Resolved: The Higher The Fewer

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

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Guys, pssst?  Can someone check on the left? Because something is seriously, bizarrely wrong.  I mean, wrong enough that if the left, collectively, tripped into a hospital’s ER, they’d be slapped with a psychiatric hold.  These people — collectively — are not well.

Look, when I was growing up, one of our merry band was schizophrenic.  When he felt his insanity coming on, he’d go and commit himself, because he didn’t want to hurt anyone.  We can only hope (in vain) that the left could have that kind of insight into their mental processes.

Recently, I heard of someone also suffering from mental illness, who removed every electrical wire from his house, bashed his laptop, the radio, the TV and his telephone, sent in his own obituary and generally posed a danger to himself and others because the aliens/CIA/someone was spying on him through all of those.  He might be saner than the left.

No, seriously. I was texting to Bill (Reader) yesterday and I said something like “the left is so crazy it’s starting to scare me.  What kind of rational human being thinks we should reorganize our entire economy because an indoctrinated SWEDISH teen needs to allay her anxiety?”  And then he said, “Or for instance, that Biden is corrupt, therefore impeach Trump.”

And then I realized there were a ton of other things just as insane from that side of the isle, and I had to think, and then…

Okay, we’ll ignore people like Rashida Tlaib going on about how black market vaping cartridges have coffee and alcohol and other things that can’t be digested by the lungs, and Alexandria Occasional Cortex going on about filming the poisonous effluvia of fracking at a place where no fracking was happening and therefore it was just heat waves from drilling machinery.  We’ll ignore this, because stupid is as stupid does, and the concentrated stupidity in the “squad” is denser and harder than the core of some stars. On the other hand, consider, ladies and gentlemen, that the democrats and the press (but I repeat myself) think that creatures of such impressive density, whose stupidity is even now influencing the orbit of distant galaxies, are worthy not just of being in congress (I mean, the Romans, famously put a horse in the Senate. Who are we to complain about mere donkeys?) but are people we should listen to, and give any type of attention to and/or look to for the future of this country.  No, think about it for a moment. It will prepare you for what is to come.

As I sat there, staring at my phone screen, I realized some of the crazy is so crazy that the mind has attempted to erase it. I always said that the Obama administration had the interesting strategy of covering scandal with scandal, but I swear the democrats/progressives/ happy face socialists, (whatever the hell they call themselves this week. They keep changing names like a bad Chinese restaurant that cooks the neighborhood pets) these days cover crazy with crazy, until your mind rebels at the sheer amount of insanity and regurgitates it, like a cat that has swallowed half a bag of marshmallows (I’m looking at you, Havelock.)

The crazy has been so, you’ll pardon the allusion, fast and furious that I forgot one of the incidents first time through, and probably am forgetting some now.  We won’t even go back till the Mueller investigation was revealed as utterly hollow and probably fraudulent from the beginning.  Mostly because in the aftermath the NYT admitted it was trying to distract us with “racism, racism, racism” and such poor scholarship that even other leftists called them on it.

But somehow, somewhere along the line, the dime dropped that these days you can put the American people to sleep with “racist!” or its new hip variant “white supremacist.”

In between there, sometime, there was the bizarre obsession with “children in cages” which they never seemed to comprehend were ALSO from Obama’s tenure. (And we got the picture of Occasional Cortex staring forlornly into a parking lot, and a lot of other nuttery) And also somehow this morphed into “detention of people trying to illegally cross our border is like German death camps.”  Because you know, the problem Nazi Germany had was all those Jews trying to cross the border to come in.  WHAT?  Yes, it’s exactly like it, except where it’s not like it at all, which is all over.

But the left has minds so completely virgin of history that they make virgin olive oil look like promiscuous olive oil, and so from this bizarre a-historical comparison, they jumped not only to attacking ICE facilities and defacing American flags (question for the audience, what flag do they think they would prefer? Do they really think an invader would put them in charge? Don’t answer that. “Think” is a misnomer for what passes for their mental processes at this point. It’s like the random firing of defective, partially wet fireworks) but also to thinking that “free health care for illegal aliens” and “abolish ICE” is a winning point for their 2020 platform.

Look, guys, can thorazine be made into tranq darts? I think we’re going to need them.

But somehow, this fail-safe way to win American hearts and minds failed (save for a few empty heads in the suburbs who kept bleating “but the children” as though it were kind to encourage unscrupulous parents and kidnapping strangers to grab the kids and drag them the length of the Americas getting raped along the way by making “but the children” a get out of jail card to walk dry shod onto American soil.) I know, un-possible. And yet it failed. Possibly because as the fiercely heterosexual Cory Booker says, so many of us are “despicable.”

And so — because, as I read somewhere (might have been the NYT) they’re counting on (I swear I’m not making this up) scandal fatigue (attached to Trump!) to win them the 2020 election, the left decided to go completely, pants on head, writing obscene words on your naked bods with indelible marker, dancing a jig in subzero weather nuts.  We’re not talking the gentle madness of planning a transatlantic bridge made entirely out of soap. No, in retrospect that was the Mueller inquiry.  This… this is something completely … well, crazier.

So, what have  we seen:

Well we saw Beto O’Rourke not only saying that damn the second amendment, full speed ahead, if he won the election he was coming for our guns, but — mark my words about this, please — having T-shirts printed up with this, as though he thought, nay, was SURE this would be the making of his campaign.  No, seriously.

It is as some liberal but still sane guy said recently as if “The left thinks it’s campaigning in a country slightly to the left of Sweden.”

I’d say more than that. I’d say they think they’re campaigning in a country as disarmed as England.  Let me assure them we still have not just our knives, our screwdrivers, our sharpened spoons, but also our guns.  And saying “you’ll let me take them because I say so” doesn’t sit too well with us Americans. I suppose it’s not Beto’s fault that he never met any of us. I’m going to assume he landed, the day before that debate, from some other parallel world where there are no Americans.

Maybe in that world, the Swedes rule America.

Then there was Kavanaugh thing.  You’re going to say “Oh, old news.” Oh, au contraire, mon frere in suffering through this craziness.
No. Kavanaugh was brought up again, and the left wanted to impeach him — yes, impeach him — because some book recently published said he’d wagged his penis in someone’s face when he was eighteen. The book also said, mind you, that the woman denied and said she didn’t remember any such thing.

And when the supposed victim of this crime said “never happened.” they said that just because she couldn’t remember it, it didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Yes. The left, ladies and gentlemen, small dragons, wingless birds and feathered mammals, the political side that #believeallwomen, even people who suddenly remember things that supposedly happened forty years ago in a house that doesn’t seem to exist, when a designated victim says she doesn’t remember anything of the kind and it never happened says, “Forget the drunken slut. She doesn’t remember but that don’t mean nothing. Wouldn’t remember her own name if it weren’t tattooed on her butt. Listen to us. We must impeach a supreme court justice because we say so and will stomp our little feet and scream till you do what we say.”

Which funnily enough, between Sweden and tantrums brings us to the next item: Turns out the left believes that the best way to treat a child’s anxiety is to rearrange the entire economy of the world.  No, seriously.

I was on a forum where a woman said we shouldn’t discount the opinions of Greta Thunberg just because she’s mentally ill.

Okay, then. I suppose the guy who ripped out all the wiring of his house should be listened to. I mean, perhaps there were in fact aliens spying on him through the wires.  I’m sorry, if you’re merely depressed, your opinion might have some validity.  Distorted, maybe, but there might be something there.

But if you’re a child who suffers from both a cognitive disorder that makes it impossible to identify irony, hyperbole and lying AND from depression, why would anyone in their right mind pay attention to what you have to say?  Worse, note the CHILD in the last sentence. Greta Thunberg is a child who has not, in fact, finished the equivalent of high school.

Now, I know that children can be geniuses. I am the mother of a diagnosed “profoundly gifted” son, and another who is “at least one standard deviation above him.”  I’m here to tell you that both of them can be very knowledgeable about whatever their field of specialty is.  Which at sixteen was…  Do you know how many bizarre arguments I endured over the best way of making ME a body replacement robot, so I wouldn’t have auto-immune attacks? Or the life history of various comic book heroes, with and without retconning?  I would absolutely listen to them, then, on those subjects. Because they were probably the greatest living authorities on them, and also on various convolutions of Asterix the Gaul. Or in the case of one of them, the economic policies of ancient Rome.

You know what they weren’t authorities on? What international policy and economics should be. You know why not? Because they were sixteen.

Even adults can’t grasp how one could change world economics without killing most of the population, to avert global warming if it were a problem (hint, it doesn’t seem to be. Or at least not within foreseeable future. Or at least none of the people who claim to believe in it actually act like it is a problem.)

But, oh, dear Lord, the left, and Europeans — WTF really is the Monaco Royal Family thinking? Have they reached the level of inbreeding where they’re as dumb as Occasional Cortex? — and the press, think that this girl, because she’s sincere and angry is somehow worthy of talking in front of our congress and the UN (as if the UN needed to further beclown itself) on how we must all change things because we Faiiiiiiiiled her.

I realize that throwing tantrums has got her parents to structure their entire lives around her dictates, but what no one has explained is how and why they expect the rest of the world to do so.

Look, any of my kids when they were young and living with us, telling us we needed to change something like our dinner time because we’d faillllllled them and were ruining their childhood would be told “Tough. Also shut up child the adults are talking.”

But the world is supposed to stop for Greta Thunberg, because she’s disabled and really, really indoctrinated? Oh, and has pigtails.  Well, then. Neither of my boys had pigtails. Must be the difference.

And of course, just in case this failed, the left organized a massive, all out tantrum by giving the kids time off to leave school and demonstrate, stomping their feet and demanding we stop everything because they’re scared.

I guess because they don’t have kids, the left exaggerates the power of children tantruming?  because for us parents, that’s called “Wednesday.”  We used to look at our kids, throwing themselves to the grocery store floor, pumping arms and legs and go “Cute.  Okay. We’re leaving. Call us when you have a job.”  This usually stopped the tantrum and got them walking sheepishly beside us.

Metaphorically speaking, that’s the only response Greta, who comes from a country as far left (in fact) as Sweden deserves from the United States. I don’t care how “sincere” she is. If her fears really were of man-made global warming, she’d be lecturing India and China, not us.

So, take her away from her horrible, insane parents.  Give her to human beings to raise. Whipping the parents in the public square till the blood runs freely is probably not practical, and besides they might enjoy it.

But wait, wait, “You must give us socialism because this Swedish kid is upset and besides we have all these other kids who will take a day off school and hold up signs” isn’t the sum total of the left’s madness… Oh, no.

No. Possibly the best part of the last two weeks is the left demanding that we impeach Trump because Joe Biden is corrupt.

Sure, there’s other stuff there, but already the wheels are coming off, between Trump releasing the transcript of the call, and apparently the “whistleblower” not actually having heard the call to Ukraine, so he’s blowing his little whistle on … hearsay? and… Oh, yeah, this guy works for the Clintons, seems like, or at least that’s what I got from the convoluted chain of who is paying whom…

Is your head hurting yet?  Mine is.

Guys, in my misspent youth, I looked after friends who were suffering through bad acid trips and who were more rational than the left has become.

I fully expect sometime next week they’ll start an inquiry in the House on “Why is a mouse when he spins?” and return a resolution of “The higher, the fewer.”

Which would be hilarious, if these people didn’t have the power of the purse, if (through their press branch) they didn’t manipulate the perception of the US abroad, and if we were absolutely sure that we can beat the margin of fraud.

As is, though, it’s like being locked in a small room with someone who has gone completely and utterly insane.

Any minute now, they’re going to swagger over, wave something in our face and say “See, see? I told you the US is evil and Trump is a dictator. I have proof. Proof, I tell you.”
And we won’t know how to break it to them what they’re holding is a fistful of their own excrement.

383 thoughts on “Resolved: The Higher The Fewer”

  1. Perhaps it has been done but…

    Mental illness is an alien bioweapon spread by strong negative emotion and killed by rational thought and/or good feelings.

  2. Greta Thunberg is being used as a circus freak or vaudeville performer, or the equivalent of a celebrity lecturer. There were child lecturers back on the lecture circuit.I

    So yeah, the Monaco royal family is just doing some public virtue signalling, and thus protecting their casino and their Formula One racing. By making it ridiculously public and expensive, they perform an act that non-oceangoing yacht owners cannot equal.

    But yeah, I would rather be Jenny Lind. Although the crowned heads messed her up, too.

    1. What I want, after all the “you can’t criticize a 16 year old” defense of her is an explanation of how that works given Covenington.

      Yes, I know how it works, but after the whole trying to get Casey King for what he did at 16 thing I’m really done with the press.

      2. The feel-good portion of the Casey King affair was the blowback. The governor proclaiming Casey King Day was a nice gesture. The fact that the reporter discovered that deep twitter research goes both ways was priceless.

        And, seeing the editors taking a 12 gauge to theirs and the paper’s reputations was a fitting coda. Personally, I didn’t think one could shoot yourself in that part of the anatomy with a shotgun.

        1. For the first time in decades I sent a letter to the editor, of the Des Moines Register:

          Much has been made of the danger to a free press and with it democracy by the President of the United States calling the press the enemy of the people.

          The Register this week, by doing a “routine background check” on a young man whose only meaningful pubic action was an act of charity is a perfect example of why the President is able to make that claim. The fact the reporter writing the story could not pass the same check is telling and damning.

          Like any freedom, freedom of the press carries a responsibility to use that freedom wisely. The reporter and his editors were unwise. In publishing a report whose only purpose was to punish someone for gaining attention after an act of charity they were also evil.

          If you do not wish to be perceived as an enemy, do not act like one.

          1. Oh, bingo! The graduates of our Journalism Schools are sooooo invested in their self-image as Crusading Searchers For Truth and Protectors of the Downtrodden that being flatly informed that they are nothing but one more bunch of Progressive Shills and liars must come as a shock.

