I Can See Clearly Now

478 thoughts on “I Can See Clearly Now”

1. 2020 vision, I’ve got 2020 vision.

   1. “Ouch, I’ve Got Something In My Eye 2020”

   2. I don’t like my 2020 vision at all.

   3. I DON’T, and am desperate to go out and get that new pair of glasses with updated prescription I’ve been needing for a few months now, but that would cause all the little children to die from the European virus….
      By the living G-d, I hate Andrew Cuomo and all who sail in her!

      1. I actually do not have 20-20 vision, and do need glasses.

         2020 vision is the latest stage of the great unmasking.

      2. Yeah, I need a new prescription too. As does my husband, whose eyes are refusing to focus at all without glasses. (Since that’s happened in the last two years or so, that really should get looked at. Though there is the “mid-40s” possibility that sometimes hits eyesight.)

      3. Picked up my new glasses today (thank you ND for not shutting everything down) and I’ve got a bit of a headache now. It’s going to take a day or two to get used to the slight change in Rx I guess.

         1. My father’s cataract surgery has been rescheduled, but they are testing him for the Flu Manchu first.

      4. Ah the irony. What they really think of children

2. I read ‘phaluscy’ #1 and immediately think of all the SF stories where the key to things working is that there a conscious crew (even if a crew of one) and NOT a rigid-programmed robot. That creativity thing seems important, somehow.

   1. I have a wip that pivots around self-aware AI about which I have become conflicted – I am coming more and more to the conclusion that David Weber has posited in the Honorverse that this whole AI idea just is not ever really going to be possible.

      Which of course means the ‘cut out (or grow) a human brain and hook it into a ship’ approach will become the focus of future research.

      1. means the ‘cut out (or grow) a human brain and hook it into a ship’ approach

         –
         Or “Ship Persons” and “City Administrator Persons”, McCaffery’s “Shell persons”. Where infants who otherwise are born with too much genetic physical damage, that can’t be repaired, but can be hooked and wired, and raised in a shell that then can be connected to a shell to run the computers and other mechanical. Not that people won’t have “dumb” tech available too.
         –

      2. Well, he’s done that too — The Apocalypse Troll. NOT a glowing recommendation for the procedure.

   2. Heh:

      

3. Just did a couple of internet tests, they both claim my vision is 20/20 here in 2020, which I’m honestly a little surprised at. This was about the age when Mom started needing reading glasses, and Dad has been 20/240 since about the age of 10. I guess I’m getting the right kind of practice, indoors and out, to keep my vision as sharp as possible as I age.

   As far as Trump goes, his pattern seems to be to get experts and expect them to produce, firing them when they don’t. I imagine that these days he’s less than impressed with the ones advising him on beer-chan.

   Still waiting on the Overton Window to shift enough that we can liquidate the ones Tom Kratman says need to go for the good of the country. If that happens because of the looting dolists and burn-it-down fascists, we’ll owe their coordinators some back-handed thanks. Preferably by lead injection, though.

   -Albert

   1. I tend to test 20/30 in one eye and 20/10 in the other, so on average I’m 20/20, right?
      –

4. It’s been very telling to see the exact same people who were concerned about the anti-lockdown protests “building fascist power” just a short month ago, suddenly having nothing to say about the ideological mobs looting and burning in the streets.

   1. Simple.

      They don’t want to “provoke” the “protesters” into visiting their neighborhoods. [Sarcastic Grin]

      1. I’ve seen/heard a few claim that the “protesters” (RIOTERS) are going to expand into suburban and even rural areas. My mean streak wants to them to try it in “rural areas” – I expect a Very Nasty Surprise Indeed. Which won’t be heard about right off, just that “Johnny Troublemaker went to $NOWHEREVILLE and never came back…” stories will be show up eventually. And ain’t nobody ever see-d or hear-d nuthin’.

         1. Sounds like the guys who were playing with fireworks 6 years ago and burned a couple dozen homes along with 2000 acres. “They left, and nobody knows where they went.”

            3S (Shoot, shovel, shut up) ain’t just a joke.

            1. And people have backhoes now making it MUCH easier. Some people raise pigs for the same reason. down here in the south there are so many feral Hog that who knows what happens to something left out where they can get to it. The most important part is STFU!

         2. Antifa has been posting in its Twitter feeds explciit directions to do just that; Instapundit had a screen shot posted yesterday. One thing that I have seen is that there are a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters openly supporting the riots and looting on their social media accounts and calling for more of it, often in specific places and even to specific people. Needless to say Twitter allows this and none of the Democrats, particularly national ones such as Biden, Sanders, Pelosi, etc., have denounced rioting and looting. They are in fact encouraging it, proving yet again that the Antifa and other violent activists are the Democratic Party’s footsoldiers.

            1. Twitter is claiming that the Antifa Twitter account has been taken over by white supremacists. Am I the only one doubting them?

               1. Given Antifa’s obvious opinions on minority agency, when has it not been a white supremacist account?

               2. Is Twitter saying, then, that their security is fallible, their controls faulty?
                  –

               3. NBC is claiming the people dressed exactly like Antifa members in the riots, who are doing exactly what Antifa has been saying they needed to do for years, are actually white supremacists disguised as Antifa.

                  1. And NBC knows this how?

                     I am reminded of the scholar who spent years determining that Shakespeare’s plays were NOT written by William Shakespeare but by another man of the same name!
                     –

               4. And the accounts of all the individuals who are known Antifa members from past riots, andn all the Bernie bros who are tweeting the same “how and where to riot and loot stuff” who are known supporters and workers for Bernie Sanders? Is Twitter going to claim those are all faked/hacked as well.

                  The simple fact is that Twitter is actively aiding and abetting Antifa’s misconduct, as shown by their censorship of Representative Gaetz’s condemnation of Antifa today, while they leave the actual riot promotions being called out up on their site without action.

                  https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/06/02/twitter-censors-rep-matt-gaetz-for-glorifying-violence-against-antifa/

                  If Obama could seize and shutdown Backpage and other advertising cites for allowing ads that promote prostitution and other activity that is illegal under state or federal laws, then a company that outright promotes rioting, looting and arson and allows people to direct such attacks against specific areas and people should also be able to be seized.

         3. When I heard on the local news radio that a local mall (in an upscale’ish neighborhood) is concerned they’re going to be the “target” of a protest, such that one of the big anchor stores started boarding up their doors / windows, I kind of think we’re talking less “protesting” and more “looting and rioting.”

            I could see using the mall property as a place to protest, there’s a main road right there, plenty of parking for the protesters, etc.

            But yeah, kind of doubt there’ll be a lot of that and lot more of “FREE SH!T” going on, if it moves ahead.

            1. They should watch the area for trucks dropping off pallets of bricks for no apparent reason. Apparently, such a thing often presages “Protests” on behalf of the “downtrodden” (whether they want it or not). Because, you know, Antifa is mostly made up of middle and upper class white kids who angry about how life has given them nothing to be angry about… and finding their own damn bricks is tooooo haaaaaarrrddd…..

               “Back in my day, you had to make due with what you found in the area.”
               “OK Boomer!”

               1. “Why, back in my day we had to haul our own bricks ten miles to the riot. Uphill! Both ways! And we only got full-size TVs for loot, none of these flat screens an’ smartphones! You spoiled brats don’t know how good you got it!”

               2. Middle and upper class white kids who think they can’t possibly have it as good as their parents did because their parents don’t seem to work that hard…. because the ‘work your butt off’ stage of their parent’s lives was either before the kiddies were born or while they were tiny. They’re absolutely convinced that to make it today you have to work sooooooo much harder than their parents did….

                  1. That and when they should have been able to see their parents working hard they were too busy complaining about parental neglect and the long hours put in at the office when the kiddies wanted attention.
                     –

         4. Yeah, some of the “protesters” did claim they were hitting the suburbs next– saw several memes mocking it. (Along the lines of “ooooh, yeaaaaaah!”)

            1. I saw lots of “bring it!”

            2. I was stationed at MCAS El Toro (not all that far from LA) during the Rodney King riots. We had a couple “rioters” (aka. wannabe looters) drive into base housing. It didn’t work out for them so well. LOL!

         5. I’d really rather they don’t. I’d rather not face off against such myself. Even the best case (for me) outcome is still messy and not fun. Worst case is me and mine get hurt.
            We’re kinda rural, and ideal world could “band together with our neighbors.” But reality is we’re doing good to know their names. Definitely don’t have a mutual aid society set up to deal with random marauding vermin.
            Being prepared for a break-in is a different threat than a mob attack.

      2. The “protestors” are their sons and daughters. Antifa doesn’t come from the slum, you have to have an elite education to ebe so entitled and so ignorant.

         Too bad. Daddy will make sure they have the very best representation and pity the cop who shoots the mayor’s darling daughter.

         These are my neighbors and associates. I despise them.

         1. IIRC, the Big Apple’s Finest did pick up a young Miss DeBlasio in connection to the riots the other night. Or was it Cuomo? (Not that I care.)

   2. I did see someone on Facebook talk about being terribly worried about the rioters spreading coronavirus.

      1. Well, the mayor of Minneapolis was offering masks and social distancing advice to the “protesters” the other day.

   3. Indeed … and isn’t it curious, too.
      And the same lot who are incensed about a sometime-criminal of color being killed (deliberately or inadvertently) by a person-not-of-color who may or may not be an officer of the law … remain perfectly indifferent to all the innocents of any color, deliberately killed by sometime-criminals-of color. It’s just a puzzle, that is. Black lives may matter, but black deaths only matter if they can be used by so-called social activists for a purpose.

      Meanwhile, this afternoon, I am working on a chapter of the current WIP wherein a small-town lynch mob is about to permanently deal with a local criminal … and several responsible citizens talk the mob down… kind of ironic to be writing this, the very week that red cities are going up in flames at the hands of mobs.

      1. They’re not indifferent.

         Some of the “protesters” are demanding that Noor be released.

         That would be the former cop Noor. Who, on duty, shot and killed the lady who called 911 when she walked up to the police car to speak to the officer responding to her call.

         He wasn’t arrested for over half a year, wasn’t fired until after his arrest, and IIRC it was two years before he was found guilty.

         He had at least one federal level complaint against him before the shooting, and three open complaints at the time of the shooting. (The federal one is the only one I can find details on; female who called in to report a crime being committed behind her house and ask for a welfare check for her disabled special needs brother. Sounds obnoxious, but also sounds like the officers involved were…not alright, we’ll say. No indication if the federal is counted with those.)

         This is only mentioned as part of the aggregate of “Minneapolis police department pattern of problems,” because she was a blonde and he is Somalian.

         1. have you tried “chs dot state dot mn dot us”? I think his conviction should be there. Other, non-criminal or non-convictions, likely wouldn’t show up anywhere online.

            1. Hadn’t; only birth date I can find for him is apparently not accurate, as it brings up zero results.

      2. Black lives are sometimes politically useful doesn’t have the same ring to it.

   4. It’s not about abuse of power or police brutality. It’s about who has the boot slammed onto their face

      Most of the folks that pushed all that and now are 150% behind all of this are merely sad that police killed the wrong person. The cops could have swept the lockdown protests with a 50 cal and they would have thrown a parade.

      1. As I noted that other day, there are many whose goal is not equality or justice, and they don’t want to end oppression. What they want is to be the oppressors.

         1. Majority.

5. Back in the day I was declared officially 20/12 in one eye and 20/15 in the other, but not anymore. Close started to go when I hit 40 between presbyopia, hereditary hypermetropia and staring at computer screens all day long for years, and then astigmatism asserted itself over the following decade. I need those adaptive corrective implants to get perfected before I need lens replacements due to cataracts, please.

   1. Mom had cataracts and got lens replacements. Went from thick lens, even with newer light weigh thinner composites to only needing reading glasses. She’s worn glasses since ? or she doesn’t remember ever not wearing glasses or being able to see beyond her nose without them. She wears multi-focal lens with minimal correction 20/30, because she doesn’t know how to not wear glasses.

      Dad didn’t start wearing glasses until his 40s. One sister had to start wearing them when she was in grade school. The other not until she was in her early 50s. I started wearing them at 15 so I could drive. But didn’t go multi-focal until late 50s. I can drive without them in an emergency, if I don’t need to read street name signs. Night driving without them is not recommended, but doable.I don’t read with them, unless it is really, really, small print; though that is getting harder & harder sometimes. Outside I wear them, because it is amazing on how little UV light it takes to trigger the photo sensitivity in the lens; this applies to large retail places too. Light sensitivity is a problem.

      1. I am old enough that my nearsightedness has started to correct itself back! I.am now in cheap glasses territory again! Yay!

         1. Mine, too! I no longer need eyeglasses to drive! But honestly, I would like to be near-sighted again. Not being able to easily read the small print on a wide variety of stuff is a bear. I’d rather still need glasses for driving/

            1. My eyes did the same. Never got super bad. But started correcting back to “better” territory. Never got good enough that I’d pass an DMV eye test on their machines.

               Why I finally went progressive is because I got tired of whipping off the glasses to read the label fine print. (Dang glasses don’t heal worth a dang, always have to go find where I left them. Mostly the where-did-mom-leave-her-glasses game occurs at home, but it does occur.) Now the label print is just too dang small without the progressives.

               1. I used to play a lot of ping pong, until I went to progressive lenses. Try it some day.

                  1. Yea. Uh, No.

                  2. I can’t play pool with glasses. Straight lines change shape when I move my head when they’re on. Blurry but actual geometry works better.

                     1. The ball goes from being very small to being very large. I can catch a football but can’t hit a baseball anymore. I was never good enough at pool to know if they mattered but, now that you mention it, my father, who was a very good snooker player, used to take his glasses off to play.

                        1. That was me until 22. No one in Portugal understood astigmatism. So gym teachers saw me flinch and made up this story about how I didn’t want my pretty face damaged and that’s why I sucked at sports.
                           I didn’t know I was pretty and probably wouldn’t have cared. And I hope each and every one of them has been put in a position where others psychically KNOW their motives and torment them over those supposed motives. Not that I’m bitter.
                           I used to get sick to my stomach before gym days. And some of what those sadistic bastards came up with to punish my supposedly being spoiled and vain had to be seen to be believed.

      2. I started wearing glasses in third grade for myopia. I’ve acquired some scratches on my corneas (mostly left eye) that make astigmatism correction a rough approximation. When I got cataract surgery 8 years ago, my doctor and I set up the right lens optimized for distance (almost no correction) with the left eye optimized for reading. Worked great until I had cornea issues. (Map Dot Fingerprint dystrophy; rough corneas, in essence.) Instead of the right eye going farsighted (the normal case), it went very nearsighted. Not much change when the left eye was done. FWIW, the procedure sounds scary–diamond burr to clean up the cornea, but it’s not (very) painful. Needed acetaminophen + ibuprofen for a few days, but not the tylenol+codeine and ambien(!) that was prescribed. Actually slept well. The cleanup in vision was worth it.

         The scar-astigmatism could be fixed, either by working on the current cornea or transplanting. I’m not interested in either. Nope. Not gonna.

         The upside is that I can use a computer all day long without glasses. Non computer, I’ll use bifocals, though I have computer glasses in single vision. I use those more in the shop than reading; though if I need to spend a lot of time with a dead-tree book, they’re handy.

6. Re DJT, I also wish he’d pushed back a little harder, but I actually really like how he made twitter headfakes at dictating from on high to stir up the media, but then left things to the Governors of the States to erect their own petards.

   1. I just watched his speech! I AM CHEERING! He just issued the ultimatum to the Democrats, and if they don’t protect the innocent citizenry and their property, then he will. I got too excited and missed the name of the act he cited though.

      1. Then he and his people walked out the front door, across Lafayette Square, and over to St Johns. whatever his faults he knows what leadership is. the old saying was that British Officers don’t duck, it doesn’t work and the men don’t like it. If Trump is going to put people in harms way, he has to show his willingness to do the same. Yeah there were guys with guns, but the rioters had been driven out just minutes before. You could hear the bangs on the CSPAN live feed in the run up,to the speech.

         1. Then he and his people walked out the front door, across Lafayette Square, and over to St Johns

            I was pretty sure that was what he was doing.

            GOOD ON HIM!

            1. That’s what I thought and yes, Good on him. CNN wil probably complain that they walked on the grass or some such BS. hey are all so inconsequential.

               The response to the riots and the response to the WuFlu is the same weakness and failure by the same people.

