HAS EVERYONE LOST THEIR MIND?

513 thoughts on “HAS EVERYONE LOST THEIR MIND?”

1. Two thoughts.

   “Is there intelligent Life on Planet Earth”?

   “I’m sane. It’s the rest of the world who are insane”.

   1. As our hostess has said, only about 1/4 of the US is insane in its correct meaning of unable to tell right from wrong.

      1. That’s the legal definition for “not guilty by reason of insanity” and I think they can, but don’t bother.

         “Unable to control themselves and posing a risk to themselves or others” is — larger.

   2. Douglas Adams had John Watson AKA “Wonko the Sane”.

      After reading instructions for use written on a box of toothpicks, he built a house with furniture on the outside and a lawn on the inside.

      He needed to lock everyone in an asylum.

      I’ve occasionally felt like drawing up blueprints…

2. I’m in the closet politically because I work in tech and until recently had always lived in 80%+ leftist areas. I’m rethinking that closet. This insanity has got to stop! There’s been a lot of preference falsification from too many of us being in the closet. These people say insane shit all the time and get away with it. Then other people who are basically sheep or not paying attention nod and go along. Arrrgggghhhhh!

3. Has the entire world taken crazy pills?

   Trying to listen to some of the house upkeep shows I usually have on the weekend.

   Accidentally caught the news.

   Had to put down my headset and ask the half-elf if I’d imagined Georgia announcing they are doing a hand recount.

   Elf: “No, that’s what they’re doing, they may have just started. Largest hand recount in history.”
   Me: “The news just announced Trump definitely lost Georgia, although they say projected to win North something or other.”
   Elf: “Why are you listening to that, again?”
   Me: “It’s not on purpose!”

   1. Thing is, I don’t know how much good a recount in Georgia is going to do without a full and complete audit of the votes.

      1. Obviously, THEY think it’s a problem, or they wouldn’t be acting like it doesn’t exist.

         Same station just, on the news, mentioned ‘falsely think the election was stolen from him’ in a sign-out thing.

         WTF?!? THis is the NEWS?!?!

         1. No.l It’s propaganda.

            1. I know I’m a broken record on this, but The News has ALWAYS been propaganda. Always. Newspapers started out as political broadsheets, and always followed an editorial line. Now, there was a time when the editorial lines weren’t all so similar, but as the Progressives started taking over the media, they sold the idea of Journalistic Ethics; the notion the a Reporter owed fealty to The Truth. This was always hogwash. But it served to cushion Progressive reporters from owners who might disagree with the Progressive Narrative until only Progressive owners were left.

               And it worked for them for a long time. But it also made them lazy, until they could no longer do battle in the field of ideas. And when the field changed, all they had left was heavy-handed censorship…and they’re overplaying that badly.

               The New Media is already adapting and the old Progressive impulse to clamp down isn’t going to play much longer. Not even if they manage to pry Trump out of the White House, which I don’t think they will.

               1. They’re going nuts now.

               2. It was propaganda… but it used to be competing propaganda. Or at least pretended to be.

                  1. There hasn’t been a lot of competing propaganda in the mainstream media in my lifetime (born 1961), except for fringe publications like The National Review. They used to HIDE it better. But, as I said, they got lazy. And then real competition sprang up. Talk Radio, which (as I’m sure you know) drove them nuts. Then the internet, and the ubiquity of phone cameras. Kinda hard to keep up a Narrative when any Joe Mug with a cellphone who was on the scene can prove you a liar. And they also got to the point where they were SO sure of final victory that they were squabbling amongst themselves more then usual…and it showed.

                     It also doesn’t help that they are so SURE that they are the smartest people in the room (which they mostly aren’t, even if the room’s empty) that they aim their Narrative at an imaginary audience with the intellectual capacity of a turnip.

                     1. I’m getting people explaining to me that they’re worried for me and think that I’m falling for a con. I know it’s because the mainstream media is their only source of information. Because they’ve been told that other sites are “right wing”. And that of course means Nazi sympathizers. They have swallowed the propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Sigh.

                        1. I would be curious what actual harm they think you might suffer from your “worrisome” reading/viewing habits? (picture a bemused smirk, here)

                           1. That I’ve gone tin-foil hat crazy. That and the condescending attitude that I’ve obviously abandoned the side of good and right and light for the evil orange side. I have a PhD in political science, and they’ll grant me some level of detailed knowledge. BUT, when push comes to shove, they clearly know more than I do about politics. So, basically, I’m standing in the same place and they’ve moved away. But they’re worried that I’ve deserted them.

                           2. They keep telling us we are ENTHRALLED with Trump.
                              yeah. That’s why we called my messed up hair the golden scalp weasel….

                        2. Document the unreliability of the MSM. Ask why you would believe a damned thing reported by such vandals of the truth?

                           Examples:
                           2016 NY Times editor Dean Baquet’s front page admission that they were no longer holding to journalism standards because Trump.

                           NY Times “Anonymous”, identified as a senior administration official but recently revelaed to bea mid-level civil service drudge.

                           CBS use of “fake but accurate” documents.

                           ABC sending reporters undercover at Food Lion to create health code violations which they blame on Food Lion.

                           Walter Duranty, Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, The New Republic‘s Baghdad Diarist, Scott Beauchamp and many more.
                           –

                     2. I’ve heard Leftists gloat over the notion of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine — which they pretty uniformly thought meant they could just shut down anyone conservative.

                        1. They uniformly think that because it’s true. That was the sole actual effect of the FD.

                           1. Yep. That led to Limbaugh and the rest of conservative talk radio because radio was not included in the Fairness Doctrine.

                           2. It also actually kept leftists silent some of the time. Radio avoided politics, period.

                        2. This is insidious because the fairness doctrine was believed necessary when a finite resource was being used — the broadcast spectrum. It’s unnecessary now for any reason except censorship.

                           1. Exactly. Of course they have been rather open about wanting to censor the internet as well, and for those who remember their demand for “net neutrality” (something else that Biden/Harris will impose by decree), they wanted government to be able to require websites to get a license and would require every change in channel lineup, every equipment innovation, etc., to be approved by government the way the old Ma Bell had to go through government for everything.

            2. Frankly, it’s not even half-ass propaganda. Even junion commissars in Armenia would have shaken their heads in pity.

               It’s more like a little kid throwing a tantrum in the store because he didn’t get a toy he wanted.

         2. Even on Fox, the ‘ticker’ crawling across the bottom of the screen mentions “Trump’s unsupported claims of voter fraud” every few minutes.

            1. They’re not ‘unsupported’ when multiple people testify
            2. It’s ELECTION fraud

            If the Democrats have nothing to hide, WHY are they so desperate to hide it?

            1. Fox is rolling left. They’ll die.

               1. Yup. Fox was by far the most blatant about calling the election for Biden in odd and unsupportable ways. I think they *finally* quietly removed the call that they made on Election Night that the House Dems would pick up several seats. And they called Arizona for Biden pretty much immediately. Last I’d heard, that state was still up for grabs. Meanwhile, they slow-walked calls for states like Florida that went heavily enough for Trump that it was pretty obvious almost immediately after the voting centers closed.

                  Think about this – it’s generally acknowledged that CNN’s reporting was more favorable to Trump than Fox’s coverage was on Election Night.

                  1. They FEAR being on the losing side. This time there will be retribution for every imagined grievance.

                     1. And it’s mostly imagined.

                        1. All of their ‘grievances’ boil down to; we won’t give them everything they want yesterday if not a trifle sooner.

                           “You said we would have ice cream for dinner!”

                           “No. YOU said that. WE said there wasn’t any ice cream, we couldn’t GET any ice cream, and we were having hamburgers. You didn’t listen.”

                           Substitute Leftwing fantasy du jure for ‘ice cream’ and the possible for ‘hamburgers’ and you have most Left vs Right conflicts of the last half century in a nutshell.

               2. The consequences that Fox News is facing right now illustrate the difference between conservatives and liberals:

                  CNN/MSNPC/ABC/et al have been openly caught lying too many times to count. Their audience has shrunk but hard core liberals still continue to tune in and consider them a news source.

                  Fox News got busted lying during this election, and conservatives instantly pulled the plug and found other news outlets. Ratings busted and their coming in last place (insert Nelson Muntz laugh here).

                  Proves the adage about how to piss off a liberal vs a conservative.

                  1. Which hurts those like Hannity who is still trying to accurately report despite TPTB that pay his salary. He isn’t the only one. Noticed Judge Jeanne has been absent. Some rumor she’s been sidelined. Don’t know if that is true or not.

                     1. She’s already announced she’s moving to another network, I think Newsmax.

                     2. Judge Piro got fired, iirc, after she made the decision to talk about the possibility that there was fraud in the presidential election.

                     3. Judge Jeanine was pre-empted last week so Fox could fawn over Biden The Prematurely Anointed. She was back today, attacking the blatant election fraud and demanding complete investigations.

                        Michael Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell was on the show too, promising shocking revelations about the Dominion computers used to run our elections in 28 states — including EVERY STATE where Trump’s substantial leads mysteriously evaporated in the dead of night when they ‘stopped’ counting votes.

                        There are still voices in the Fox wilderness: Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Greg Gutfeld, Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Shannon Bream, Maria Bartiromo and Steve Hilton.

                        Neil Cavuto and Lisa Kennedy Montgomery have gone full Harris-Biden, and of course we all know about Chris Wallace.

                        If Trump bought CNN, he could trade Amanpour and Cooper to Fox for some of the good folks.

                        1. There are still voices in the Fox wilderness: Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Greg Gutfeld, Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Shannon Bream, Maria Bartiromo and Steve Hilton.

                           –
                           Yes. What I meant by “not the only one”. I’m horrible with names. I’d have to go through the line up guide to list all of them not toeing the Fox PTB line.

                        2. Sidney Powell needs to reveal some of those revelations, pronto, or I’m going to start thinking it’s a bluff.

                           Remember how we all made fun of Adam Schiff and his evidence he was going to release Any Day Now? We don’t need any of that on our side.

                           1. The problem is that Powell is talking about stuff that might very well turn up in an actual court filing. You don’t talk about that if you can help it until it appears in front of the judge.

                              In any case, either way we probably won’t have to wait long. There is an ultimate deadline that *cannot* be stalled past. The court filings *must* be in soon enough for the court to make a decision before the next stage of the elector process takes place.

                           2. Sidney Powell and Rudy Guiliani are both saying very similar things about having evidence they can’t publicly disclose yet. I’m going to trust these two tenacious former prosecutors to be making good judgments here.

                           3. I will trust them also.

                        3. > There are still voices in the Fox wilderness:

                           They’re working for the enemy now. If they keep on taking their shilling, then they are the enemy too, no matter what they’re saying on the air.

                           If you are fans of these people, you might point that out to them. Because every viewer they bring to Fox supports enemies of this country. And, frankly, I’ve heard all the “agents of reform” and “working from within” justifications before, and reject them outright.

                           “We’ve already settled what you are; now we’re determining what you cost.”

                           Give them, say, two weeks to thirty days, and see who is still working there. And then you’ll know who has sold out, or been on the other side all along. *And you didn’t realize it.*

                  2. Fox may be attempting to follow the Wall Street Journal model: conservative editorial page, liberal news coverage. For something like fifty years now the Journal has had a solidly conservative editorial section, so conservative they’ve even regularly allowed such leftists as Tom “What the $%#@’s Matter With Kansas” Franks column space in the belief that the best way to defeat ideas is to expose them.

                     The news pages, however, have long been bog-standard journalists, albeit held to high standards (okay, these days, looking at the New York Times and Washington Post, upholding any standard is holding to higher standards) who often routinely grumbled about how embarrassing (by which they mean, influential) their linkage to the editorial page was. Al Freaking Hunt was the WSJ Washington Bureau Chief for years, for G-d’s sake!

                     So it would seem Fox is attempting to run their editorial content to the Right (Tucker, Sean, Laura, with Waters, Pirro, Gutfeld, Hilton & Levin on the weekends. It remains to be seen how their news anchors tilt, if they do. I doubt Dana Perino is going to go Left and they long provided Shepherd Smith a platform, so they may thread this needle. Certainly they now know they can no longer hide what they’re doing.

                     What it largely comes down to is we can no longer accept Fox News as innately reliable, that we will have to view it with the same watchfulness as we apply to NBC, CBS, and ABC (I think it safe to assume nobody is switching to CNN or MSNBC absent a change in ownership.)

                     That is not entirely a bad thing; we should treat news as possible poison and subject it to tests of reasonableness.
                     –

                     1. There are more reliable news sources out there. If Fox wants to be just another lying, treacherous little weasel then we can do without.

                        …No, not you, little kitsune. You’re still cool.

                        1. …No, not you, little kitsune. You’re still cool.

                           *casual salute*

                           Good thing, I’m tired of moving.

                           I must admit I’ve been doing a lot of twitching when folks talk about the news station (my ‘nym was chosen roughly the same time, and before the Firefox browser existed, which was the prior “do you mean me?” thing.)
                           Good thing I’m use to being one of the many with my name or close enough!

                     2. Ideally, the old-line news broadcasters would be essentially replaced by an ad hoc, reputation-moderated, nationwide network — with smaller local networks as part of the mix — of citizen journalists who make their bones on truly unbiased or at least minimally biased but still transparent reporting on events that includes *all* the important details and not just those that help the Democratic Party and their toxic enablers. Prosumer equipment is so powerful and cheap these days, and streaming video has pretty much become a mainstream phenomenon.