            Good.

            2. They imagine themselves exempt from any need to burn a match before leaving the bathroom — and entitled to critique the stench all* others leave.

              *Well, not all, as we know. Some are more exempt than others from the normal disciplines of human decency, as Teddy Chappaquiddick could have testified.

              1. I have sometimes wondered if Chappaquiddick and certain other incidents could have been Teddy-boy’s subconscious reacting to “Jesus Christ, if I get within reach of the White House ‘They’ will probably kill me too!”

                I did once have a Con button that read, “John, Robert, Teddy…two out of three ain’t bad”

                I can just imagine the reaction that would get today.

    2. Anybody know the carbon footprint of Formula One racing?

      For that matter, anybody know the carbon footprint for the guys flying over from Europe to fetch back Greta’s boat?

      For that matter, how is Greta getting back?

      2. The guys who brought the boat to America were flying home.
        The crew taking the boat home flew over here.
        Mz Greta was flying back to Sweden.

        Since the crew is 4-6 people, and we can assume Mz Greta has at least one adult handling her while abroad…
        we have at least 12 legs of aircraft travel that could have been accomplished with two.

        What’s that work out to, carbon footprint-wise?
        Greta, heal thyself.

            2. If you want a horse senator with staying power, you need to vote for Senator Gwine. He will stay the course because as everybody knows:

              Gwine to run all night,
              Gwine to run all day.

  4. On the bright side, somebody did a Charlotte Lucas that had her wanting to marry Mr. Collins because she wanted to do parish work.

    Unfortunately, this instantly turned into “huge numbers of prostitutes working on Lady Catherine’s estates desperately need a prostitution ministry. Charlotte makes friends with them and brings them to Jesus, and anybody else opposes her.” Or so it looks like. I am kinda afraid to check.

    I mean, if it turned out that Lady Catherine had a rich London or York parish in her gift, and they got transferred, I could see that this would be a possible. And using Mr. Collins as an example of a lukewarm clergyman of the sort the Oxford Movement or the Methodists tried to stir up — okay, very historically plausible.

    But either you are talking about two or three women out in the country, or Lady Catherine and Mr. Darcy are doing terrible jobs of estate and tenant management. I mean, yes, maybe at a major coaching inn center, or at a canal transhipment hub, or something.

    But Derbyshire was a center of water-driven cotton mills. They wanted to employ women, and that included pretty nice company housing. There were a bunch of related industries. I mean, I would like to see the crime statistics or other records of this prostitution surge in rural high tech Regency England.

    2. I always thought Charlotte gets a bum rap from the moderns. She knew what she wanted and she made it happen. And no self-pitying nonsense about paying the price, or taking it out on those around her.

      Serious class and honor that one.

    1. Having watched people on Lithium try to play basketball (job #247, it’s a mental health facility because they’re not guilty by reason of insanity… So let’s design a facility with no fence but surrounded by a moat and spanish bayonets (a spiky plant) because only crazy people would charge through spiky plants and through an alligator-filled moat….(yes, that was the original plan of the facility – yes, designed by dems – and yes, within 2 weeks a 20′ tall fence with razor wire was being built, no, seriously, actually happened…)) I no longer wonder what meds many of the people in Congress are on. I mean, Sheila Jackson Lee? Pelosi? That stupid hat lady from SOUTH FLORIDA (note- not Florida, SOUTH FLORIDA, where stupid northerners have taken over our state like a cancer…)

        1. Our area of southern Oregon gets the less-rich Californians and occasional transplants from the lower territory west of the Cascades. Our winter weather helps many of them to decide on less *stimulating* places to live.

          Rule of thumb around here: If they’re newcomers, wait two winters before making friends. Happened to us, but both $SPOUSE and I had previous experience in snow country.

          1. I understand it’s from 2 to 5 years in Hawaii as well before the locals befriend one, as the tropical weather masks the island fever issues of living on a limited chunk of contiguous land.

            1. And “locals” as used above refers to the previously-immigrated; I hear the Kama’aina keep to themselves.

          2. What are the winters like there? Cold, dry and sunny or more not so cold, wet and overcast? I like the former, can’t stand the latter and unfortunately got stuck in that one part of Finland which has mostly the latter.

        2. Oh how I’d love to agree with you.
          But You got the Twin Cities, Wi has Milwaukee, Madison, and I got Detroit, Lansing, Ann Arbor (and Traverse City has become “trendy” and the Mendacious Michigan Manatee resides there from time to (o many) times).

  6. It is almost as if there’s been a conversation going somewhere about the whole thing. Trump. Impeachment. And so on…

    “It’s crazy to think we can impeach a sitting president when the economy is this good!”

    “So you’re saying there’s a chance…”

    1. Hell, I’d say that while the economy is certainly helping, the real issue at hand is…he hasn’t done anything to be impeached over!!!

      But that isn’t slowing them down one bit, because they’re all, to quote Pratchett, “totally blinkers”

      1. Cray-cray as they look to normal folk, to those living inside the lib-bubble, the rules are different. You really can score points with no competence, wit, or anything much but luck (AOC). And when you say “Rebulicans really are evil and must be destroyed,” your peers nod their heads. You get likes on twitter. The social attaboys really can change a person’s behavior.

        It’s hard work to stick to your guns when everyone around you knows it as an article of faith that climate change is going to wreck the world in three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen years or so. Human beings are social creatures, even reclusive hermits like yours truly. If you *say* you agree with them often enough, or even just don’t fight back hard enough in your own head… eventually you may start agreeing in little ways. If they find you out, you are shunned, and I mean that more in the old medieval way. Well, milkshakes instead of stones. Probably.

        The whole creepy cult-following thing they have going on is in no way sane, that’s for sure. I mean, remember the whole post election shock and disbelief? They were on the right side of history! And they’d pushed all the right buttons, bribed all the right people, had control of the media, the schools, and heck, were working on the courts. What could possibly have gone wrong?

        I think I have it around here somewhere… Lessee…

        “Not a smidgen-” no, that’s not it. “I did not sleep with that-” nope, not that either. “The earth will be covered in a sheet of ice in-” nuh-uh. “”I’ll more flexible after the-” not that one. “At this point, what difference-” not just no but *hell* no. “We have to pass it to find out what’s-” it’s around here somewhere. “You didn’t build-” still no. “I have a pen and-” it’s in here somewhere, I swear…

        Ah! I seem to recall it now. They’re going to impeach Trump/win the election/pull the wool over our lying eyes one more time because the American people have “Trump scandal fatigue.” Overheard that one just this week. *chuckle*

        2. The only “scandal fatigue” people have is the one manufactured by the Democrats. I’m so tired of them making up lies out of whole cloth, that even if Trump was caught red-handed giving nuclear bombs to Iran, I’d have to wonder if the Democrats didn’t set him up.

        3. Trump scandal fatigues? Do they come in digicam? Is there a choice of olive drab, desert tan or naval blue?

        4. t’s hard work to stick to your guns when everyone around you knows it as an article of faith that climate change is going to wreck the world in three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen years or so. Human beings are social creatures, even reclusive hermits like yours truly. If you *say* you agree with them often enough, or even just don’t fight back hard enough in your own head… eventually you may start agreeing in little ways

          Yes. John Darbyshire, before he got kicked off the plantation for telling a truth about Black American culture, wistfully noted that you have to be a curmudgeonly jerk to hold the line when deeply embedded Progsville. Or on the spectrum, as they call it, because you can’t help yourself. Thank God.

          It makes disqualifying the fighters very easy.

            1. Basically, he is a curmudgeon, and one who takes some glee in tweaking noses….
              And forgot that folks on the Right don’t have an endless appetite for outrage, or reason to pretend the same.

            2. I was not being charitable. The kind of personality that can naturally hold the line and go cross-grained to what all the nice, correct-thinking persons approve is … what it is.

              I’m pointing out that if you live in a culture saturated with corruption (see Mrs. Hoyt’s post today) at every institution such personalities become valuable.

              Doesn’t make them any more endearing.

              1. Also — trust me on this — it doesn’t make their paths through life easy.
                cough. However, sometimes people thus maimed save civilization.
                “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never. In nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force.Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy”- Winston Churchill

        5. ** American people have “Trump scandal fatigue.” **

          Nope. Just caused me to go out and get more popcorn. Pointing & laughing at the idiots is free and a bonus.

      2. Whattya mean, he hasn’t done anything to be impeached over?

        He got elected, din’t he? He’s got an “R” after his identification, don’t he?

        What more do they need?

        Oh, sure, back in the late Nineties the Dems were all over the meaning of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, but we all know the only real crime they really fret over is defeating their candidates.

  7. It’s the kind of “thinking” which leads people to brand themselves as “anti-fascist”, thus making anyone who criticizes them “pro-fascist”.

            1. I feel they are more an SA over SS. They will find once they are more threat than useful, all their habits (like many of the SA being homosexuals) will be reason to be rid of them.

          3. Calling those soyboys “brownshirts” is quite a stretch. They can’t march in step, they can’t follow orders, and most of them pretend to lactose intolerance and gluten allergy.

            They’re like sad-sacks that didn’t make the cut to be brownshirts.

            1. I prefer to call them “Blackheadss”.

              Occasionally, I use ” RedAbtilung”.

              “Brownshorts” seems to fit.

    2. It is also how you get people driven to the fascists, because they are the only ones not attacking them.

      Similar to how the PUA/MGTOW communities have gotten so much traction.

      2. Or to put it in WW2 era terms –

        Joined the fascists because they were the only ones standing up to the communists. Joined the communists because they were the only ones standing up to the fascists.

    3. Meh. The ation’s been there and done that: back in the Fifties when the Left claimed their defense of the Rosenbergs was “anti-anti-communism.”

      1. Talk about craycray, you can still find individuals defending the Rosenbergs.

        I mean, we have the actual Soviet archive records from the period before Vlad The Shirtless locked the NKVD/KBG archive doors that detail exactly what the Rosenbergs did.

        But still…

  8. Which is why there has been no vote to begin the process of investigating an alleged crime for which Orange man Baaad should be impeached.
    As an R congressman said yesterday, such a vote is required to begin the process, but once taken, the process would allow Trump to begin defending himself, by, for instance, issuing subpoenas and taking depositions.
    So … Off with his head! We don’t need no stinking evidence, because FU, that’s why.
    I am concerned that the next year is going to get sporty, because these idiots have no concept of the size of the powder keg at which they are throwing lit matches.
    John

    2. Pelosi isn’t as dumb as people think. Actually having the vote to begin impeachment proceedings would A) Put everyone’s votes on the record, and B) Risk losing the vote. It would also force them to outline exactly what the charges are. Sure they can still spew the hate-of-the-week, but as far as the impeachment, they would have to stick to whatever they put to the vote.

      Not holding a vote allows them to spew their hate and impeachment talk all the way through the election season, giving every Dem in the house a very special Trump-hate soap box to try to help get Their Woman elected (even if that woman ends up being Biden or Sanders. Although latest word suggests it will Warren. Too early to say for sure though).

      1. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the whole impeachment stunt this week was Pelosi attempting to stall the base in its attempts to seize power from her and drive the party over a cliff. Apparently after the post-announcement meeting, some Dems confirmed privately that nothing of substance had changed.

      2. “This is a Constitutional Crisis! We cannot wait for evidence, we must IMMEDIATELY initiate an Impeachment Investigation!

        “BTW: Friday we’re leaving on a two-week vacay.”

        1. My thoughts exactly. Stave off the threat from the left and take a couple weeks off to let things settle down.

          Maybe Mr. Trump will tweet cofveve, or a Republican will be caught in flagrante or something will get the excitable lemmings off in a new direction.

          Hmmm…

          Might be wise to avoid crowds for a couple weeks.

      3. I think there’s also an element of “now we can dig through his private records (like tax returns) for some real juicy dirt!” to this. Trump basically said when they subpoenaed his tax records, “talk to me when you’ve got an actual impeachment going on” and now they do.

        I think he still has a very valid argument that it’s a fishing expedition until they allege exact crimes (and thereby expose the relevance of things like tax records). But now they think they can defeat his “obstruction”.

        1. The problem is they will not have that until they hold a floor vote on impeachment…. and all the precedents are in Trump’s favor.

        2. and they will declare in public “Trump didn’t pay any net taxes for 20xx!!!!one!!!11!!!” while in private they show it to their CPA and go “SEE, that’s the way to do it”

    3. I have already scheduled vacation election week next year. I plan to hunker in the house and be ready for the violence, because I no longer think it can be avoided.

      Once 2021 calendar opens same for inauguration week.

      We are well past the the chance to turn back from “there will be blood”. The question now is can it be contained and, much like the question of ‘if’, that is up to the sanity level of the left.

      And yes, I actually think violence will be worse if they win. It’ll be lower level initially but more widespread as they will take that as permission.

      1. I bow to your superior intellect and foresight – and hope I can connive, er, convince “human* resources” to let me have those time off as well.

        * Got them fooled! (More likely: they have no damns left to give. Ox show up. That put ox in Mythical Realm right there, for them. Call in once, years ago. Response was “Is he dead?!” Ox not show up almost like “sun not rise.” ALMOST.)

        1. I’m worried, as there’s a good chance both boys will be across the country from us. And maybe in vulnerable areas.
          Yes, I know. Denver. But our neighborhood is safe.

                  1. Ex in-laws owned a house in a black neighborhood half a block from the center of the Rodney King.. uh, “unpleasantness.” Neighbors helped them pack up and get out. They had to drive through the chaos, their son on the floorboards and a 9 MM on the seat. Sister-in-law said it’s the first time she realized when push and shove came together, she *could* shoot a human being.

            1. Not anything that lasts long, or affects much.

              Already talking to the neighbors – a few of us will always be quietly around our local polling place while they are open. A lot of vets, former BP, etc. around here. (Couple of them are Democrats, but just as willing to shut down anything right quick.)