               1. The idiots at St John’s and the local Episcopal bishop were moaning about using the church as a political prop and not respecting the sacred space.

                  I was raised a Vatican II Catholic. I.e. a good Jewish protestant. Lived in Ireland where I discovered I was most at home with the Anglicans.

                  Now, I’m having major issues with the entire Anglican communion’s insistence on SJW doctrine and intentional misrepresentation of everything Jesus said.

                  And they have no idea why they are losing bums in the pews.

                  1. Aw, they’re generally okay with being a political prop, they’re just upset about whose.
                     –

                     1. The local CT bishop put out a statement today, moaning about the president. The comments on Facebook are nauseating, as virtually every single one (with a few same exceptions) moaning about how could a president who only promotes hate and vision could use a church as a prop, and he had them use flash bangs and tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful protestors just so he could have his photo op!

                        All else being equal, likexyou, I bet none of them would have felt that Obama was being hypocritical. And whatever happened to the protesters was completely justified.

                        It certainly feels like being a member of at least certain branches of the earthly church is putting one’s soul at risk.

                        1. Well, this don’t further the narrative:

                           Protesters near Trump speech were removed for attacks on cops: Park Police
                           U.S. Park Police reportedly say protesters near the White House were pushed back by riot police on Monday evening because they were attacking police officers, not because of a visit by President Trump to a nearby church that had been set alight the night before.

                           Trump visited St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had been attacked by vandals on Sunday, moments after he addressed the nation and promised to restore “law and order” amid the protests and riots that have engulfed the country in the wake the death of George Floyd.

                           But as he did so, protesters were being pushed back by riot police near Lafayette Square who charged the crowds and used what was reported as being tear gas to disperse them. Media outlets connected the pushback with Trump’s visit — and described the protesters as “peaceful.”

                           “Park Police Tear Gas Peaceful Protesters To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op,” read a NPR headline.

                           “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church,” said a New York Times story.

                           House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement to call out the “photo-op.”

                           “Across our country, Americans are protesting for an end to the pattern of racial injustice and brutality we saw most recently in the murder of George Floyd,” the statement read. “Yet, at a time when our country cries out for unification, this President is ripping it apart. Tear-gassing peaceful protestors without provocation just so that the President could pose for photos outside a church dishonors every value that faith teaches us.”

                           But on Tuesday morning, Park Police sources told WTOP that this was not the case, arguing that the protesters were not all peaceful, that tear gas was not used, and that officers did not know of Trump’s visit to the house of worship.

                           A source says tear gas was never used — instead smoke cannisters were deployed, which don’t have an uncomfortable irritant in them. And, the source says Park Police didn’t know President Trump would be walking across the park several minutes later.

                           The outlet went on to report that the crowd was pushed back when officers were being hit with water bottles and that protesters had climbed onto the top of a structure at the north end of Lafayette Square that had been attacked and burned a day earlier.”

                           [SNIP]

                           The protesters had previously been criticized by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who said they were “professional agitators.”

                           “They knew the street needed to be cleared before 7 pm curfew,” Rubio tweeted. “But they deliberately stayed to trigger police action & get the story they wanted, that “police attacked peaceful protesters.”

                           [END EXCERPT]

                           It was almost 1900 when Trump headed over there, and it seems unlikely those protesters were within a few minutes of their homes.
                           –

               2. I’ve seen much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over his urban clearance project, with the usual amount of hyperbolic claims (e.g., he shouldn’t have used flash-bangs/tear gas on the crowd … nor did they; those were smoke canisters — giving new context to the old phrase, “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.”)

                  I have seen more than the usual amount of criticism from the Right, from both the usual anti-Trump conservatives and from others, such as Sen. Sasse. The racial component of these “protests” is smoking out the weak-kneed “Don’t include me with those extremists” who run under (and from) the Republican banner.
                  –

         2. Antifa on Twitter whining that he can’t go anywhere without his protection. I said this, in agreement with the person I quote:

            https://mobile.twitter.com/rkmodena/status/1267683703213318144

      2. The Insurrection Act of 1807 and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 govern when Federal troops can be used, as the British would say, in aid of the.civil power. There is also the Constitution’s Article II requirement that the president see that the laws are faithfully executed.

         1. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock in 1956 without benefit of either.

            1. I thought Little Rock was the Insurrection Act. If not, it should have been since It covers the circumstances there entirely. then again the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus were put in to limit the President’s power. Washington led troops in person under his Article II authority.

               1. There’s a s Joey story idea. What if you really had to work into your pyjamas every morning to see *what* you were…

                  1. Story idea. Peek into. What’s a 5 min edit timer when you want it?

                     1. “What’s a 5 min edit timer when you want it?”

                        Something unattainable. 😉

         2. So he is constitutionally required to do this, and aaaaalll the lefties are crying that he is a petty dictator.

7. “Something screwy with him, you say?”
   “He has to look in his trouser every time he awakens to see who and what he is.”
   “That’s a bit of a concern, but does seem like at least a work-around of things.”
   “He’s a centaur.”
   “Centaur? Trousers? Alright, that’s screwy.”
   “Toldja.”

8. “Riots work.”

   https://archive.is/LLnW5

9. I suspect that those who aren’t ‘true believers’ but embraced socialism from expedience, because they expected it to give the a ride to power they couldn’t achieve any other way, now see they are at a point they need it to win or fade away until at least well past their lifetimes.

10. I’m not surprised by the riots, that was more or less inevitable in the face of the indefinite lockdowns. I am surprised, a bit, that Antifa has been so prominent. Not that they are good, but this is a blunder.

    1. Yeah, I was talking to a friend about that. I think a minor (maybe more) silver lining is that Antifa did expose themselves and even the densest are beginning to see that Antifa is only in it for the destruction and the ability to blame that destruction on others.

       1. I wish I could see that. There still seem to be plenty of people on their side, sadly.

          1. A friend’s wife swears they aren’t a movement or group, and there is no organization involved; they are just people who hate fascists. I responded that they were acting remarkably like the brown and black shirts of Mussolini and Hitler, which would make them fascists.

             I am waiting to be blocked or unfriended.

             1. So the fact that they organize themselves into branded chapters, sell swag, all dress alike, etc…

    2. What is interesting to me is why Jogger death did not trigger it but reformed crack dude did. Is it just the better quality video or the police ang le?

       1. I’d guess better video, cops that didn’t make people feel powerful by cowering, and there wasn’t a large, unassimilated Somali population hanging out.

          Plus, there’s no tingle of Hidden Knowledge if you say “shooting a guy you thought may have burgled a house is bad” vs “the guy who was resisting arrest like a three year old where the cops did not act properly scared of the people forming up around them and who probably died of a heart attack triggered by not allowing himself to be taken in and checked out, like any innocent accused, was EXCECUTED!!!!111!1”

          1. A liberal Democrat power structure in place, from Mayor all the way to Governor and a state Attorney-General who has built a career out of being anti-cop may be factrs.
             
             See Keith Ellison. See Keith Ellison looking resolute. See Keith Ellison promote himself as governor-material. See Keith Ellison comparing himself to Pete Buttigieg and envisioning himself presidential.
             –

             1. Quick, imagine him in a hoodie and dark glasses, like many of the protesters — would he be identified as a “minority” by the guys who do the race-counting in photos?
                Because he looks about as dark as my dad, in that picture. (Looks a bit like one of my uncles, too, although they had puffball hair when they HAD hair.)
                Dad’s mostly Scottish, but a rancher.

             2. See Keith Ellison looking petulant and thinking he looks statesmanlike.

                1. Awww, is that a pout?

          2. Makes sense. It’s hard to know which ones will do it.

       2. Better video, much more shocking detail and the police angle is what I am betting on, for this being the trigger. The Aubery jogger thing was a bit problematic, as it showed Aubery going for the shotgun … not a good look for “poor widdle innocent black accused heartlessly murdered by the po-po” narrative.
          Now the woman EMT (?) being killed in her own house after a shoot-out during a mistaken police break in – that to me is much more shocking, horrific, and inexcusable. But no video, so unusable as a cause celeb for getting the protests moving. Even though – much, much worse, and even much more inexcusable on the part of the local PD.

11. Our gracious hostess reminds me of how during that “low dishonest decade” of the 1930s, the only public intellectual who wasn’t all-in on the Glorious Collectivist Future and who maintained the primacy of individual liberty in the face of both the National Socialists and the International Socialists was … [drumroll, please!] … Ayn Rand.

    1. Can someone show me the way to the Gulch?

       1. The Gulch always sounded a bit dog-eat-dog and totalitarian to me.

          I dunno, out of contrariness I might set myself up as God-Emperor of the Yobbos and Hoons. I’d have a whole world to play with. One of My first actions would be to make sure the Gulchers stayed in their self-built prison…

          Even in the poorest society, there’s always plenty for the rulers.

    2. Even people who agree with her like to rag on how she went a little crazy. But facing all that, can we really blame her?

       1. She told us about the October Revolution, and it was harrowing.

          She had to LIVE through it.

          1. I took Russian in high school

             From a Hungarian

             in 1988.

             She was just old enough (barely) to have been an active participant in the revolution, and skipped town soon after.

             When Gorbachev was talking peace and glasnost/perestroika, she was saying “don’t trust them, remember, for Russians ‘peace’ and ‘the world’ is the same word (mir, also means a village) so when they say we want peace they are saying we want the world!”

             ahh, good times.

             1. In 2014 I got to spend a week with a professor (In Hungary) who watched the 1956 revolution from his apartment window (he was 8). My German professor (Austrian) was literally on the other side of the Andau Bridge, helping Hungarians who were fleeing the Soviets. Very, very interesting.

       2. I understand Cassandra got a little bit strange, too.
          –

       3. Not our finest hour

12. Other than the fact that Reagan dismantled the USSR and exposed their lies.

    NOW the leftists claim it was plan ALL ALONG the USSR would fail and so on. But those of us who remember… it was to some, but not many. The wall in Berlin? It felt like it would be there “forever” even when people started dancing atop the damnable thing. That the USSR would so quickly – sans a single ‘nucular’ shot, not even a stupid accident – was Astonishing.

    Was it The End of History? Of course not. But so many could NOT imagine/cope with a timeline that deviated from the script they’d been fed.

    Think things are crazy now?

    Universe: Hold my beer.

    1. I’m reminded of the start of the first Austin Powers movie, when the main character comes out of cryo suspension, sees the Russian observer standing next to the main character’s handler, and immediately assumes that the Soviets won the Cold War.

    2. s/plan/PLAIN/

    3. The American left remains appalled that the USSR fell and they still despise Reagan precisely because he won the Cold War. The reason kids are indoctrinated Soviet style in schools and universities today is because the vast majority of teachers and professors are in the camp of people who believe the Soviets were the good guys and that the wrong side won the Cold War. They are using their positions to try to change that result.

    4. Although Ronald Reagan pushed the USSR over the edge (perhaps by making them over commit to deal with SDI, which was pretty pie in the sky) he had help. John Paul II and PM Thatcher certainly helped. And nearly 40 years of US administrations pushing against them from both parties. Even feckless Jimmy Carter knuckled down and threatened to spend money on ERW (Enhanced Radiation Weapons AKA Neutron bombs W70-3) and Pershing II that Reagan later used as a bargaining chip in the INF treaty.

       1. uhm

          dude…
          that ‘pie in the sky’ WORKS.

          pretending otherwise just means you’ve bought yet another piece of media fiction.

          1. Draven there are NO bomb pumped lasers, no space based “rods from g*d” no large bases of interceptors US or foreign, nothing that could deal with a full on attack from the ex USSR. Even China with 60+ Ground based ICBM and 24 (crude) SSBN could probably overwhelm the ~30 operational GBI (ground based interceptors) and the SM3 deployed on old Aegis cruisers. THAAD if deployed with TPY-2 radar to the west coast might help some in the China (or NORK) case. China’ s ICBM (DF-5) are reported as having 12-15000 K range so depending on where they are I don’t think they can threaten the whole continental US. All of the defenses would need the SBX-1 radar platform deployed somewhere near the the great circle routes for the missiles to aid in terminal intercept, without that kill ratio goes WAY down I suspect. The SM3 and the GBI kinetic kill ability are quite impressive, but their main purpose is to deal with small rogue launches or to defend carrier groups against ballistic attack. As noted China can probably overwhelm the force in a full attack (although doing that would be REALLY stupid 1-2 Ohio class subs carry more deliverable RV’s than the whole Chinese force). So yes there is some defense, no it is nothing like the invulnerable shield Reagan hoped for. I still think it was a massive bluff and the Soviets tried to draw to an inside straight and failed. Ronald Maximus had their number.

             1. Just because we didn’t build it doesn’t mean we never got the tech working, dude. If the soviets had continued, the rush and the crush for development would have, too. All the proof you need is to look at what the budget for SDI was year over year…. yeah, losing 90%+ of your budget, it ends up, significantly impacts research speed. We have working weapons grade lasers, working railguns, working missile interceptors, working track-and-intercept capability…

                1. Draven I’m dubious on the lasers. YAL-1 (Airborne Laser) did some (successful) tests in the 2000’s, That was for boost phase and limited(chem lasers expend ammo essentially in the form of gases), though they did solve a LOT of the atmospheric issues once adaptive optics became a thing (nice payback on that is being able to have effective LARGE ground based telescopes). Navy has been working railguns for a long time there were supposed to be railguns on the Zumwalt class destroyers but that fell through (as did the dual band radar and a bunch of other features). There were some interesting demos of railguns producing nearly hypersonic speeds but that was again 2000’s (needed high temp superconductors I think). Bomb pumped lasers were likely Lawrence Livermore’s bailiwick, but with nuclear testing ended in 1992 its not clear how far they got (that stuff is likely all very high clearance, nothing in the public). Could we have done it if we’d continued funding,? And we had diddly squat for delivering things to orbit thanks to Nixon and Carter locking us in to the Shuttle. Likely if we’d pushed VERY hard (like Moon shot hard), but no way are you getting that kind of funding from a Democratic house and Senate when they can spend money on Bread and Circuses for their base in the 80’s.

                   Estimates are that if we lose 20-50 cites we will experience breakdowns that takes us back to pretty crude levels. Heck even the disruptions we’ve seen from Wu Flu (necessary or not) have shown us how delicate the system is. Take out the NYC vicinity and all of a sudden getting food and bulk items to New England gets bottlenecked. There’s similar road and rail bottlnecks all across the US and I promise you they were multiply targeted in the 80’s. A missile defense really has to be VERY impressive when you’re talking 1000’s if warheads, even 1% leakage amounts to a nearly TEOTWAWKI scenario.

                   1. news flash: we have a naval vessel with a laser cannon as its main gun. Please try to catch up.
                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System

                      Navy’s railguns are still being tested, and the program has minimal funding. Last June, they demonstrated the prototype firing multii-round salvos.

                      1. “Navy’s railguns are still being tested” so far as we know.

                         I suspect Trump is taking the matter of force projection (heh) seriously these days and preparing surprises for any Chinese of Iranian naval vessels that get cheeky.
                         –

             2. The original idea (pre-Regan) was to defend our missile sites, so we could go back to launch-on-impact instead of launch-on-warning. That would have drastically dropped the chance of either an accidental war, or of someone rolling the dice thinking that they could take out our ICBM’s before we launched.

                1. Right the original ABM treaty allowed for 2 ABM sites per signatory, One to defend their capitol, one to defend launch sites, later amended down to one site. Before the USSR came back to the table in the Nixon era development was started on Safeguard across the US. There are NIKE sites in Topsfield and North Andover (neighboring towns to mine) that were being upgraded to NIKE Zeus ABM missiles from Nike Hercules anti-aircraft hardware. Ultimately the USSR came back to negotiations and the US only built one site and even that finally got canned in the early Reagan administration. All these various missiles (plus others never built Sentinel, Nike-X) had Nuclear warheads. Small ones, but even a .1-5 Kt explosion is not your friend. On top of that places like North Andover and Topsfield were not particularly happy about having a giant target painted on them …

13. “because you can’t put tech back in the bottle. ”

    You can. But it pretty much would require destroying the country. And much of the rest of the developed world along with it. You would quite literally need to tear out the manufacturing capabilities, and knowledge of those manufacturing techniques. Difficult, but not impossible.