                        Technologically, socially, politically — the concept of monolithic central reporting is a dinosaur that has been lingering last past its natural expiration date. Whence the metaphorical asteroid strike that finally makes these obsolete, corrupt entities collapse into financial extinction?

                        1. Arghhh — “long past.” Whence the context-aware spelling-correction A.I.s that prevent such stupid typographical errors? -_-

                        2. The problem is financing. How do you make it pay in an era where Google and a couple others control the ad networks.

                           The answer is “digital currency micro-payments”.

                     3. Fox doesn’t really have a choice right now. Tucker, Hannity, and Ingraham are the three highest rated personalities on the network right now. They’re the ones bringing in the lion’s share of money for the company. If Fox News dumps them, then it loses most of its income.

                        Long-term, if Tucker and the others don’t bail on their own, then we’ll see how Fox treats them going forward. If it treats them well, then yes, your theory is probably correct. But if it tries to bring in competing lefty personalities, then the network is really just trying to stabilize its cash flow before ejecting its conservative money makers (or starts trying to force them to toe the progressive line).

                        1. Those three comprise a quarter of the regular Fox broadcast day. A significant portion of the remainder is heavily salted with conservative views: when The Five gets three leftists on their panel I will take the demise as accomplished. Until then, such shows as Fox & Friends and Outnumbered leave over half their remaining broadcast time as conservative friendly, so they remain the best broadcast news option.

                           Which I concede is praise of the “best tasting poison” sort.

                           For the record, the best tasting poison is a good rum, although opinions differ as to just which brand.
                           –

               3. Fox is rolling left. They’ll die.

                  Have died.

                  1. Like with trad pub, the corpse twitches.

                     1. An ex-Fox…

                        1. If it weren’t nailed to its perch, it would be pushing up daisies.

                     2. And like dead Presidents of the R flavor who were previously literally Hitler, Fox’s dead-but-twitches “it’s nothing – outgassing” movements garner a strange new respect from the three letter media.

                  2. It’s pinin’ for the fjords.

4. YO! Leftoids!

   You do not have a ‘right’ to force OTHER PEOPLE to pay your rent, grocery bill, bar tab, or medical bills. No matter how much you want them to.

   You do not have a ‘right’ to anything which requires others to labor on your behalf. We used to call that slavery. Now you call it socialism. How appropriate, that the party of old slavery is pushing the ‘new’ slavery. Because it will be ‘fair’ and ‘equal’ when they enslave everybody.
   ———————————
   Leo Bloom: “Well, if we assume you’re a dishonest person—“
   Max Bialystock: “Assume, assume!”

   1. Actually their vision is a Mugabe style communism, where redistribution is premised on ones identity group membership; in essence it is a revenge fantasy where they enact South Africa’s apartheid and the South’s slavery with simply the identity of the masters and slaves reversed….in the name of “justice” and “equality”.

      1. And their problem is that they completely failed to disarm the populace first. Low estimate of 300,000,000 guns in private hands in the US. LOW. Doesn’t even begin to account for how long guns remain serviceable.

         1. What they don’t know is how much further they can push before people start shooting. I think B-H and the Prog-Socs think they can get away with a lot more. But I also think that we are at the tipping point and any attempt to enforce tyrannical executive orders that even resemble an infringement on any Constitutional rights is likely to start a firefight.

            1. Honestly, I’ve been wondering that myself. The representational rattlesnake from the Gadsden flag has been sounding its deadly alarm so loudly for so long that the leftists appear to have complacently decided that it’s ultimately a meaningless show that leads nowhere. The bloody Spanish Civil War, the extraordinarily ugly breakup of Yugoslavia — these instructive events are mere historical bagatelles with no relevance to the United States. Even the murderous toll of the last U.S. Civil War was merely a tussle over slavery and nothing else — none of the vast majority of southerners who never owned a slave in their lives could possibly have fought to protect their land and their families against rampaging Northern armies, could they?

               For all that the American crop of communists and socialists blabber their wet dreams about joining their heroes Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Pol Pot, and on and in savagely murdering yet another enormous tranche of anti-leftists such as “deplorables” and “bitter clingers,” the thought somehow never seems to enter their minds that they themselves will be the ones up against the wall once they absolutely insist on whipping the elephant into plain sight to trumpet its chilling call for blood and death.

            2. Did a quick lookup; according to the first source I ran across (so probably tainted by Left bias, however that affects matters) the US military has slightly over 4 million guns ( small arms, understood). Add 120,000 Federal officers of all agencies authorized to carry, and allow them two guns each (probably a generous overestimate). So the Feds are hugely under armed to fight the armed citizenry, even assuming all Federal agents are ready to try.

               I suspect the Fascist Left, which tends to think of people as volition-less widgets, and has NO understanding of the military and its limitations, thinks the opposite is true.

               1. I understand that the first handful of people to actively resist are going to get clobbered worse than Ruby Ridge or Waco combined. It’s okay for of Prog-Soc protestors to burn down entire communities in the name of socialsm; it’s entirely different for someone defending their Constitutional, God-given rights against the government.

                  The question is, how quickly can the government shut down social media and the internet, and the MSM to either kill the story or spin it, to suppress the news from getting out?

         2. They will try gun grabbing first. Then, they are like the Australian who burbled that the government passed the law, and the people passed in their guns, when even the government estimates that they got between a quarter and a third.

            1. If they try gun grabbing here, they deserve only bullets.

            2. >> “They will try gun grabbing first.”

               The British trying that at Lexington and Concord kicked off the revolutionary war. If the left manages to steal the White House, I’m thinking the balloon goes up when they attempt mass disarmament.

               1. Or try and seize retirement accounts…. which I expect.

                  1. I could see it.

                  2. “seize retirement accounts”
                     That would be supremely stupid. If people have nothing left to live on, then they have nothing left to lose, or live for.

                     1. AND YET it’s the first thing they do….

                     2. Yeah, what did you think ‘wealth tax’ was a code for? Instead of stealing it all at once, they take it over the course of several years.

                        1. I can use a spreadsheet. So can a lot of other people. When they figure out where their money is disappearing to, then the organic fertilizer is going to hit the air pusher.

               2. The thing to keep in mind is (and give Kevin Williamson credit for this theme in his new book): we understand them far better than they understand us. Hell, they don’t watch John Wayne movies, so they don’t understand the joke in this scene:

                  They don’t realize there is a limit to how far they can push, nor how our push-bak, when it comes, will go.
                  –

5. Never mind all this crap. Go enjoy the Trump Rally in D.C. Right Side is covering it live.

   1. “10 Racists carried out mostly violent protest in the nation’s capital against Biden’s healing mandate today”

      — CNN Fox headline tomorrow.

6. Insty has a link to a poll where 5% of the responding non-deceased China Joe voters would have voted for DJT if they knew about the millions Hunter Biden accepted from foreign entities.

   If. They. Knew.

   About a story that was running in the oldest newspaper in the United States for weeks.

   So basically the blackout by the lettered-media cost the margin of fraud across the country, such that the various 4am vote injections in just a handful of places could salvage their open clear obvious evident loss, at the cost of being that obvious about it and only on the top of the ticket.

   Note this is why I use ‘China’ Joe religiously – when trying to bypass an information blockade, the message needs to be as compact as possible, and “China bought and paid for Joe Biden via payments of millions to his crackhead hooker-impregnating son Hunter, and that after Hunter was the conduit for payments from Russia and Ukraine” is too long.

   —
   And an IT note: There’s no title visible on this post for me.

   1. Giuliani screwed up. He should have released all of this in late August to give it time to disseminate through the media filters. In his defense, I don’t think anybody 3 months ago would have considered the kind of blatant organized censorship we saw possible, much less feasible.

      1. He might have been waiting on triple-checking things to make sure it wasn’t a trick.

         1. Also, if it is out there too long, it gives Democrats a better chance to calculate the amount of fraud they will need to steal the election and thus prepare to create even more bogus ballots than they did. Overcoming the margin of fraud is a necessary part of any strategy to defeat the Democrats.

   2. “cost the margin of fraud” Or perhaps would merely have meant they would have had to work longer in the counting.

      1. THIS. Damn it, this

      2. The more votes they have to manufacture, the more suspicious it looks. I really really hope the evidence is strong enough this time.

         1. IT ALREADY LOOKS SUSPICIOUS ENOUGH.

            1. To rational people, sure. Not to democrat pod people 🙂

               1. Yeah, but NOTHING will be suspicious to them.

                  1. True. And the blue wall of msm and lefty social mefia will prevent any actual facts or reasoning from getting through.

                     1. Even worse; if they get away with it, they will do it even more going forward. When combined with the plotters of the 2016 and on coup attempt, such as Brennan, McCabe, Comey, Strozk, not being indicted or going to jail over their brazen abuses of power, all future non-Democrats running for office can expect to face the same kind of spying and persecution from the federal spying and “law enforcement” apparatus. If what they did stands, the Republic is dead. The only question will then be, what comes next.

   3. “China” Joe is also an accurate expression of his mental fragility.

      Although I may be slighting actual Chinaware’s toughness by that comparison.
      –

7. Unrelated, in the “F 2020” file– our (the Huns’) Kitty-dragon passed away last.

   Not sure if folks remember that she’s had long term health issues– I always forget, because she was just so vivacious.

   Last I knew, she’d had a series of annoying falls.

   Just heard in the MeWe group. No words.

   1. May she rest in peace. She will be missed!

   2. The Kitteh-Dragon will be sorely missed.

   3. Any time I see something like that, I have to go find my cats and rub their fuzzy little heads.

      They may not be Official Therapy Cats, but any time a cat curls up with you and starts purring, you can’t help but feel better.

      1. yes, true

   4. Disheartening news, but I am confident she will uphold Hun standards in whatever realm she’s cosigned.
      –

8. Apparently people don’t like it, when they tell you to stay masked and socially distance, and you tell them back “I’ll make sure to be just as masked and socially distanced as the mobs celebrating Biden’s win.”
   “But you could catch Covid!”
   “Already had it.” Best replied with a shrug, dismissing the Giant Scary Boogeyman as just another bad flu.”Over it, and I’m immune.”

   They really don’t like that. I really don’t give a shit.

   1. “Already had it.”

      So you are saying that you voted for Biden?

   2. Love it. I was thinking, “But I only go to Biden-approved peaceful protests. So, it’s impossible for me to catch Covid.”

9. Near as I can figure, they’re on CNN’s brand of meth. I posted the letter from Warren and Klobuchar about Dominion, WITH THE LINK FROM WARREN’S OWN SENATE WEBSITE, and got asked what the hell was I reading that I was forwarding such conspiracy theories…by a cousin. OMFG. It is crazy-making. But, I survived academia, I can survive this. I have a merit badge in surviving gaslighting thanks to grad school and the tenure process. And, I will keep talking and writing since those are what I do best.

   1. “I have a merit badge in surviving gaslighting thanks to grad school and the tenure process.”
      Pretty, pretty please, may I steal this line for a WIP? It’s so perfect!

      1. grad school and surviving for 15 years in trad pub do the same.

      2. Yes, of course!

10. Why do these people believe it?

    Because they have to. You’re stuck in somewhere hard blue or some of the lighter shades of blue for work or family or any number of reasons? It wears your soul down-the TV shows have cops marching in BLM protests and taking the knee to the black “martyrs.” The news networks make no bones about supporting Biden…sorry, Kamlalamadingdong Harris…and ignoring everything that would raise hard stop questions about even nominating him, let alone voting for him. Your books are full of Woke bland wallpaper-paste that have all of the Correct Talking Points. Let’s not even talk about newspapers and magazines, outside of a few esoteric fields. Comic books? Marvel and DC are dead, they just haven’t stopped twitching yet-and they’re still publishing the same woke garbage. There are pen-and-paper RPG makers that are saying “if you’re not Woke and willing to agree in full to Woke politics, we don’t want you as customers.” Tabletop gaming, one of the last refuges for the most outcast in our society, demands your loyalty to the Woke agenda.

    Express something that is contrary to the groupthink at your job in terms of politics or social thoughts? Bet you that your next performance review is going to have interesting and non-actionable comments that put you to the top of the queue for layoffs. And, HR knows all of the careful phrasing that acts like “bless your heart” if you try to apply in another job in your field. Unless you’ve got people pounding on your door even now because you have a rare skill set…

    Relationships? You’re going to have to tolerate things that no sane person should in the Blue-male or female, no matter what your preference is. If you’re a man, the woman is always Right and can never be criticized. Unless that woman complains about a Male Feminist Icon, then she is instantly Wrong about everything. Abuse that only ten years ago would have been an instant “we don’t want you around anymore” is tolerated-and even lauded.

    You’re surrounded by wolves and you’re doing your best to wear your wolf mask and pelt over your sheepskin. And you know some of the wolves have careful tuffs of wool on them, to catch the sheep still hiding.

    Everyone in the world that you live in is saying that you’re Wrong if you disagree. Not incorrect, Wrong. And, nobody wants to be Wrong. At least, not without people you know and can trust backing you.

    And very few of us have the strength of character or conviction of Steve Rogers to say, “No, YOU move.”

    1. Sorry, but you live in the wrong place. Here in east Tennessee, say whatever you want and you won’t get canceled for it. I found someone on the local Nextdoor tried to get me canceled for calling out the left over some BS. I immediately went back to the Nextdoor thread and laid out just what they were trying to do and called them out publicly to say it to my face. Crickets. And no repercussions from their attempt.