            2. @##$& in Chicago is unlikely. They basically would have to wipe out a small city worth of people or an entire skyscraper for anyone to notice. Illinois electoral votes will go to the Democrat candidate, no matter who it is or how crazy he/she is. Neither side will spend much time or energy campaigning here as a result.

              1. I was thinking more of an LA Riot type thing after Trump wins, because he beat the margin of fraud. You need a high density of a-holes for something like that to gain momentum, and outside the big centers there aren’t enough.

          3. I’ve family in voonerable areas, too. One in particular which worries me, as there are unreliable elements very close by. All we can do is raise ’em right, and hope it sticks.

            Here? Well, put it this way. The only protest nearby was three towns over, under a bridge way off the beaten path. And they left peacefully when the local peace officers kindly let them… rather than allow them into the hands of the *counter* protest that spontaneously showed up at the sound of broken glass.

            Methinks the latter were a mite disappointed to be left out of the “fun.” And they’d got all their party clothes on, too… *chuckle*

            1. Here it was in Saudi Aurora. And you know, there’s a reason we call it that. One of the commenters here knows where I live and lives in SA. She’s said she’ll probably be in my guestroom with kid for the danger times. And that’s fine.

      2. I more than half expect that, quite soon after election night, the Democrat Party will be scrambling to explain a large number of rather blatant examples of vote fraud. Ever since election night 2016 their playbook has counted on Trump being the usual sort of gentlemanly Republican loser. They don’t seem to be able to grasp the idea that he LIKES to fight back. And in any case, they have gotten inexcusably sloppy. They will certainly try to steal the election, and they will get caught at it because Trump will be expecting it.

        Not that that will prevent violent idiocy in the major Democrat enclaves.

        1. My word, I hope they DO get caught. And prosecuted. Convicted.

          And, above all, the GOP ticket declared to have won EVERY attempt to steal an election. It has to HURT.

      3. oh, i don’t get to wait til next year, i get to watch as this year Debra the College Professor discovers that not only is she not popular enough to move from the house to the senate, but she also discovers that her parroting the DNC talking points on gun control is enough to lost her the a chunk of the votes that put her in as a Delegate (i.e. the mostly rural county she lives in)

  9. When I was about Greta’s age, I angrily and sincerely thought that America should apply the methods of the Mongol empire to other countries. I’m a bit calmer about that, but I don’t think I was wrong. I do think that being that age did not make me any sort of unimpeachable authority.

    I may be able to convince you that the left is at least sane enough to tolerate.

    The cause is pot, and the solution is mass murder.

    1. There are so many who have NO IDEA how damned lucky they are that the USofA has an *astonishingly* high ‘activation energy’. But… the longest of fuses go to the largest of charges. I don’t *know* what happens after that Very Last Straw… but I know whoever does eventually emplace it, will wish, with everything that that can wish, to be suddenly ELSEWHERE . And might not be very particular about that ELSEWHERE because… HERE (or THERE) will be a Very Good Place to Not Be. In both senses of “Not Be.” It will NOT be nice.

      1. If we can’t stop these morons… fools… oh, damn, there is no comparative insult I can use that does not insult whatever I’m comparing them to. Anyway. If we can’t stop them, and the ‘very last straw’ goes, I’d rather not be around to witness it, thank you very much.

        There is, I suspect, a reason the USA is the only nation to use nukes in warfare. Since then we’ve metaphorically been playing table tennis while everyone else in the world thinks we’ve played hardball (I suspect that we as a nation didn’t like what we saw of ourselves and would rather not let that out again. I also fear it’s coming.)

        1. Yeah. I saw one article describe the reaction as “Grim elation.” Elation that WWII was over, even if not acknowledged just yet. And the grim realization of what it took to do that. Before the images, still, or moving — and it wasn’t until the 1980’s or perhaps 1990’s some of the footage from hospital wards were made public. And even those “mild” enough to be broadcast (with warnings) on the evening news were still nightmare fuel.

          While “…and we were the Martians” might sum up Gulf War I (and II?) – that was with the limiters (near?) fully engaged. When the gloves come off? Well, Neptune might be lovely that time of orbit.

          1. It also wasn’t until the 1990s that anyone started to really acknowledge that there were some pretty horrific (technically) war crimes going on from all parties. To a large extent because once our people found out what the Nazis and the Japanese had been doing, an awful lot of soldiers went rather berserk.

            Not condemning them. “War crimes” committed in the heat of battle do not come close to the things Nazis and Japanese military did to those they considered inferior/subhuman/barely animals.

            1. There are well-documented cases of American servicemen killed, and livers removed,

              To be eaten,

              By their Imperial Japanese captors.

              ‘War is Hell” is not just a cliche.

              1. Once credible evidence of the massive and systemic violation of Geneva Convention rules for the treatment of captured enemy soldiers by the Japanese became commonly known the general policy of our front line troops in the Pacific theater was no prisoners taken. Exacerbated by the practice of surrendering Japanese to hide grenades on their bodies to be detonated once they were surrounded by Allied troops.

                1. I honestly don’t think anyone not engaged in that war understands how horrific the Pacific, Chinese, and Burma campaigns were. I hear people laugh at the estimates of casualties in an actual invasion of Japan, but the men who made them had seen first hand, or at least talked to those who did, on the march across the Pacific and the war in China.

                  Some days I worried they were optimists.

                  Then again, I think people who claim the use of nukes saved millions of lives are off by three orders of magnitude (although for reasons not related to Japan).

                  1. I recall there was a JAPANESE estimate that the use of nuke saved a million Japanese lives. Now as for magnitude error, the obvious question to anyone who gives it any real thought (if not, why is *ox* out-thinking you, hrm?) is… in which direction?

                    Thinking on it a moment… if The Bomb.. had NOT been used, it might have been More Tempting later…. yeah, that would have been Very Nasty Indeed. Especially after 1949 when there was (more than) a possibility of the USSR “returning the favor.”

                    1. That is my thinking. The bomb existed and, in the context of WW2, was no more damaging than a typical night of bombing by waves of B-29s, which already existed. The raid on Tokoyo in March is now considered the deadliest bombing raid of the war, with the nukes in 2nd and 3rd.

                      In 1950, with Korea mostly overrun, and in 1951 with the Chinese pouring across the Yalu, Truman’s diary indicates he considered using the bomb again.

                      Then it would not have been the result of a regular night of bombing, because the US Air Force was not what it had been in 1945. However, it would have been much more destructive than a month of bombing during the war.

                      Had that happened WWIII with nukes would have most likely resulted. The number of deaths from that war, with the nukes involved, would have been on the order of 1 billion.

                      Did knowing what he had done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead of just seeing a “Trinity 2” as a demonstration stay Truman’s hand? Did seeing the pictures lead to Stalin’s murder/denial of medical treatment due to rumors he planned to order the same upon his death? Did seeing those images lead to Kennedy and Khrushchev walking back from the brink? Did it cause the same decisions innumerable times we don’t know about?

                      I think it did.

                    2. Look at it from the other direction.

                      Suppose we hadn’t used the bomb … and ten years later word leaked* that we’d a “super-weapon” that would have avoided all those dead and maimed, those crippled (on both sides) in an invasion, and the civilian population maimed by malnutrition attendant on such a blockade and war as would have been required.

                      Truman would likely have been lynched, even if they’d had to dig up his corpse to do it.

                      *Be sure, it would have leaked, if only because the Soviets would have developed their own and we’d have had to declare we’d long since acquired it.

                    4. In other words, we gave everyone else a free sample of Nuclear War, and they all decided they didn’t like the taste. But absent that free sample… who knows what might have happened; I do agree it’s a lot more likely we’d have later had a major exchange of favors, rather than a one-way demo.

                  2. Sadly a lot of people don’t realize the Jihadists are just as fanatical as the Imperial Japanese were and without that understanding it is impossible to defeat them. Jihadist culture is no less fanatical in its view superiority over those they consider inferior than the WWII Japanese were. Pointing this out of course results in immediate denunciation by the Democrats/left (but I repeat myself) as an “Islamaphobe”. Mind you I use the term Jihadist deliberately because not all Muslims are Jihadists.

                    This is why Obama’s policy towards Iran was so feckless. It is a country ruled by a religious theocracy no less fanatical than the Imperial Japanese. Iran WILL use nukes and is hell bent on getting them as quickly as possible. If Democrats win in 2020, or even just keep the House (or even worse get the Senate as well, even without the Presidency), they will view that as a confirmation of the green light Obama gave them to make and use nuclear weapons.

                    1. Actually, I think jihadists are worse. There is no single living person who can order to stand down. The Emperor was crucial to tje ease of the peace.

                      The is no Calliph to do that with jihadists.

                    2. Herbn (stupid reply depth limit)… and even if there were a single Caliph, that person would have to be the returned Mohammad; otherwise they’d be denounced as a heretic in short order, because Islam is by definition immutable and perfect, at least until Mohammad says otherwise. (Thus unable to progress past its toddler tantrums, as did all the other major religions.)

                2. A friend, 96 yro, who was in the Pacific theatre does NOT speak of it. He related ONE story of a faux pas (not his) at an O-club in Oz. He leaned over to Ma during one movie showing the horror of a landing (“Yeah, it was like that.”) and That. Is. It. Ask him about ANYTHING else, and you might get your ears talked off. But, as Basil Fawlty said, “Don’t mention the war.” – at least not asking for details. He did relate that when he heard of Hiroshima, he was fortunate enough to be on the ship back to the US.

            2. Reprisals are not war crimes.

              If the Krauts and the Japs wanted to be treated like civilized men, then they could have damn well acted like civilized men, instead of, say, Comanche or the Dog Warriors. (Depending on what particular behaviors one is most irritated by.)

              Loving someone does not mean enabling them.

              They started that fight. Reprisal alone kept them from using gas or germs. They did a lot of other things because they did not fear our reprisal for those. The could unconditionally surrender, or we would have been wholly justified in exterminating them root and branch.

              (Keep in mind that actual implementation of complete extermination offers many opportunities for unconditional surrender. There is a period of losing a war, well before extermination can be complete, where the other side can work out that they’ve lost, before reaching the ‘practicable breach’ state where it is all over but throwing the children in the fire. That severity of loss makes it difficult to maintain enough control over the governmental apparatus to prevent a surrender from going out. Which is not the same as being able to deliver a surrender. Super sucky situation, just slightly less bad than first appearance suggests.)

              1. We had a dinner in the late ’60s with my eldest brother and SIL’s extended family. One of her uncles was in the Army serving in France. Ordinary German soldiers were sent to the US rear when captured, but any SS were turned over to the French resistance, never to be seen again.

                Dad wasn’t adverse to talking about his war experiences, largely because he wasn’t in a combat role (not going to cause much damage with a T-square and a triangle…), but it was pretty well understood that it was not a good idea for us kids to ask many questions about the war. I can recall hearing about very few (maybe 3) incidents, in a neighborhood full of combat vets.

            3. There is a difference between actions taken in that violate established law, policy and cultural norms, and the same actions taken as part of a deliberate policy in accordance with cultural norms.

              Example, My Lai was a violation of the UCMJ and not in accordance with US policy or American Culture*.

              The hundreds or even thousands of similar incidents perpetrated by the NLF (VC)/NVA were standard operating procedure and part of their overall plan and did not violate any of their laws.

              *Note, as I always do, I point out that it was an American helicopter crew threatening to open fire on fellow American troops that ended the killings at My Lai. Fully justified (and would have been if they had opened fire) under the UCMJ and American cultural norms of protecting the innocent by any means necessary, That day demonstrated the best and the worst of our military. Of course the best part is left out of the narrative…

              1. My eldest in HS was assigned to write about My Lai. He asked me about it – he suspected the recommended source material was somewhat biased. And he wrote about how it was a breakdown in the American chain of command, how the sergeants failed to take control when the officer in charge – who would never have been commissioned in a peacetime army – failed to take charge. Teacher read it and said to him – “Your father was in the military, wasn’t he?”

                2LT Calley was out if his depth in command. And his NCOs failed him.

          2. I had the privilege of attending a speech by a man who had designed some of the weapons systems used it GWI. He expressed pride in his work because of the /Iraqi/ lives it ended up saving. Limiters very much in place.

            For him. For many many many others in our society.

            Maybe also for me, because in practice I have some, courtesies associated with the fundamental compromises of American culture.

            1. I wonder if I know that man. I was a targeting officer during GWI, and worked extensively with the weapons community.

              And yes, people have no idea what we could have done. Even the infamous (and over-hyped) “Highway of Death” wasn’t nearly what it could have been had we wanted to go full on.

              And that’s just talking conventional weapons.

              I usually laugh when someone complains about how the US over reacted to 9/11, knowing what we could have done (and I sometimes think should have done…but I admit I’m not the most civilized person in the world, and have to really work on my restraint at times.)

              1. *Over* reacted to 9/11? Seriously? Never heard that particular reaction. Perhaps I’ve been a bit sheltered.

                But what we were capable of? What we could have done? We can argue about what came after, what we oughtta shoulda coulda done after things calmed down a bit, well, after (leaving so many former military and military age men with not much to do was… shortsighted, let us say), but during? Ye gods and little fishes, were we to use the nigh 4th century rules we could have… Well.

                When the rest of the world looked at the United States, I’m sure there would have been respect. But were we to have used every tool in the toolbox without restraint, we would be feared. And rightly so.

                It is a good thing that we have limits on our actions. Self control is absolutely necessary. Because I don’t want us to become all we might, if we end up decide to make a few hundred square miles uninhabitable for the next century and wreck every piece of modern machinery in what’s left to leave them with but their eyes to weep with and their mouths to carry the tale.