    Incidentally, if I were going to try to do something like that, the current circumstances are a pretty good way to start…

    I stopped by the DMV this morning to get my drivers license renewed, and replace it with the new Real ID version. Unfortunately, the friendly pair of cops (and they were friendly; no sarcasm should be implied) standing in the parking lot let me know that it was closed due to the current “civil unrest”. I stopped by the supermarket afterwards to grab an item that I forgot about when I went late last week. And I was happy to note that – after weeks of not seeing any of it in the store – toilet paper was present on the shelf during this visit just as it had been during my previous visit.

    1. Locally the TP is there, but it’s “we get whatever we get, and whatever we get we put on the shelf.” So the shelf is full (after a supply delivery anyway) but it might be only three or four brands or form factors, but the shelf is full.

       This is happening with other items as well. Canned vegetables, canned beans, rice, soup. Locally both flour and sugar seem to be back to normal or pretty close. Yeast is there, but still limited. Even some obscure (“health food”) stuff is hit & miss.

       So far, you CAN get something (exception currently is still disposable disinfectant wipes), but it might not be the exact brand or such you prefer. BUT.. it’s not Autumn or Winter, so.. stocking up hear and there… not a bad idea. And if you have it, can you cook it? What if the power is out? And not for only a couple hours?

       1. We’ve had sugar at my usual supermarket since a couple of weeks after the nonsense started. There’s evidence that flour is being put on the shelf, but I’ve never actually seen the bags. So they’re likely selling out immediately. There are usually a few bags of dried beans on the shelf in the usual spot. But never more than that.

          I have no idea if my local store has had *any* yeast to stock since this nonsense started. I’ve certainly never seen any evidence of it. And I check every time I’m there.

          Kleenex tends to be hit or miss. It’s usually hit, but a couple of weeks ago, I walked by and the only stuff still on the shelf were ten packs of the pocket-sized packages (and not very many of those).

          With most other stuff, there are items on the shelf. But there are obvious gaps in the frontage. And a particular brand that you like might not be available on this particular trip.

          1. At least yeast is something one can work around if one must. It can be fiddly, but yeastie beasties are everywhere.

             Example: https://www.rachaelrayshow.com/articles/how-to-make-yeast

          2. there are obvious gaps in the frontage

             –
             Local Costco seems to have a lot more floor space where they usually have stuff stacked. One item that seems to be low in stock is soda. They’ve been “out” of Diet Pepsi my last 3 trips (three weeks) and were out, then almost out of regular Coke. Other types, the floor storage is at least 1/3 of normal space. They’ve expanded the alcoholic options into the missing space (a lot more craft local beer and wine options).
             –

          3. What I’ve heard about the yeast is that Fleichmans (SP?) had a single source supplier for their packaging in India, and the factory is shut down from the Vermillion Virus.

             1. I’ve heard something similar, except that the location of the manufacturer for the foil packaging wasn’t mentioned. The assumption I got when reading the piece was that it was an American manufacturer who the idiot politicians hadn’t declared “essential”.

                But you’re probably right.

                1. No that was a filter used for processing milk😣

       2. Dried beans and brown rice are back at the restaurant supply, generally at prices considerably higher than they were in January. OTOH, there were a series of interesting crop failures for beans across North America; 2020 was getting warmed up, it seems.

          There’s nothing that demands a Costco trip, so until I have to do a medical visit, we’ll forgo the pleasure of virtue signal: mandatory mask edition.

       3. Make sure you have some bricks to make a rocket stove to cook with whatever wood is lying around.

14. Oh, with a bit of effort parents can raise a kid who is remarkably selfless and devoted to the greater good of society/the family/whatever. The technical term is “doormat”, and the kid is also going to be clinically depressed because they’ve spent their lives getting guilt-tripped any time they wanted or did something that wasn’t approved.

    Took me years to break out of that and I still fall back into it at times. Not a healthy mindset. Nor was it in any way caused by abuse: it was well-intentioned inability to deal with an Odd on one parent’s part and being a repressed Odd on the other’s.

    1. This.

       Though after some stuff a few years back my last therapist got me to realize that the family had been/still is pretty emotionally abusive. (If it hadn’t been family, there would have been cops involved.)

       And now it feels like it’s not just the parents, but society as a whole gaslighting me and anyone else who doesnt buy the narrative.

       1. Currently the would-be elites are indeed gaslighting us all. Grr.

          1. Well, they’re trying. Personally, I’m far more likely to believe that the other person is an idiot than that I’m going crazy. I’ve been with the Navy long enough that my mental question “They can’t really be that dumb, can they?” gets a response of “Really?”

    2. There’s healthy and unhealthy self-sacrifice– the unhealthy one is via making the kid believe they are not worth much, rather than that giving of themselves is worth that much.

       1. My parents were appalled that they’d inadvertently given me the idea that I wasn’t worth much. As I said, unintentional, but it still happened. Didn’t help that we didn’t start untangling the mess until many years later, when the habits were firmly in place.

          1. Keep telling people about it– I hadn’t crystalized the difference until I read what you said, and then it seemed so obvious.

             Important thing to keep in mind. (I spent a lot of time going over how we try to get the kids to be respectful, too. Our big thing is that other folks’ time is worth as much as theirs, and that it belongs to them. )

          2. The message from my father, aimed at all of us, but particularly me, was that a) we are his children so we are better than anyone else and b) we are female, and therefore always inferior to a male. He only seems to think b) in relation to family and gets glowing testimonials from female coworkers and grad students.

             Things have improved a bit over the years. A bit.

15. Honestly; It seems you can’t even get a decent revolutionary these days. In the olden days, when communism was new and the revolution was young, you had the Stalins and Breshnevs, the True believers (In their own power) who were willing to murder as many as it took to get power. These underfed white bois with about as much muscle as i have in my middle finger don’t even know which end of the bangstick goes ‘POW’ Just saw a video of a private dick disarming a soy who looted a destroyed police car. Pathetic.

    1. That was apparently the second he disarmed. First actually started firing into the car. And the news station that had hired him (and another bodyguard) for their news crew is having to play defense for not letting the rioters keep the rifles

    2. I suspect relative soy boys were in Russia for the revolution. Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and company let them take the initial bullets and only came out when the other side was exhausted.

       I suspect the real powers behind Antifa have the same plan.

16. “Even so called conservatives assumed communism would eventually win, because according to the numbers coming out of the USSR and the reporters visiting the USSR — anyone know where Duranty is buried? there should be a line to piss on his grave — they were just so much more efficient.”

    A friend pointed out a long time ago that this belief sparked one of the better lines in the first Austin Powers movie.

    “Welcome back, Austin. The Cold War is over.”
    “Oh, good. Now those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, ay, comrade?”
    “Umm, Austin… we won.”
    “Oh. Groovy. Smashing. Yay, capitalism.”

17. I see this current kerfuffle as a dying reflex from those subversive left wing anarchists we’ve always had living on the fringes of our nation. And am heartened by many reports that the legitimate protesters have been observed attempting to throttle them back from their destructive actions.
    Make no mistake, no one in their right mind faults legitimate protest over the criminal act of one rogue officer, including a majority of law enforcement. But the arsonists and looters in their greed and mindless anger despoil and dishonor all those protesting in good faith.
    Our friend Peter tells me of reports that in several major cities someone conveniently arranged for pallet loads of bricks to be delivered precisely where they would be available to rioters. That, and the fact that a majority of those arrested for criminal activity were transported in from elsewhere makes it clear that subversive left wing organizations grabbed what was a legitimate issue and did their sneaky level best to turn this into a good old fashioned race riot.
    I see myself on extreme edge and alert for at least the rest of 2020. The left, the Democrats, and the media (but I repeat myself) will stop at nothing in their continued attempt to drag Trump down, remove him from office, and if all else fails cheat their way into replacing him with a senile old war horse with a hot radical backup.
    Best case, Trump wins, and Republicans retake the House. And the left loses their crap, refuses to accept the results, and spends four years counting and recounting ballots and making it as difficult as possible to carry on with the business of getting the nation back on track.
    Worst case, Trump loses and we lose the Senate, then we have a brief period of calm until Uncle Joe resigns for reasons and his VP takes charge. In short order every liberal progressive wet dream wish for equality and social justice will be rammed through Congress in an effort to make us into a mirror image of every third rate European kleptocracy. Hell, they might even have us join the EU and make America subservient to Brussels. Now wouldn’t that make every right thinking liberal quiver with delight.
    Absent some miracle I see no way this all does not wind up with blood in the streets. We already have a bit of that by all reports, but it’s only going to get worse.

    1. You forgot one other item if the Dems win – the impeachment of every right-leaning justice on the Supreme Court, starting with Brett Kavanaugh.

       Oh, and Biden probably won’t resign. He’ll be found mentally unfit, and removed by invoking the 25th Amendment.

       I don’t think we’d end up joining the EU. France and Germany wouldn’t like the fact that their economic dominance of the bloc would be smothered. But making us more subservient to the UN is a possible route.

    2. It’s rather amazing how the last couple of years have gone from one overblown crisis to another, with barely a breath in between. It’s almost like someone is writing a script…

       1. csh, or Perl? Not sed, oh please not sed!

          1. Most APL is interpreted, should you want a particularly strange scripting language.

             1. I’ve been paid to write RPG. I have done my time and don’t need another round of bizarre IBM “innovations”.

                1. I had one ex-mainframer manager who ordered me to write my next program in REXX. Alas, there were no available PC-based compilers with functions that made it possible, along with difficulties in procuring needed manuals, etc. (before “online ordering”).

                   That was my story, anyway, and I was sticking to it.

                   1. I still would like to take a shot at learning REXX.

                      I have the HERC emulator up with the intention of learning some IBM big iron programming. It is the biggest hole I have.

                      1. Try to do some models in COBOL. We had to write our own log functions because COBOL didn’t have them. I still have a set of OS MVS JCL manuals and an old BAL manual around somewhere.

                         My dad worked on the old Univac 1101. 48k baby. They sent a man to the moon with 64 and we can’t send a man to the moon now.

                         He was interviewed by some magazine and they asked him what it was like inside a computer. He said it was dark.

                      2. you could always get a copy of Amiga Forever and learn AREXX…

                      3. It’s not difficult. I threw together a few things back in the day when I worked for IBM, but it was really the sort of thing you gave managers so they could throw together things.

                         1. I figured as much, but it wasn’t something I wanted to tackle with a tight deadline, a skeevy freeware interpreter of unknown functionality, and no documentation of any kind. The web barely existed then, and there were no online booksellers yet. B. Dalton,. the only bookstore local to work, said they couldn’t find anything in the warehouse.

                            Nowadays with the web, I would have had no problem picking up another language. I view programming languages like rocks; see a problem, select an adequate-looking rock, and proceed to beat the problem to death with it…

                         2. Well, that is how Perl truly got started.

                            1. What, the managers-throwing-together things, or the rock to beat problems to death?

                            2. Throwing things together to create reports: Practical Extraction and Reporting Language.

                               For when you didn’t want to switch between sed and awk and wrap them in sh.

                   2. You know, I once wrote a Modbus scanner in REXX.

                   3. While it’s not strictly REXX, the KEDIT text editor for the PC is designed to look like a mainframe running XEDIT (on a 3270), with KEXX — a pretty good subset of full REXX.

                      The last major development period for it ended in 2007, with a product update to let it run under Windows 7. And another maintenance release in 2012 for Windows 10.

                      But it’s basically been unsupported for a dozen years. But they keep selling it, even though they say it’s not being developed, and they’ll stop supporting it (even minimally) soon. It’s not free — it was developed in the era of commercial software, and was mainly designed for mainframe users whose fingers spoke XEDIT.

                      I’ve been running it since it was a DOS application, and then switched to the Windows version. I did throw out my floppy discs with the install files (and the current version can be downloaded, and doesn’t need discs). In a few decades, it’s been totally solid — so I’m perfectly willing to recommend it to people who still like the IBM mainframe editors. Everybody else will be confused, I suspect.

                      SInce it’s commercial software, I won’t provide a link — but if you look for it by product name, the site is obvious.

                2. Oh you poor bastard…

                3. Me too. Six years of it. Another 6 using COBOL, at least 30 year old code, OMG very definition of spaghetti, kittens have gotten into the yarn, tangled code! 12 years of Pascal.

                   1. Borland’s Turbo Pascal (version 3, later 5.5, and then Delphi, FreePascal, and Lazarus) is my language-of-choice; the tool I reach for unless I have a specific reason to use something else. Which I have no problem with, and is sometimes even fun… but I think in Pascal, no matter what I’m compiling wiht.

                      Over the years I’ve found that most language bigots have a common denominator: they only know *one* language, which is therefore the One True Way.
                      I have lots of rocks in my bag; I’m just better with some than others.

                      1. I have lots of rocks in my bag; I’m just better with some than others.

                         –
                         Ditto.

                         I can use anything, given a few days (or could, it has been four years since I retired). Give me the syntax, what is pass by Value VS pass by reference, what do you have to do to avoid creating an interface reference that affects libraries when it is changed.

                         Borland Delphi is what was used at the last job I worked at. I started in 2004. The tool was already at least 4 releases out of date. It still hadn’t been updated in 2016 when I retired …
                         –

                         1. Sometimes I feel there’s a weird echo thing going on here…

                            Jeff Duntemann is the one who pointed me to this blog, though he doesn’t theck in often. So that would make three of us who are Pascal wonks…

                            1. 🙂

          2. Whatever it is, I fear it be might written on TECO.

          3. DOS batch file.

          4. Better sed than perl.

             1. I’ve done Forth. Perl scares me.

                1. Why does Perl scare you?

                   1. While Forth has a reputation as a “Write Only” language, Perl LIVES it.

                      I *can* and *have* deciphered Forth. I’ve had no such luck with Perl.

             2. Never.

                I would point out the mortgage desk of a major bank uses perl extensively to model all the components of mortgage values and hedge said values.

                We do use C++ from the intense mathematical functions, but the framework, plumbing, and reporting is all Perl. Much of it with my name on it.

                1. People have written major systems in BAT files, but that doesn’t mean I want to maintain any of them. Look, if it makes you feel better, you can have my share of perl, okay?

                   Oddly enough for the user story I just finished today I get credit for doing perl, BAT files (actually CMD files, the Win10 equivalent) and Visual Basic Script.

                   1. I did some of my best work in 6809 and 68000 assembly language. Also some 8031/8051 assembly.

       2. A BAD script. Never have so many elephants dropped from so many ceilings

    3. “a senile old war horse”

       That’s an insult to war horses. More like a senile spavined mule.

       In your worst case scenario count on the House & Senate Dems pushing through a “stimulus” package that DEL buys up the cumulative deficits of the Blue States, bailing out California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and the rest — along with funding their “infrastructure” projects, like high-speed rail, sustainable sustainability and unicorn ranches.
       –

18. I have often thought that communism more closely resembles a colony of monkeys (with which I have had some unpleasant experience). Also early man until he began to specialize in function and acquire his necessary tools (i.e. property) and began humanity’s ascent out from comunism.. Just a thought

    1. Humanity’s ascent out of poverty happened at the same time as it’s ascent out from communism. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

19. Brave. pic.twitter.com/0AQuq413ZM https://t.co/dHPQmENQh9

    — Nathan Brand (@NathanBrandWA) May 31, 2020

    1. Antifa has a long track record of attacking journalists and destroying recordings of them, because they want to prevent video evidence being used to identify and arrest them; not that cities like Portland, Oakland or Seattle ever make any such attempts as the Democrats running those cities are all-in on supporting Antifa and its violence.

20. What’s been really hysterical is how the Left tries to put a good face on the violence they’ve unleashed. In the past week, I seen the rioters compared favourably to:

    1.) The Boston Tea Party. But wait, isn’t the Tea Party a bunch of white supremacists?

    2.) The Allied soldiers at Normandy. But wait, I thought the US military supported white supremacy?

    3.) Jesus. Because we all remember the Gospel where He sent his followers to pillage and burn the homes of those who opposed them, right?

    They must be more desperate than we realize.

    1. 1. Only target was the tea of a quasi-government agency, the East India Company. Private property damaged was not only minimal but replaced by the SoL.

       2. There is a reason the history behind the actual rise of the NSDP is never talked about. AFA had more to do with that than fighting them (And I am still not sure if we were on the correct side of WWII when you actually look at history. Was Stalin the lesser evil, I don’t know)

       3. Once more, he drove the money changers themselves out of the temple. He didn’t go and burn the market stalls where he bought his cloaks and swords.