       As for tabletop RPGs, if they don’t want your money, don’t give it to them. There are plenty of free rulesets, many of them much more interesting than the tax-code-like massive rulebooks you’d waste good money on. If anyone wants some suggestions, I’m happy to oblige.

    2. Steve Rogers’ super-power – which he had before he ever met the Italian doctor – is/was stubbornness.

       1. And more importantly the wisdom to know when he needed to use that stubbornness.

    3. From deep in the Valley of the TechLords here in the Glorious Bear Flag Non-Gathering-Unless-You’re-Gavin Peoples Republic, I call baloney: There Are Four Lights.

       But yeah, it’s a pain attempting to stay in the closet.

       And you are not fooling anyone, you know: Your silences and non-rapturous facade when they are loudly celebrating The One or China Joe across the cubical farm or on the zoom meeting speak volumes.

       If your coworkers like you, you’ll be kept around until the cost becomes too high and the company has a quota of denunciations to meet. If they don’t like you you’ll be zapped first in the next layoff in preference to the lower-paid young and dull witted non-performer who conforms.

       1. I know that it’ll be interesting when I actually do go back to work in a few months (I can’t take any chances right now with my living situation). Going to school to get the qualification for a new job, getting the job, etc, etc, etc…

          And, I know all too well the value of protective coloration. For now.

       2. Yep. Just left academia in June. Spent 20 years plus 7 in grad school trying to blend in. But, they know. And, yeah. If they like you, they’ll tolerate your less-than-enthusiastic replies or non-replies. If they don’t like you, you’re toast. I made it through tenure, but couldn’t get to the next level.My gay male colleague in Modern Languages was exiled for being conservative. It wears on you.

    4. > RPG makers that are saying “if you’re not Woke and willing to agree in full to Woke politics, we don’t want you as customers.”

       We saw that with SF and the Sad Puppies. And then they did it to the comic industry.

       1. Yep. Classic Socialist/Communist behavior- “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” Everybody has to be marching in perfect lockstep or else you’re not a part of the world.

          1. The fascist form of socialism to; “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” was Mussolini’s statement.

             1. Yes, but fascism is merely a sibling of socialism, focusing on national restoration versus the “international” revolution.

                1. Benny was a Marxist who realized Marx was an idiot, and then tried to figure out a way to pick and choose the parts of Marxist theory that could be made to work. Then it seems that no matter which way you come at it they all end up in deadly forms of gov’t that are shades of the same black pallet.

                   1. I think everyone that tried to put Marx into practice realized he’s an idiot. The only question is do you adapt or do you discard to make it work?

                      1. “What ever get one in power” seems to be the all too often answer

             2. There is no other form of Socialism. Ever. Where it looks like there is, the Fascists are wearing masks because they don’t think they have control, yet and are not desperate enough to try a full court press, as they are here and now.

                Socialism/Communism/Fascism is the expression of little minds and small souls who think they should be running things. It lacks even the grandeur of Aristocratic delusions, such as the ones that motivated the European Aristocracy, the Southern Planters, and the Industrial Moguls of the Gilded Age (who at least built things).

                1. They believe that the system that they’re under has failed (which, often enough, is true when they do take power), and “anything I do can’t be worse than what happened before!” when they do it.

                   Often, they’re proven very wrong in that idea, because they are worse.

                   1. They believe the system that they’re under has failed because it doesn’t automatically recognize their wonderfulness and defer to them. They don’t believe “Anything I do can’t be worse than what happened before” because they don’t think in terms of better or worse. They believe “I’m always right, the sun orbits me personally, do what you’re told.”

                      And what happens to the majority of them is they are executed on the orders of whichever psychopath has managed to seize the Stalin/Mao position.

11. third worlders. (Which btw, have suffered almost nothing from this virus, another thing that makes you go “uh” and wonder how much our numbers are massaged, no?)

    ———————

    Heard a couple of co-workers discussing this. Their opinion was that “people just drop dead all the time in Africa, so no one tracks the cause of death for illnesses.” Or in other words, lots of people are dying of SARS-2 in Africa, but the deaths aren’t being recorded as such in most situations. I would have noted to them that a more likely cause for this discrepency is the fact that the vast majority of people in the vulnerable population groups in Africa are probably already dead, except that 1.) it didn’t occur to mention that until later, and 2.) the co-workers having the conversation were some distance away, and it probably would have looked a bit odd for me to jump up, walk over, say that, and then go back to my desk.

    1. Honestly, mostly because we made a big deal of it, and they didn’t.
       Because honestly the excess mortality is barely noticeable FOR US. It’s just all classified as COVID.

       1. And how many of the “suspected” cases of the CCP Virus right now are actually the flu, because it is the start of flu season.

          New Jersey’s fascist dictator has been running ads the past couple of weeks about “rebuilding” the economy that he has wrecked and continues to wreck through his decrees “in a fairer more just manner”, essentially admitting that the entire point of this devastation they have visited on us like the old SNL sketch “The Guest that Wouldn’t Leave:” is to “fundamentally transform” the economy and indeed the USA into a socialist “people’s republic”.

          1. Probably a ton. I seem to have a light case, because I had the vaccine.

          2. And then there’s Elon Musk, who has supposedly been tested for COVID four times, and shown two positives and two negatives.

             And then there are the documented cases of labs returning 100% positive no matter what was sent to them.

             And the numbers are all filtered through the CDC, caught too many times lying like a rug.

             1. What seems to be a deep dark secret in a lot of places is how many amplification cycles the labs use to do a test. I’ve read that 34 cycles is way too many; dead virii will give positive results. I’ve heard that the favored lab in Oregon has a sketchy reputation (“What do you want us to report, Oh Payer of the Bills?”) and between that and the presumptuous assumptions of presumptive cases (“looks like the flu, call it COVID, ka ching!”), TPTB can claim there’s something to worry about.

                (Not sure if they’re still doing it, but a positive “case” is kept in the active column for 60 days here. Ooh Kay.)

             2. Eryikah Badu is saying the same thing about the same test that Musk complained about.

                1. And it’s been known for a while.

                   https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-test-antibody-kit-uk-china-nhs-matt-hancock-a9449816.html

       2. So I did some math on C19 v seasonal influenza:

          

          These bars show three especially bad seasonal flu year death rates (national influenza+pneumonia deaths by age cohort divided by national population by age cohort for those years) and C19 (COVID-19 deaths by age cohort divided by 2019 population by age cohort [because the census does not have 2020 by age that I could find]), expressed as the multiple of the average 1999-2018 influenza death rate by age cohort – so basically, these are showing the death rate variation from the average flu for three bad flu years and for C19, with 1 being an exact death rate match for the 1999-2018 average death rate.

          Note I’ve corrected for the fact that I only have 10 months of C19 death counts by annualizing that total (C19 deaths / 10 * 12), which is undoubtedly incorrect but close enough for this.

          The blue bar C19 death rate for 30-39 is 1.36 times the 1999-2018 average influenza death rate for the 30-39 age group, while for the 20-29 age group C19 is at 0.97 times the flu average death rate.

          In contrast, the 2009 flu season saw a 30-39 age group death rate that was 1.56 times the seasonal flu average death rate, and the 2009 flu in the 20-29 age group came in at an age cohort death rate that was 2.21 times the seasonal flu average.

          Things that jump out at me: Seasonal flu is obviously a major cause of death in the 70 and over cohort as the C19 death rate is only 0.68 times the 1999-2018 average flu death rate.

          And 2009 was really quite bad, especially for the younger age cohorts.

          Gee, wasn’t 2009 the Obama Swine Flu year?

    2. Sorry, I’ve spent 5+ years working on/in Africa (with three more in the field coming up). This is a shockingly bigoted thing for your coworkers to say. African countries, do, in fact, have some highly developed disease tracking and monitoring systems, as well as field epidemiology specialists out there trying to figure out why people die and trying to get ahead of the next previously-unknown disease before it gets out of hand and becomes a real pandemic. Are they tracking SARS-Cov-2? Yes–where do you think Worldometer gets its information? Are they attributing every respiratory illness to it? Nope. At one point (about when we went lockdown happy), some of my contacts on the ground noted a surprising lack of respiratory disease and lack of unexplained deaths in more remote regions in this particular country. In short–the local authorities were tracking it, keeping tabs, and nothing unusual was coming up.

       Can you tell I have some scars? I was in Liberia during the (yes, real, actual) West Africa Ebola pandemic in 2014-2015. I wish people would actually research at least one of the countries on the continent before they make sweeping and stupid statements.

       [I’ll get off the soapbox now.]

       1. I have friends who have family in Africa. They haven’t had requests for help with hospital bills and such. It’s a non-event.
          I’m starting to suspect while the virus exists there’s nothing particularly scary about it. I think all of this was CHinese psyops.

          1. The other thing to keep in mind is that a daily small does of anti-malarial medicine is common in much of Africa.

          2. A lot of it is Democratic Party psyops. We are getting bombarded daily in the People’s Republic of New Jersey with “panic” reports over the number of people testing positive (for instance, more than even in April); yet they soft-peddle that the number of hospitalizations and deaths are far lower and they NEVER disclose the number of people how were tested; because if they did that, then it would show the reason for so many more positive tests is that so many more people are being tested, and thus even with a lower percentage of those tested being positive the total raw number of positives would be higher.

             It is so they can justify lockdowns and bans on private gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas, because otherwise people might gather and talk about the Democrats’ election theft and the insanity of Democratic Party policies.

             They want to condition people to obey the nobility and to accept whatever government does to them, so that they can impose even more stuff with their “green new deal” and the rest of their totalitarian nonsense.

             1. It is so they can justify lockdowns and bans on private gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas, because otherwise people might gather and talk about the Democrats’ election theft and the insanity of Democratic Party policies.

                –
                Like people aren’t talking about Democrats’ election theft and insanity of Democratic Party policies … well, everywhere. They might be able to tag FB, Insty, Twitty, discussions as fake news. But MeWe and other options they aren’t (granted, yet). We’re talking about it here. Few of us know each other if we were to see them in person. Hanity, Piro, Hilton, and others, are talking about it.

                1. It occurs to me that the Social Media Tyrants would have problems taking down statements facially in support of the official position but highly sarcastic. Things like “This was the most honest presidential election since 1960!” or “This election’s integrity is second only to that of the 1876 election!” or “Not since 1824 has America had so honest and fair an election!”

                   I doubt they can massage their algorithms for sarcasm.
                   –

             2. “… with ‘panic’ reports over the number of people testing positive”

                Are they doing more testing?

                Are the randomly testing or are there certain criteria they apply?

                What expectation should we have for the testing results given those factors?
                –

       2. > where do you think Worldometer gets its information?

          Unless proven otherwise, the same place the US Centers for Disease Control get theirs: they make them up to suit political convenience.

          If nothing else, the Chinavirus has pulled the mask off a lot of things we used to trust.

          1. The point is that countries in Africa (and everywhere else) are reporting case counts, contrary to what the afore-mentioned coworkers asserted. Worldometer pulls from the reports by the countries, rather than making things up themselves. I’ll grant that some of the countries on the continent are likely inflating case counts, but when the official numbers track with what impartial observers see…they probably aren’t inflating by that much.

             1. Insty has been guessing that the widespread prophylactic use of chloroquine has something to do with the absence of cases, and I’d add the larger fraction of outdoor time has an effect on vitamin D levels, which have been proven to correlate with lower severity.

                1. Yep to both of these. If not already doing it, everyone should be taking Vitamin D supplements and have their Vitamin D level checked the next time bloodwork is done.

       3. Most anybody spewing opinions on epidemiology in Africa is merely expressing xenophobia, formulating views with little factual knowledge underpinning them. They need to be reported to HR as potential workplace threats.

          Heck, they’re probably white supremacists – it seems to crop up in the oddest places these days.
          –

          1. Am I too far down in the stew that I really cannot tell whether or not you are expressing some sort of dark humor anymore?

             Probably…

          2. And that cropping up is the natural and (should.be) expected consequence of the Fascist Left calling anything they disagree with today (even where they agreed yesterday) ‘racism’. And of the Fascist Left’s obvious internal racism. They’ve made racism respectable again, damn them.

12. Donald Trump could run for a House seat in 2022. Wouldn’t that just stick in their noses?
    ———————————
    Wing: ”Have you ever heard the phrase, Living well is the best revenge?”

    Miles: “Where I come from, someone’s head in a bag is generally considered the best revenge.”

    1. The Dems hate Trump. They’re not going to let him walk free any longer than they absolutely have to. He’ll be thrown in prison, and declared a flight risk while awaiting trial. And that’s assuming that someone doesn’t manage to penetrate his Secret Service protection and assassinate him first.

       1. They don’t just hate Trump. They hate all of us too. And if they can do what they did to Trump (the spying, persecution, etc.,) just imagine what they will do to those of us who don’t have his resources to fall back on. Indeed their persecution of Trump is in part designed as a classic mob style warning of “nice place/life you have there, it would be a shame if anything happened to it) and is intended to terrify people into compliance with their power grab and imposition of communazism.

          1. They can’t throw the 70 million people that voted for Trump in prison all at once right now no matter how much they want to. That’s too many people for them to quickly round up, and that would finally instigate an armed revolt.

             But they can immediately punish Trump as a figurehead for the whole mess. That will also block him from engaging in any further activities that might disrupt their goals, such as running for office again, or setting up alternative media platforms (which was likely just disinformation from left-wing outlet Axios, but something that I could see Trump getting involved in given the chance).