                2. Mr Lane clearly you have not traveled much up here in Blue Territory. Most of New England’s upper middle (and up) Class would have told you that. There were massive protests (several hundred to possibly a 1000 given where it was) in Gulf War I period and fairly large protests In the post 9/11 period in the center against the Afghan attacks. I mostly keep my mouth shut, being a conservative Evangelical is not the healthiest occupation in these parts.
                  As for what we could have done the one big error was Bush the Elder ending the attacks on the escaping Republican Guard. I suspect he felt that if he unleashed the full power of the U.S Military against those remnants it would be perceived as kicking someone who was down in a delicate area. Also I think the Coalition feared losing the counterbalance of Iraq against Iran. The KSA had been playing one off the other to avoid having to make use of their limited and rather ineffectual forces.

              2. I am convinced that Kabul and Kandahar, at a minimum, should have been obliterated with nuclear weapons. Simply to make the point that that was the price.

                1. I think a Minute Man Time On Target on Baghdad, Tehran and Tripoli in addition to Kabul would have been a good attention getter.

          3. The US and its allies had three basic options as regards ending the war with Japan: nuke them into submission, blockade the home islands and starve them out while simultaneously bombing them into the stone age, or a full frontal assault on the home islands with over a million troops.
            The nukes caused something like a quarter million dead either immediately or from the effects of the bombs.
            A starvation blockade would have killed at a minimum two to three million Japanese, most of them civilian.
            Estimates of casualties from a beachhead assault started at half a million of our soldiers dead or wounded and at least two million Japanese dead, again many of those civilians.
            No one wants to admit it in these softer kinder days, but the decision to use those two nukes quite literally saved millions of lives.

            1. I’ve explained to the younger that ALL the options were lousy. There was NO Nice Choice. The Bomb was simply, as horrible as it was, the least lousy choice.

              1. The bomb arguably was the method least likely to result in the extermination of not only the Japanese nationality but the populace to point that the “race” would be dead

                1. Sadly, they seem to have done that to themselves in the decades since–their birth rate is so low they’ll be gone in the not-too-distant future. :/

                  3. Birthrate issues are, long-term, a self-correcting problem. There hasn’t been enough time to assimilate the availability of widespread contraception, but the Crux of the matter is that people who want kids tend to have kids who want kids. Give it another generation or so, and I suspect First World birthrates will bounce back to at least replacement rates.

              2. The bombs were quick, clean, and gave the Japanese justification to surrender honorably in the face of irresistible force.

                Otherwise, I expect they would have defended every inch of the home islands the same way they did every tiny Pacific island outpost.

                1. And even then there was a coup in order to try to seize the tape made by Emperor Hirohito announcing acceptance of the surrender. Had that coup succeeded, even the two atomic bombings would not have ended the war (Ironically a descendant of the last ruling Shogun was instrumental in protecting the tape and defeating the coup attempt).,

              3. When confronted with violence, there are NO good options, only a range of bad options.

                Concerning November of next year, for instance, the only good outcome is if the opposition does not choose any of their bad options. Failing that (and I must consider that failure a very high probability), I can only hope that their actions do not close off anything but my WORST options.

                The least bad things in WW2 would have been if the Japanese had surrendered after being forced back to the home islands. Or at least had come to their senses after the slaughter of Okinawa. Didn’t happen. Similarly, the Germans should have realized that there was nothing but worse coming once the Allies were firmly in control of France, the Low Countries, and Poland – or that it was definitely over once the Rhine was forced. Didn’t happen.

                (Note, the actual “fighting officers” in both countries largely realized that they were defeated long before it became so glaringly obvious after the above. Some were still hoping for a surrender with conditions, others were more realistic – but none of them had the power to do anything about it.)

            3. An important note, morally speaking, is that the Japanese leadership had effectively drafted the entire country.

              There’s firsthand accounts of the Marines who managed to capture the teen Japanese girl in Okie who charged them with a sharp stick.

              Thankfully, the Marines won fast enough that her family was not slaughtered for her failure to either successfully slaughter an entire troop of Marines, or die trying. More of the folks who suicides because they “knew” they’d be horribly killed if they didn’t, by either the Americans or their own people.

              The population would either be attacking the invading forces, or killed.

              1. Not only did the Japanese government draft the whole country; they insisted on “100 million souls dying for honor” and “100 million souls dying for the Emperor.”

                The Japanese holdouts generally refused to believe that Japan had surrendered, because they were being told that Japanese people other than themselves had survived the end of the war. Obviously Japan had either won, or everyone was dead and all other evidence was faked.

            4. You missed the fourth option.

              Gas.

              Nerve and herbicide.

              Blockade. Destroy the crops, gas the military and government facilities. Repeat a few cycles. Wait.

              Colonize an empty land.

              We had most of the stuff to do it. What we lacked would have taken a few months to make. The nukes made it unnecessary and cost-prohibitive to do the messyer options.

              1. IIRC, the plans that the US Army Chemical Corps had were a bit less extreme than that, but did involve large scale chemical weapons attacks on the Japanese Home Islands to soften them up prior to mounting an otherwise-conventional invasion.

            5. re: blockading Japan. Check out Curtis LeMay’s Operation Starvation, which involved air-dropping mines from B29s to cut off Japan’s ports and straits. Extremely effective and, if started earlier, may well have brought the war to an end without resorting to nukes or invasion. Japanese bitter-enders could, of course, have let millions of civilians starve.

              1. Using submarines to lay mines would have been just as easy towards the end. And considering the actual accuracy at the time of bomb dropping, more efficient. Until our current era of smart bombs with GPS or laser guidance we dropped a LOT of bombs to ensure a few hit the target being aimed for.

              2. The submarine force had already done a pretty good job – it was 1946 before the average Japanese was consuming more than a thousand calories per day, and that only with a massive donation of surplus US amphibious ships to help replenish their diminished merchant marine. Later, some of those ships say war service one last time (in some cases with ex-IJN crews) transporting US troops for the Incheon landing.

        2. Baboons. They are very like baboons. Nasty, destructive animals, baboons. Bill Bailey did a documentary on the baboons near Capetown, and my primary takeaway was to thank merciful Providence there are no wild baboons anywhere near where I live.

          1. My aunt’s a primatologist. From the stories she tells I’m of the opinion that they should get the same treatment we gave the wolves and grizzlies here in Missouri.

      2. I don’t know what happens either, but I suspect you can make serviceable, although probably only a couple of reloads capable, MRLS from components at Home Depot. Throw in Walmart and you can do the rockets too.

        I think you can…not all the details sorted out.

        1. Let us just say that I was spared the dullness of a “normal childhood” and that the stuff I know NOT to do… well, push comes to shove. It’s what I have NOT (yet) thought of that really scares me. I already know the stuff I have thought of and have, so far, rejected. And, as reminder: Ox slow. (So beware the humans – they’re GOOD at this stuff. And then, of the humans, well, you know.)

          1. Yes, as in you haven’t felt the need to put your mind to it in a serious way.

            Lefties and foreigners simply do NOT understand what they’re screwing with.

          1. Yeah, a primitive Stalin’s Organ would be my goal. Not the specific modern American weapons system.

            If, I was, you know, actually working on the problems.

          2. I will note that we have just educated several entire generational cohorts (and counting) on the detailed intricacies of effective design, fabrication, assembly and emplacement of IEDs using only components readily available in third-world crapholes, as well as state of the art detection and countermeasures capabilities and current EOD TTP.

            And then there’s an even longer though more select chain of green-beanie folks who know how to turn whats under your kitchen sink into death on wheels, as well as how to train people with no martial skills whatsoever to use them effectively.

            My preference is to not give those folks a reason to dust off their skill sets.

        3. In a discussion about the Second Amendment, I had a leftie pull the “what would you do against the government, they have tanks” argument.

          I looked the guy in the eye and started listing the ways I could kill or disable a tank with items found at various hardware stores and junkyards. Then I started going through the tactics to disable or kill the crews of such tanks when they weren’t inside them.

          After a short list, he babbled, “who in the world THINKS about things like that?”

          1. After a short list, he babbled, “who in the world THINKS about things like that?”

            Military folks, AKA ‘the guys who might have to counter it’?

            Or at least know where to look to try not to be rolled over…..

            Better question, who the hell thinks about sending the US military against civilians but DOESN’T

              2. There are a lot more people with bona fide military training in the civilian sector (we call them “veterans”) than there are in the active military and reserves. Just sayin’.

                2. Who are among the largest percentage of gun/weapon holders, whose weapon’s have to be confiscated; oops sorry I meant, have to be bought back …

              3. Dumb enough to think that Socialism will work, if only it were done by the right people?

                Dumb enough to imagine “according to your ability” will concur with your estimation of what you are able to contribute, and that “according to what you need” will match your standard of what is necessary?

                1. Quit making me think about it, curse it!

                  There’s a different quality to thinking Socialism will work– the theory at least sounds sorta plausible, and it’s not obviously something folks would be trying to fight from inside of the theory.

                  Vs the ‘what can you do against tanks’ where the question itself is causing people to go, well, ‘what can you do against tanks?’ and thus it’s self-contradicting to say “what kind of a person would actually consider the question I asked?”

        1. The Left’s biggest problem is they’re mushrooms: they’re kept in the dark and fed nothing but manure.

          1. Mushrooms are tasty and manure has a valuable place in farming, at least for those of us who enjoy eating vegetables. You can’t continue producing annual crop food in the same spot unless you fertilize.

            1. And it shouldn’t have to be said…. But I think they are inferior to mushrooms which are a useful tasty product, not tasty like mushrooms. Blech.

        2. If you cannot tolerate the left (and I don’t blame you in the least for this), then it would seem to mean that you believe that the left should be wiped out. I hope that I am wrong as this would be a major escalation from the positions I have heard from you up to now and I tend to see you as a calming voice effectively saying “Not yet, not yet.” (which is much appreciated as I see no way to wipe them out without massive collateral damage.)

          1. I believe “tolerate” in this instance refers to “allow to pass without, or with minimal, comment” or the like. I’d very much prefer our protest be logged in a ballot, in a jury if I must, spoken from a soap assuredly, but lastly and most certainly least liked, the cartridge. And I do mean that, last.

            The left, for all their foibles, is full of brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts, daughters and sons and mothers and fathers. They are our families, our countrymen, wayward as their path has taken them. I would be perfectly fine with them pursuing their little projects to perfect mankind on their own (absent the abuse of children as seen this week in congress, of course). Socialist commune? Go for it, as long as all parties enter in as consenting adults, go nuts. Free health care for all? Sure, knock yourself out, as long as, above, you don’t use the force majure of the state to get the money. Do as you please, so long as it harms none that haven’t explicitly assented to your little games.

            That’s what freedom’s *for* after all. Recall the whole statue of liberty quote, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It means that here, absent the shackles placed on them by their “betters” in the calcified, crusty elite, they could *thrive,* as others who came here before them do and did.

            Tolerating the left is to allow the “harmless” little poster about climate change to stick on the office bulletin board in the bottom corner and not challenging its relevance (or need to be present at all) in the workplace. It is to be silent when you hear “Donald Trump is putting undocumented children in *cages,* just like concentration camps!” Silence is taken as assent. It is also to *not* take them at their word when you hear them say they want us rounded up, or excluded from the voting booth, disarmed, and re-educated.

            Not everyone who votes, or agrees with liberal policy wants their political opponents put in camps- just the minority. The loud minority, the ones that push farther to the left (and are rewarded in the near term with attention, and even financially), they push for this. But the larger part of the democrat party doesn’t. The like to think of themselves as caring people. So they support things like Obama*care,* are concerned about growing islamophobia/transphobia/racism/sexism/whataboutism and so on. They follow along because if they step out of line, all their friends and the larger twittermob will turn on *them.* There is a reason that folks who leave the democrats tend to become their bitterest foes. No one likes having their trust betrayed.

            So no, I don’t think there’s going to be a call for armed insurrection. At least not on the right, and not in the Hun population in particular. Solid defense of friends and family? You better believe it. But this ain’t a call for civil war. Done had that the oncet. Don’t want to do it again.

          2. No, but I believe they should be run from every place of power and fought in every ledge and corner.
            I’ll forego their going in sackcloth and ashes the rest of their days.

      2. Not even if the alternative is whole heartedly embracing my arguments regarding the marijuana?

        Of course, those two possibilities do not cover all courses of action. I will certainly be tempted to make the argument if I observe enough desperation and breakdown of civil peace.

        Of course, such horrible situations are bad generally, and it would be much saner for me to keep my head down, avoid attention, and stick to looking for the least destructive way out. This isn’t a topic where I am sane, and an ideal society would neither listen to me nor the pot smokers on it..

  10. Part A: the transcript was exactly what everyone who has a brain in their head expected it to be. No quid pro quo, not even Adam Schiff’s “Mafia-like shakedown” (rolls eyes). It’s a bit shady, even so, but based on the current evidence, Trump could use a public defender and get out of the charges without difficulty. (Before anyone gets bent out of shape, ask yourself if you really think Trump would give a care about this if Joe Biden wasn’t one of the biggest Democrats out there.)

    Part B: Thunberg deserves our sympathy. I suspect her parents put her up to this, and her various problems are ones associated with major social anxiety issues. If anyone’s failed her, it’s them.

    As to the royal family of Monaco, it’s the old rich favoring policies that will prevent the creation of new rich people. Very normal.

    1. > Thunberg deserves our sympathy. I suspect her parents put her up to this,
      —
      Her parents are complete whack-a-doodles, and what they’ve done to the girl would be child abuse in any civilized country.

      At least it’s pretty obvious she *isn’t* “autistic” after all the travel and speechmaking.

      2. The way I put it the progs frightened the crap out of that girl (and other children) then get them to parrot apocalyptic predictions. Then they say: “Look at how frightened these poor, poor children are! Give us absolute power and they won’t be frightened again!”

        Oh and if you question their actions they’re all: “How DARE you attack a frightened child!” and so on.