       Common theme: If you want to use 1 and 3 to defend the destruction of government buildings and property, it is actually a valid comparison. But Target and the mom and pop bar downtown are not government buildings

       1. There must be an Alternate History where Hitler did not invade Russia, and Stalin remained our enemy. WW2 would have lasted years longer, but communism would not have spread through eastern Europe. Deprived of those resources and slaves labor, Soviet Union would have collapsed much sooner.

          1. Patton, for all of his numerous faults, was right: we should’ve kept on rolling East and chased “those Mongoloid Russians” all the way back to Russia.

             Likewise, MacArthur, for all of his even more numerous faults, was right: we should’ve kept rolling North past the Amnok River and all the way to Beijing.

             1. That would have needed nukes, but hey what the hell!

                1. Nah. Cut-off the supply of truck parts and boom. Red Army ran on Ford and Chevy. No trucks, no food, no food, no army. Simple.

                   1. most of their trucks were Studebakers.

                2. Well, we still would have finished the Manhattan Project in July 1945. We might have held Fat Man back for the Germans or Russians, and seen if Japan would surrender after just one nuking.
                   ———————————
                   Governments can only print money; they can’t make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.

                   1. MacArthur claimed he was told there were three bombs ready to go; after Nagasaki he gave the order to pick the next optimum target and proceed forthwith. He threw a little Mac-fit when he found out there was no #3 bomb, nor would Groves’ people give a firm answer as to when it would be ready.

                      It’s possible he misheard or misinterpreted something he had been told, but given how tightly-controlled the briefings were even at his level, I always thought it was strange he never pointed the finger at some specific individual as the one who told him there were three bombs.

                      1. But in our timeline that was three months after V-E day. If we were still at war with Germany and Russia, he would have set his priorities…differently.
                         ———————————
                         Most days, I suspect that we could get a better government by picking 535 people at random. On bad days, I’m certain we’d get a better government by picking 535 people at random from lunatic asylums.

                      2. Alas, we didn’t really *need* the atomic bomb in Europe. Well before Trinity, we were basically in the mopping-up phase.

                         Consider if we nuked Berlin, taking out Adolf and all the higher-ranking NSDAP in one swoop. Then there’d be nobody left with authority to surrender, and a continent full of officers who’d sworn to fight to the last bullet. Remember Werwolf, which was supposed to set up a German version of the French Resistance? It wouldn’t have made much difference in the end, but we would have taken some losses. And the more successful Werwolf was, the harder it would have been on Germany in general.

                3. My understanding, and admittedly I’m not as up on my knowledge of WWII as I should have been, is that the Red Army was all but spent by the time Berlin finally fell; their logistics chain was stretched to the breaking point, and there was nothing left back in Mother Russia to fill it with anyway, and their soldiers were exhausted and pretty well demoralized – the only thing keeping them going (and not mutinying) was the chance for revenge against the Germans. And the fact that said Germans had even worse supply and morale problems than they did. Whereas the Allies, courtesy of the juggernaut that was the US’ industrial complex, had more than enough food, fuel, and munitions to carry on for another few years, and our fighting men were all (relatively) fresh and rearing to go.

                   Not saying we’d steamroll them, mind. It’d have been bloody as all getout. But if we’d continued to push east, victory would have been inevitable.

                   1. China, OTOH….. yeah, that would’ve probably required a B-36 or two to glass-sheet Beijing.

                      1. In 1945 we had an ally on the ground in China in Chiang Kai-Shek. He almost defeated the communists on his own. With our help and without the Soviets interfering he likely could have managed it.

                         Of course, that does leave an open question as to how “our bastards” would have behaved if they didn’t have the threat of a communist insurrection keeping them close to us.

                   2. We all bought the propaganda about Soviet production. The only way they could make all those T34’s is that we supplied 375M trucks, 14M airplanes, 13M tanks, 1.5MM blankets, 4B tons of food. We sent them the steel to make their tanks, the gunpowder to fill their bullets, and the cotton to make their uniforms.

                      Even if the Red Army wanted to fight, they couldn’t and no army, with the possible exception of Japan, treated its soldiers as badly as the Soviets did

          2. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it lately because I’ve seen a bunch of “You know who really won WW2? It was the Soviets!” videos. Their proof being that the Soviets took most of the casualties from fighting.

             My response to those videos is that if you take away the United States’s industrial production, then the Soviets have a much harder time of it. Ditto with the British resistance. My understanding is that the German high command wasn’t afraid of anything except a two-front war, and with both the Russians and the British fighting, a two-front war was what they had.

             Take away the Soviet ally and it’s not clear to me that the US involvement in the European part of WW2 makes the difference. Would Britain have fought on without the Soviets? I don’t know. What I say is that the allies won WW2, and I think that’s right.

21. I said months ago that the leftist campaign to reelect Trump was a sight to behold.

    I had *no idea* how much they wanted him to have a second term.

22. FWIW, we’ve had a couple big plagues of locusts this year, just not in N.
    America. So far it’s just been Africa and the Indian Subcontinent, IIRC.

    1. You forgot China. Tons and tons of locusts swarms in western China.

       1. But in China Locusts are on the Menu.

    2. In the “totally random stuff I happen to know” department, I found a book that talked about what happened to the Rocky Mountain Locust, the locust you read about in the Little House books, the scourge of the Plains in the 19th century. And then it stopped.

       Turns out, it’s not precisely extinct. Its name is accurate in that its home grounds are in the Rockies, but locusts apparently come in two forms: the general cricket and the “oh my gosh we’re overpopulated time to switch into LOCUST MODE.” What’s happened is that we started farming their valleys. They’re still around, but the population is low enough that it never switches over into LOCUST MODE, because plowing up their underground eggs keeps there from being too much.

       That was a fun book, even though I only read part of it. (On break when working at a bookstore.) I ought to see whether I can track myself down a copy.

       1. Oh horreure! We’re destroying it habitatses and it’s … wait? what’s that? Better off as a species?

          Ha aha ha ha ha! I love it.

    3. Cicadas. At least here in the NE were about to have a plague of cicadas. You can hear them in the heat of the day but the big infestation comes later. The birds are already staggering full. I remember when I was a teenager shoveling them off the stoop with a snow shovel. Ugly things.

       1. The year I was an exchange student there was a plague of cicadas

          1. 1979 was the 17 year, at least where I lived?. it seems different parts of the country get it at different times. We got hammered in 2013 and I remember them telling stories about 1962, We were living abroad in 96 and so missed it. This year is supposed to be the south but we have a few though there are annual and 13 year broods.

             Ugly things but basically harmless.

             1. You get the really HUGE swarms when several different periodicity subspecies peak together. Somehow, the bugs seem to know which is which. Gets REALLY LOUD for a couple of weeks. What? Did you say something? BZZZBZZZBZZZBZZZZ!

                All just from rubbing their wings together…

                1. Cicadas are edible. Also, cats love to eat them.

             2. Different broods are on different cycles, and there are three-ish cycle lengths. Brood X will return to southwest Ohio next year.

          2. A nuisance, but I don’t think I call it a plague.
             Remember that there were that many cicada nymphs (and more) lurking underground all along.

    4. I’m told this is the year for cicadas in the midwest…

       1. We get them every year. It’s how we know it is mid-Summer.

          1. I suspect they are either “annual” cicadas instead of the “periodical” cicadas that show up in 13 or 17 year cycles, or that you have several broods with different cycles, or both.

23. This increasingly ineffectual flailing is why I think the Democrats are going to attempt wide-spectrum, systemic vote fraud…and get caught. And not just, ‘oh those are some rogue elements’ caught. Nasty Pelosi having to turn over her Records for the last five years caught.

    1. ESR had a post some time ago, I think it was more about Climate Change kookery but it might have been more, where he dubbed it “evaporative cooling” which seems a bit of an ironic term. But what happens is the saner keep ‘boiling off’ and leaving the crazier behind, concentrating the crazy.

       1. Evaporative cooling comes from LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporative-cooling-of-group-beliefs

          1. Ah, then ESR must’ve referrenced that, as I recall hearing of the term by that route.

    2. > and get caught

       They’ve *been* caught. Repeatedly. Nothing happened to them then. I doubt anything will happen to them next time. I expect they’re not worried much either.

       1. https://mobile.twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1267437173101363201

          Caught under wheels when they try to defy physics and scare the driver of any vehicle.

       2. No, they aren’t worried. They should be, but they aren’t, because it STILL haven’t penetrated their thick skulls that Trump fights back.

          No, nothing much has happened to them up to now. But I really think that if they try to steal the 2020 election, Trump is going to drop the goddamned SKY on them, and then piss on them for a great height.

          1. Only if they fail. If succeed, it’ll be buried deeper than their voters

             1. With the way they’ve been flailing about, I really can’t see them pulling off anything complicated. Plus, over the past four years, they have repeatedly shown that they don’t plan for people not following the Progressive script, and their scripts are crude.

                1. Yeah, it’s like they never heard of error checks, or exception processing. They certainly don’t have a clue about bounds testing, or input validation. Edge condition? What is, ‘edge condition’?

                   1. Even dumber; it apparently hasn’t occurred to them that the reason Trump hasn’t gone after vote fraud in the 2016 election is because he doesn’t NEED to. Even with all the fraud they could pull off (Shrillary won the popular vote? Really? Pull the other one, it has bells on.), he won anyway. Why let them know if he has some of their corruption nailed? Come 2020, they happily announce they’ve won, and Trump drops ironclad evidence that they tried to steal 2016, and shows that the same patterns hold for 2020.

                      It’s like how slow the corrupt spying on the Trump campaign has been so slow to come out; this way it’s still going to be stinking up the place in November.

                      The Democrats have tactics (That aren’t working so well anymore). Trump has strategy.

                      1. I hope you’re right

          2. And for the first time in about half a century the Republican party is not forbidden by consent decree from challenging vote fraud.

             1. I still want to know WTF they were smoking…

                1. Whatever it was, they got it from the Democrats. They’ve got all the best drugs! 😀

       3. I expect there will be VERY public Federal trials of a few prominent leaders. Some of their “protests” have certainly occurred on Federal grounds or involved attacks on Federal officers (e.g., the sixty-some Secret Service agents injured last weekend.

          Barr does not strike me as an Attorney-General inclined to tolerate nonsense. And given the number of these dolts who have live-streamed their tantrums …
          –

    3. I was commenting to Beloved Spouse over dinner that I am sure looking forward to Voting By Mail. Just last night I was checking on an Amazon shipment entrusted to the local Post office, one which the tracking indicated had reached my local branch, ready to go out for delivery … last Tuesday.

       Of course we all know that we never receive a neighbor’s mail nor have anything sent to us go astray.
       –

       1. And of course it’s impossible for anyone to register to receive a ballot at an address they don’t live at. People would obviously comment if half a dozen ballots for wildly different names were to arrive at the same address.

          1. 80 ballots were no problem in 2016….

             http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/03/voter-fraud-california-man-finds-dozens-ballots-stacked-outside-home.html

       2. I had a package arrive at the post office Monday (registered twice) and waited. And waited. On Wednesday one of those moved to Wednesday and it did arrive the next day.

24. I’m struck by the lack of black faces at the riots. White people in elite college sweatshirts there are a plenty, but the black people seem to be missing from the rioting, not the looting, alas. Perhaps that’s because all the smart people now say it’s raaacist to show pictures of the looting and they’re censoring the riot pictures too, but I suspect it’s true on the ground.

    The curious inaction of the mayors and governors now makes sense. These are their children, it’s just part of growing up, sowing some wild oats and all. The neighborhoods that get. destroyed will never come back but they don’t live there and don’t care about those people anyway. Best case for the spoiled youth would be prices will be lower when they try to open up a vegan, fair trade bong shop. Won’t need to ask for more guilt money from dad. they can build urban gardens where the businesses once stood or leave them alone in the name of biodiversity.

    For what it’s worth, a comparison of the size and rate of change in the relevant age cohorts to 1968 is interesting. This is the echo boom aging through.

    1. As I recall, last year various outlets were chanting “Recreate ’68.” Watts and Detroit probably weren’t what they had in mind. Or perhaps they were, and the other media misunderstood.

       1. In some ways, they are recreating ’68 in Chicago, though with more damage than happened for the MLK riots. My father worked at a steel company in the west side ghetto, and employees were given an escort to and from the nearby train station. Not sure if Dad had to stay home a day or two, but Mayor Daley had some stern orders for LEO: Looters: shoot to maim. Arsonists: shoot to kill. I had a summer job at the same plant 3 & 4 years later, and the neighborhood was *not* bombed out. [Compare and contrast to Detroit.] OTOH, lunchtime walks were in groups of 4. On the gripping hand, we were white and weren’t hassled.

          Current news says the downtown looting has been more or less suppressed, with the action moving largely to the south side and the poorer suburbs south of Chicago. OTOH, there are reports of groups of thugs in cars doing damage along the roadway corridors west of Chicago, including Lombard. Oakbrook shopping center (was and still is high end, though I haven’t been there in 25-30 years) was closed with police blockades to protect it.

          I have family living far NW and far SW around Chicago. So far, they’re OK.

          1. It’s from a review in Time Magazine, but:

             {snip}
             Weather’s attacks began three months later, and by 1971 protest bombings had spread across the country. In a single eighteen-month period during 1971 and 1972 the FBI counted an amazing 2,500 bombings on American soil, almost five a day. Because they were typically detonated late at night, few caused serious injury, leading to a kind of grudging public acceptance. The deadliest underground attack of the decade, in fact, killed all of four people, in the January 1975 bombing of a Wall Street restaurant. News accounts rarely carried any expression or indication of public outrage.
             {/snip}

             https://time.com/4501670/bombings-of-america-burrough/

    2. The Antifa playbook is for the Antifa folks to break the windows, let locals do the looting, and then the Antifa folks go back and start the fires to burn the buildings down.

       Antifa also “preloads” vehicles with incendiaries; apparently Secret Service believes that Antifa is now preparing actual car bombs. Apparently they dream of doing a 1968 Saigon embassy style attack on the White House and are trying to actually prepare for and attempt one.

       1. Funny thing. Going home today, there was a totally burnt out shove-it car in front of Wright State, in a turn lane.

          I have never, ever seen any car that much burnt up before, and there was no other car or skidmarks close to it. Fire trucks, police cars, no ambulances or victims.

          1. Law enforcement has a lot of practice dealing with “helped” vehicle fires– it’s a favorite method for Cartels to dispose of bodies and other evidence.

       2. “they dream of doing a 1968 Saigon embassy style attack on the White House”

          What they dream of is doing to Donald Trump what the “rioters” did to Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi.
          –

          1. except, they don’t have full auto AKs and mortar support

             and dont really know the difference…

    3. In deBlasio’s case, ‘their children’ is literal, as his daughter was arrested in one of the violent riots.

       1. I had him in mind, but the Minnesota AG’s son and the governor’s daughter are in it too. That said, whatever the rioters and looters might be, Antifa are the children of the rich and powerful. Everyone else is too busy trying to get by.

          I have 4 nephews in NYPD. One of them was telling me about Occupy Wall Street. it was skells and rich kids. Very rich kids. The skells were looking for a buck, the rich boys were banging drums and trying to look like revolutionaries because the rich girls were banging all the real revolutionaries … and the cops but we’re not supposed to talk about that.

          I suppose they scandalized Daddy but, back in the day, Daddy was banging drums and Mom was … well, maybe the cops would scandalize mom. 😜

    4. Maybe try seeing what the official stuff for the I-35 stuff in Minneapolis on Sunday look like, and compare them to the video when the poor SOB came around that corner and found out there was a mob on the interstate.

       That riot has a lot of black in it, but it’s not like you can edit live video as well. Even lightening is difficult.

       1. I just saw the pictures from Herald Square in NYC. mostly young white kids. cops just standing there watching it. Same thing in a picture from Phillly. I suspect they’ll send in troops tomorrow and the rich white kids will fold up like a Murphy bed but till then revolution is so exciting.

          Amazing how many white supremicists have Ivy League sweatshirts. I thought they were all dirt people 😜

25. They are closing Sam’s Club early today on account of someone’s planned “protest.”

    Didn’t get closed by tornadoes or mass shooting, but tomorrow I may not have a job.

    Will check in later.

    1. Good luck.

       1. Thank you. Got home okay. Other stores also closing, windows blocked up with cheap bulky goods on pallets. Let jerks work for it.

          Allegedly protest will be a sit-in, in the intersection of two big roads that people use to get home from work. Allegedly this is in honor of Mr. Crawford, who got shot at Wal-Mart because a male Skare-n supporter of gun control thought he had a real gun.