             1. They can kill us though. They’ve done stuff like that in the past. And it looks more like 100 million of us.

                1. That and the latest “save the Earth” theme the left is pushing is the need to “drastically reduce population”; thus in their views filling mass graves with tens of millions of their political opponents will be seen as literally “saving the Earth”. They are that delusional.

                   1. Save the Earth: Extirpate Progressivism!

             2. If they do, what are the odds that somebody decides to bag himself some DNC types?

                1. Unity

       2. If they’re dumb enough to do that…

          Historical patterns say 3% of the total demographic opposing the government become active shooters/bombers. 30% become support (logistics and intelligence support–provide safe houses, places to cache weapons, and watch/listen for targets/police sweeps).

          Break that down with Trump, you get more shooters than the entire active/reserve component of the military (and a lot will be inside that military, making it a corroded instrument), and an auxiliary that outnumbers law enforcement by roughly 27:1.

          It’ll be a cheery s***-show.

          1. Expect it for December.

             1. I don’t think even that will do it. I think what ultimately pushes the switch (assuming it happens) is an attempted crackdown. A group of people will get targeted (a crackdown on protestors – “for health reasons”, of course – seems a likely possibility), and a line will get crossed. It’s even possible that the first few times a protest is targeted, nothing will happen. But sooner or later there will be a push that’s too hard, and the targeted group that seemed just like any other targeted group won’t react like the earlier targeted groups.

                And if the Left were to somehow manage to avoid that potential pitfall, then I suspect that there will be an outbreak of graffiti and other minor vandalism that will gradually ramp up until there’s a response.

          2. The military is bragging about lying to Trump re: troop counts in the Middle East to prevent him from pulling out.

             The military is as compromised as anything else. No active shooters from our side from the military in all probability. Also, I now assume they will break for the Left when the balloon goes up.

             1. The troops won’t ‘break for the left’. There are articles in the UCMJ that prohibit obeying illegal orders.

                1. >> “The troops won’t ‘break for the left’.”

                   Some might. The military might end up as divided as the citizenry, although I do think that’s the worst case.

                   1. Some will, A lot will not. and those pushing to do so won’t be pushing some conscripts halfway around the planet.

             2. I have been wondering what it takes to initiate Court Martial proceedings. Open confession of disobedience to civilian leadership seems the sort of thig which ought prompt that.

                Perhaps, the GOP holding the Senate (or Trump being able to win sufficient of his many legal actions) a proper investigation could begin.
                –

                1. Like the investigations into the civilian coup attempts?

                   The law, civilian and UCMJ, is compromised. They will not save us.

                   1. I wouldn’t be too sure of that gloomy prediction. Recall, the Fascist Left and the Democrat power structure expected the coup to succeed. They expected the impeachment to succeed. They expected far bigger advances than they got in 2018. They expected their nonsense over the Supreme Court nominations to succeed. They expected to be able to win 2020 without resorting to the last minute shenanigans we are seeing. They have consistently, over the last five years, overestimated their reach. And they keep doing it. If they continue to bungle as they have been, a lot of things could go VERY wrong for them.

                      1. The law has given them a pass to date so they can keep trying.

                         They may fail, but the law will not protect us from them succeeding.

             3. That may be yet another smoke and mirrors chunk of garbage aimed at destroying the media’s chosen enemy.

                When we have 300 people stationed in a place, that does not mean there are a total of 300 US military employees on site and not one soul more; that means there is a military assignment for that location for 300 of the specific kind of military people that whatever civilian talking head MEANT when they said “troops.”

                My ship had (totally fake numbers) a variety of “troops” on it. We had one thousand troops, if by that you mean people permanently assigned to the ship; 500 troops if by that you mean combat types assigned to the ship(squadron); 2500 if they’re talking about how many Marine types we’re delivering, and when we’re floating in the water offloading, there are zero troops at the place we just put several thousand people, because they’re not officially assigned there.

                This can make it reeeeeaaaaaaaaallllly fun when someone wants to dig into numbers to “identify waste.”

                These guys were able to mangle Trump’s words, when he’s much better prepared and frankly a lot smarter about not saying stupid stuff than most military leadership. What are the chances that they’d be telling the unvarnished truth, here?

                1. The guy who talked about it is apparently the former representative to Syria. He talked about a “shell game” (his term) that he was involved in, and that was used to keep Trump ignorant of the true number of troops in the country. He has also apparently stated that he thinks that Biden should continue Trump’s Middle-East policies. I didn’t read more than the basics of the article, so I might be off. But it sounds as if he was opposed to Trump’s efforts at first, but has come around after seeing the results.

                   Given that, if he says that they were deceiving Trump, then I’m inclined to believe that there was an explicit attempt to do so.

                   1. Unless he talked about it on a forum he completely controls, why on earth would we believe what he said in an interview?

                      Seriously, what part of the media’s behavior makes it more likely that they’d tell the truth, than a flat-out lie if they thought it would hurt someone they dislike?

             4. James Jeffrey is the guy bragging about being a lying liar who lies compulsively, in this case in order to keep Trump from bringing US troops home from Syria, but he’s not military, he’s a swamp thing from the US State Department.

                The only lying liar who lies in uniform I know about was Mattis, who as a general was obviously a politician, and thus thought orders were optional so he could slow roll complying with direct orders to develop and present a plan to (hey a repeating theme) bring US troops home, in this case via a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump eventually fired him to much wailing from the media, though not via a Courts Martial and dishonorable discharge the way anyone else who disobeyed a legal direct order from their lawful chain of command would have been.

                Mattis apparently thought he could delay enough for the coup to succeed. Bummer for him, though he’s still got his pension, with is bummer for everyone else.

             5. THIS.

                Though the fish rite from the head, so that too, should get interesting.

                1. *rot

             6. Some military. What is the rank of the braggarts?

       3. THIS.

       4. So, we can’t use the soap, the ballot, or the jury box. They really aren’t thinking straight.

    2. He would still lose. After this if they win they’re not EVEN pretending.

       1. That, too. If the people who perpetrated this fraud can get away with something so blatant and audacious, then there’s no reason for them not to use it in every single election going forward.

13. You are overlooking the medicinal value of meth. A buddy of mine worked in the oil patch. On one rig there was a guy who got giardia when no one else did. They tested the on site water an sure enough, it had giardia. Why did none of the other workers get it? They were taking so much meth to make overtime bonuses that the giardia didn’t stand a chance.
    If you think this is a ridiculous argument for the use of meth, look at some of the crap the left is arguing for controlling the Wu Flu.

    1. I’d love to see a survey of how many people taking ACE2 inhibitors for high blood pressure caught COVID. Or maybe that should be how many were exposed but didn’t catch it while others around them did

14. The same people demanding new lockdowns are the ones who denounced Trump’s travel ban from China as racist and xenophobic and said that his ban on travel with Europe was “too late because the horse was already out of the barn”. Yet know they insist that everyone is just placed under house arrest for anywhere from 4-6 weeks to 18 months, that the virus will magically vanish, even though coronoviruses in general are one of the most common viruses in the world and mutate fast enough that it is accepted that “there is no cure for the common cold” of which coronaviruses are the second most common cause.

    Of course the real reason for all of this is simply the desire to obtain and keep absolute power in “never let a crisis go to waste” fashion so they can achieve their desired “fundamental transformation of America”. Just like their “green” agenda has nothing to do with the environment, their decrees on the virus have nothing to do with the health of the public.

    What is going on with the virus decrees and with the massive election fraud is a blatant totalitarian power grab, plain and simple.

15. Re “free” health care in Italy (Portugal, too) it’s pretty much medicaid care. As a lawyer in Austin once said, “That free stuff is not worth the money you pay for it.”

    The struggle to reach a Utopia is nearly over. Well, if Zimbabwe or North Korea is “Utopia.”
    And the time when God will act to bring justice and peace for real. Faith is a wonderful thing, and a protection. We can be like the apostles and beg “Give us more faith.” He will.

16. Attempting to hold mutually contradictory beliefs tends to have that effect. As does maintaining “there’s nothing to see” while passing by a multi-vehicle pile-up in front of a dumpster fire. And, of course, insisting on holding onto impossible beliefs, such as “pigs can fly like hawks” or “government can solve all problems” is a formula for disaster.

    Reality tends to be a bitch but denying Reality is a son of a bitch.
    –

17. Powerline has this in the Week in Pictures which sums up how votes were counted for Democrats in PA, Michigan ane elsewhere very well:

    https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/11/i6ecxl26fxx51.jpg?w=640&ssl=1

18. A four to six week national lockdown is brilliant in an evil sort of way. That will crash the economy and put minorities back in the welfare system where they belong, they’ll get a multi-trillion dollar bailout passed that will go to their political allies in the corporate world, helping to kill off any competition, and at the end of it the cases will start falling. Because 4-6 weeks after the inauguration is the end of flu season in the north, the President could do a rain dance every day for 6 weeks and the cases will still fall. At some point the cases will drop to the point where they aren’t newsworthy any more (though they’ll probably still be higher than what they were in the summer) and Wu Flu will be nothing but a memory. Then the economy will rebound (because that’s what economies do) and the media can spend a year talking about how much growth there was in 2021.

    If Biden wins the red states should call a Constitutional Convention “to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

    1. Yep.

    2. Except the economy won’t rebound. Because their beliefs will KILL IT.

       1. You can’t kill an economy without killing the people. Coming out of the lockdown there will be a great deal of pent-up demand (we saw that this summer) and the corporate wing of the fascists will report pretty good numbers, which will be aggregated and presented to people as proof of how good things are going (Recovery Summer part…Five Thousand). And of course there’s the black market.

          The recovery won’t be as quick or the endpoint nearly as high as it would be under Trump, but that won’t stop the propagandists from making a big deal about it.

          1. Sure you can kill an economy without killing the people. Witness Obumbles Summer(s) of recovery I-VII. if you choke the small businesses with rules, keep the service economy closed (I.e. restaurants, hotels, etc) and let the blue cities and nearby suburbs burn again (and they will, the old line dems are not cooperating with the far left portions like the squad so pantifa will be back) you’ll see unemployment scream back to the 20-30 % effective we had at the peak of the shutdown.

             1. We still had economic growth during most of the Obama administration. It was anemic and weighted towards political connection rather than actual value, but it was growth. And 30% unemployment means 70% employment.

                1. Let me rephrase that, Within my nearly 60 year lifetime Obama’s administration was some of the worst economy I’ve seen in the US. Worse than ’68 with the riots of that year, worse than the crazy stagflation of Nixon and Ford, Worse than the various oil crises that drove inflation up at insane rates, worse than the 80s stock crashes worse than the post 9/11 crash. If thats not dead then we were coughing up blodd. The only worse economy was April-August of this year when everything was shut down. When you take away the living of the bottom of the economic pyramid shortly therearter there is little need for things further up that pyramid. If the Biden/Harris administration does another 4-6 week shutdown (which will probably last 4-6 MONTHS) the economy will be seriously deceased. Add shutting off the local Oil production so we’re at the mercy of the insane oil producing countries and we will be headed for seriously 3rd world sh*thole status, we may envy Venezuela if we are not careful.

                   1. Everybody goes on about the shutdowns killing the economy. But from what I’ve seen, at least in this part of the country, they killed parts of it, while absolutely skyrocketing others. EVERYBODY was gardening and doing home projects (honeydos) this year. Construction was absolutely booming, which caused lumber and other construction products to go through the roof, which of course caused timber prices to skyrocket, between that and pulp prices skyrocketing because of the toilet paper shortage, logging was booming.
                      My father-in-law works at a Do It Best lumber store, by the end of August they had already outperformed their best year on record. . . and would have done even better except for all the products they flat couldn’t get, so they couldn’t sell them. Every contractor I know in the construction business had a similar year. I deal with plant nurseries in one of my lines of work; they were so busy they couldn’t keep up with demand. I know of one which I sell trees to every year that shut down in June! Because the owner told me they had already doubled the profits/business they had done the previous year (usually shut down for the winter in October) and they couldn’t hire enough help, so he was run ragged and out of merchandise, so he was just going to shut down and take a vacation.

                      Obviously the shutdowns are bad for large sections of the economy, and as a whole, but like almost every ‘crisis’ there are sections that are going to profit by it.

                      Also The shutdowns we had already caused a large portion of the populace to disbelieve the government and resent their control of peoples livelyhood, sparking a boost in the black and grey markets. If they do a serious reboot or even harsher shutdown? They are going to give a serious kick in the pants to the black market.

                      1. With wood products & timber booming, doubt it happened this cycle, but dad’s work included planning/ engineering & overseeing rebuilding/replacing machinery in mills. THAT always occurred during a timber “recession”. More than a few industries that are “reverse” economic cycle. Never big enough to take up the slack of those who are unemployed from the downturn, but there are those industries.

                         Son’s work has been crazy. Their “shutdown” was going from 60 hours to 40 per week. They’ve crept back up to 50 hours. Technically they are on 4 – 10s/week M – Th. Actual has been 5 – 10s/week M – F, & occasionally Saturday. His hours as supervisor are 50+ to 60+. Building industry hasn’t slowed down a bit.

                      2. Yep.

                         I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but my parents got flat stood up this summer by two different concrete contractors, because they were so busy with other projects that they couldn’t even find the time to come out and look at the groundworks.