    2. Part A: I think a lot of what Schiff and other on his side are seeing in that memo is projection. That’s how their side operates (CF: Clinton(s)/Obama) and assume everyone else operates the same way.

      1. Trump’s accusers start with the assumption of guilt, then interpret the evidence in light of that premise.

        They criticize him for asking a favor, they’d criticize him for demanding Zelensky investigate that server farm Hillary whinges about, they’d criticize him fr saying nothing about it.

        They criticize him for using Giuliani as his point for such investigation but they’ve embedded so many weasels in the White House bureaucracy that there’s no way he can trust them investigate a damned thing.

        As the old joke goes, they’ve shot him in the knees and now are denouncing him for using crutches.

        1. I think part of what keeps their freak on is that Trump doesn’t dance to their tune. They hate on him, he texts insults. They threaten him, he threatens back. They accuse him, he laughs in their face.

          They hated him with every fiber of their being as soon as the votes were counted, so why should he bother even pretending he gives a damn what they think?

        2. Wasn’t it only a couple of month’s ago the Democrats claimed that Trump wasn’t investigating claims of interference in the 2016 election? Now they are complaining that he is!

          I think the Marx Brothers did this in one of their movies with Groucho singing “Whatever it is, I’m against it.”

    3. “Before anyone gets bent out of shape, ask yourself if you really think Trump would give a care about this if Joe Biden wasn’t one of the biggest Democrats out there.”

      I don’t actually think that Trump cares about Biden even now. I think he’s after the corrupt network Biden is a bit player in. Reread the transcript. That server from Crowdstrike seemed a higher priority than the Biden stuff. And maybe that tidbit is the reason for the Dem freak out, thigh they couldn’t say so.

      1. Trump is already supremely confident he can beat whoever the Dems put on the field, particularly if they are forced to fight fair.

        Which means Trump wanting anybody to dig up dirt on Biden is as pointless as Nixon* bugging McGovern Campaign phones. More to the point, Trump doesn’t need more than we already know about Hunter biden taking a $3 million five-year contract to sit on a board for a business he knew squat all about — and his daddy bragged about using US Aid to provide air support.

        Any further evidence was as superfluous as evidence of the Clintons’ corruption last election. Those who believed Hillary was a crook already had all the evidence needed and those defending her wouldn’t have been swayed by colour film of her shooting Vince Foster. That was’t just baked into the cake, the layers had been stacked, the icing spread on the sides and top and the buttercream flower rosettes piped into place.

        *Count me among those who believe John Dean ran a rogue operation from within the Nixon campaign, covering up his wife’s having been a prostitute for the DNC.

  11. One is not supposed to criticize children as one would adults because the children “don’t know any better,” i.e., they are merely young and ignorant and their statements are ill-founded if not simply delusional. But if that is true, so we should hold our tongues, why give credence to anything they say? The reason one should not criticize this Child of the Corn, this Red Guard wanna-be, is exactly the same reason we should pay her no heed.

    1. From what little I’ve bothered to watch, it sounds like she knows that the people promoting her are not taking her seriously and it makes her even more angry.

      There’s a lot of “awww… isn’t that adorable, how can you be so mean when there is a child being so adorably earnest?” going on.

      1. “There’s a lot of “awww… isn’t that adorable, how can you be so mean when there is a child being so adorably earnest?” going on.”

        W. C. Fields built a career around it.

    3. I disagree.

      When a child is foolish, or mentally ill, enough to interject themselves into an adult conversation, especially when their parents or guardians have failed to head them off and talk with them beforehand, then they have abrogated any consideration to be handled with kid gloves.

      Of course using a mentally disturbed child as your world-class political weapon of choice is just as despicable as sticking them in a suicide vest and sending them into a wedding. Both are felony level child abuse.

      2. I was fortunate enough to have adults around me who *would* allow a child into an adult conversation… and politely tell me how full of it I was when I didn’t know jack about the subject matter, occasionally explain where it was I went wrong, and then go back to the topic at hand.

        Children have an almost disturbing ability to focus on what adults say, and how they act. It is our job to be a good example of how to be an adult, and to teach them both in word and deed. The way to deal with such passionate childishness is not to dismiss it out of hand, but to give her the tools to discover fact from fiction on her own.

    4. Unless, of course, you’re a kid participating in a MAGA event, confronted by some goofy tribal guy.

  12. There’s a certain perverted logic to their position once you understand that they consider us the enemy. Not just rivals, or opposition, but actively “the enemy.”

    Add in the old canard (yes, I’m using that right) of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and much, if not most, of their behavior becomes clear. Anybody who’s opposed to the ideals of individual liberty that Conservatives of the Goldwater stripe, libertarians, the “Christian Right”, and so on must be their friend.

    The problem is, as a certain webcomic creator put it before he was seduced by the Left side of the force: “The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. He is my enemy’s enemy. No more. And no less.”

    1. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, but we can deal with each other. Up to a point. Warily. With our eyes open and never let them be closed.

      1. Sometimes. We can sometimes work together. And it’s possible that we could become friends. But never ever make the mistake of thinking that we are friends just because we share a common enemy.

  13. And now the whistleblower apparently didn’t actually hear about the call, but was “concerned” because the Trump Administration supposedly “locked down” all information about the existence of the call.

    Paging Winston Smith. Winston Smith, please return to your desk at Minitrue and get back to work. Your coworkers are incompetent boobs who can’t keep The Narrative straight.

    1. There’s an indication that the Deep State freakout was because GEOTUS mentioned “CrowdStrike” and “server” in the phone call. CS has Ukrainian connections, and the “hacked” DNC server may have been taken to the Ukraine to keep it out of the hands of any honest FBI investigators.

      Reminder that the only thing backing the Russian Hack narrative is the redacted CrowdStrike reports blaming them. Nevermind the timestamps incompatible with an internet hack, but compatible with a thumbdrive

      1. A thumb drive, such as perhaps used by those Pakistani nationals the, IIRC, DNC folks at the House were employing? Who could have then leaked the information to Islamic terrorist intelligence?

      2. I’ll be happy to see some “honest FBI investigators” enter the news cycle some year soon.

        1. At this point the lack of a single whistleblower or open letter upon resignation tells me there are none.

          They stood by and allowed their agency to attempt a coup and didn’t say a g-ddamn word. I have more faith in the BATF than the FBI at this point.

          1. I thought about putting the parenthetical “if any exist”; it’s looking fairly bleak. “Trust” and “BATF” are mutually exclusive words after Waco and Ruby Ridge, though.

            1. Yes, and yet I still trust the BATF more than the FBI.

              If for nothing else, the government agency that should be a convenience store does tend to handle tobacco, alcohol, and firearms and only blows things up to make sure they get a budget increase.

              The FBI doesn’t investigate, they cover-up or fabricate depending on the politics of the person in question.

              1. $SPOUSE and I have been musing over CBS’s airing of the FBI show. We figure it’s in the same vein (or is it “in vain”?) as the Madame Secretary show; try to salvage an unsalvagable reputation. We haven’twatched either.

                And speaking of Ruby Ridge, the “hero” of that clusterf*** was an FBI sniper. (After the event, a gun-stock company tried to use the guy’s name as an endorsement for their product. It didn’tgo the way the company thought it would. (And, I have no idea why they thought it would be OK.)

            2. BATF (or ATF as it was known when both Ruby Ridge and Waco kicked off from their ops) had a well earned rep for being the agency where the folks who fail all the other agencies entry exams go to get hired. And Fast and Furious was another feather in that blown-op hat.

              But you do have to give BATF credit for never having any agents, let along top echelons, implicated in an organized plot attempting to overthrow a duly elected POTUS.

      3. “CS has Ukrainian connections, and the ‘hacked’ DNC server may have been taken to the Ukraine”

        The chain of custody is, by this point, so corrupted that they could easily denounce all contents as counterfeit.

        Not that I expect them to think of that until the server turns up.

    2. Someone over in the comments at Ace’s blog stated that the source was apparently Sue Gordon, who got fired by Trump when various individuals insisted that she had to be promoted after her superior resigned. The commenter didn’t post where that information came from, though.

  14. Soap box
    * Blog it, share it
    * Write your congressmen
    * Write your state legislators
    * Find any reasonable avenue to voice your displeasure

    Ballot box
    * Vote for the most conservative liberty loving candidate available
    * Get involved in your local Republican party and make sure their heads aren’t firmly wedged–this is where national candidates originate.
    * Vote down anything that raises taxes or limits freedom

    Jury Box
    * Demand that especially people in government be prosecuted to the full extent of the law when they break the law

    Ammo Box
    * Keep your powder dry

    1. alas the jury box seems right out at this time.
      Demands are not being met in this, in the least, and they are packed enough to keep us out of the loop in outcomes.

      1. The jury box is not out, we’ve abandoned it: meaning we, the people. We’ve accepted a whole host of elitist premises, among which are “too big to fail” and “too big to prosecute”. We keep accepting the increments of creeping tyranny. We complain, we grumble, but in the end we shrug , sigh, and surrender without a fight.

        We have got to make bold use of the 3 non-violent boxes or we will get the 4th. Each side in a brewing civil war thinks the other is effete, stupid, and cowardly and that it will be a cakewalk.

        It never is.

        1. The jury box only works if those in power are willing to prosecute those among their strata. I can reject their promises, but I cannot haul them into court.

          My hauling them into an ad hoc court is by definition the ammo box, as that is my only way to compel appearance and enforce judgments.

          1. That’s why you use the soap and ballot boxes: to make it “convenient” for those in power to do the right thing. Soap box means more than just words: the so called climate strike is an example, as is going Galt.

            Likewise the ballot box means more than just voting. As I mentioned above, it means getting active in your local politics and political parties because these are where national politicians are germinated.

            All of this requires taking the reins of citizenship. We’re in this situation because we the people have listened to soothsayers telling us to let the experts handle civil government and we can kick back, eat cheetos, and watch videos.

            If you do nothing violent oppression is coming. If you despair of lawful means, then violent civil war is coming.

            Don’t misunderstand me, I am as guilty of years of complaining complacency as the next guy. But we have to exercise what we have: soap, ballot , jury to have any chance of averting large scale violence. To those I would also add the doctrine of lesser magistrates: use local and state government to oppose the federal government.

            Otherwise, turn your guns into Beto, because if we won’t fight the easier fights, we’ll never endure in the blood.

            1. I have worked many a political campaign, up to and including manning a call bank the day before I moved to another state in order to flip a seat and with it, Congress. Or delivering literature the week before a move to another state to save a seat four years prior the call center.

              I’m been the only GOP poll worker in a dem precint in a dem town in a dem state and got accused of voter intimidate (bald head, black jeans and tee shirt, and Gettas were probably not the best choice on how to dress looking back).

              I have had fewer chances at Irish Democracy and even if I did, I wouldn’t brag about them on the Internet.

              I did write my Congressman, a Democrat, about getting a Timothy Geithner waiver on owed taxes so many times they actually contacted the IRS. Got turned down, but at least I was trying to make the point I saw the pass given in a way that rubbed in my face I had to pay taxes and cabinet officials didn’t.

              That’s why you use the soap and ballot boxes: to make it “convenient” for those in power to do the right thing.

              They aren’t listening. Perhaps it is because those of us who aren’t silent aren’t loud enough. Perhaps it was because we accepted the surrender party’s promises one too many times. Perhaps it is because enough of us aren’t silent.

              Regardless, in the past decade they have decided they don’t need to listen to votes or letters or non-compliance with gun laws in very liberal states (such as NY and CT semi-automatic scary black rifle registration requirements).

              They think, and if you get leftists alone they will admit it (or even on Twitter) that they think they can force whatever they want and win.

              That means the only box left is ammo until they change their tune.

              We are almost out of the awkward phase. I suspect Wednesday, November 4, 2020, will be the day we finally come out of it.

              1. On 11-4-20, we agree. Whether Trump wins or loses, a spasm of violence is coming. In 1860 many were itching for violence. Very few, such as Sherman, realized it was going to be horrendous. Most thought it would be a short event. In clashes of civilizations, each side thinks it’s going to be easy, quick, and relatively bloodless. It never is. Doing something like that today will be far more perilous. The only nation on earth that could have attempted to intervene in 1860-65 was Great Britain. They looked and refrained. Today we are unlikely to be so fortunate. China, Russia, even Merkel’s Europe may well see the opportunity of the century in such a national debacle.

                Again, don’t get me wrong: we are headed to violence. But if we enter in to it without actually exhausting the other means available, we’ll be sucker played into a combination of John Brown and Fort Sumpter.

                You entered into the political fray and I commend you. The overwhelming majority of the conservative majority have not. Leftists use the power of organization and organizations to concentrate their efforts on strategic points to overwhelm their opponents. Furthermore they have a fanatically religious belief in the righteousness of their cause. They will not go down with a “never mind” and a whimper.

                This monumental problem is at its root cultural/religious in nature. It is a clash of Christian civilization vs Enlightenment paganism. As a Christian and a pastor, my hope is that God has mercy on us and brings sweeping repentance. And that repentance must begin with me. I also recognize, as Jefferson did, that God is just and thus I fear for my country.

                Don’t despair, keep the faith, pray, and keep your powder dry.

                2. I have no illusions. It will be ugly and bloody and the best reasonable outcome is something like Franco if it comes to general warfare. It is also, I suspect, the most likely.

            2. That’s why you use the soap and ballot boxes: to make it “convenient” for those in power to do the right thing.

              I’ve fallen a little behind in following this, (Life happens, you know) but so much this. People are wont to blame the politicians for the condition of the world and screwed up laws and institutions. However, they’re more symptom than disease. Politicians, by and large, do what they see as politically profitable. The same politician will go completely the other way if they decide it’s politically profitable to do so. Yes, there is cheating and the like to stay in power despite public opinion the other way but such cheating can only go so far. If it becomes too blatant (and I think they’re pushing that limit now) then it stops being politically profitable to do so.

