant rolling hissyfit clusterf*ck of the LGBTWTFOMGBBQ movement has decided bi doesn’t count, again?

                Or maybe it’s because our president really doesn’t give a damn, and neither do our neighbors. I’ll take that answer for 500, Alex.

                1. The fact of the matter is it doesn’t matter how many times a man has another man’s **** in his *****, if he isn’t a leftist he can’t be gay and he’s probably a homophobe.

                   Same thing about having kids and being a woman (although apparently it is a greater achievement to have an abortion than a kid), black skin and be black, and so on.

                   Guy on local radio argued yesterday morning at this point: “women”, “gay”, “black”, etc are ideologies not descriptions of biology or behavior. I think he is right.

                   1. Sadly, I find myself agreeing with you…. *facepalm*

                   2. “Are you $X or $Y? $A or $B? $Q or $P?”

                      “You know, I never really think about it. I’m me and that that’s all I really need.”

                      “But, are you….?”

                      “If you need to classify, that’s not my problem. It’s yours. I’m me.”

44. I TOLD you the zombie apocalypse is here. *smh*

    1. I know, right?

45. This years’ Hugos should be interesting.

    1. It should be deserted….

    2. Hugo? Isn’t that a car based on the Fiat, made in Hugoslavia or something?

       1. Yep. 😀

46. Today’s America is still progressing in the manner predicted by Rand in “Atlas Shrugged”. Is Trump a political John Galt? It’s tempting to laugh that off, but watching his apolitical vector, perhaps it’s worth some hope and consideration on how to leverage the momentum being built. But Rand knew the danger of mob mentality, and we should be wary if it ends up being Thugs vs. Zombies.

47. Reblogged this on pundit from another planet.

48. Liberalism is to some extent still alive and well and a good thing, but liberalism has been co-opted by the cult of “social justice” (which is closely related to modern-day Feminism). Mainly in academia, and through academia the media and politics, and through the media the entertainment industry as a whole.

    The central idea of the cult is that it holds equality of outcome as an unquestioned absolute value that trumps all other values.

    1. So did the French Revolution.

49. Four hundred ninety-five comments? That’s Ace of Spades Headquarters numbers right there.

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