                         And their truss manufacturer was so busy that the trusses arrived a week later than promised, even though the entire order only required 4 hours to assemble.

                         1. I know people who just got heat back — after not having it ALL fall — and we’ve had freezing and snow — because the part was backordered. (Factory shut down.)

                            1. because the part was backordered. (Factory shut down.)

                               –
                               Vehicle is back in the shop, again, as of last Thursday. It was in for a week because the IGS (intermediate go stop) feature was out. Needed a new battery. Okay. Batteries are on back order, big time. Doesn’t matter if dealership or Costco wants them. Ammunition … no one has any. When they get some in, it flies out the door.

                               Got the new battery after a week. Installed, system configured. Got the vehicle back last Monday. Everything worked fine. Wednesday went to start it. Nothing except funny sounds, not even a single turn over. Kept trying. Finally turned over (without jumping the battery, FYI). Worked fine. Hubby couldn’t reproduce that night. Thursday morning had hubby go start it … he had the same problem, but he didn’t keep at it to get it started. When he was headed home he told me to see if it would start, it did, no problems. Again did nothing like jump the battery. Drove it to dealership. Agreed they needed it overnight to observe/research the problem because obviously we just had driven it down there, and it started fine at the house. Guess what … it failed at the dealership. There is a short in the system, somewhere. If it was really the new battery was bad and won’t hold a charge it never would have started up without jumping the battery with something external. Not a mechanic, but I know that much.

                      3. With any change there’s usually somebody that’s a winner. In the oil crises the small foreign cars won (aided by the fact that for much of the late ’70s to early ’80s the US car companies were making garbage). I’m certain the banks were enjoying high mortgage rates during stagflation (well except for the fact that rates went up further and people had no interest in refinancing). I’d bet morturaries in certain states (I’m looking at you NY!!!) did very well. But for the general economy which now is FAR more service in many places (especially the northeast where we drove of manufacturing in the early 70’s) than it used to be the shutdown was pretty bad.

                2. Not quite. Remember that people who have been unemployed for over a year aren’t included in the unemployment numbers. They’re assumed to not be looking for work (i.e. retirees, home makers, etc…). Keep that in mind when discussing unemployment numbers.

                   1. Depends on what unemployment number you’re looking at. They aren’t counted in the U-3 number that’s commonly quoted, but they are counted in the U-6.

          2. Trouble with fascism is the same trouble with communism; you have government setting quotas for how much, and of what, gets produced. And they are almost always wrong.

             1. Which is why the black market thrives in places where the government controls the legal economy.

                1. Well, black marketing is a patch. It’s like using huge amounts of cement to hold together a poorly built stone wall.

       2. Yeah, but that’s not a problem. They’ll just -lie- about how great the economy is under Biden, the same as they did for Obama. Telling a bigger lie is easier than actually doing something, right?

19. I think a lot of people still have too much to lose to risk defying the government and being alone in it. If you know someone who is risking it, support them, please!

    We need to take a close look at licensing laws in our several states and get rid of a ton of them.

    1. I’ve long been a believer in taking a hacksaw to licensing laws, but seeing what they managed in the name of WuFlu through threatening business/liquor/etc licenses… there was never any legitimate authority to any of the governor’s somehow-indefinite emergency proclamations, but the licensing system really IS set up that you do business by the grace of the state, and entirely at her mercy: no specific authority needed.

       It just seems that almost nobody realizes that this isn’t good and just and a reasonable default for any authority. -_- It’s just like when people talk about licensing anything “like cars” without realizing that the only reason they have such far-reaching restrictions THERE is because it’s a condition of permission to drive on public roads. (Setting aside, of course, how many of them are at all good and reasonable restrictions.) -_-; OY

       1. It’s a PUBLIC road. I’m paying for it. I shouldn’t need permission to drive on it.

          Vehicle license plates were originally badges to show that tax was paid. They weren’t considered identification until later… cars didn’t even have VIN numbers when states started taxing them.

          1. The Supreme Court has ruled that because trucks distributing stuff that you use use the roads, you get enough out of them that they don’t have to let you drive on them. In fact, that they can demand that you waive Constitutional rights for permission to drive on them.

             1. Which court did that, when, and why? Well, perhaps not the why part, we know they did it for control and power purposes. Maybe I should ask, what what their excuse for it?

                1. I can’t quote you the case without doing more research than I care to on a Sunday morning. But I know it is correct. My dad used to work for the DMV, a large part of his job was traveling around the state and testifying to the accuracy of the drive records (or at times the inaccuracy,) and so sat in on hundreds of court cases while waiting to be called. The Constitutionalists often used TRX’s argument, and while it is in my opinion a good argument, there was precedent cited from the Supreme Court to dismiss it every time. Their other and stronger argument was freedom of travel, but it was also pretty much always thrown out.

                   1. Ah, you can’t DRIVE on them. But in so many cases they don’t allow you to walk on them either, and that is an infringement on the most basic means of travel freedom. Can’t have it both ways.

20. “Has the entire world taken crazy pills?”

    No, just the media.

    There’s “several dozen people” in Washington DC today having a march to support Donald Trump. The media is trying as hard as they can to ignore it, and Leftists are trying to meme it to death already, but obviously thousands Americans showed up for a come-as-you-are demonstration to support the Orange Man.

    #WhiteAntifa showed up too, there’s already video of them trying to start shit with the crowd and getting mauled. By black guys. As the day goes on it’ll be fun to see how they manage being outnumbered for a change.

    1. Antifa isn’t there to drive off the protestors (even if that’s what the Antifa members actually on-site think). They’re present to provide photo-ops for the press, who will then talk about how violent and dangerous the #StopTheSteal demonstrators were.

    2. “obviously thousands Americans showed up for a come-as-you-are demonstration”
       
       NY Post report said >300,000 supporters attended.
       –

21. Leftoids really do have a love of authority. If they really think they can remake the economy in their image, they’re more delusional than I thought. An economy has always existed since humans had rational thought. It exists without banks, without money, without government. Even if they don’t understand that, to not see the folly of a planned economy in the face of EVERY SINGLE ATTEMPT NOT WORKING, is to just reject reality.

    1. to think they can exist under the Green New Deal they have to think they can remake it.

       1. What ignorant fools.

          1. yeah, but ….. they want to take us along.

             1. The Emperor’s New Clothes.
                Except that they want everyone to wear them.
                Outside, in the middle of a Colorado/Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michigan winter.

    2. “It exists without banks, without money, without government.”

       …okay now my head wants to do How the Grinch Stole Capitalism…

       “Maybe markets,” he thought, “don’t just live in a store. Maybe markets… perhaps… mean a little bit more.”

       1. “Well, in America they say – the Grinch’s profit motive grew three sizes that day.”

    3. To be accurate, their love is of legitimate authority — which is to say their authority. Anyone not of their Faith holding authority, such as Trump or George W Bush, is presumptively illegitimate and Hitlerian.
       –

    4. Not “authority” as much as “pecking order.”

       The socialist is never happy unless he knows who his superior is.

22. More and more people everywhere are seeing through it, more and more doctors speak up but I think the problem is not just the politicians on the left, here in UK we have the conservatives in power for example, But the problems are 2:
    1. A culture of fear, people everywhere have been bombarded for decades on tv/media with things to be afraid of and conditioned to fear this or that. I stopped watching tv a long time ago bc it’s insane, it’s like being on a high anxiety wire. Humans, being rational, will do what they can to protect themselves and fear broadcasted 24/7 is a powerful thing.
    2. I’ve been hearing more and more recently about the “Great Reset” being planned by the word economic forum. Sounds like a conspiracy but it’s right there on their website:

    https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

    And this

    “ Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city – or should I say, “our city”. I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes.”

    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-really-remember-what-that-is

    What?!

    “ In our city we don’t pay any rent, because someone else is using our free space whenever we do not need it. My living room is used for business meetings when I am not there.”

    Who wants this?! No privacy..

    “ Why keep a pasta-maker and a crepe cooker crammed into our cupboards? We can just order them when we need them.”

    No, the real reason would be that there is only one pasta-maker for 100 people and when you’re using it you don’t know if any of them has taken a crap on it. And sadly it doesn’t work anyway…

    “When products are turned into services, no one has an interest in things with a short life span. Everything is designed for durability, repairability and recyclability. ”

    Translation: again shrunken economy..

    “ The air is clean, the water is clean and nobody would dare to touch the protected areas of nature because they constitute such value to our well being. ” translation: you get killed if you do..

    “ Shopping? I can’t really remember what that is. For most of us, it has been turned into choosing things to use. Sometimes I find this fun, and sometimes I just want the algorithm to do it for me. It knows my taste better than I do by now.”

    Translation: our IQ dropped to single digits… I even masturbate when Alexa tells me to…

    “ For a while, everything was turned into entertainment and people did not want to bother themselves with difficult issues. It was only at the last minute that we found out how to use all these new technologies for better purposes than just killing time.”

    Translation: We have our circuses and soma and we can’t do anything else.

    “ My biggest concern is all the people who do not live in our city. Those we lost on the way. Those who decided that it became too much, all this technology. Those who felt obsolete and useless when robots and AI took over big parts of our jobs. Those who got upset with the political system and turned against it. They live different kind of lives outside of the city. Some have formed little self-supplying communities. Others just stayed in the empty and abandoned houses in small 19th century villages.”

    Translation: in the region formerly known as the USA they are called the republicans or the deplorables… (that is if they are still alive, in this world space is a premium – even living rooms are used for meetings)

    And now the real gem, towards the end:

    “ Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. No where I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.”

    Translation: I behave and do as I am told otherwise I will get “cancelled “ and disappeared.

    This is what is coming and the conclusion we should reach:

    “ All in all, it is a good life. Much better than the path we were on, where it became so clear that we could not continue with the same model of growth. We had all these terrible things happening: lifestyle diseases, climate change, the refugee crisis, environmental degradation, completely congested cities, water pollution, air pollution, social unrest and unemployment. We lost way too many people before we realised that we could do things differently.”

    No need for conspiracies folks..

    Is there anyone in their right mind that wants this? Even progressives will choke on this?

    But maybe with a few years of lockdown…

    1. THIS is the most provincial thing I’ve EVER heard.
       These total idiots think the rest of the world will go along with this shit?
       Rolls eyes hard.

    2. “ Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. No where I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.”

       That fragment of awareness is… almost enough to give me a grain of hope that the whole thing is some kind of awful satire, but….

       1. Sounds like a passage out of 1984.

    3. There’s an article that recently turned up written by a British doctor that seems to suggest that at least some of the problems with the United Kingdom’s current health care policies is that PM Johnson’s “partner” (when did specifying whether we were talking about a spouse or a romantic friend drop out of vogue in the UK?) is having an undue amount of influence on who Johnson is picking to make Her Majesty’s Government’s health-care decisions.

       Since I don’t get much actual news about the UK, I’ve no idea how accurate that assessment is.

       1. Boris Johnson has a girlfriend who is his baby mama. They aren’t getting married because Reasons.

       2. Mark Steyn, who knew Boris when Johnson edited and Steyn wrote for The Spectator some twenty years ago, has said the post-Corona Boris is not the same. See if this supports what you’ve read:

          And Now ‘Brino’: Brexit In, Alas, Name Only
          News from Downing Street tonight — that prime ministerial chief adviser Dominic Cummings has left Downing Street — alarms friends of British liberty.

          Mr. Cummings was the dynamo behind the “Vote Leave” campaign that saw Brexit triumph at the 2016 referendum. His indispensability is right up there with that of Nigel Farage of the United Kingdom Independence Party.

          When he joined Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s team at No 10, Brexiteers took heart that not only was a friend of independence advising the premier, but an avowed enemy of the bureaucratic “deep state.” Expectations were high.

          Then coronavirus struck Britain. Mr. Cummings, far from being a courageous voice of common sense, was instead credited with Mr. Johnson’s credulous concessions to a scientific community only too willing to assume responsibility for shuttering Britain’s economy.

          Reports are that with Mr. Cummings’s departure go the “Vote Leave” coterie he brought with him into Downing Street. Their duties are to be assumed by allies of the prime minister’s left-liberal fiancée, Carrie Symonds, who has had tense relations with the tattered remnant of right-leaning policy wonks.

          To Miss Symonds is accredited blame for Boris’s embrace of environmental extremism, such as the pledge to make Britain carbon neutral by 2050 — a recipe for reducing economic prosperity. As such, questions of climate and coronavirus only added insult to injury with the Government’s far-reaching interventionist agenda.

          Now, with the loss of putative pushback the Cummings contingent provided, fears are that the Prime Minister’s statist inclinations will be unimpeded. Already it is rumored that the Government will be less combative against the predominantly progressive press, principally the BBC. Gone too will be the fight, however half-hearted, for the integrity of Britain’s cultural history. …
          –

    4. One other item – “Lifestyle diseases” are mentioned toward the end, and the great progress that the writer’s society has supposedly made to eradicating them. Isn’t that usually a euphemism for STDs? If there’s one thing that history has taught us regarding STDs, it’s that the ONLY way to completely keep them in check is through keeping a reign on your sexual libido.

       1. No. Being overweight, diabetes, etc.

          1. Now that I think about it, I guess I’m confusing “lifestyle disease” with “social disease”.

             1. Note this assumes you can control, say diabetes, by eating LESS.
                In my case, my 23 and me says you WILL get diabetes by 48. To stop it, I had to go all low carb.