              To change what is politically profitable we need to change the climate of opinion in the country. That means the soap box. Spreading the word. Convincing those who haven’t hardened into one position or another that liberty is actually a good thing for all that the responsibility that goes with it can be scary. Convince the people of that, change the climate of opinion, and some politicians will be replaced with those who favor the new climate of opinion, the new positions that are now politically profitable. Others will suddenly “discover” that they really do favor liberty–because it’s become politically profitable to do so. Will they really “believe” in those positions? Does it really matter so long as they vote that way?

              As Milton Friedman was won’t to say, the way you change things is not by electing the right people. It’s by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.

    2. Re Jury Box. Just remember, the first rule of Jury Nullification is not to talk about Jury Nullification. Certainly not when being interviewed for Jury Duty.

          1. The opposite.

            There can be no true justice while they are free. I will not aid the enforcement of laws by a government that openly makes them optional for those it likes.

            Look, I get connections get traffic tickets fixed and only minor things. That is human nature.

            You cannot be putting E3s in the brig for doing less than a would be (and at the time expected to be) CinC does and expect to maintain good discipline. You cannot have senior law enforcement attempt a coup and, when they fail, get golden parachutes and lauds.

            At least, you cannot and expect my vote to convict Joe Blow of anything. How do I know the evidence is real given you’re happy to ignore real evidence.

            1. Grr, third time today I’ve skipped or edited out an important word in an online comment or an email. (sigh)

              That should have been “There can be NO true justice so long as the thugs of Obama regime roam free”?

            2. How many times have the feds been slapped for falsifying or failing to disclose evidence. Assume lying until proven otherwise

        2. Noted in passing:

          Hillary Clinton laments losing despite ’66 million letters of recommendation’
          Hillary Clinton compared her millions of votes during the 2016 presidential election as a letters of recommendation while lamenting that President Trump won.

          “To me, it was like applying for a job and getting 66 million letters of recommendation,” she said in a CBS interview preview released Thursday.

          Clinton, 71, described her loss to Trump as “losing to a corrupt human tornado.”

          Earlier this week, the former secretary of state said she came to the decision that she supported impeachment.

          “I did not come to that decision easily or quickly, but this is an emergency as I see it … This latest behavior around Ukraine, trying to enlist the president of Ukraine in a plot to undermine former Vice President Biden or lose the military aide he needs to defend against Trump’s friend, Vladimir Putin — if that’s not an impeachable offense, I don’t know what is,” she said.

              1. She wouldn’t carry water expecting to win it for someone else.

                She’s definitely spiteful enough to work solely to spite Trump. Question is whether she would have the discipline and realism to make such a choice.

            1. “As a resident of the state that gave The Dowager Empress the popular vote plurality that she whines on and on and on about”

              Also a resident of a state that gave it’s electrical votes to she who would be queen … if my state went by county electrical vote to allocate the state electrical votes, instead of popular vote … then President Trump would have prevailed. Not HRH-wanna-be. Not true of all the states that went with her, but at least 2 it is.

              https://brilliantmaps.com/2016-county-election-map/

              1. The 2016 HRC vote margin of victory (HRC votes minus DJT votes*) in Los Angeles County, Santa Clara County, Alameda County, San Mateo County, and the City and County of San Francisco alone total 2,967,748 votes.

                HRC’s final 2016 nationwide popular vote margin over DJT was 2,868,518 votes.

                So only these five California counties, one in SoCal and four up in the SF Bay area, represent HRC’s entire national “popular vote” victory margin.

                *Vote totals from https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

                1. Not surprised.

                  Oregon & Washington both are more red than blue by county vote. The blue? Hmmm. Portland Metro counties, Lane, Benton, Salem, and splotches down I-5. Washington – I-5 and west.

                  1. My point is, absent the vote margins from those five specific CA counties, (basically the area known as Silicon Valley plus Los Angeles County proper), HRC would have lost the national popular vote that she blathers on about as if it were some misappropriated mass mandate.

                    Recall what one of GWB’s 2000 senior campaign people told a reporter who was going on about the electoral college back during the hanging chad era: If the election rules had been different, they would have run a different campaign, spending money in high-population centers that they had already counted as won to pump up their vote tally instead of aiming at certain swing states to get electoral votes.

                    ANd in fact we now know that’s what HRC actually did, spending money in states counted safe to pump up her popular vote totals, since some of her internal polling and projections had her winning the electoral college but DJT winning the popular vote, and she wanted to head off any whining along the lines of that in which she is now engaged.

                    HRC’s imaginary friends can tell her she rilly rill won all day long, but without those five Dem “safe” CA counties she would have straight up lost both electoral and popular votes.

                    Maybe she should run for Governor of CA.

                    1. Yes. Got the point. Her totals in CA didn’t quite give her the popular vote. Portland/Seattle, etc. helped. At that, given Oregon & Washington are both vote by mail, CA little problem of inability to verify addresses of a percentage of population … how many of the popular votes were fraudulent?

                      Figure the votes from the red counties from Oregon/Washington were where they couldn’t cheat. Too easy to count legal voter’s VS ballots tendered; where everyone is one or two degrees from knowing everyone in the county, at worse.

                    3. One fact (among the many) to which Hillary seems oblivious is that it isn’t the number of letters of recommendation that matter, it is from whom those letters come.

                      For example, if applying for a job as line supervisor, ten letter from existing supervisors will probably weigh more heavily than a hundred letters from co-workers.

                      In similar vein, some have made strong arguments that part of the problem in our colleges and universities is reliance upon student evaluations of professors — as if the students have any basis for judging whether a professor truly knows the subject. While a student may be very good at determining whether he was confused by the material, he is poorly placed to determine whether that confusion resulted from the professor’s lecturing style or the student’s a) idiocy b) failure to remain awake in class c) failure to attend class d) failure to do required reading and class preparation e) all of the above.

              2. While I do not ordinarily pick on typos, your “electrical vote” sparks an idea. Each vote cast for president is added to calculate a voltage to be administered to the losing candidate …

    3. The jury does not decide who is prosecuted, only if the people the government has decided to prosecute are guilty or not.

      1. When crimes are committed by politicians, the government’s decision to prosecute is almost entirely political. If enough pressure is brought on them they will prosecute. We the people have accepted the premise that national politicians are too big to prosecute. We the people need to stop accepting that premise.

  15. So, after FOUR YEARS of temper tantrums and general acting out, the Democrat Party thinks it can convince the American public that a majority of the electoral districts voted for them. For ‘Tax mean, seize guns, seize cars, seize comfortable homes’. Hunh.

    I’m losing faith in my ‘they’re letting the squirrel food break themselves on Trump’ hypothesis. Because I don’t really see a way for the Democrat Party to recover from the train wreck.

    1. The expectation is that wine moms like my mother stay riled at uncouthness and badness of orangemanbad as shown on popular media.

      There are still plenty with heads fully immersed in propaganda stream

  16. They seem insane because they’re preaching to their own little choir of East Coast/West Coast elites. The people running these institutions and companies seem to have given up on the idea of making a profit doing what the company does, and instead they seek profit in the elite hierarchy.

    Otherwise known as the company is in trouble, so roll hard Left and go down in a ball of red flame.

    Elites certainly do love their own, and they do reward sycophants.

    1. It’s a truly amazing thing to watch. Really. Heck, I’m *MYTHICAL* and *I* (the slow ox..) seem to have a better grasp on this Reality thing. It looks to be a bullettrainwreck, if mild.

    2. Could it be that in a roaring economy, what they’re trying to sell is of no value to anyone else; hence, they have to make a law that people have to buy their stuff?

      They pulled that trick with FSAs for healthcare, then they doubled down with Obamacare. And we’re still feeling the pain from that.

  17. I’ve come to realize a lot of the left are recruited on the basis of being shown a model of the world and society that is very simple. If you aren’t very smart – and about 70% of the population appears to be not smart enough to deal with the complexity of reality – then a simple model is very satisfying.
    To accept you aren’t smart enough to understand reality is hard. It goes against every human desire to think well of yourself. This mob of not very bright people are managed and manipulated by a smaller group of very bright people who don’t believe a damn thing they say. They use their lie to control and profit from those that buy it entirely.
    The right does the same thing, but with a different story line.
    The number of people who understand what is happening and decide not to join one of the scams and loot the peasants with everybody else is very small. The only reason not to enjoy the benefits of joining up is if you have a weak stomach and are tainted by some sort of silly morals.

    3. Take, for example, climate change. 97% of the right people believe in climate change, probably so with the remaining 3% being flat earthers or alien abductees. Climate changes, always has and always will, it’s the nature of the planet.
      Our current crop of radical climate wankers, including that poor deluded indoctrinated Swedish child, insist with ever increasing shrillness that we make a leap of faith to the assumptions that:
      Climate change is absolutely and totally man made.
      Climate change is unarguably an extinction level event.
      And of course that if we only put our entire lives, our fortunes, and all our resources in their ever so better than us hands they will miraculously fix everything.
      So we must put everything we hold dear in the hands of people who do not hesitate to abuse and lie to a poor teenager with mental health issues.
      I think not.

      2. The real bad thing is when you find out that IF we do EVERYTHING they say – That it will ONLY lower the rise in temperature by 1/2 a degree.
        1/2 of a degree, all that for so little. It will NOT make a difference but WHAT they have us do will destroy everything.
        No, a thousand times NO!

        1. And that’s a ‘projected’ lowering.

          Of ‘projected warming’.

          From computer models that have ALL the accuracy and honesty of a used-car salesman telling you how many MPG this baby will get and how it won’t burn oil.

          1. You take back that insult against used-car salesmen! Any harm they do is inflicted on individuals, not entire economies, and they do not use threats of police force to make you buy what they shovel.

      3. You left out one more of their assumptions:

        There is no need for them personally to act in accordance with their other assertions.

        No need for them to hold conferences electronically rather than fly in on numerous private jets. No need for them to live in smaller (and fewer) houses. No need for them to give up yachts and luxurious lifestyles.

        Heck, there isn’t any need for them to give up beachfront property … I was commenting to Beloved Spouse recently that it would be easy to construct an argument about the Climate Scare being a scam to drive down coastal property prices.

    4. > If you aren’t very smart

      I don’t see it so much as “smart” as “educated.”

      Get them early, feed them lies, and then they’ll defend even the most absurd ideologies.

      Those things become part of their worldview, sliding in past logic and common sense, and even highly intelligent people will go to ridiculous lengths to defend things that they refuse to evaluate in the light of logic.

      1. On the one hand, i concur: it is educational malpractice.

        On the other hand, a smart person should eventually realize that what’s being taught is not consistent with reality.

  18. I told ’em! I told ’em I did! Buggrit! Milleniam hand and Shrimp!” Foul Ole Ron makes more sense than the Dems.

  19. I was going to point out that there never was, in fact, any attempt whatsoever to win hearts and minds, but then I realized you were being sarcastic.

    There’s never been any real effort to win people over about climate change either, just badgering and religious ideation.

    2. I wasn’t entirely joking last year when I told a group of government students – who were arguing about ice ages and snow-melt no longer being “natural” – to quit arguing religion in government class.

  20. “What kind of rational human being thinks we should reorganize our entire economy because an indoctrinated SWEDISH teen needs to allay her anxiety?”

    You’ve got that backwards. It is because they think we should reorganize our entire economy that they indoctrinated that Swedish teen.

    It is interesting they could only find an emotionally disturbed girl to act as their messenger. It is ONLY when kids like her and David “I’m scared of guns” Hogg spew Leftist talking points that they are deemed credible; when a Nick Sandmann simply stands his ground without doing aught more challenging than a slight uncomfortable smile that the Left demands kids respect their elders.

    1. Funny how every problem has the same answer.

      Can you imagine if the answer to global climate change is capitalism?

      Because I think it is. (Taking for sake of argument the position that the problem exists, is real, and is urgent.)

      1. Remember the Kyoto climate accords a while back.
        Laid out pollution goals that all participant nations signed off on meeting.
        Know which one nation actually met and exceeded those goals.
        That would be the nation that refused to sign the accords.
        Same one that backed out of the more recent Paris accords.
        Same one that still allows some vestiges of capitalism to exist under its laws.
        I shall leave the answer for the students to figure out for themselves.

  21. “I was on a forum where a woman said we shouldn’t discount the opinions of Greta Thunberg just because she’s mentally ill.”

    Yeah, the vile666 crowd is burning Dan Simmons at the stake today because he expressed a low opinion of poor old Greta.

    Greta is playing the part of Dancing Bear in the news this week. In one more news cycle she won’t be the New Hot Thing anymore and will drop to page 6. In two more news cycles she will slip beneath the surface without a ripple.

    This will probably be very frustrating to a 16 year old, but when she gets to be 25 she’ll probably figure it all out and realize she got taken for a sleigh ride. I feel bad for her.

    Greta and her whole f-ed up family are sacrificial lambs. They’re the latest burnt offerings on the altar of the Great Climate Scam. That Greta is literally a cute blonde with pigtails straight out of 1936 Hitler Youth posters is not lost on a lot of people watching this show. (For the read-until-offended crowd, this does not mean I’m calling Greta a Nazi, or a Hitler Youth. I’m calling her a kid being used by propagandists.)

    The reason Lefty propagandists have pivoted from “because Science!!!” to the “pigtailed child preacher of the Apocalypse” model is because they’ve managed to use up all the credibility scientists have, and now nobody believes their bullshit anymore.

    The other thing is that this blitz appears to be all pointed at the US 2020 election. They need a Big Fucking Uproar to make the rubes vote for their choice of moron, be it Uncle Joe the Groper or Faucahontas.

    All quite sensible if you understand what they’re after.

    The thing I have to continually remind myself about the Left is that they’re not crazy and they’re not stupid. Their primary motivators are hate and envy, their primary weapons are lying and terror.