          1. Allegedly. The afternoon one in Mobile was supposed to be a peaceful protest in a particular park – until they started heading for the nearby I-10 on-ramp.

             Don’t know enough about what happened Sunday night to comment, drat.

26. “We’re all in this together!”

    “Yeah – but some of us are in deeper than others, and some have more fat enabling them to float.”
    –

    1. They can’t help it that we’re just the dirt people.

27. Fast comment before reading the rest of the post. Locusts are soooo 2019. And 2020 already.

    1. They’re busy chewing on Pakistan last I saw.

28. Heh. Mobile Sunday afternoon did not go as the would-be rioters planned. They seem to have missed the fact that they were performing their antics not in front of CNN-types, but local reporters who actually live in the area.

    End result: attempted riot to get onto I-10 stopped by judicious use of tear gas, mounted cops, and more cops. Female (apparently) rioter who smashed out police SUV window and ran back into the crowd? Face alllll over the local news, cops planning to arrest.

    1. $SPOUSE heard on radio news (the company that does not offer a text version of the stories, alas) that a couple people tried something illegal after the peaceful protest Sunday, and got promptly arrested. Klamath Falls is generally not a city to try to do left-wing bullshit.

29. I wonder where these 3 quote fall on your tyranny scale ““So bad a few nights ago that the people wouldn’t have minded an occupying force. I wish we had an occupying force in there.” and “You’ve got a big National Guard out there that’s ready to come in and fight like hell.” and “Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military.” All from the President of the United States all calling for the use of the military as an occupying force in American cities.

    1. If order has to be maintained by martial law, that is one of the things the National Guard is for. They are our friends and neighbors, and our militia.

       1. As an occupying force that is willing to fight like hell and use unlimited power? That doesn’t sound like restoring order to me.

          1. Antifa is an international organization, which is trying to destroy areas of our country.

             That’s kind of what the military is for.

          2. You realize that’s claiming the mayors who had cops stand back and do nothing while the mobs break the laws with impunity were making the non tyrannical choice, right?

             I don’t think tyranny is any better when they’re a warlord or a mob.

             1. Fun illustration.

                If it is proper for cops to do nothing to stop arson, couldn’t it be proper for cops to do nothing to stop vigilante killings? Arson is a common law capital felony, partly because when setting a building ablaze, it is hard to be absolutely sure that no one is within it.

                We were informed that it was entirely wrong for those two guys to shoot that one guy, so…

                Anyway, the differences in the Floyd autopsies have me suspicious. At the moment, I’m suspecting the first one more. Flipping that suspicion around would require arguments about the character and history of the doctors hired for the second. My position on the rioters remains something like “What would Belisarius do?”/”What would Mundus do?”/”Read them the ‘Riot Act’.”

                1. Our sovereign lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.

                2. Before it became obvious that any doctor who didn’t come back with the “correct” response would be, at best, destroyed and more likely be killed– I’d be with you in being suspicious of the first one.

                   But a follow up autopsy that is done this quickly and happens to support the desired conclusion of the huge, well funded, violent mob?

                   What other conclusion would the doctor reach? Suicide?

                   1. Point.

                   2. He’s be like all those doctors in Moscow, Russia, who keep falling out of hospital windows . . . They really need to get better screens.

                   3. A careful reading of the private autopsy reveals some clever phrasing that nonetheless admits his death was due to what we’ve come to call co-morbidities. The keeling o the neck was contributory but not, in and of itself, sufficient to result in death. Body position, having his hands cuffed (thus limiting chest expansion) and his weight on his back were all factors. There seem to have been drugs in his system, as well, but pretty much all reporting is going to glide over that now, isn’t it?

                      The officers should have responded to his cries of inability to breath but with so many protesters playing the “I can’t breath” card since Eric Garner’s death in New York six years ago we might well blame those activists for crying wolf and prompting officers’ indifference to the plea.

                      Overlooked in all of this is the most @#!$ obvious point, the most significant contributing factor: Do Not Resist Arrest. Do not give police the opportunity (stipulating their claim of abusive policing) to elevate their response. Say “Yes, officer” and “Of course, officer” and politely comply. The time to raise a stink and sue for damages is when the case is thrown out by the court.
                      –

                      1. That explains why the actual document wasn’t being thrown far and wide.

                         Domo.

                      2. The officers should have responded to his cries of inability to breath but with so many protesters playing the “I can’t breath” card since Eric Garner’s death in New York six years ago we might well blame those activists for crying wolf and prompting officers’ indifference to the plea.

                         This one, I can’t agree with– if you have the breath to speak, you can breath.
                         This is basic CPR, drunk watch, and “how to figure out if you need to risk hurting somebody to do the Heimlich on them” from battle stations.

                         It’s common to feel like you can’t breath, and in fact one of the tools to prevent panic attacks from causing you harm is to remember that if you can speak, you really are getting enough air.

                      3. I understand he was complaining about not being able to breathe *before* he ended up on the ground. The private ME has a history of getting used in some high profile outrage-type cases. IIRC, he did Eric Garner and Jeffery (who didn’t kill himself) Epstein.

                         CTH did a couple of stories on this on 5/31, about the lawyer (Crump) interview, and 5/29, about the President’s response. In both cases, he gets into the side (maybe) business of the club and counterfeit money. If the take is correct, Floyd was an employee who had transgressed, and paid for it with his life.

                         https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/05/31/sunday-talks-crump-on-floyd-we-dont-understand/

                         This has a link to the 5/29 article. Sundance is extremely reluctant to get into the weeds on this, and the 5/29 article explains his reluctance.

                         1. Per the report, it was in conjunction with claiming he was claustrophobic which was why he didn’t want to get in the police car.

                            Setup would work really, really well for an ambush– get the police in, have your guy stall them until your guys are in place, and then execute the cops.

                            …I recognize it because it has been used several times, though all the cases I can think of are Cartel or over seas against military.

                            1. Claustrophobic? Oh, well, that is certainly understandable then. We should never arrest anybody who is claustrophobic, that would constitute Cruel & Unusual punishment. The responding officers should probably have just taken the bad $20 he was trying to use and given him a genuine $20 in its place, with maybe an extra $20 for his inconvenience. No wonder the protesters are demanding police reforms!

                               Am I being too subtle here?
                               –

                         2. The Minneapolis Police Union rep has claimed Floyd had a record of violent behaviour during previous encounters with the constabulary. Granted, credibility is an issue and George Floyd may well have reformed … but an arresting officer has only the record to go by.

                            It does not excuse the demise of Floyd while in police custody but does explain it, at least somewhat. While it may be true that Floyd was a “gentle giant” the operative term from the arrestig officer’s oiint of view is “giant.”

                            As Always, people with poor health, a history of violence and underlying health issues are advised against passing counterfeit money, doing methamphetamine and resisting arrest. It is an ill-fated combiatio.
                            –

          3. That’s exactly what restoring order sounds like.

          4. Didn’t I see you on CNN this evening?
             
             –

             1. My days of not taking CNN seriously have certainly not even reached a middle yet.

       2. …but they’re working for the same state government that condoned the rioting in the first place.

          Same as the poor bastards (on both sides of the line) set up at Kent State.

          1. Are you saying the next step in this is a pregnant woman being shot supposedly by “right wingers”?
             Um…. it was a constant in this kind of bullshit in Portugal and I’ve heard of it elsewhere. It’s one of the things that makes me really suspicious of Kent State.
             But honestly the next step is bombings and car bombings. And given the level of giftedness they’re going to do it in some way completely insane, like for instance an attempted and obviously not false flag

             1. Apparently materials to actually have car bombs that could be used to try to breach the White House fences and gates were discovered late yesterday during the DC riots sand was the reason the POTUS was moved to the White House secure bunker for safety.
                I note that the same Democrats who demand Trump “listen to the experts” denounced him as a coward for listening to the experts in the Secret Service who moved him there.

                I also note that the same Democrats who imposed draconian lockdowns and are fining and arresting people for attending funerals, opening gyms and barber shops and are otherwise not complying with house arrest are denouncing Trump as a dictator for saying he will take action to stop the rioting and looting if states can’t or won’t. Needless to say if Trump didn’t take such action they would then blame him for the riots by claiming he took no action.

                At this point I strongly suspect that Democratic Party officials and operatives themselves are working and coordinating with Antifa in order to increase rioting and looting in the belief they can take advantage of same to gain political power. I note that the 1968 riots are not an apt comparison because Nixon was not the incumbent, and such chaos generally disfavors the incumbent, regardless of party or fault. Democrats are counting on this.

                1. > bunker

                   Also note the White House is connected to the Executive Office Building by at least one tunnel, and other tunnels to other buildings. DC weather sucks, and the pols didn’t like getting frozen, drenched, or sweaty while crossing the street.

             2. We already know that these terrorist groups have exchange programs and seminars for sharing techniques and strategies. The only thing the IRA, Hamas, and Red Dawn had in common was hatred of their “oppressors” and willingness to inflict collateral damage on their societies.
                –

       3. Well, the embodied militia. At the end of the day the Militia is all able bodied civilians. I read a commentator complaining that they didn’t stomp the south down hard enough after the war. Stupid idiot, those laws are what restrains Trump,from crushing this with regular troops tomorrow.

          If domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; and such violence so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that State or possession, or if any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if by it any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

          Rioting is still a crime. If the governors cannot or will not enforce the law, and there’s no constitutional question here, then the federal government is required to do so. That’s the law.

          1. I saw some Rooftop Koreans active. Also other people defending their stores.

    2. Preserving society is one of the basic functions of government. To expect a functioning government to ignore riots and other forms of destructive civil unrest is to misunderstand what government is meant to do. When riots erupt or threaten to erupt, a competent government should respond quickly and efficiently to restore order to the affected communities.

       Whether that society is worth preserving is an entirely different question, and one outside the scope of what is being discussed. But if prolonged violent civil unrest takes place and the government does *NOT* move to suppress that unrest, then the government is one that will quickly be replaced one way or another.

    3. You again?
       Call me when the president of the United States does something more shocking than saying the citizens NOT hurting people or taking their stuff will be protected.
       You know maybe you should try reality. Or not. Those of us who love in it have had just about enough of your shit. Be told.

       1. Sadly, trolls seldom listen to sincere honest advice. Makes one suspect that trolls have no ears and see with exceedingly cloudy vision.

          1. Sound doesn’t reach into their rectums, and their glass belly-buttons get dirty.

       2. Is there any way to add a link to the comment being replied to at the top of each comment? It is getting very confusing to try to tell that.

    4. Umm. Very few people want to have to actually shoot looters and arsonists themselves. That’s what we recruit, train, and pay specialists to do. As it stands, Pres. Trump sounds something a blowhard, but so far as I can tell he acts smarter than he tweets. No, I don’t believe he’s going to order the military in until it’s obvious the Governors can’t or won’t handle the mob themselves. In which case, he will be fully justified. Antifa would dearly love for him to overreach and overreact, which is one reason it is being so provocative: “This is only a test”, Had they been really ready to walk their talk, there would have been more guns laid aside, not just bricks and incendiaries. If I were executive or Law Enforcement authority, I would watch for that, next time. And there will be a next time.

       1. He actually can call them into DC as that is a Federal district and thus is ultimately subject to Federal control. Given that Antifa has a clear intent to try to get into the White House to cause harm, calling up the military to DC is appropriate.

          As far as the states, the rioting and looting when it reaches the level of insurrection, which it has based on the explicit intent in Antifa’s social media statements to overthrow the lawful government of the United States and indeed the entire constitutional republic. makes it constitutionally the Federal governments obligation to act, with, if necessary, use of the military.

          Let’s not forget that George Washington, who was part of the constitutional convention used the military during his own term to suppress domestic insurrection. Eisenhower did it to the segregationist Democrats in the South. There is plenty of precedent.

          1. So, a day later, the rioting in NYC has reached the point that serious interventition is called for. De Blasio’s PD is standing by doing nothing, and Governor Cuomo is dithering instead of calling out the National Guard. Even Minnesota finally got a clue. Discontent is one thing, but once the rioting, looting,and burning starts, it’s like an acute bacterial infection or a fire. You treat it aggressively and fast, because it spreads. Or, the leaders of the oh-so-enlightened and woke welfare cities can let the rioters have their way. Then, How much revenue is anyone going to collect from the bankrupt owners of burnt out shells?

             1. Aside from the infighting and slapfighting of Cuomo & DeBlasio, there’s this:

                Police Chief: Arrested Looters in NYC Are Immediately Released Because of Bail-Reform Law
                Most of the looters and rioters arrested by the NYPD over the past several days are immediately released as a direct result of New York’s new bail-reform law, New York City police chief Terrence Monahan told the New York Post on Tuesday.

                While the city police made over 650 arrests on Monday night alone, Monahan said that “just about all of them” will be released without bail.

                “We had some arrests in Brooklyn where they had guns, [and] hopefully [Brooklyn district attorney] Eric Gonzalez will keep them in, [but] I can’t guarantee that’ll happen,” Monahan said. “But when it comes to a burglary [at] a commercial store, which is looting, they’re back out. . . . Because of bail reform, you’re back out on the street the next day. You cannot be held on any sort of bail. I spoke to [Manhattan district attorney] Cy Vance about that, he told me there’s nothing he can do.”

                New York’s bail-reform law, which went into effect earlier this year, eliminates the bail requirement for suspects accused of most misdemeanors, including burglary and stalking. Suspects in violent felonies are still required to post bail. Even before the law was adopted, New York law forbade judges from considering many suspects’ potential danger to the community before setting bail.

                [SNIP]

                Chief Monahan told the Post that he was “extremely outraged” by Cuomo’s remarks.

                “I’m watching my men and women out there dealing with stuff that no cop should ever have to deal with, bricks, bottles, rocks, hit in the face with bottles and continuing to go forward to make an arrest,” Monahan said. “For a governor to be sitting in his office saying that we’re not doing a good job — I’m outraged.”
                –

                1. That NY Post article:

                   NYPD chief of department speaks out, ‘outraged’ at Gov. Andrew Cuomo
                   The NYPD’s top uniformed cop talked to The Post in an exclusive interview Tuesday about how his cops have been “giving their blood” as they’ve responded to protests that have become increasingly violent over the past five days and raged against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s criticism of his department. …
                   –

                   1. It occurs to me that Manhattan is one of the few places where rioters could reasonably transit to the wealthier areas by foot. The cops failing to contain them might have a salutary effect on the LibProg residents…

    5. You seem to take those statements literally, which would require you to be an idiot.
       –

       1. A clue for you: What’s the difference between shoving little old ladies in front of buses and shoving little old ladies out of the paths of buses? Aren’t you shoving little old ladies around either way?
          –

30. Probably the only good thing about this particular disaster is that it’s showing us how ugly these people are under their masks. For all of their talk of humanity and unity, they are tribalists to a man, prone to rapidly divide people into us and them. They are hypocrites that will punish apostasy to the Faith of Infinite Human Perfection ruthlessly, for fear that any failure to be the first to denounce will be used to denounce them. They cannot forgive people for mistakes, because they know that all of their sins will be used against them one day.

    This, sadly, has been a long time coming. I’d like to think I saw the signs in the late ’00s, but I think I was getting that uncomfortable feeling in my life insurance during my college years. Probably why I didn’t finish college, either time.

    My only hope is that this is a “pull the band-aid” kind of situation-one sharp tear, one big OUCH!, and we can go on from there into something more sane.

    1. Talking tribalist about this, MI Gov Whitmer announced a short bit ago that she’s moving the entire state to phase 4 of her recovery “plan.” I posted this elsewhere in response to it:
       The timing feels suspect. You have protests / riots going on, people ignoring the whole “social distancing” thing, the Governor NOT condemning the protesters / rioters for not social distancing (much less the rioting,) and now all of a sudden she’s jumping the whole state to the 4th phase of her magical recovery plan?

       So somehow all of a sudden everything is just peachy? No, this to me feels like what it most likely is, ass-covering. She can’t condemn the protests (which in the minds of the majority of the public is going to include the rioters, rightly or wrongly,) for ignoring social distancing, which is bad optics after condemning the previous protests (which how much property damage was there?) for the same thing. I’ve got $5 she’s says at some point she was “planning to ease the restrictions last week” to give some thin veneer of “I meant to do this all along which is why I didn’t condemn the protests” to the whole thing.

       This just does not pass the smell test for me…

       1. Of course it is political opportunism. Whitmer finally got enough sense of self-preservation to back down. Good.

          Of course she is only doing it for the left’s purposes, but she is doing it.