    5. Overall translation: Welcome to the anthill. It’s good to be an ant.

       1. And the thing about “Those unfortunates left behind as the inevitable arrow converged with ZuckerBook to yield this glorious anthill”.

          Yeah, those walls and guard towers are to keep them out – don’t ponder the idea that they are really to keep you in.

          Frankly this sounds more like an asylum or prison than a working society, with those outside “left behind” normals going on with life while the anthill-choosers are locked up in these prison-cities to care for them, as they obviously cannot care for themselves.

    6. Tories in the UK for the most part are NOT a conservative party; they are leftists who are less leftist than the commies in the Labour Party. Europe has very few true conservatives.

    7. Fed, clothed, housed, and entertained, all at “government” expense.

       Sounds like prison to me. Or maybe kindergarten. When examined closely, there’s not really much difference between them…

       “The duty of every citizen is to serve the State.”

    8. “All in all, it is a good life.”

       Yes, is is very much a good life. There’s no need to send me to the cornfield.
       –

       1. THIS

23. It’s not provincial, it’s international

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51134164

    “ High profile figures often use it to influence the global agenda. ”

    “ WEF typically attracts around 3,000 people, about a third of them from business. To go you have to be invited – in which case the event is free – or a member of WEF, which can cost £480,000.
    World leaders, key figures from the UN and EU and the heads of major firms like Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs and IBM attend.
    Regular guests include billionaire financier George Soros, former UK prime minister Tony Blair, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and U2 singer Bono.”

    It has to get really bad and totalitarian before people will be made to go along with it. But it’s not impossible.

    The scary thing is right there for everyone to see. You don’t have to search for eyes and pyramids or other symbols.

    1. IT IS PROVINCIAL.
       It’s the new class. They only know people like them. PFUI.

       1. Modern feudal lords.

24. No, PK, they have more material on that, not just that article, looks like their policy

    there is a video saying you’ll own nothing and be happy, couldn’t find the original but here is one copy

    There is plenty of discussion now on net about the Great reset, if you want to read more, lots of conspiracies but really you don’t need to go there, it’s in your face

    1. It’s like X-COM 2’s Advent, except no aliens. Or at least no obvious ones. 😮

    2. Admittedly, it’s still true I haven’t done proper research on this — today I’ve been too busy doing things like watching the Million MAGA March in D.C., for example — but I finally figured out what all this “reset” stuff reminds me of.

       “Based on the input of” 100 randomly-selected college leftists, after they listened to Lennon’s “Imagine” 20,000 times in a row till their brains turned to week-cold oatmeal, then wrote up “input” while listening to a loop-tape made up of “Utopia is dystopia, dystopia is utopia.” Wait, even that might be better…

       Which still doesn’t explain why, just like a Bond villain, the people who brewed all this up insist on exposing their own Evil Plan For World Domination, so.

       Too bad, reality actually doesn’t come with a reset button (unless you’re in a John Dalmas novel). And if you did push it, you’d likely get… something else.

       “You’ll own nothing.” (Because we’ll take it all for ourselves.)
       “But you’ll be happy.” (Or else bad for you, penniless beggar!)

       Or to quote Marx & Co, “From each according to our greed, to each according to our whim.” (Fixed it for them.)

       1. “Which still doesn’t explain why, …the people who brewed all this up insist on exposing their own Evil Plan For World Domination, …”

          I think it comes under the ‘repeat something often enough and people start believing it.”

          After all, in the end, they even had Picard seeing 5 lights, not 4.

          1. Gah! And that is the reason why all the MSM keep repeating, “There was no fraud.”

             How do we fix a Constitution that allows huge organizations to systematically commit evil acts like this and still retain the right of freedom of speech? Especially when they can drown out the rest of us? Sure, we have facts, sure we have quality, but quantity is a quality all by itself. On the other hand, it’s probably not the Constitution that needs repair, but our own society that has failed. John Adams was right when he wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The United States has lost what morality it once had, and all religions have been swept aside in the Prog-Soc atheist purge under the guise of separation of church and state. (Islam remains because it’s well-suited to support totalitarian regeimes.

             1. “Islam remains because it’s well-suited to support totalitarian regeimes.”

                And a well-established track record of killing to keep the right to worship as they please.

                1. Don’t forget your right to worship as they please.

                   1. Amazing how the left considers a religion with over a billion followers some of whom engaged in a centuries long campaign of conquest that created caliphates that controlled large parts of Asia, part of Africa and part of Europe, a “historically oppressed minority”; as if all Muslims are the same whether Arab, Turkish, Asian, etc., and ignoring such things as the Ottoman Empire.

             2. Technically, there was no fraud: the Dems have always played by those rules and it is not their fault if you think they ought do otherwise — that is on you. It isn’t as if they keep their vote accumulation intentions secret, they just maintain an exclusive license for using such methods. Is it their fault that Republicans are stupid enough to think that a court order gets them into the ballot count? You’ve got to arrive with a court order and a squad of “persuaders.”
                –

    3. That is just plain evil.

    4. “you’ll own nothing and be happy”

       You know who “owns nothing” and is “happy”?

       Children – which is what they would reduce us to.

       But you can’t stay a child forever.
       –

    5. And will the members of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils also own nothing? Hmmm?

       1. They will own, as they always have, shares. Shares in the companies that own hold title to multiple houses, condos, furnishings, vehicles, wardrobes and the authority to contract the services of their “employees.”

          Only fools own “things” when they can own the things that own “things.” Why forego the business deductions available and pay (ugh) taxes like ordinary people? That would be truly deplorable.
          –

25. Ah and read carefully they say US won’t be the leading superpower (last video), more refugees to integrate, you’ll eat almost no meat, it goes on..

    1. They’re idiots.

       1. you’re too kind

    2. They also believe those refugees will OF COURSE abandon everything that gave their lives meaning in their old cultures without complaint.

       1. This. This is what I meant about this being an incredibly provincial plan. PARTICULARLY since they intend it to be world wide.
          It won’t work. Maybe in Europe, without immigrants. Not in the US. Not anywhere else. This is stupid insanity by people who believe humans are widgets.
          And this, my friends, is what I mean when I say we can lose, but they CAN’T win.

          1. I figure at worst it ends up some sort of cross between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Balkans when Yugoslavia collapsed. Not a pleasant thought, but maybe survivable. I hope we manage to avert that outcome. May God save the USA.

          2. What they are trying to do is import enough people they think will be so grateful to be allowed into the USA that they will vote for Democrats, so that when they grant them citizenship and voting rights en masse, they can use that to give themselves a big enough majority that they can then use to impose all the nonsense they think will give them perpetual total power.

             The current citizenry won’t vote to give them the power they want, so they intend to replace the citizenry with another.

             1. “they think will be so grateful to be allowed into the USA that they will vote for Democrats,”

                “they think will provide a pool of theoretically legal votes that can be fraud cover for Democrats.”

                FTFY.

                1. The only cover the Dem fraudsters deserve is six feet of dirt.

             2. Ah, the solution. Dissolving the people and replacing them with others.

                1. Have the Democrats suddenly started stockpiling nitric and sulfuric acid? 😛

                2. That’s a complete fabrication! The people will not be dissolved, they will be disassembled and their parts redistributed.

                   It’s the Chinese Way!
                   –

26. Regarding Boris, they are referring to his girlfriend, a young woman he left his wife for while she, the wife, was battling cancer and grieving her mother… they are not married, he was still married when she got pregnant and then Covid came.. but to say “girlfriend” sounds behind the dignity of a 50 something prime minister, doesn’t it?

    I think the opposite is true, he had an advisor everyone hated, Dom Cummings, that apparently influenced Boris into lockdowns, but now some of his dirty dealing behind his back have been exposed (some say by her) and he is out.

    Apparently she tried to influence him on allowing “self-ID” – men saying they are women and getting their IDs changed in 3 months after a sworn declaration, she failed, there was a lot of public disapproval, women (and some men) wrote in thousands, organised themselves etc and stopped it. Currently it takes 2 years and doctors oversight to change your papers. And women have a right to single sex spaces but it’s contested by trans people.

    Anyway, she has a big influence.

    Will see what will happen with lockdowns now that this guy is out.

    1. I can’t tell you how many conservative and conservative-ish men I’ve known who have become soppy left-liberals once they hook up with a left-leaning woman. Takes two years at most. I seem to have resisted, but at the cost of divorce.

       1. I have always been boggled by how marriages hold up between people with such vastly different ideals and worldviews. I’ve seen those that do, but I can’t look at such a one and view it as a healthy marriage; nor can I imagine why any man would want to live in the same house as a woman who desires to take away his freedoms and opposes everything he believes in.

       2. I don’t “get” it on either side.

          Elf and I don’t agree on everything, but– well, we were friends first, we have complementary world-views. We both bring ideas and thoughts and beliefs to the table.

          One of the few things he’ll do that infuriates me is to give in without even resistance because he thinks I’m being unreasonable. (Sometimes he’s even right, and that does not help.) If he did that all the time? I’d kill him….

          Sometimes, it’s clear that one person doesn’t really care about what they’re changing. Or they really value physical intimacy. Or there’s the “damn it, just RESPOND, would you?!?” type pushing thing, too. (not healthy, not always deliberate)

          1. >> “One of the few things he’ll do that infuriates me is to give in without even resistance because he thinks I’m being unreasonable. (Sometimes he’s even right, and that does not help.) If he did that all the time? I’d kill him….”

             Sounds like he’s failing a shit test. Is he doing it on purpose to mess with you, or is it genuine?

             1. He does it, generally, because his family Does Not Argue, someone nearly two generations back couldn’t be crossed without going to war.
                (A few of their decedents have the habit as well, but we do not interact with them.)

                My family does argue, and then goes back to normal (loud) interaction. We drag a problem out and beat it to death; his family will pull a problem out and talk it to death only if the trained warning signs of someone being upset aren’t there.
                Half of their warning signs are identical to “Foxfier has been busier than a one-legged man in an *** kicking contest and has had quite enough of this BS, let’s kill this monster now.”

                It is a mis-match of human interaction expectations and resources. The kind of thing that rational adults recognize as a side-effect of dealing with others who are not clones of themselves in utterly identical situations, and that lazy, manipulative and or entitled twits turn into elaborate systems of justification for why those who do not do as they wish are terrible and at fault. AKA, the various “relationships are nothing but power play” philosophies that blithely ignore interactions they cannot hammer into their chosen measures. Since Elf and I are a team, we don’t do that. We are, sadly, not normal.

                Calling it a “shit test” neatly avoids how many are identifying a character flaw, especially when it identifies them correctly, and frustrate the goals of the one found wanting.

                The “yes, dear, of course” dish-rag response is essentially disrespectful; it indicates that the item of concern is worthless. Not worth discussion, not worth effort, not worth thought or discussion; having the position at all is– nothing.
                That is not agreement, it is dismissal. It is also a means of refusing interaction, and shoving aside responsibility.

                And that is before the unstated follow on– “of course, dear, we will do whatever you want. Just as long as you are going to do everything, including dragging my limp corpse through the entire thing, possibly with near constant reminders that you wanted to do this, and there’s a very good chance I will just happen to do something to spoil any hint of enjoyment you were getting from doing a thing that I did not want to do, but would not say I did not want to do.”

                All the jokes about “I don’t know, what do you want to eat?” and no matter what you say, it’s rejected? That. As a lifestyle.

                I have watched it destroy many relationships.

                With the “whatever you say” member there, complaining, and willing to tell anyone and everyone how horribly they are abused, because don’t you know they agreed with everything and never got in the way, even went (were dragged, at their insistence) along.

                The really evil ones act supportive, and then cut the legs out from under their supposed partner. There’s always just one more thing that needs to be done and THEN they’ll get the help they were promised, to get what they wanted.
                Of course, when it fails– in no small part because of the constant “one more little thing”– the entire mess is on the head of the partner who initially wanted it, even if that was literally a five minute task they would’ve passed on if they’d been given a straight answer, and the small adjustments are days worth of work.

                1. we have the EXACT same issue in this house. How odd.

                   1. Irish-ethnicity husbands traditionally go along with Irish wives’ decisions, because she’s basically Maeve on everything except actual combat, raiding, professions/trades, and farming. And when it comes to combat, Irish wives promise to love, cherish, obey, and hit things that get past the husband. In exchange, Irish husbands get a certain amount of time to hang out and do nothing every day, so as to be energetic if hitting things is suddenly required.

                      German-ethnicity behavior seems to vary on where the family was originally from.

                      1. Oooh, you may like this joke, if you don’t already know it!

                         50th wedding celebration, an old man is surrounded by his grandkids, who are now looking at marriage.
                         The kids ask grampa, “how did you do it?”
                         Well, kids. When we got married, your grandmother and I divided up the decision making process.
                         All the big decisions would be mine, and all the little ones would be hers.
                         And do you know, in fifty years? There was never a single big decision to be made!

                   2. My husband’s family favors women that are scary in some manner.
                      His phrasing is “women who can kill you.” With that as a tendency, naturally, to require that you avoid triggering the and-she-is-going-to-do-so-now thing. Especially when some of them have the same type of terrible taste that women looking for “bad boys” frequently display. (Which is part of why we can sing the advice of “dangerous is fine, pay attention to the targeting mechanisms” in duet.)

                      When I point out that I’m not scary, he just smirks.
                      So either teasing me, or considers something or other dangerous enough.

                   3. My family enjoys argument (see: Argument Clinic Sketch), Beloved Spouse’s family enjoys argument. Tiffs, spats, quarrels are not arguments.