    1. If Saturday Night Live were a comedy program I could see them doing a skit set “10 Years In The Future” in which Gtreta Thunberg, David Hogg and other recent “child prophets” to be determined are sitting in a therapy group (perhaps facilitated by Cindy Sheehan) grousing about “I used to be somebody!”

    2. I read a comment on a Farcebook page which bleated that Thunberg was the only one acting mature, not any of her critics.

    3. “vile666 crowd is burning Dan Simmons at the stake today”

      Mike Glyer leads the mob, but one day he’ll feed it.

      1. No idea. It isn’t like I’m a huge Simmons fan, I think I have one book of his around here somewhere. He did win all those awards, after all. They don’t hand those out to people I’m a fan of, generally speaking.

        If there’s no outrage, its probably because none of the Usual Suspects have done a deep dive on his twitter/Farcebook posts. Given the screeching regarding his Thunberg post, that dive is happening now.

        You want to burn a witch, you gather plenty of wood.

    1. Some of the med school stories I heard from my parents were pretty wild. Might have something to do with grim subject matter and cadavers, and beer.

    2. Once upon a time after cadaver lab, pork ribs were served. The Phantom was heard to say: “Look! Its the costal groove!” As they say in Thomas the Tank Engine, “then there was trouble!”

      One other time before a cadaver exam, the Phantom was heard to ask “where is the Cardiac Bone?” and made a girl cry. ~:D Heehee, I’m such a bastard!

  23. I’m no lawyer. I’m just an ordinary citizen who’s trying to apply common sense and reason to history, and the agreements that created this country in the first place.

    As I see it, lawyers, leftists, and occasionally conservative Constitutionalists forget that something can still be Constitutional, yet tyrannical, and therefore only be resolved extra-Constitutionally. The law industry in this country is consistent in telling me that the U.S. Constitution is the primary source, and the Declaration of Independence has nothing to do with the laws of this country; but the reality is, without the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the previous Articles of Confederation, would have no legal basis, and in fact, would be treason against the British Crown.

    While the Constitution is the foundation of our country’s laws, the Declaration of Independence is the footing that the Constitution is built on; and reason being the bedrock those footings are cemented to. When our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are denied by the revocation of those rights specifically enumerated in the Constitution; then any duty or obligation to obey the legalism that revoked them is also gone. We have no duty or obligation to submit to the loss of those rights while fighting within the system to try to restore them peacefully. Those who revoked them have no inducement to restore them; they’re the ones benefiting from it! And we have an ethical, moral, and natural right to go to war to restore those rights.

    One man firing on police sent to confiscate his weapons, or arrest him for only using the three pronouns of traditional English, may be considered a criminal. A dozen men and women doing so is a rebellion. A thousand is a revolution. But neither a rebellion, nor a revolution will ever occur unless others stand with that first one. The Bundy Rebellion fizzled out. The various protests and riots since then don’t have enough organization to be considered rebellions of any kind. But I fear this coming election year is going to be filled with more insanity, more lies, more muck-raking and more violence than we have ever seen in previous elections. The cancer in this country is at stage 4; and I’m not sure if the cancer or the chemo will kill us, or if we’ll survive. All we can do is hope, pray, prepare, speak out, and vote.

    1. > The Bundy Rebellion fizzled out.

      The problem was, most people simply viewed it as yet another reality TV show. Some entertainment value, but in the end, nothing to do with their day-to-day life.

      1. Bundy V2.0 (Malheur occupation) ended with a bit of jury nullification in Portland, of all places. There’s still a smolder, even in the bluest of blue areas.

        1. A smolder, yes.

          The “Deep State” sleeps easy knowing theirs is the ability to outlast any citizen outrage.

          Which may suggest a basis for their reaction to Trump.

          1. It’s interesting to see a smolder turn into a full blown fire in a very short time. Sleep well, Deep State!

  24. I was on a forum where a woman said we shouldn’t discount the opinions of Greta Thunberg just because she’s mentally ill.

    Well, yeah, but we also shouldn’t count ANYBODY’S opinions simply because someone holds them.

    It doesn’t matter if someone is absolutely and utterly bug-nuts insane, they can still make a rational argument which is supported by factual or at least not-counter-factual evidence.
    It’s just less likely.

    1. Yep.

      I know a distressing number of apparently intelligent and well-meaning people who are very very left….

  25. Recently, I heard of someone also suffering from mental illness, who removed every electrical wire from his house, bashed his laptop, the radio, the TV and his telephone,

    Up to this point, with the exception of the electrical wiring, I could argue he was saner than me.

    Rashida Tlaib going on about how black market vaping cartridges have coffee and alcohol and other things that can’t be digested

    As much as I’m loathe to give her any benefit of the doubt, I get what she was arguing here and I’m willing to chalk it up to brain faster than mouth or non-native English speaker.

    Not sure they do contain these things or if that is relevant, but the argument, if you give benefit of the doubt, “digest” meaning “deal with instead of just building up”, it isn’t an insane argument on its face.

    like a cat that has swallowed half a bag of marshmallows (I’m looking at you, Havelock.)

    I cannot be the only one who thinks is worthy of a blog post of its own.

    But somehow, somewhere along the line, the dime dropped that these days you can put the American people to sleep with “racist!” or its new hip variant “white supremacist.

    Well, you can. If I’m somewhere I can’t escape and the topic turns to this I start day dreaming or doing that “sleep with your eyes open and ready to respond if addressed” you learn in boot camp.

    2. ” it isn’t an insane argument on its face.”
      But it is. I have yet to hear any vape NAMED or Manufacturer NAMED.
      There are all sorts of stories that these are illegal or home made vapes.
      Vaping has been a thing for years, yet only THIS year has this happened. What Changed??
      In every other instance of something like this, the FIRST thing that is done is find out the product and the Manufacturer, so people can be warned. BUT in this case that is not happening. They are USING the problem to attack ALL Vaping. Sounds like a propaganda push by somebody, NOT people trying to keep people from dying.

      Until they can come up with a legal product and a Manufacturer that is causing deaths, this is NOTHING but an anti-vaping propaganda campaign.

      1. Vaping has been a thing for years, yet only THIS year has this happened. What Changed??

        There’s a big enough number of folks trying to vaporize freaking pot oil with pods made by someone else that it could provide cover to the home-made pods and the cases where hacked vape-pins caught fire.
        Plus, several cities stopped looking at, asking or investigating what was in the vape pens.

        Basically, same way you target prescription pain killers during a heroin epidemic, by recording them all as opioids…..

  26. But the left has minds so completely virgin of history that they make virgin olive oil look like promiscuous olive oil

    Well, olive oil is an excellent choice for certain non-virgin activity, although you wind up smelling like a salad.

    question for the audience, what flag do they think they would prefer?

    Rainbow. Burning it in NY is a crime, but not burning the US flag.

    And I have no faith the courts will find the hate crime statute protecting the Rainbow flag unconstitutional as it inhibits free speech.

          2. I know that was its original purpose. The saying is a common tee shirt in certain quarters. Always brings a smile to my face, even more than the pyramid captioned “Slavery gets things done” (yes, I know they weren’t built by slaves, but in context it is funny).

    3. But the left has minds so completely virgin of history that they make virgin olive oil look like promiscuous olive oil
      I read the object of promiscuous the other way.
      Visions of Plumives and Olierries,,,

  27. “these days cover crazy with crazy, until your mind rebels at the sheer amount”

    Since the Clinton Administration the Dems, when in power, have exercised a “flood the zone” strategy, pumping out so many lies that they overwhelm any efforts at rebuttal. They conditioned the Mainstream Media to abandon all hope of objectivity, becoming Renfrew to their Count.

    Now, with Trump, they’ve refined the tactic, dumping so much paranoid conspiracy venom into the news-stream that it takes a concerted effort to follow news and not buy into their (un)reality. It is simply easier to not swim against their tide of crazy.

    Their problem is that, having dialed their crazy up to eleven they’re finding much of the public will have tuned them out. They’re become the classic definition of a reliable forecaster: always wrong. Hell, they’ve managed to achieve the degree of excess that even when they’re right, they’re wrong. Trump’s handling of that phone call with President Zelensky did cross a line, but it didn’t cross the line — it does not violate Trump’s oath to protect and defend the Constitution, it is not — in and of itself — an impeachable offense. After all, it isn’t as if he back-channeled that he’d have more flexibility after his reelection.

    Good lord, they’re so over the top that (for example) the Washington Examiner‘s Quinn Hillyer, who for the last three days has been writing that Trump has been culpable of impeachable offense is writing today that “In whistleblower hearing, Schiff and Democrats abused their power”.

    The Dems, particularly Adam “Queeg” Schiff, may — may! — be right about Trump’s offense, but their Ahabian pursuit of the Great Orange Whale is utterly vitiating any pretense of credibility.

    1. After all, it isn’t as if he back-channeled that he’d have more flexibility after his reelection.

      I never thought of being caught live on a hot mike was a back-channel.

  28. My wife, who does not follow politics, asked me ehat was up with the impeachment talk. I had a hard time summing it up because none of it makes sense.

  29. It occurs to me that I am so old I can recall when the Left mocked the Children’s Crusade. Now they’re doing their best to re-enact it.

  30. The $64000 question is whether we will hit that activation energy before or after the undermining of structure results in pyrrhic victory

    1. If we haven’t already, and we haven’t, I suspect after.

      Even if we won and swept them all out tomorrow the result of decades of Mittens and Max Boots only revealing their colors after they were in power means I won’t trust most of those nominal on my side with power every again.

      I mean, FFS, Boot tried to claim Trump was worse than Nixon because Trump released the transcript.

      1. The question is though would that distrust devolve power back to where was decades ago or result in revenge and power aggregation.

      2. I don’t condemn Mitt for this, but having such a person on his payroll is not to Mitt’s credit.

        Former Jeb Bush and Romney adviser claims 30 GOP senators would vote impeachment anonymously
        A longtime adviser to Republicans has claimed that if the tally were held in secret, 30 Republican senators would vote to remove President Trump from office.

        Mike Murphy, who has worked as a senior adviser to now-Sen. Mitt Romney and the late Sen. John McCain, appeared Wednesday on MSNBC and said that if the Democratic-led House votes to impeach the president and the Senate acquits him, it could spell political damage the Republican Party in 2020. …

        STFU, Mike, just STFU. Didn’t you learn from McCain and Romney’s examples what the payoff is for being a useful idiot for the Left?

        Even if true, your statement is more condemnatory of those thirty than of Trump.

  31. “If her fears really were of man-made global warming, she’d be lecturing India and China, not us.”

    I’m sure some here have seen this, but for those who haven’t:

    China’s online community was largely unmoved by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg’s emotional message to the UN’s Climate Action Summit in New York this week. …

    “She is a poor girl kidnapped by the thought of white leftists and she herself doesn’t know that,” wrote one user on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform.

    “What this girl is doing is just talking the talk. She started to go on strike at age 14. How much knowledge does she have? Without much knowledge in her mind, how can she propose solutions to deal with environmental problems? I think this little sister’s problem is that she studied too little and thought too much,” another user said.
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/09/green-weenies-all-around-3.php

    Of course, China isn’t wealthy enough to indulge nonsense.

    1. She doesn’t go to Beijing to lecture the ChiComs for the same reason that PETA activists tend to not go to Hell’s Angels bars to harass the patrons about wearing leather. They may be crazy, but they’re not that stupid.

      1. The Chinese people may not waste money. But Chinese top down managers are always trying to increase spending on what they manage.

    3. “Studied too little and thought too much”

      That is, I think, the malady affecting most extremists of any stripe. Because thinking about something allows you to work in high-flown abstractions and sweeping generalities. Studying requires you find out how complicated things actually are.

  34. After trying to make sense of the central contradiction of this whole instant Whistleblower Phone Call Impeachment tempest in a teapot, today I think I finally got enough information to do that, courtesy of Chairman Adam Schiff’s 20+-minute one-on-one coda to his committee’s symphony-long hearing (or half-inquisition) with Acting Director of National Intellgence Jospeh Maguire.

    Less than a single sentence from Schiff did it for me: “…pressure on Ukraine to manufacture dirt…”

    And my question wasn’t “why was it OK for Joe Biden to do it but impeachable for Donald Trump to do it?” — or even “isn’t it insane to publicize private phone calls to foreign leaders, because diplomacy?”

    It was far simpler and more elemental… why is it bad, illegal, impeachable for a President to ask a foreign country or its head of state to *investigate* acts by an American (Hunter Biden) on its soil *at all*, when the Democrats’ handy go-to reply has been “everything must be investigated fully” up to now, even if the root of the “investigation” was as slimy and shoddy as the Steele Dossier?

    All that refrain of “no one is above the law” — surely that must apply, also, even to Hunter Biden and even if the “law” in question is that of the Ukraine, not the USA? Surely, their refrain of “those who are innocent should be happy to prove that before everyone” holds for old Taildragger Joe’s big-dealin’ son too?

    No, because any investigation of Hunter Biden must somehow guarantee that he is innocent, or it’s obviously biased, falsified, “manufacture[d] dirt.” Just as surely as any diligent “investigation” of Trump must sooner or later result in ironclad evidence of his (undeniable and axiomatically obvious) guilt. (Reee!)

    Or else, *to the Democrats* and their (many) fellow-travellers, the very word “investigate” MEANS “to manufacture dirt” — *not* “investigate fairly and well to reach an objective conclusion.” (Thanks for the tip, boys ‘n’ girls.)

    Yup, they’re nuts. Fruitier than a nutcake. The (D) party no longer has a single “leader” in sight who’s visibly living in the same reality we are, and have been. And is parading their bug-snack crazy on national TV for the world to see.

    Still not sure if I’m to the NVDA point yet, but after a lifetime of careful and objective and fair effort to understand and treat everyone right, I think I am.