          1. NJ Governor Murphascist doesn’t even pretend to treat protests against is lockdowns the same as the current protests/riots/looting. From New Jersey Advance Media:

             “Murphy also drew a sharp distinction between those demonstrations resulting from death of George Floyd in Minnesota and recent protests calling for him to lift New Jersey’s coronavirus restrictions faster and reopen more businesses.

             “I don’t want to make light of this, and I’ll probably get lit up by everyone who owns a nail salon in the state,” Murphy said during his coronavirus briefing in Trenton on Monday. “But it’s one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening, and it’s another to come out in peaceful protest, overwhelmingly, about somebody who was murdered right before our eyes.”

             New Jersey currently limits gatherings to 25 people in outdoor settings and 10 people indoors. Organizers of protests calling for reopening have been charged in recent weeks with violating Murphy’s executive orders.

             “I put those into different orbits,” said Murphy, a Democrat who has said Floyd’s death “highlights systemic racism and the stain that slavery still leaves in our country today.””

             Thus, he is clearly showing that he discriminates based on content of speech with regards to protests and thus has and continues to act unconstitutionally. The government does not get to decide, and that includes Governor Murphascist what “orbits” speech goes into.

             I would hope the people he had arrested for violating the lockdown sue both NJ and him personally for his blatant and expressly intended civil rights violations: He should also be investigated by the Feds as to criminal civil rights violations based on his “different orbits” of protests.

             Murphy clearly showing that he discriminates based on content of speech with regards to protests and thus has and continues to act unconstitutionally. The government does not get to decide, and that includes Governor Murphacist what “orbits” speech goes into.

             Murphy clearly showing that he discriminates based on content of speech with regards to protests and thus has and continues to act unconstitutionally. The government does not get to decide, and that includes Governor Murphacist what “orbits” speech goes into.

             I would hope the people he had arrested for violating the lockdown sue both NJ and him personally for his blatant and expressly intended civil rights violations: He should also be investigated by the Feds as to criminal civil rights violations based on his “different orbits” of protests.

             Murphy and his fellow Democrats are the genuine fascists.

             Also since Democrats are always keen on putting conditions on government aid so that the parties receiving it must implement leftist ideology, Republicans should condition any additional CCP Virus Bills to require that those states and municipalities receiving funds cannot declare themselves “sanctuary cities” or refuse to cooperate or outright defy federal immigration law, and it should require that there be no discrimination against or limits of First and Second amendment rights.

             Democrats will go ballistic of course.

             1. “But it’s one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening, and it’s another to come out in peaceful protest, overwhelmingly, about somebody who was murdered right before our eyes.”

                Does the COVID-19 virus make that distinction?

                As those protesting are likely to be overwhelmingly African-American and African-Americans have significantly higher fatality rates from this pandemic, there can be only one conclusion: Gov. Murphy wants Black People to die!
                –

             2. “Democrats will go ballistic of course.”

                In other news, fire remains hot, water continues to be wet and bears defecate in the woods.
                –

       2. “The Five Year Plan in Only Four Years!’

          Since it would fail in 5, why not have it fail in 4 and be over?

          And somehow it won’t be noticed… well, not TOO noticed. Riiiight.

    2. I’ve also been seeing people say they were wrong about gun control and are now going to buy firearms to protect their families and homes. The expansion to residential areas as well as the cops not responding to 911 really terrified lots of people.

       1. If ANTIFA or their ilk comes to visit, and the circumstances require-

          Shoot.
          Shovel.
          Shut up.

          That simple.

          1. Also known as: Triple-S or 3S … take your pick.

          2. equestria, I just got through having this same discussion over at Kim du Toit’s blog. Shoot, shovel, and shut up is vastly complicated by the surveillance society we live in today. Let’s preface this by saying that 99% of these clowns aren’t smart. Unfortunately the 1% who are organizing things like handy piles of bricks along roads probably are, and have the money to throw around to implement.

             1. Live video upload is everywhere. From cell phone cameras to fairly cheap drones that can be equipped with infrared or starlight cameras, the odds that someone made a recording are fairly high, and unless you can jam their frequency(ies) until you’ve accounted for all of the possible sources, figure that someone saw you.

             2. Even if they don’t have video, every device has location tracking, and the fact that Antifa Boy’s phone made it to within a mile of your place will be more than enough evidence for the kinds of kangaroo courts blue areas will run on you,

             Just the tactical reality we live in.

             1. Which is why you strip ’em first and cremate them separately. Or make sure you have clear video of your own-from multiple angles (i.e. establish clear need of self-defense).

                1. Except that if you do wind up in court, disposing of the body is its own separate crime and has nothing to do with self-defense. It’s all, or nothing.

                   1. If we get to the point of “Shoot, Shovel, Shutup” on human beings, the penny has dropped and we’re in for a pound.

                      Need to check with some of my nerdier friends for GPS and cell-phone spoofers and drone jammers.

                   2. If it comes to a courtroom they’ve got to find a jury willing to convict. That might prove a challenge ii many venues.

                      Voir dire might prove entertaining. “Potential juror #3, do you believe Black lives matter?”
                      –

       2. Part of that is Conquest’s First Law (“Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.”) and part is “A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.” But I wonder how much is American culture failing to be suppressed by political correctness. I get the sense that “Obtain a gun to protect oneself and one’s loved ones, even if it’s legally and socially disapproved” is a much weaker impulse outside the US. But that’s only an intuition and it could well be wrong. Does anyone here have a better view of things outside the US?

          1. Weaker impulse, but also deemed illegal, sadly. I can get a gun for sport target shooting, or a bolt action rifle for hunting, and have to belong to a club.

             1. Yeah, as far as I can tell, nearly every government (including many of ours) has decided that it’s very important for people to be able to rob, rape, maim, and murder without having to worry about getting hurt.

             2. “ … and have to belong to a club.”

                That’s ridiculous – a club cedes too much weight and size advantage to an attacker, permitting them to come into close-range before you can hope to repel an attack.

                They need to, at the very least, rewrite the law so that small, light people are granted compensatory arms. With a pistol everybody has comparable reach and striking power; without a pistol inequality is promoted. We need to allow guns to advance equality.

                You’re not in favor of inequality, are you?
                –

31. Yet another example of how Antifa’s goal is literally the destruction of Western Civilization:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/06/01/watch-london-protest-we-need-to-burn-this-sht-the-west-is-falling/

    1. Yet another example of how Antifa’s goal is literally the destruction of Western Civilization:

       There, fixed that for ya.

       1. And yet they believe that all the benefits of Western Civ will still be theirs without any of the structures to support them.

          1. Look, part of this is not their fault. The leftist boomers were in charge of their education. Those who were unfortunate enough to ALSO have leftist boomer parents (most of older son’s classmates) are bizarrely, abysmally devoid of knowledge on how things actually work….

             1. Our children have been taught by overgrown children that have this bizarre mix of self-loathing, oikophobia, personal worship of Moloch, and the hatred of everyone else having fun. The few adults have been marginalized, pushed aside, and told that they were terrible people.

                Hopefully, we can learn to be adults again.

             2. And devoid of any knowledge of history. I had a colleague (since retired) who’s about 15-20 years older than me. One day he comes up to me and says that a student in his intro American politics class had mentioned that the Democrats filibusterd the 1964 Civil Rights act in the Senate. I said, yeah, and? He says…”Is that true? The Democrats filibusterd it?” It took me several seconds to pull my jaw off the floor, and come up with a suitable reply that wouldn’t cost me my job and career (I was a recently hired, untenured professor at the time).

                Since then, I made doubly sure to spend as much time as possible on history when I teach both intro American politics and intro comparative (foreign governments) politics. Of course, since I am now out of the professorial field, I only have to worry about the young ones in my family.

                1. I’m always somewhat amazed that people think the various Civil Rights Acts passed at the behest of the Democrats. Looking at the votes should tell you they were much more supported by Republicans.

                   1. Arble garble southern strategy argle barble

                   2. The Republicans were such a minority in the Senate that their support or opposition to any bill was not terribly significant. OTOH, from the Senate’s own site https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/civil_rights/filibuster_debate.htm:

                      As the Senate debate continued, the pro-civil rights forces continued to explain the bill’s eleven sections, or titles, while opponents expressed their objections in far-ranging statements that summed up decades of anti-civil rights rhetoric. Senator Ervin, a former North Carolina Supreme Court judge who was considered to be the Senate’s leading constitutional expert, urged the attorney general to enforce existing statutes rather than create new laws. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina echoed that sentiment, stating that “there are already ample laws on the statute books…if any qualified citizen does not vote today, the explanation must be either that he does not desire to vote or that he has not complained about voting.” Senator Russell Long of Louisiana argued that the bill would deny individuals the right to make “decisions such as whom a person will have as his neighbor and with whom he will associate in other respects.” Senator George Smathers of Florida denied that African Americans encountered difficulty in voting. “In the last two elections [in my state] a higher percentage of Negro citizens voted than white people.” Thurmond argued that the bill took away the rights of white southerners and bestowed them upon southern blacks: “The entire philosophy of those who support this legislation is impregnated with the basic idea that white southerners are not just second-class citizens, but apparently, should have no rights whatsoever.” Senator Richard Russell cautioned that H.R. 7152 would break down the South’s “two different social orders”—one white, one black—leading to the “amalgamation and mongrelization of our people.”

                      For weeks, the filibuster continued as the bill’s proponents and opponents expressed their views, often in spirited “colloquies,” or pro and con exchanges, designed to sway public opinion. President Johnson complained, justifiably, that the filibuster and lengthy debate had ground the legislative process to a halt. Again, he called for all-night sessions to exhaust the bill’s opponents. Humphrey encouraged patience and appealed to the one man who could deliver the votes they needed, first to invoke cloture, and then for final passage of the bill: Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Senate minority leader.

                      In the end Republicans supported passage by a far greater percentage of their delegation than did the Democrats, and the few votes in opposition were principled votes against extension of Federal authority (not that that argument helped Goldwater … or was even noted in the press coverage.)

                      It should be noted that throughout the Fifties Senate Majority leader Lyndon Johnson prevented passage of any similar Civil Rights Act — it was only when he ascended to the presidency that he perceived the urgency of such legislation.
                      –

                      1. there are parts of the 1968 Act that I have issues with myself.

                2. Want to make liberal heads explode and get yourself thrown out of polite society?
                   Mention that the KKK was originally founded to defend against Northern extremists wanting to punish the South for the war and Yankee carpetbaggers looking to steal what little they had left. But then the organization quickly became co-opted by the Southern Democratic party and served as their secret militant arm.

                   1. Oh, I do that all the time in my intro American politics class! I’ll have to find the videos I use that discuss the beginnings of the Democrat and Republican parties. They’re actually pretty good.

             3. *Nod* As someone with said parents and teachers, I can confirm. History teacher’s catchphrase in high school: “It’s not that capitalism succeeded, it’s that communism failed.”

                I was lucky enough to have 1) insatiable reading curiosity and 2) a solid grounding in The Hobbit before I got into school, and Sherlock Holmes and Conan the Barbarian shortly thereafter. Things in those stories worked. The lines the teachers used, not so much. But if I hadn’t had those fictional examples of how people and real societies worked, I’d never have known to do research on my own.

                1. there’s a lot of people who criticize Conan for being shoddy, puff piece, writing. But as I’ve been working my way through the stories, I’ve found them to be very well written. They have a good pace, the characters and settings are often well rounded and fleshed out. You can see hints of deeper world building in nearly every story. And oftentimes later stories come back around and fill in more pieces.

                   1. I don’t think I’ve read a main character of Howard’s I didn’t like. I do wish he’d written more Solomon Kane stories, but that’s a personal preference for the Mad Puritan with Solomon’s Staff.

                      1. I love the Solomon Kane stories, maybe even more than most of the Conan stories.

                         1. A grim but good man. We could use more writing like that. And people.

                            1. Any y’all seen the movie?

                               I don’t trust trailers, having seen too many what were better than the movie they was flogging, but I does like this trailer.

                               The fact it stars James Purefoy, Max Von Sydow and Pete Postlethwaite does nothing to discourage my interest.
                               –

             4. Worse: They know lots and lots that isn’t so about how things work.

             5. And it is not the rabid dog’s fault that it is rabid. Past a certain point, fault does not matter,

    2. There’s plans to do an Aboriginal Lives Matter protest in a couple of cities, and well, one is in Victoria, which will be condoned by the quisling Andrews.

       1. Can other countries stop following our idiots?

          1. They just can’t help themselves; we’ve got the world’s best and biggest idiots!

             But, how did they get protests in Iran of all places?
             ———————————
             Cast Away: Only Tom Hanks could make talking to a volleyball for two hours great.

             1. At the behest of the Iranian government. Same with China (where there were blacks may not enter signs as recently as last month). Its a cudgel for the powerful now rather than speaking troof to powah

          2. Unfortunately Victoria is headed by quislings. The premier signed on for the Belt and Road initiative against the decision of the Federal government. Brisbane has some idiots.

             1. So do you think most Aussies still think that all politicians are crooked, it’s just a matter of degree? I know when I lived there that was the default position – and most people I know ignored stupid laws they didn’t like unless it looked like said laws might be enforced around them.

                Political correctness used to be seen with contempt, but it’s been close to 20 years since I last lived in Oz, so things may have changed.

                1. Depends on where you live. Melbourne and surrounding suburbs are very PC. Sydney has the stupid concentrated in different forms, Canberra is defualt PC land, QLD it depends on where you live, the closer to big cities the more PC it tends to get, WA as always doesn’t wand to be infected by the stupidity of the East Coast, and SA and NT do the same, but SA has pockets of SJWness, I am told. Mostly near the uni areas.

                2. https://twitter.com/i/events/1267737996947632128

                   ARRRRGH. The media here is SERIOUSLY trying to start riots like in the US. ARE THEY EFFING JEALOUS THAT AMERICAN CITIES ARE BURNING?

                   1. Probably. They’d best hope that they don’t get that – I’m a bit out of date, but the last time things came close to actual riots (if my flaky memory is working right) it was over judges giving islamic immigrants a slap on the wrist for a string of racial/religious attacks and rapes. And it scared the pants off the lefties – particularly since (again, going off some old memories, so I could be wrong) the predominant sentiment was “If you don’t want to follow our laws, leave.”

                      1. Heh, it was like that when I was over for six months in Sydney back in 2010. The news anchors sounded absolutely shocked that their polls were…what, 98% ‘if you don’t want to live by our social rules and laws, gtfo.’ Maybe 97.something%?

                         Right now, I am wryly chuckling at all the people who used to hold anti gun sentiments running to buy guns. I do, however, applaud the ones who say they were wrong about the 2nd Amendment and are realising that their mindset came from a place of literal privilege and fortune that they had never ever been in danger before.

                         Now the mobs are howling at the gates.

                         I hope this destroys anti-gun sentiments for at least the next two hundred years.

                         And if New York still votes Dem, they deserve what they get.

                         I hope this will also stop the Californication of conservative areas, and maybe, just maybe, have Conservatives push back against that blueing of their home areas.

                   2. Not so much jealous as in desperate need of a distraction from the Chinese threat.

                      Well, that and the Wuhan Flu policy failure. Can’t have people asking questions about those inaccurate models now …
                      –

                      1. You mean the models by Dr. Pantsdown?

                         1. Had I but one wish — ad denied the option of personal enrichment — I would wish for all liars’ pants to catch fire. It would make the nightly news and political rallies (BIRM) vastly more entertaining.
                            –

                            1. They’d have to bring back asbestos to make pants for Democrats! 😀

                            2. Speaking of Chinese…

                               https://mobile.twitter.com/BenKTallmadge/status/1233225049261260800

                   3. Yes. Of course.

                      Fluffy has announced that he, personally, is staying far, far, far away so he’s not implicated.

          3. No. Our idiots worship their idiots (Well, at least Europe’s idiots and Australian one) and no deity wants to disappoint their followers.

          4. Even our anti-American idiots in Canada can’t help but follow American idiots.

32. Assembling her team at the front of the Jeffersonian briefing room, Dr. Temperance Brennan tapped the mike and waited patiently for the press to subside.