                      Sometimes it is necessary to know when continued argument is counter-effective. “I have made my case, you now where I stand and why, I am not interested in re-plowing the same ground over and over.” Leave it to settle and a) the other party, freed of the heat of battle and no longer dug in may miraculously see the glorious light of Reason. More likely, given leisure to go over the points an effective counter-argument may occur, one which acknowledges the values and justifies the desired course of action as furthering them.

                      Or, of course, the person who retired from the fray may realize what a butthead he was being and cough up a dozen roses i apology.

                      Stranger things have happened.
                      –

                2. My mistake, then, but your description of both the behavior and your emotional reaction was consistent with a failed shit test.

                   1. That is because the term “shit test” is applied, as I mentioned, to absolutely every measure of worth or even mere imposition of reality, such as when a woman doesn’t mind-read the guy to know that this “sure, honey” means “I would rather die in a fire but cannot be bothered to even convey that I would rather not” instead of “sure, honey” meaning “we’ll do that” in any of the various flavors. I’ve literally only seen one example, in real life, where it was a stupid power play between possible romantic partners. And that is when most of my friends are guys, sadly mostly with terrible taste in women, so it’s not like I selected for decent females.

                      Trying to figure out “is this guy saying absolutely anything he can to get in my pants?” Not a shit test, although the guy who thinks he deserves easy access to said pants will generally describe it thus.

                      It’s a human thing. The sexes tend to express them slightly differently, but the pissing contests and assume-other-thinks-the-same-way habits are just human.

                      What I described was similar to the joke about “if a woman is angry, just tell her to calm down. It’s sure to work.”
                      Telling someone who is angry that they are angry and need to calm down almost never works– although it does make sure that if they weren’t angry before, they probably are now.
                      The disengagement tactics are a not-definitely-piss-them-off option.
                      When half the reason that I am angry is that I know I’m angry, that does not help– but if I am perfectly calm or have even extended extra work to try to bridge build, getting same reaction as legitimately flying off the handle is going to go very, very poorly. Especially if there is never any other option. (which is why I have been growling about dish-rag guys for years, here)

                      1. I understood what you were saying originally. Flip the male and female and you pretty much described my marriage. Believe me I understand your frustration at times, but it is just something I have to learn to deal with and adjust for, while she attempts to do the same in the other direction

                         1. *nod*

                            Figuring out that a lot of the time that was Elf’s “I am tired, I have no spoons” response? That was useful, it let me know when I need to Try Again Later. (Which, if it was the only response he had, would obviously not work.)

                            Like adults who love each other do.

                            Which pegging every frustration or mis-match of expectations as “they are at fault, and they’re doing it on purpose” damages, if not flatly destroys…. and then you have two people who were trying their best, but listened to the wrong advice, both in even more pain and the relationship destroyed.

       3. Pheromones? Because it’s obviously not “the brain” they’re considering…

27. but to say “girlfriend” sounds behind the dignity of a 50 something prime minister, doesn’t it?

    —————-

    Eh, outside of the royal family, “partner” seems to be the go-to term for pretty much everyone in the UK these days in the admittedly limited amount of news media about that country that I read.

28. C4c

29. Great piece by the Washington Examiner showing how social media oligarchs and the media establishment helped the Harris/Biden campaign sufficiently to swing the election even accounting for the fraud:

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/medias-hiding-of-hunter-biden-scandal-robbed-trump-of-clear-win-poll

    1. It wouldn’t have swung it without fraud, and if they’re willing to do unlimited fraud, and they are….

       1. Yes – the “they nominated a zombie” and “hide in the basement campaign” and “rallies with seven reporters and no actual people” and “just don’t report on the Hunter laptop emails that directly show massive corruption and direct foreign government payments” puzzled me as well, but if the answer is magical coordinated 4am vote injections that are guaranteed to provide a comfortable win margin for the floor lamp if needed, then nothing really matters – but only in those states where they arranged to inject votes.

          Were I McSally I would be pushing really hard to recount the China-bought-astronaut totals in AZ.

          1. “Were I McSally I would be pushing really hard to recount …”

             Recounts are expensive and, except in very close elections, must be paid by the challenging party. Moreover, they typically (as we are constantly advised by the MSM) turn up only small numbers of votes.

             This is the beauty of the Dominion system: it produces vote margins so large that they are beyond the “state-paid recount” level and convince all casual observers that there’s not enough votes to be gained through the recount process.

             The principle is similar to that of the Big Lie — human minds do not readily grasp theft at such scale.
             –

30. “Has everyone lost their mind?”

    I am pretty certain that I have not.

    OTOH, I define “sane” in terms of a sound mind: Right reasoning applied to practice, a determination to give each individual his or her rightful due, steadfastness in the face of obstacles, and avoiding excesses.

    I strongly suspect the Left defines sanity by the absence of all the above.

31. Team Harris/Biden believes that the First Amendment’s protection of speech that offends others is a “design flaw”, and that if people are willing to react violently to speech they don’t like, it is the speech that should be banned.

    https://nypost.com/2020/11/13/joe-biden-transition-official-wrote-op-ed-against-free-speech/?utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow

    This is now “mainstream” Democratic Party ideology.

    1. if people are willing to react violently to speech they don’t like, it is the speech that should be banned.

       Now that has possibilities.

       It would even be constitutional and in keeping with the spirit of the founding: react with extreme violence against any politician who says something about gun control. (my pet issue, fill in to taste)

       1. “ if people are willing to react violently to speech they don’t like, it is the speech that should be banned.

          Now that has possibilities.”

          No, it doesn’t, it will only work in their favour.

       2. Would it be considered excessive to react violently to all issues? speech, religion, guns, law, states rights …. etc……

          1. Nope. I want you by MY side.

          2. Well it isn’t excessive to react violently to things like; “racism”, illegalizing (or enforcing current laws) drugs, the wrong candidate winning the election, or the cops shooting some criminal (not saying the cops are always right or justified in using deadly force, but the left seems to intentionally cherry pick incidents where the use of deadly force is obviously justified, usually in self defense).

             So yeah, reacting violently to threats to the Constitution would undoubtedly be considered excessive compared to such major provocations as that.

       3. I tend to agree with you.

    2. It’s been mainstream Democratic Party ideology for some time now. They’ve been claiming for a while that “hate speech” – as defined by them, of course – is not protected. There’s nothing particularly new about this. And further, if the group that you’re supposedly targeting with your “hate speech” doesn’t react to your hateful words, then it’s because they’re too fearful from the triggering that you committed to speak up for themselves.

       Your speech is violence. Their violence is speech.

       1. funny how fast they back off that when you accuse them of trying to shut up their opponents, and they claim no never, then when you tell them “Well, then you will be fine with Me deciding what is and isn’t hate speech for enforcement.”
          “What? NO!”

       2. They got this in in Canada, guys. And all of Europe.

       3. Thoughtcrime – hate speech penalties – is defined in law in 47 states now, and by several acts at the Federal level.

          Some of the states, the laws are *remarkably* broad and nonspecific.

          “Your opinions are always of interest to us, Comrade. Feel free to share your deepest thoughts. Please speak clearly for the microphone. Big Brother loves you!”

    3. Not a surprise… the cancel culture is in your face now

       Scotland is going through the motions of criminalising “hate” speech, even done in private

       https://www.nationalreview.com/news/scottish-bill-would-criminalize-hate-speech-in-private-homes/

       This is happening to much opposition, they are not backing down, will see what happens. The women are especially afraid they will be sent to prison for saying men can’t be women or using the wrong pronoun.

       This has already happened in Sweden, they even have a Freedom of speech act and hate laws.

       https://ilga-europe.org/resources/news/latest-news/greater-legal-protection-trans-people-way-sweden

       “UPDATE: On 14 November, the Swedish parliament took the second of two necessary decisions to include trans people in the Freedom of Speech act’s regulation on hate speech. The first decision came in May of this year. The legislative change comes into effect on 1 January 2019. In two steps, trans people have now been given increased protection in Swedish legislation. Since 1 July, trans people are protected within the hate crime legislation. At the same time “transgender identity and expression” was added as a protected ground for unlawful discrimination and insult.“

       I’ve read somewhere else is punishable by 3 years. And I think other Nordic countries have similar laws.

       All this may have been pushed by the UN awhile ago

       https://thenewamerican.com/un-seeks-to-criminalize-free-speech-citing-human-rights/

       So yes, definitely coming under Biden

       1. This kind of insanity will be enacted by Harris/Biden through use of the UN and “sue and settle”. They will first sign onto all the obnoxious UN agreements on things like “hate speech” (including the one that makes any violation of Sharia standards of speech a “hate crime”), the environment, etc., and then rather than go to the Senate for ratification (which Obama argued wasn’t even needed for stuff done through the UN) will use suits by friendly activists to enter into “settlement agreements” whereby the Feds then agree to enforce the UN agreements they entered in to.

       2. I’m supposed to go to England and Scotland next summer. That law has me very concerned. I’d already assumed that I’d have to stay off the internet (no e-mail, texting et al) because of their laws, but I’d hate to have a group member arrested for an innocuous-to-most comment.

    4. From my collection of quotes from the internet:

       The crux of the debate over free speech is that some people believe Free Speech is a positive good and a necessity for a stable society, while others think that the First Amendment is an inconvenient ceasefire. And the worst of the second group think the correct behavior in a ceasefire is to use knives.

32. I said it before, many times and many places, that the word, “progressive” always reminds me of CANCER. Which it is.

    1. and, well they always reverse the meaning of words. They claimed “Liberal” and are as illiberal as one can be, and they claimed “Progressive” and are as anti-progress as one can be.
       Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive. He at least wanted America to progress along to an expanded future. Leftoids today want us to “progress to the rear.

       1. No, Progressive means to ratchet government Leftward, tooth by tooth, progressing over the decades toward Marxism. Let no crisis go to waste.
          Trump managed to bend the pawl and it slipped back right a bit over the last 4 years but it needs to be broken.

          1. that’s what they’ve made it, and why they now are sorta not happy being called “progressives” at times.
             I stick to leftoids in polite company. expletive filled descriptors when not.

          2. Their idea of “progress” is to undo the industrial revolution and to return to a feudal society where the serfs are ruled by an elite nobility “who know what’s best for all” and control every aspect of people’s lives.

             1. I’d modify that to suggest they want rule by philosopher-kings a la Plato. With themselves in the starring roles, of course.

                1. And they never noticed that when Plato was writing about the philosopher-king *he was writing fiction?*

                   Of course they didn’t.

33. You would think the Progressives, being the intelligent elite, would have lost their belief in Santa, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy long ago. But, nope, they still have that childish faith in the free stuff.

    I had a long phone visit with my liberal son a couple of days ago. Bless his heart, he has a sweet one. He has the highest IQ in the family, and we are all high IQ, and he truly knows everything cannot be free. He said the rich should pay higher taxes, and when I said they can always send huge checks to the government, he went silent. He is an almost 60 year old dot.com millionaire, granted not huge millions, but enough he retired a good 15 years ago. Then he said “Well, mom, I meant the really rich, I am peanuts to them.” Yes it is true he is, but the point is the same.

    I told him we did get a tax cut from Trump. He was shocked. He thought that was a myth, our income is lower middle class. True, we are retired and don’t live only on that income. We have not had a mortgage since 1995. That helps.

    Then he said well conservatism seems to be a religion. When I told him we thought that about is liberalism, he didn’t understand why. So I told him.

    Now this sounds argumentative, but in fact it was the first time I’ve ever really had him listen to my arguments without taking it personally or answering before replying, so it turned out to be a very good phone visit. For one thing, we truly do love and appreciate each other, and never want to go beyond the point of no return. I hope he will like, Mary, ponder this in his heart.

    1. I told him we did get a tax cut from Trump. He was shocked. He thought that was a myth, our income is lower middle class. True, we are retired and don’t live only on that income. We have not had a mortgage since 1995. That helps.

       –
       As mentioned we had mom’s birthday dinner last night, and talked politics with my sister. She complained that their taxes went up. They have money. Like your son it is peanuts to the really rich. OTOH it is considerably more than our income. Ditto on overall savings. Theirs is greater than ours, considerably. All 4 of us retired. My sister looked shocked when we told her that our federal taxes dropped, considerably. I suspect, because of her beliefs, her estimation of our income ratcheted up considerably higher than theirs. Have reason to believe she’d be wrong. I think she’d be shocked should we be willing to share.

       1. Their taxes probably went “up” only because of the limit on the federal deduction of state and local taxes. Their high tax problem isn’t because of their federal tax rates, it is because their state is taxing them far too much, and they can no longer get those high taxes subsidized by taxpayers in lower tax states.

          1. the knob who should know better I know is mad that part of the cut to get more votes was a reduction to deductions for donations, so he and the wife cannot write off their living room and bedroom sets when they get bored with ’em and give the lot to Goodwill and buy a new style set. So even though he got a tax cut, this was unforgivable to him. 4 years with the same sofa and chair! Inconcievable!

          2. robably went “up” only because of the limit on the federal deduction of state and local taxes.

             –
             Could be. Property Taxes where they are, are relatively low, but they have an expensive house. No Income Tax (Washington State). Don’t know what their annual Sales Tax payout is, they haven’t bought any big ticket items lately (no new vehicle/furniture/appliances, etc.).