    NVDA: Never Vote Democrat Again, your last chance is blown. Bye.
    And from now on, (D) means simply Don’t listen, Don’t expect sense, just… Don’t. Ever again.

    1. You should note what Trump asked the Ukraine President to check into first. It was Crowdstrike. The Ukraine company that investigated the supposedly hacked DNC server, that Obama’s FBI & Intelligence agencies weren’t allowed to look at, and proclaimed it was the Russians that did it – likely to aid Trump. That was the start of the Trump/Russian conspiracy claims,
      Supposedly Crowdstrike still has it. Trump wants an actual intelligence agency to be able to look at it.
      All the Crowdstrike stories have been labeled “Conspiracy theories” – but since Mueller’s investigation makes it appear there actually was a conspiracy to oust our President on made up charges, that description doesn’t carry the same connotation it once did.

    2. For the Dems investigations are something they do to others, never something done to them.

      I gather there are plenty of people in the prison yards with similar attitude.

  35. I’m beginning to suspect this is a social equivalent of a plague. There have historically been cases of group madness, where one person goes off the deep end and brings a chunk of their network with them, and that the ease of communication has allowed those things to spread much more rapidly to the vulnerable, and that the increased mass of infected then reduces the resistance of more resilient people to the infection.

    It an extension of my postulate that Twitter is not actually a cesspool, rather it is a mind city that is poorly lead, and has not developed effective sanitation, and like any city before effective sanitation, it quickly resembles a cesspool.

    And no, I don’t really know what is necessary to provide the equivalent for proper sanitation in social media. I suspect a prohibition on making true threats might help, as would an actually enforced social prohibition on insults, but not having tested it, or even really resolved the vectors or even definition of a mind plague, I’d hesitate to go ham implementing things.

    1. It’s the “Big Lie” tactic of propaganda. You can follow the money and connections and draw some very dark conclusions.

      But then again it could be meme infection in action. Maybe we aren’t running copies of “One True”. But we can’t escape to Luna or Mars either.

  38. As for why Europe and the Crown of Monaco, Mrs. Hoyt can explain the answer better than I can: It’s the Holy Fool.

    Why so, in America, other than the slavish habit of would-be petty aristos aping their betters, I don’t know.

  39. THIS ought prove interesting, if true. And it may suggest the origin of the Impeachment Putsch:

    Carl Bernstein: Sources say William Barr preparing to deliver ‘evidence’ of a ‘deep state conspiracy’
    Veteran investigative journalist Carl Bernstein said his sources are telling him that Attorney General William Barr is preparing to push a “deep state” conspiracy to protect President Trump.

    During an appearance Thursday on CNN, the famed Watergate sleuth reacted to controversy about an intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint alleging Trump improperly leveraged military aid to encourage Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

    [SNIP]

    The Justice Department also received a criminal referral about a potential campaign finance violation in relation to Trump’s phone conversation with Zelensky, but declined to take action after a review.

    Bernstein said Barr is trying to “bring about proof that there is a deep state conspiracy that led to” special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and suggested that this is a story other journalists are chasing. “Barr is trying to deliver — I have his from other reporters from other sources — to deliver evidence that perhaps this has all been a deep state conspiracy just like Donald Trump alleges,” he said.

    Bernstein appeared to be referencing the Justice Department’s review of the origins of the Russia investigation being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, examining whether there was any misconduct by Justice Department and FBI officials.

    [SNIP]

    Democrats have expressed alarm with the DOJ inquiry, particularly after Trump granted Barr broad authority to declassify information related to the federal investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. For instance, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler called the move part of a “plot to dirty up the intelligence community, to pretend that there’s something wrong with the beginning of the Mueller investigation and to persecute and bring into line the intelligence agencies.”

    1. “‘…pretend that there’s something wrong with the beginning of the Mueller investigation…'”

      Based on (now well-known) things like the FISA application irregularities, the whole Hillary’s-Campaign-Hired Fake Dossier, etc. etc. etc. (in the full “King and I” sense of the last) — that’s a lot like “pretending” the Cloaca Maxima stank a bit, or that the Pacific Ocean is wet.

      Can the party of Schiff and Nadler be trusted to do *anything* at all, any more, without screwing it up?

      1. This actually could be a reason this latest came in a on whistleblower complaint: If the person blowing this whistle knows they would be on the list once the full coup conspiracy is made public, by getting a whistleblower claim into the system they could possibly be shielded by claiming the coup prosecution is actually in retaliation for blowing this whistle.

        [And yes, I do for some unknown reason keep thinking of Monica Lewinsky when typing the term “whistleblower”. Weird, huh?]

  40. Fascinating, reading all of these postings that go from the primary subject (leftist insanity) to WWII and back down again…The point I wish to make has not been covered yet because most here would probably think it inconceivable right now…but it must be said…Trump’s talk with the Ukraine President covered a few different areas such as CROWDSTRIKE, the DNC router and possible criminal actions by Joe Biden. It appears that Trump may be upping the ante in his attempts to bring the fascist left (aka democrats) under some semblance of control (good luck with that). I see that the fac.left is getting desperate to keep up the charade of “orangemanbad” while pushing for an increasingly insane party platform for the upcoming election. My point here is that I’ve not seen the such a “fit to be tied” atmosphere in about 66 years when assassination was the preferred method for taking care of an uppity President….As the desperation level increases during the next year, I’d almost bet my SS check that there will be an attempt on Trump to eliminate him as a threat…Comments.

    1. You mean, something like this?

      www dot washingtonpost dot com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/21/why-isnt-the-assassination-attempt-on-donald-trump-bigger-news/

      Or this?

      dailycaller dot com/2018/10/14/foiled-isis-assassination-attempt-trump/

      You won’t see much in the MSM unless it’s successful or if a Dem politician is collateral damage.

  41. “…the concentrated stupidity in the ‘squad’ is denser and harder than the core of some stars.”

    *Politically* degenerate matter..?

    Wait, I can actually *see* that, observationally — how Amazing, Occasionally Coherent and her squid-mates [sic] / minions / henchcritters truly do represent a new, ultra-condensed, uniquely *dense* state of matters political.

    Move over, Mr. Chandrasekhar….

    1. Huh… WordPress seems to have rejected a YouTube link.

      Think of Futurama when Fry is locked up with “I’m not crazy” Roberto.

      “Now be quiet, I gotta practice my stabbin'”

      1. And now it DOES show up!

        Are the Dems running this?

        No, because things actually get accomplished around these parts.

  43. I’m old enough to have a vague memory of the early 1970s. And the situation is very, very reminiscent of 1971-ish. The Rabid Left has taken over the Democrat Party…and is determined to drive them over an electoral cliff.

    The good news is that the Watergate equivalent, Spygate, is a Democrat scandal. Meaning that the 1974 and 1976 electoral defeats will be Democrat losses.

    Which will control the grand prize…the Supreme Court. If Trump gets reelected, we’re looking at a 6-3 Conservative majority. If Trump gets reelected and the GOP wins in 2024, it goes 7-2.

    1. That was my first election (sadly, I was a Dem, but grew out of it), but in retrospect it had high levels of humor. Seeing the Daley machine getting kicked out of the convention was a highlight (and knowing that Richard J liked to serve revenge either hot or cold was funny in retrospect), but the comedy gold setup was the revelation that the VP candidate had been hospitalized for mental illness, complete with ECT treatments. The straight line was McG’s “I back him 1000%”, followed by dumping him was priceless. I’m mildly surprised that McGovern won his own state.

      I kind of doubt we’ll see that this time. There would have to be nominated candidates for Pres and VP who *seem* to be sane, and that bridge was burned long before the crossing. OTOH, if the candidate does something UnWoke, that might break out the knives.

      I plan to stock up on popcorn and ammo. Mostly popcorn. I think.

    2. “…determined to drive them over an electoral cliff.”

      There’s actually a joke for that already:

      Q: What mythical animal has the head of a donkey and the body of a lemming?

      A: The mascot of the *next* major party to go the Way of the Whigs (q.v.).

  44. Damn it, I wish I could do a RAW (Random Ass Writing) on the Dawn Empire and media law.

    Namely, this kind of “reporting” would leave you open for a massive civil and criminal tort. For fraud (i.e. you have freedom of speech, you can even in an opinion column offer your opinion that Ming The Merciless and his evil Q-rays are causing Trump to do all these things so that he can finally defeat Flash Gordon. You just can’t knowingly lie in a news article, by omission or commission.)

  45. if you think about it, that girl is the perfect mouthpiece for those leftist loons. A disturbed, deluded, whiny child, without the first clue what she’s talking about, demanding that the world stop turning and give her what she wants RIGHT NOW, because WAAAAAHH!!!

  46. Somewhat lengthy Victor Davis Hanson blog post on the current (and coming) kerfuffles:

    Why the Impeachment Frenzy May Only Strengthen Trump
    Contrary to suggestions by some, most Trump supporters are not automatons or blind supporters. What bothers them, and should bother others, about the latest Ukraine hysterias is the familiar monotony of this latest scripted psychodrama.

    The whistleblower admits to hearsay (“I was not a direct witness to most of the events described”). His term-paper report is laden with anonymously sourced rumors, e.g., “According to multiple White House officials I spoke with,” “I was told by White House officials,” “Based on my understanding,” “I learned from multiple officials,” “I do not know whether similar measures were taken,” “I do not know whether those officials spoke with or met with . . . ”

    Between references to Internet news accounts and “I heard from” and “I learned from” and “I do not know” anonymous officials, there is nothing here to launch an impeachment of any president.

    In the complaint are all the now-familiar tell-tale signs of pseudo-exactness, in the form of Mueller-report-like footnotes and page references to liberal media outlets such as Bloomberg, ABC, and the New York Times. There is the accustomed Steele-dossier scare bullet points. We see again Comey-memo-like disputes over classification status with capital letters UNCLASSIFIED stamped as headers and footers and TOP SECRET lined out.

    Scary references abound to the supposed laws that the legal-eagle whistleblower believes were violated. In sum, there is all the usual evidence of an administrative-state bureaucrat, likely to be some third-tier Brennan or Clapper-like intelligence operative, who is canvassing disgruntled White House staffers, writing a report that imitates intelligence-department formats, combing the Internet, in “dream-team” and “all-star” footnote fashion, for scare quotes and anti-Trump stories, and then likely having it dressed up in legalese by an activist lawyer. Take all that away, and one is left with “I heard.”

    After nearly three years of this, we know the delivery system that ensues. Along with the sensationalized initial media hype, the promised “smoking gun” leak usually follows. But when the “overwhelming” evidence or “walls are closing in” documents are released, there is no criminal act to be found other than occasional art-of-the-deal bluster from Trump. And then on to the next crude coup attempt, since the line of wannabe Glen Simpsons, Bruce Ohrs, Andrew McCabe, and John Brennans seems endless.

    Lost in the conundrum is the reality that no president in recent memory has been so investigated, audited, sued, and examined as Trump without finding evidence of criminal behavior. …

    1. As I wrote in a story, “If they throw enough shit at you, some of the stink just has to stick.”

  47. The thing is this;

    Most of the left’s leadership knows better and doesn’t care – they aren’t interested in facts, they’re interested in issuing the proper mouth noises to needed to win. Modern leftism as practiced by its elites is best understood as Calvinball in the pursuit of raw power. They *know* exactly what they are doing.

    Those like AOC are primarily of note only because the prog destruction of our institutions has outstripped the pace of their final victory to the extent that it’s visibly affecting the quality of their congressional meat puppets.

    But what about their rank and file? If you push them, most will eventually admit that they don’t care about the particular fact you’re arguing. Depending on their stamina, mood, and rhetorical ability, they’ll either try to move the goalposts or just flat out deny a given fact. What they’re doing is reversing the cart and horse in their moral and ethical calculations. They want what they want, and work backwards from there to define what is “right” and “true”. It’s the sort of moral theory you get from a three year old.

  48. I end each day with a prayer for the health and safety of President Donald Trump, his wife and and family.
    Like a pack of rabid dogs The Prog/ Marxist left and the MSM are relentlessly attempting to destroy our Constitutional Republic. And like rabid dogs, they must be forcefully stopped.
    Our 2nd Amendment rights has nothing to do with hunting or self defense. It is the Constitutionally mandated fire extinguisher on the wall, with a gold stencil on the glass door reading, “Open in Case of Tyrants and Absolute Depsotism.”
    “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
    — Thomas Jefferson, 1776

  49. We suspect the psychogenic roots of Rats’ pathetic TDS reflect decades of quota-hiring, elevating incompetents or worse to (all-too-generously compensated) positions for which by very nature they remain unqualified.

    Knowing that this grunt-stuff “inverse selection” process vitiates all pretense to honest accomplishment, performance, scrabbling beneficiaries suffer severe “status anxiety”– the knowledge that, by any honest accounting, they’d revert to flipping burgers, mayhap cleaning stalls at Chick-fil-A.

    Thus Realism doth make frauds-and-cowards of them all, forcing resort to ever-escalating breaches not just of Common Sense but Sanity itself. Scratch a Rat, you’ll find not just Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Weezy Warrren (Fauxcahontas, aka the Cherokee Squaw) but a deep-seated, tremulous poseur concerned to justify the unjustifiable– themselves.

  52. Regarding Greta Thunberg’s anxiety. Her full throated declaration that the adults have failed and betrayed her.

    Perhaps, in Greta’s story, Climate Change IS the Zombie of Trope.

    And yes, this does point towards insanity. Not of Greta, of the Left. For her, it points to a coping mechanism, a damned clever one in the short term at that.

  53. No kidding. I was actually mentioned (but not by name) for something I said about Greta Thunberg and Dan Simmons that was highlighted on Mike Glyer’s “File 770.” Apparently rationally questioning the left about anything is a terrible crime.

  54. Pingback: File Folder 2: Impeach THIS!

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