    “As you know, several serious allegations have been made against Special Agent Booth. I am here to advise you that, after a careful examination of the forensic evidence by my team and myself, I am pleased to announce that I can clear Seely now.”
    –

    1. *Starts loading the carp….*

       1. Wallabies are quick little devils, your Carp will probably miss.

          1. Sometimes you just have to try. 😉

       2. Hell, I just laughed. What the world needs now, is puns, good puns.

          1. Let the punishment begin!

             1. Your pun-ishment shall be a Carp! Load! Aim! Shoot!

    2. A pun of beauty is a joy forever.

       1. Actually, that’s closer to a Shaggy-Dog Story than a pun. Maybe he should have made it longer and more elaborate?

    3. BOOOOOOO!

       [loads rotten tomato into the air cannon]

       BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    4. “I can clear Seely now, his brain is gone….”

33. Even so called conservatives assumed communism would eventually win, because according to the numbers coming out of the USSR and the reporters visiting the USSR … they were just so much more efficient.

    That’s the amazing thing… even with being willing to be utterly ruthless, totally inhuman, and freaking loot…they couldn’t beat the messy reality of folks caring for their own stuff as best possible, and then helping others of their own free will.

    1. Evil is STUPID. See scatt troll left behind. Sursum cords.

    2. Whenever I start feeling depressed about the state of America, I think back to a couple of years ago, and the Cajun Navy driving around the angry Texas cop who was trying to block their path, and the orders from various Texas authorities and FEMA telling them to turn around and go home.

       The governments might be out of control, but there were still people willing to raise their middle fingers high and Do The Right Thing.

34. Mayhap I’ve got my tinfoil hat wrapped a weeeeeee bit too tight, but…..

    Is it just me, or is the timing of each of these crises just a tad convenient? As in the moment one crisis finally begins losing steam and people start moving on with their lives and things begin returning to normal, BOOM! New crisis!

    They’re able to drag out the Mueller Report and Impeachment for almost four months, and then as soon as they can’t pretend that they have a case anymore, BOOM! WUHAN KUNG-FLU GONNA KILL US ALL! And then as soon as the WHO and CDC can no longer convincingly fudge the numbers and states start reopening (whether their petty tyrant governors want them to or not), BOOM! Race riots that are somehow being instigated by white supremacists in predominantly black neighborhoods in every major city, all at once.

    And pallets of loose bricks just randomly happen to appear *poof!* out of thin air in the exact spots where rioters just randomly happen to decide to congregate? Yeah, why am I not buying that any of this shit is spontaneous and “organic?”

    1. Do you not believe in the Brick Fairy?

       1. Nope, but I do believe in the Stupid Fairy.

          Just read a series of FecalBook posts from a friend (IRL friend, not just FB friend) who I *thought* was highly intelligent stating that a) the protests and riots (which, in their view, are the same thing – rioting being just another form of protest) are being instigated by Undercover White Supremacists – and yes, they capitalized it thusly – and that because most of the protesters are white, Undercover White Supremacists have clearly infiltrated their fair city. Their small, lower-class-but-rapidly-gentrifying, majority-white, predominantly Democrat city…. that is smack dab in the middle of PA Amish Country.

          Pretty sure reading that nonsense killed some brain cells.

          1. You just provided an example of why I had to give up Space(d-out)Book: I can love and respect friends or family members even if they believe things I consider stupid, but it’s a lot harder to sustain those attitudes when I’m continually reminded of them. One can bite one’s tongue only so long before one wearies of the taste.

             1. Honestly, at this point I’m only on it because of a handful of (refreshingly) non-political groups that aren’t on any other social media platform. That and Babylon Bee articles. But other than The Bee and a scant few non-insane (or at least my-kind-of-insane) friends, my feed can go die in a fire.

          2. I think they so desperately want to believe that they’re the good people. They don’t want to face that they are the baddies. Cognitive dissonance doesn’t begin to describe it.

          3. I try to distinguish between intelligence and smart. Intelligence is like horsepower, smart is like speed. You obviously need some horses under the hood if you want to go fast, but all the grunt in the world isn’t going to do you any good speed-wise if you don’t put the thing in gear and depress the gas pedal.

             Similarly, you can have all the IQ points you want, but you aren’t going to be smart unless you sit down and actually think. Of course, it doesn’t help that our education system has been actively teaching kids to not think for decades. Your friend, like everyone on the Left, isn’t thinking.

             1. I see you have attended a Mensa meeting or two.

                1. No, I’ve just been inside my own head.

                   1. I note that wisdom is not mentioned.Intelligence/smarts without wisdom is foolishness.

             2. Have encountered quite a few folks who were brilliant (all the tests said so) but couldn’t Do anything. This is where our “expert” class comes from

                1. Of course. Those who can do, do.

          4. I spoke to my brother’s widow. She lives in Minneapolis near Lake. Her daughter told her of looking down the alley in the back of the house and seeing someone had stockpiled accelerant . She also told me that it was “white supremacists who did it”, so just remember the left owns the “news”.

             There was evil planning behind this. Not saying his death was planned, but evil men were prepared to take advantage. Our problem: They have 40,000 “soldiers” who take orders from those who would destroy America. It is war, but only a “little” hot now. My fantasy is that there is evidence to tie Soros to the communist “antifascists”, and his money is confiscated to pay victims. I can hope…But that is not my true Hope.

             What worries me is if true hot civil war hits America, the world suffers even more than we. No food for China. Everyone takes advantage to fight their wars of revenge. Think how Jimmy Stewart’s character’s absence changes things in “It’s a wonderful Life”. My current estimate is 2 billion dead, “only” 150 million Americans. Be very careful of wishing for the current civil war and attempted coup to go hot. You may get that wish, and die. I am behind enemy lines. I never post with my true name. I expect to be an early casualty. In 1861, no one knew the horror they were about to endure. The left seems determined to push us over the abyss.

             My faith keeps me from fear. My favorite hymn is “How firm a Foundation”, so many great lines to remember in times of trouble. “Be not afraid, for I Am with you…” Read the 22nd Psalm, aka “David’s complaint”. It is OK to complain to God in times of trouble

             1. Its already been documented that Antifa was , at one point, getting money from BAMN got money from Media Matters got money from Soros.

                1. Well … remember, it ain’t just Antifa. There is also By Any Means Necessary and I wouldn’t be surprised to find A.N.S.W.E.R. had fingers in this pie.

                   Of course,Soros funds them all, doesn’t he? As, I believe, does John Effing Kerry, through the TIDES Foundation.
                   –

                   1. I said BAMN… 😛

                      1. So you did, so you did. These Leftists are like Hydra, so many shell groups and it gets difficult to keep track.

                         A more suspicious mind than mine would suspect they’ve something to hide.
                         –

                         1. esp since some of them seem to exist as nothing more than someone to give a donor plausible deniability…

                2. You think ACORN is in there somewhere?

                   1. ACORN is basically dead at a national level.

    2. Yep. It’s gaslighting all the way down

    3. > Is it just me, or is the timing of each of these crises just a tad convenient?

       About five years ago, people on some forums I hang out on noticed that whenever there was some event that made a prominent Democrat look bad, there’d be a “mass shooting.” And whatever malfeasance was going on would simply drop off the news and never come back.

       The interesting thing is the “mass shooting events” have been regular on a three or four month cycle, but though there have been a handful of shootings in 2020, the media has been mostly silent; a brief announcement, then nothing.

       My best guess is they were saving it all up for the rioting and mass slaughter in Richmond as armed gun nuts stormed the Governor’s offices, and when that failed to materialize they were left without a backup plan.

       1. I was very worried about a Reichstag Fire in Richmond. Some atrocity perpetrated by the anti-gun fascists and blamed on the 2nd Amendment protesters. Very relieved not to see one.

          I think there should have been more efforts to get those poor sheep out of the ‘gun-free’ fenced enclosure. “Come on out! We’re not your enemies, and we’ve got barbecue!”

          I would have laughed to see an empty ‘gun-free zone’ surrounded by a lively party.
          ———————————
          The Democrats are willing to burn America to the ground, so long as they wind up squatting on top of the ashes.

35. God bless the United States of America and all her people in these trying times.

36. Looks like “the other shoe has dropped” on Antifa now, much as it did on Twitter (and its “not-editorial” policy) recently. At least we have it from a calm and reliable source that

    uncoverdc [dot] com /2020/06/01/president-trump-declares-antifa-a-terrorist-organization/

    which might have sounded like an empty stunt to some, but which does seem to signal the possibility of real Federal enforcement action too (see above and especially that whole VCAR not RICO thing, which I have just barely enough of a major-crimes clue to understand).

    To put it simply, it sounds to me more like they’re about as serious on this one as on John Durham’s quiet little enterprise.

    The column begins,

    President Trump announced on Sunday that the US Government is designating Antifa a “terrorist organization.” Many left-wing legal commentators immediately took to Twitter to announce such a designation is meaningless as there is no federal statute that criminalizes the activities of a “domestic terrorist organization.”

    That is true. There is a statute which defines and criminalizes “foreign terrorist organizations,” but Congress has not seen fit to create a similar statute for “domestic” groups. One of the primary reasons for this is because no such statute is needed.

    Existing federal statutes provide plenty of “coverage” for prosecuting domestic groups which involve themselves in terrorist activity within the borders of the United States. The impediment to such prosecutions is generally the overlap between state police powers and federal law enforcement interests. As a general proposition, state laws outlaw the kind of violent activities that typify “domestic terrorist organizations” whether it be Antifa or the KKK. Compelling federal interests often come into play when the activities of such groups target the civil rights and liberties of groups of people because of a particular characteristic such as race or religion. There isn’t a similar compelling federal interest in simply curtailing localized violent activities whether labeled “terrorism” or just “violence crime”.

    So, what was the purpose of Pres. Trump’s announcement if labeling Antifa as a “terrorist organization” had no practical impact?

    I thought it was meaningful that the declaration came after more than 12 hours of silence from the White House about events around the country from early Saturday evening into Sunday morning. I also found it significant that Pres. Trump’s announcement was followed-up almost immediately by a written statement from Attorney General Barr.

    I think that 12+ hour delay involved another evening and night of watching the feckless and impotent response of big city mayors and mostly blue state governors to the breakdown of order in their cities, including the rising level of violence after dark that seemed to target police and show that left-wing agitators had moved in on the protest marches.

    After watching the lawlessness go largely unaddressed by local law enforcement – with several big city police department leaders content to have their officers stand by and watch rather than intervene as looting and property destruction took place in plain view – President Trump and AG Barr made a determination that the Department of Justice and its component law enforcement agencies would be a “player” in dealing with the violence. While the announcement and designation may not have added to DOJ’s arsenal of resources, what it did do was signal that DOJ would be entering the fight…

    1. We watched “law enforcement” actively aiding Antifa in Berkeley, Charlottesville, and Portland. I expect the media cameras are carefully averted now.

37. “Terrorist organization”

    Not “Domestic”.

    The ironically named “Antifa” is, after all, an -international- organization.

    So?

    (Very toothy grin)

    Achievement unlocked!

    “Unlawful Enemy Combatant”

    Oops.

    1. They’re named by opposites 😉

       1. Nah, it’s a simple spelling error. It’s supposed to be Antefa.

       2. They are Anti-American Fascists. Antafa. Just change one vowel.

    2. I like this guy’s style.

       1. He’s wrong about one thing. You want the corpse to wind up INSIDE the house, so there’s no doubt about it being self-defense.
          ———————————
          Always, always have a Plan O — for Oh Shit!

          1. There is always, “Person was just inside when I fired, & person just few outside. I didn’t realize this little gun had such a kick. I thought when it happened in movies it was for, like, effect, drama. Not that it actually happens that way.”

             OTOH when someone is throwing fire lit materials, they are an immediate threat. Or using a baseball bat to knock out windows & doors, they’ve demonstrated immediate threat. No need for them to actually be inside.

          2. Ideally, but a sane sheriff makes this less of an issue.

    3. Considering that Antifa supposedly originated in Germany, and also, are visibly organising “related” protests in London and Berlin… yeah.

       I want the full force of the law to fall on everyone who helped bail them out.

       1. Well, the German Communist Party’s paramilitary wing (aka band of thugs) did call themselves Antifa back in the Weimar days.

          Though progs are trying to conflate anyone (including the US Army) that fought against Nazi Germany as “antifa” and I’m getting more than a bit sarcastic with them. “Your grandfather was in the German Communist Party? Did he end up in a camp or did he turn coat?”

       2. They originated in the pre-WW2 German Communist Party, IIRC

    4. It occurs to me that we have far stronger evidence of Antifa being a Russian sponsored organization than we ever had of Trump “colluding” with Russia.
       –

       1. But we live in opposite land so….

38. MSNBC
    June 1, 2020
    St. Paul, MN

    Minnesota to Sue President Trump

    Governor Tim Walz today announced that he would have the Minnesota Attorney General file a suit in federal court to recover costs associated with the protests and vandalism of recent days.

    “Understand,” the Governor said at a press conference, “we are not suing the federal government, but rather President Trump personally.”

    In an accompanying press release, the justification was explained in detail.

    “The President’s behavior since the inauguration has been abhorrent. Every word, everey deed, every policy has led to this ugly state that our nation finds itself in. His will and hatred is what led to the untimely death of George Floyd, as surely as if he himself were pushing down on a defenseless black man.

    His shallow empty words and actions in response to this horrible act as much as lit the match, both figuratively and literally, for what followed. Donald Trump alone drove these events, and he must be held accountable. And as this is a civil suit to recover losses, there can be no hiding behind a claim of sovereign immunity, as much as he fancies his position a true throne.

    His personal fortunes must be held to pay for the losses and destruction resulting from his irresponsible behavior and words.”

    Governor Walz went on to say he hoped other governors or mayors would try to recoup some of their communities’ losses in a similar manner.

    (Poe notification:

    Okay, I really don’t need one here, right? I mean, obviously I’ve gone beyond satire into wild parody. The nuances of the sublime have been trampled by the flailing boots of the ridiculous.

    No one could possibly think anyone, even the most desperate, finger-pointing leftist would actually go this far. Right?

    Right?!?!

    C’mon, people give me this one! Just this one! I really need something to cling to…

    Lie to me if you have to!

    MAKE IT GOOD!

    –CC)

    1. Did he really? Is he mad?

       What has struck me over the last several months is how utterly useless our political class is but I keep coming back to Bonhoeffer’s observation “Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.”

       1. I hope everyone who has suffered from Minnesota’s lockdown orders now sues Walz personally, since he himself is setting the precedent.

          I put this in the category of being proof that Democrats are actively coordinating with Antifa in orchestrating the riots and looting.

    2. >> “Lie to me if you have to!

       MAKE IT GOOD!”

       Yes, yes. You were just channeling the Babylon Bee for a moment there, nothing to worry about. In fact, you should submit that one to them. We all know the Bee is fake news so if they publish it then clearly it can never happen in real life.

       Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go patch up my face. For some reason keeping it straight is causing it to crack.

    3. Are you sure that dateline is not April 1, 2020?

    4. Oh FFS. Seriously?

       Just when I thought I couldn’t read anything stupider than I already have today….

       1. I can’t. My head hurts after reading that.

    5. obviously I’ve gone beyond satire into wild parody

       Not really. With Walz, it’s not entirely out of the question. Damnit.

    6. Actualy, I bit and bit hard.

       So, yes, Poe warning needed.

39. News you can use …

    Forget the Name, Antifa Is No Better Than the Fascists
    … As the prominent anti-fascist Joe Stalin supposedly said, “Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege.”

    Now, I only bring up the mass-murdering Communist because the group of radicals instigating violence, vandalizing and burning cities, and undermining the valid grievances of those peacefully protesting police brutality is named after a militant Stalinist German organization. Then again, Antifaschistische Aktion didn’t spend the vast majority of its time chasing imaginary fascists.

    Like their latter-day inheritors, though, Antifaschistische Aktion was a parasitic organization that fed off of the anger of peaceful opposition to the state. Like their namesake, Antifa often accuses free and democratic institutions of engaging in “fascism” to further their own authoritarian cause. Then, as now, useful idiots parroted the lie.

    For one thing, any thinking person understands that simply because a group cloaks itself in the name of a principled cause doesn’t necessarily mean it represents a principled cause. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is not democratic, run by the people, or a republic. Nor was the German Democratic Republic, nor was Hungarian Peoples Republic, nor was the People’s Republic of Angola.

    Second, even legitimately anti-fascist organizations are not, by default, champions of virtuous causes. There are competing evils in the world, and there is no better example of this struggle than the one played out between fascists and Communists over the past century.

    Only one of these ideologies gets a pass in the American media. …
    –

40. Pingback: Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » Deja- Poo

41. I think that #1, it’s not that humans are incapable of changing in response to changing circumstance but that they won’t, which is a truly odd thing to think. But it’s a constant… people act this way *now* and if we change all the rules they will continue to act that same way despite the change in incentives. Right? But I think that’s an Original Sin, nature vs. nurture thing. The whole communist caboodle rests on the notion that humans are naturally virtuous and if only the influences of greed and whatnot, which are *external*, are removed, people will remain industrious and keep everything running without material reward nor too many choices of deodorant at the store making them anxious and dissatisfied.

    Which not only doesn’t make any theological sense but makes utterly no biological sense as if one organism hasn’t competed against another since the first time cyanobacteria turned sunlight into sugar.

    1. You’re not going back far enough. Hell, prebiotic molecules competed against each other before there were cells!

42. c4c

43. The more the rioters carry on, the more convinced I am that they have no idea what they are doing. I’m beginning to believe that most of the rioters are useful idiots goaded along by a couple of imported instigators. Protests against Minneapolis Police for allowing bad officers to continue using bad tactics that lead to the death of Mr. Floyd? Sure, I’m all for that legally even though I personally think it’s a little misguided. You’ve already got near universal agreement that what happened there shouldn’t have, and that the officer needs to be prosecuted. But the riots, taking place hundreds, even thousands, of miles away are something else. If they have anything to do with Floyd’s death, other than being a convenient piggyback, they appear to be designed to taint the jury pool so badly that there can never be a fair trial held, anywhere in the US.

    1. Since Trump appears to be ready and willing to fully invoke the Insurrection Act, we may be about to find out. A lot of “useful idiots” may be about to discover that their usefulness has come to a screeching halt.

44. Look at it this way. A hundred years ago, a man named Lincoln Steffens said about his tour of the Soviet Union, “I have seen the future, and it works.” His future is our past, and we’ve seen that it didn’t work as well as he thought it would. But first, World War II brought eastern Europe under Soviet Soviet domination, China went to Mao and North Korea went to Kim Il-Sung. A little later, Cuba went to Fidel Castro, and the world suffered peak Communism when Vietnam was lost.

    Afghanistan is where Communism jumped the shark. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and while China and Cuba are still Communist, Europe is more haunted by the specter of Brexit. IOW, the Left is finding out that being on the side of History is trickier than it looked.

    Which isn’t to say that the Left will give up without a fight. Literally. Like Hillary Clinton, the Left will keep on past the point of diminishing returns because admitting defeat isn’t an option. And it will do as much damage as it can.

45. I noticed back in the last years of the Obama administration that the media started doing something very odd. All of a sudden, there was a spurt of films and TV shows about slavery in the American South. And I wondered why? In the second term of America’s first black president, why is the media acting like the last 50 years never happened? What would the American Left gain from all this. And then I realized the answer: fear.

    1. And anger. If the black voting block cracks the left is done for a generation. Given the attitudes of many black people toward the gay and their much higher than average churchgoing not to speak of the fact that PP is selling them for parts, the dems had to do something

       1. If they still vote Dem after all this… *shakes head*

       2. This would normally be the time when everything was coming up rainbows for Pride Month. I fully expect there to be a late entrant in the Intersectional Oppression Olympics within the next couple of weeks. Because abuses of power only matter when they happen to Approved Victim Class members.

          Which observation has become an intense source of fury and frustration for me on the book of Faces recently. I suspect I am not the only one who has noticed that, and I think it is very dangerous indeed for those all who may match demographics with such victim classes.

       3. In the California vote banning Same-Sex Marriage the African-American Community provided far more votes than did the Mormons … but the Latter-Day Saints were the more viable target for reprisal by the Left.

          They have other ways of reminding the African-Americans of their place.
          –

46. The June book is The Wizard’s Tale by Kurt Busiek

    Spoiler free:
    https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21474786-june-2020—-the-wizard-s-tale—-no-spoilers

    1. Spoilers allowed:
       https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21474792-june-2020—-the-wizard-s-tale—-spoilers-allowed

47. “If we just did away with private property”

    By which they generally mean other people’s private property.
    
    –

    1. It’s *always* other people’s property.

48. I realize that many Hus are not fans of Kevin Williamson, but yknow, when he’s right he’s right:

    Protest and Partisanship
    By Kevin D. Williamson
    Minneapolis is a city with a Democratic mayor and a Democratic city council without a single Republican on it: Twelve of the 13 city-council members are Democrats, one is a Green. It has a progressive chief of police who was preceded by another progressive chief of police. It is in a state with a Democratic governor and a Democratic state house. Every statewide executive office in Minnesota is either held by a Democrat or is officially nonpartisan — there is not one Republican as such holding a statewide office in Minnesota. The people of Minneapolis are represented in the U.S. House by, among others, Ilhan Omar and Dean Phillips, both Democrats, and in the Senate by Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, both Democrats.

    I wonder if the solution to what ails Minneapolis and its police is really giving more unaccountable power to Democrats.
    –

    1. Sounds like the whole east side of Minnesota is on the verge of imploding into a black hole of SJW self-abuse.

       If only…

49. https://mobile.twitter.com/influencersitw/status/1267602725266743298

    I can’t decide who I want to hear snark about this more. Sargon, Count Dankula, or Paul Joseph Watson.

    1. I’m rooting for Razorfist, myself.

       1. oo, yeah.Actually, the Quartering, Sydney Watson or ShoeOnHead would be hilarious too. I mean, I’m hoping Sydney will do Twitchy Deer to round up her transxID series but she lives in DC.

       2. Oh hell yeah…

    2. Sargon. He is so joyful when he does it.

       1. This is true.

    3. Get Sargon, Dank, Arch and Vee in a stream. Peak Snark.

       1. Totally need peak snark.

          1. Will infinite snark do?
       2. Jeremy did this one. Haven’t seen the others yet, but Paul Joseph Watson did one criticizing the riots in London.

50. Apparently Hillary goes to court today.

    https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4212891/judicial-watch-inc-v-department-of-state/

    1. https://mobile.twitter.com/MAJTOURE/status/1267757085573382144

51. Chinese spotted, apparently, participating in the riots.

    Nazis from Chinese People’s Liberation army are among the Antifa terrorists attacking the White House:

    Check this video, they are not civilians!

    pic.twitter.com/sX6dH1nWU9

    — BenTallmadge (@BenKTallmadge) June 2, 2020

52. Democrats, including Hillary, constructing a false narrative? I find that hard to believe!

    Viral Photo of White House ‘Going Dark’ That Was Shared by Dems Is from Before Trump Presidency
    A viral photo showing the White House with its lights off, shared by numerous Democrats during demonstrations in Washington, D.C., is at least five years old and was edited to make it seem darker, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

    The image can be found in Getty Image’s stock photo collection. The original photo shows the lantern on the White House portico and several lights around the fountain in the lawn as lit, while in the doctored image these lights are blacked out.

    Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was among those who shared the image …
    –

    1. That Hillary tweet:

       Elections matter. https://t.co/77jquAhp1x pic.twitter.com/AM5Z42pzyk

       — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 1, 2020

       Does anybody think Hillary has the technical chops to construct that image?

       N.B. – the White House normally turns off its exterior lighting nightly at 2300 … failure to do so would be an environmental crime.
       –

       1. Needless to say Twitter will not be fact checking Hillary or demanding the bogus statement be removed because their “rules” as to such things are only applied to non-Democrats/non-leftists.

53. I decided I wanted to put on some music and write instead of more news.

    Seems like Spotify decided that wasn’t allowed as this was my login screen:

    I emailed asking if I should delete my account given they’d rather be woke than stream music. Here is their response.

    Thanks for your email.

    In light of staffing measures undertaken in response to the Coronavirus disease outbreak, our ability to respond to help requests is very limited. We strongly advise you try to resolve the issue with the solutions offered in this email.

    Have a free account?

    Log in and visit our contact form again, pick Account, and continue through the steps to close.

    Have a Premium account?

    You can simply cancel your subscription. That way, you can still play and save music and podcasts on our free, ad-supported service.

    If you want to close your account permanently, you first need to cancel your subscription and wait for your account to revert to our free, ad-supported service (you see this date on the confirmation screen once you cancel). You can then visit our contact form again, pick Account, and continue through the steps to close.

    So, they are cancelled and when current premium runs out the account will be deleted.

    1. Image:

       

       1. I just came over here to post that. FFS. Already cancelled my Premium account and uninstalled the app from my laptop and smartphone

          1. Yep. Myself as well.

    2. Spotify shut down to ‘show solidarity with the protesters’ for a day, this was announced ahead of time….

54. Anyone else feel like Chief Tyrol at the end of the Battlestar Galactica reboot?

    “I’ve had enough of people.”

    1. I’ve felt like that for years.

    2. Well, I get “peopled out” plenty of times, but I’m not going to ditch technology and walk out into the Wilderness. 😈

       1. Nor am I. Though I am giving serious thought to burning all of my social media accounts.

       2. I much prefer dealing with people as digital abstractions, like y’all.
          –

          1. There are days I wish it was permitted to deal with people as “centers of mass with limbs and a head”.

55. How bad is the “white supremacists are causing the riots” take faring?

    Even the SPLC, which believes white supremacsits groups have annual double digit growth rates, says there is no evidence (https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/02/even-far-left-southern-poverty-law-center-says-no-evidence-white-supremacists-sparking-riots/#)

    There is “no clear evidence” white supremacists are participating in the rioting and looting sweeping U.S. cities across America following the death of George Floyd, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) conceded in a New York Times report published Sunday.

    “Signs of any organized effort or even participation in the violence were relatively rare,” the Times acknowledged in the bottom half of its article, referring to white supremacists.

    “I have not seen any clear evidence that white supremacists or militiamen are masking up and going out to burn and loot,” Howard Graves, an SPLC research analyst who tracks white supremacists and other anti-government extremist groups, told the newspaper.

    1. They might have the brains to realize you really, really don’t want to go digging too deep on that– I’m pretty sure that AntiFa has been infiltrated.

       Based off of out of character activities.

       Namely, multiple instances where people in the mob ran over and dragged a targeted victim out of the mass, or stopped someone attempting to set stuff on fire.

       Not nearly ENOUGH instances, but it has cut down on the deaths, for the daytime stuff.

       If it’s sane progressives, cops, or “yes,” still have outsiders in there.

       1. Antifa showed up at that Virginia gun-rights demonstration.

          With signs about how gun control has been used historically to oppress minorities.

          1. The one in January? Their “leadership:” claimed that they’d told folks to stay away for fear of violence. (…which is not really as silly as it sounds, that is a very much not-soft target)
             Guardian on why no counter-demonstration:
             Anti-fascist groups cited several reasons for their decision, including serious threats of violence, their own opposition to some gun control measures proposed by the Virginia government and concern for ordinary gun owners planning to attend the rally.

             Showed up at the Ohio one, too, with infiltrators, to counter-protest because the wrong people were protesting in support of arms.
             Was one “libertarian” guy yelling about jumping the fence and killing people, too, who got immediately and verbally smacked down.

    2. I saw a story (true or not, unclear) about an “infiltrator” for Portland Antifa. I transcribed the note from an anonymous poster:

       So some conservative Portland practical joker dressed up in Portland Chic (black helmet, black face mask with red Anarchist logo, black jacket and black skinny jeans with black boots), brought a backpack full of Keep America Great bumper stickers, and waited for rioters to arrive on the outskirts of the hot zones. Stuck Trump stickers over the rioter’s Bernie and AntiFa stickers and left the rest up to Charles Darwin.

       Rioters returned to cars smashed with bats and clubs, tires flat, and the stickers whacked with the same clubs.

       That guy is next level evil.

       For something a bit more verifiable, “protesters” arrived in Klamath Falls Sunday night. Reports (rumors) were about 3000 people, mostly from out of town. (Some local news “debunked” this, though there were a bunch of people around after dark. Sunset is around 8:45, so that would be late…) However the protesters were expected, and the merchants and friends downtown prepared to welcome them. K-Falls is an open carry city, and OC was in wide display. The TV newsies in Medford were shocked to see how many people were openly carrying, poor dears. Between well armed civilians and a decent police department, no major trouble ensued.

       $SPOUSE reminds me that Fred Meyer doesn’t allow open carry (no restrictions on CCW), so maybe I won’t do OC next time I’m in town. Maybe.

       1. “Fred Meyer doesn’t allow open carry (no restrictions on CCW), so maybe I won’t do OC next time I’m in town.”

          “What do you mean I can’t open carry in here? I’m not carrying openly; I identify as carrying concealed! How dare you impose your identity on me?”
          –

          1. [grin]

             Oregon firearms law is silent on private entities banning open carry, but they could dig out disorderly conduct or other uncomfortable sanctions. OTOH, Fred’s doesn’t try to restrict concealed carry, and I usually don’t go where it is illegal to do so in town. Private mail boxes for the win!

             I need to a) dig out the IWB holster, and b) try the Hawaiian shirts I bought some years ago. With the current situation, I’d rather go up a few notches from the mouse gun.

       2. $SPOUSE reminds me that Fred Meyer doesn’t allow open carry (no restrictions on CCW), so maybe I won’t do OC next time I’m in town. Maybe.

          -,
          Allowed or not, I see a lot of OC in (drum-roll) Eugene. Okay, RR FM, north end of town, still … If OC is tolerated at a FM in Eugene, K Falls is a slam dunk, or s/b.
          –

          1. OK, a bit of searching: Fred Meyer a) allows that open carry is legal most places in OR, b) requests that customers (except LEOs) do not open carry, and c) suggest concealed carry as an alternative.

             In the 1990s, if you had a jacket, as long as a bit of the muzzle/holster was visible, that was considered open carry. This sounds the opposite; try to cover it a bit, and they’re happy. Sounds like the policy went in to make the place Karen-resistant. (Ain’t nothin’ gonna be Karen-proof!)

             OTOH, there’s no way in hell that I’d open carry in a Costco. Jackson county, OR Sheriff’s Office seems far more rational than Clark county’s, NV, but I’m not interested in exploring the differential.

             1. OTOH, there’s no way in hell that I’d open carry in a Costco. Jackson county, OR Sheriff’s Office seems far more rational than Clark county’s, NV, but I’m not interested in exploring the differential.

                –
                Amen. Costco has proven itself deadly to open carry … I’m not trusting Lane County or EPD, either; especially EPD.

                Waiting to see what it is going to cost Clark County Sheriff and Costco.
                –

       3. Are they sure he wasn’t Bugs Bunny?

          1. Sounds like he’s alive, so maybe he is a ‘Toon. (Does he clank when he walks?)

             1. (Does he clank when he walks?)

                Only when it’s funny.

    3. Tell that to my dingleberry (and probably soon to be ex) friends on Fecalbook.

56. Amazingly enough, some of these morons are invoking the name of Martin Luther King Jr. to justify the violence. Do they even know who he was? What he stood for?

    GAH

    1. Nope. ‘Cause they don’t teach history in schools anymore, ’cause history is racist/sexist/classist/homophobic/transphobic/an-oppressive-tool-of-The-Patriarchy or some such porcine excrement.

    2. No. They went to expensive private schools where they don’t teach American history or civics.

       1. OTOH, they do teach Shinola, in depth.
          –

    3. Someone they can use. Not like they admit there is any other kind of person

57. Previous comment hit moderation. It can wait.

    The spot food shortages seem to be reappearing in Klamath Falls. The restaurant supply was almost completely out of corn tortillas (they normally have 6′ worth of shelving dedicated to just those. Three packages left. I bought two.

    Fred Meyer is out of no-salt green beans and all forms of beets. Some canned corn was out (creamed, I think, but it’s not something we eat.) TP in limited supply, “what we get is what you find”. Dairy seems all right.

    The independent store had normal stocks where I was, but I didn’t check their canned section.

    1. Things are pretty normal in the grocery stores around here, albeit the supplies of fresh meat and produce are still operating on truck roulette. Save A Lot is no longer the home of abundant meat, possibly because a lot of people are using their TrumpBucks to get some serious grilling done. (My neighborhood now smells amazing at night.)

       The local ice cream place is only open for drive-thru (although you can eat at the outside patio tables), and it’s just a continuous line of cars.

       1. I went out to eat at a steak house — outside, of course, under an umbrella — and it rumbled as they brought out my ribs and it was raining with a little spray as I ate, but it intensified.

          I ran to the patio when I was done and waited for my check there. Then it came down in buckets and got diners just under the underhang.

          I waited a few minutes till it died down SOME.

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