             Under Biden’s Federal Tax. They should be okay. Pretty sure they are under Biden’s 400k/year income limit. Just because I know they are under their combined working annual income earnings. Even if I don’t know exactly. FWIW #sarcastic JIC because I expect OUR taxes to go up under Biden and we’re well under 100k/year if you count every penny that is reported but currently isn’t taxed (SS).

             Our decrease in 2019 Federal Taxes was for two reasons. The Federal Tax changes. Plus, although our reported income was equivalent to 2018, our taxable income was less. Pensions – same. IRA draw – 20% of 2018. SS – doubled (almost). Our state taxable income plummeted – no tax on SS (at least at our level).

             1. sounds like their taxes didn’t go up, unless they bumped up in income, or unless they were like the knob I know. and they lost a bit of their deductions used to plat games like he did. In which case their taxes didn’t go up, but they couldn’t play as many games with write-offs. And they’d be fools to believe theirs are not going to go up under Biden. to pay for half of what they claim they are going after everyone will get socked, except those who find their income is now $0

                1. Even those with nominally $0 taxes are going to be paying a lot more; remember “under my plan gas prices will necessarily skyrocket”?. The Harris/Biden plan is even worse than Obama’s on energy costs.

                   Of course paying for any of this without Wiemar Republic levels of printing cash requires belief in magic; They want to spend many trillions on fully government run “free: healthcare, “free” college, “free” preschool, the entire elimination of fossil fuels and mandatory replacement of all fossil fuel using vehicles, a national minimum income (i.e. government pays you for living), and claim that all of it will be paid for by simply “making the rich pay their fair share”. There is not enough money to pay for their socialist wish list if they confiscated the entire wealth of every single American; which of course is what they intend to do ultimately.

                   1. That is what communism always boils down to — take everything from everybody, ‘to be fair’.

                      But of course, some animals will always be more equal than others.

                   2. Yeah, “I pay no taxes at all! but everything is 3 and 4 times more expensive, so I still can’t buy enough food to live”

                      1. Yeah, “I pay no taxes at all! but everything is 3 and 4 times more expensive, so I still can’t buy enough food to live”

                         –
                         What I’ve been seeing too. Utilities are stable. Gasoline, for now, is WAY down. Clothing, Shoes, etc., not much of a shopper … I get stuff from Costco to wear (not a fashionista). Food OTOH. Milk is up. Costco milk has inched up from $2.40/gal to $2.70. FM (Fred Meyers) $2.69 to $2.89. Meat varies. Better cuts are purchased below a certain $/pound price point, depending on what it is. Hamburger was $2.49, now it is $3.49/pound. We’ve been getting 1/2 a pig from a hobby farmer, which by pound is really inexpensive meat, but it has to be in a freezer. Doesn’t last entire year (it gets used, not wasted), but does stretch out what I buy. My grocery bill has gone from about $300 to $700/month average for the three of us. Used to be $100 meant I was buying a full cart of groceries & filling the trunk. Now it barely fills 3 bags. We contribute to the food bank, because we can.

                         1. I find it easy to spend $100+ on just me, but some things here are higher due to just getting them here, and I buy a few things on the pricier side on preference of taste and I can afford it now.

                         2. Filled the tanks on two cars yesterday. Each cost round about twenty bucks. Back during Obama’s reign it cost nearer to fifty bucks each. It makes one hell of a psychological difference.

                            People tend to underestimate the degree to which gasoline costs permeate society. Lower gas costs make it worthwhile to go a little further for cheaper groceries. Lower fuel costs also mean the trucks delivering food to your grocery add less to the price of food. Lower oil prices mean less money going into the coffers of Iran, Russia, Venezuela and the petrokingdoms, leaving them less money for mischief.

                            I LIKE lower oil prices.
                            –

                            1. I LIKE lower oil prices.

                               –
                               Agree.

                               What hit home to us for lower fuel prices was that the cost of gas was $2.39/gal within Yellowstone National Park. The same cost as it was at home, at that time. That never happens. It is always a dollar or more, more, at least, if you have to purchase fuel anywhere near or inside a national park, let alone Yellowstone.

                               I remember inexpensive per gallon fuel costs. Barely. It was skyrocketing up about the time I got my driver’s license.

                            2. When the price was $4.99 a gallon, we lived in Colorado Springs. This meant trips to Denver had to be budgeted for, which meant that we had to take an entire day off, so we could do all the things in one day, Most depressing time I lived through till now.

                            3. Gas in Canada last summer (2019) appeared reasonable compared to home. If I remember right it was $3.69/gal at home. In Canada it was $2.99 (Canadian) … until we remembered it was per liter, sigh (almost $6/gal US, even with higher US dollar to Canadian conversion).

             2. Pretty sure they are under Biden’s 400k/year income limit.

                –
                Aaaahh… That was what’s known as a ‘campaign promise’ — the bullshit candidates spew to trick people into voting for them, and then ditch the instant they get into office. Harris-and-Biden will tax EVERYBODY to death if they get the power. They won’t be able to resist, nor will their radical elite puppet-masters allow them to.

                1. Don’t be surprised if they try to make taxes based on what identity group people are put into; think of them as “white privilege” taxes.

             3. Is anyone going to be under the 400k/year income limit once they give out extra money to people to NOT produce goods and services? (For people who profess to hate Nazis, they sure seem to want to create Weimar Germany.)

                1. Oh, no, re-creating the Weimar Republic is only the preliminary to what they really want.

                   They do not understand that money is only a symbol of value, and believe that they can create infinite value by printing an unlimited number of symbols. Which works about as well as trying to create bread by making more bread wrappers.

                   1. They confuse the wrapper and the gift. In everything, really.

                2. If you look at the 401k proposals, the tax starts to bite for single filers at $163k. I suspect that it’ll be down to $85 if they follow the purported logic. They seem to think that people in the higher rates get an unfair benefit from the deduction because they pay the higher rates. Im just waiting for all my Biden voting neighbors to discover that they’re the rich.

                   1. They will still be thinking that it can’t happen here even as they are loaded onto the rail cars.

       2. Can I say that doing my taxes is really easy now. The forms are simpler and there are fewer. The explanations are great.

          1. We use Quicken. Don’t even bother entering any deductions beyond 1040s. We’re on the short form. So are son’s & mom’s taxes. We have to get the Business version because son needs forms the inexpensive version doesn’t cover related to stocks (technically we would too but that activity is all in the IRA’s which doesn’t matter to taxes). Federal forms are eFiled. State forms are not. Refuse to pay State extortion filing fee. Not paying State to do their data entry. We had everything done & filed before CV19 hit, early Feb 2020.

             Mom hasn’t paid income taxes since dad died almost 12 years ago. We go through the motions, but she quit actually filing, last year (figured as messed up as 2020 was, might as well).

             1. Refuse to pay State extortion filing fee. Not paying State to do their data entry. We had everything done & filed before CV19 hit, early Feb 2020.

                I KNOW I closed that tag …

                1. Apparently WordPress didn’t know you closed it. 😀

    2. Good. It needs to be said. That’s part of where the fight is. They need to understand what they’re doing.

34. I just want Dan to be there with a camera when you start throwing shoes

    1. Oh, you’ve guessed we’re almost at projectile shoe o’clock?

       1. Considering that it’s always Projectile Carp o’clock…

          1. Well, it’s always carp o’clock somewhere.

35. It’s all very discouraging. There are days when only Christ gives me hope.

    1. Verily.

36. You missed, a decade past, a viral pandemic. It was called the “moronavirus”. And while it didn’t seem to affect the Ruling Class, it left one it two people unable to think. It made them susceptible to huxsters and con men who semed to care about them and have their best interests at heart.

    There is no vaccine.

37. On the homeless seeming immunity to this: I guess the progressives have rediscovered what Medieval people believed: a good layer of dirt and a good stink protect against viruses.

    Actually … that may possibly be kinda sorta true for this particular coronavirus.

    I don’t have the links, but back last spring they discovered that SARS-Cov-2 has a nasty trick. Ordinarily, when your cells are being invaded by a virus, they have a way of yelling “Help!” which wakes up the immune system and starts it hunting for the invader. (I believe this is one of the famous cytokines.) SARS-Cov-2 has a way of disabling a cell from sending that particular signal, so that your immune system slumbers through the original invasion and only wakes up once a lot of damage has been done.

    The speculation was that if your immune system were already awake for other reasons, it would notice the coronavirus much faster and eliminate it much more easily. There was further speculation that infecting people simultaneously with SARS-Cov-2, plus another virus that doesn’t know that cytokine trick, might be a crude way of reaching herd immunity in a hurry. Fortunately, that was never tried.

    IF all of the above is true, however, then people living in filth, whose immune systems are probably constantly on alert, might be less vulnerable to SARS-Cov-2 than the general population with far cleaner lifestyles. I’m not saying it is true, and I don’t think there’s any research on that point, but it’s a possibility.

    1. Um….. the homeless don’t have immune systems constantly on the alert.

       1. And are likely to have immune systems compromised by years of drug and alcohol abuse.

          1. THIS.

          2. Ah, see, that must be the key then! Keep your blood alcohol level up, and the Chinese Lung Rot doesn’t stand a chance!

          3. Doesn’t some of the research indicate that COVID does much of its damage by over-exciting the immune system, triggering a cytokine storm, described at Wikipedia as “a physiological reaction … in which the innate immune system causes an uncontrolled and excessive release of pro-inflammatory signaling molecules called cytokines.”

             If so, having a compromised immune system might, ironically, protect people from one of Covid’s most damaging effects.
             –

       2. And now I think of the fellow who survived by having messed up blood chemistry in The Andromeda Strain.

          1. So what you’re saying is, we can beat Covid by huffing Sterno?

             1. I’m no physician, but I suspect that is what is known as a Bad Idea.

                It might be something of a “survivor effect” – if nothing else killed a “bum”, what’s this wimpy virus gonna do?

                What I worry about is, if it really *is* ‘designed’ and intentional is that the lack of activity, really, will lead to a lesser response to a more nasty nasty designer germ – and the hints of a “COVID21” are not comforting in that regard.

             2. Let us know how it goes….

                1. (Post-that Jordan Peterson interview, I would have thought that “so what you’re saying is” was a marker that the rest of the sentence was satirical. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.)

                   1. Ah, it’s grand. My response was meant to be tongue-in-cheek as well. 😉

                      I shall attempt to lift my levity with emojis… 😀

    2. Which could explain how the father-in-law who at 68 with a heart condition would fit nicely in the high risk category was unaffected by Covid. He had a nasty sinus infection that really laid him low, I gave him some antibiotics that helped through the weekend and then he went to the doctor and got some more powerful ones on Monday. Then promptly got exposed to Covid that day at work and ended up testing positive, no symptoms of Covid though, as soon as the antibiotics knocked back his sinus infection he felt fine for his entire quarantine.

       P.S. I was exposed through him, and spent a couple days in a house with another guy who was not only positive, but obviously sick a couple weeks before that, and I have never shown any symptoms, nor has my wife. I’ve had friends that had it and some got pretty dang sick, others had light to no symptoms.

38. “taking away doctor’s judgement, if you have a fairly standard problem, and your body works in a fairly standard way.”

    We’d a friend, one with a pretty treatable chronic condition. Except that the drugs commonly used for her condition were grown in an egg-based medium, and she was allergic to eggs. So every time she needed a prescription renewed she had to go through a whole rigmarole with the latest doctor the clinic had assigned to handle her, finally convincing the doctor that she needed special, not “best practice” prescriptions.

    Okay, fine, that got to be something she’d practice with and knew how to explain it and how much leeway it required for delay in getting her prescriptions renewed. Except her pharmacy – the one assigned by her insurance carrier – didn’t list those prescriptions in their roster of approved drugs, so they substituted the standard treatments, the ones approved by “best practices.”

    Which meant extensive combat with the insurance carrier to grant an exception permitting the pharmacy to provide the doctor prescribed medications. Combat further extending the lead time required to get her prescriptions filled with medicines NOT grown in egg-based medium so they wouldn’t trigger her allergies.

    NEVER ask her opinion of “best practices” and “standards of care” unless you had a long time to listen to her response.
    –

    1. Someone I know has a SERIOUS allergy to beef (not just for me – her doctor/anesthesiologist warned her that this would almost certainly happen, but it was ‘allergy’ or ‘dead NOW’ and that’s an easy choice) and explains to restaurant workers & such “This is NOT ‘don’t like’ – this is ‘There WILL be an ambulance at your front door.'” We both rather like (observant Hindu) Indian restaurants.

       1. How can people be allergic to meat?! I am befuddled, confuzzled, and flummoxed.

          1. I had an allergy panel done back in the 1980s. The old kind, there they drew a big grid on your back and then skin-popped a couple hundred injections. Turned out I’m allergic to almost everything; bad enough that instead of “mild discomfort” they called an ambulance after I passed out.

             One of the things I was allergic to was beef. Not bad enough I couldn’t eat it, but enough that I’d sometimes get a mild rash. And it was pretty much like that until last year, when it suddenly got much worse.

             Interestingly, it depends on how it is prepared. I can sometimes have a steak with no symptoms at all. A hamburger or some tacos, and I’ll develop an itchy rash shortly after eating them. Any kind of beef stew or roast ends up with Benadryl and hydrocortisone cream. Something that gets worse with additional cooking come, it looks like, though that’s bassackwards from how things normally work.

             Milk, cheese, dust (mites), grass, carrots, tomatos, avocados, beef, bananas, most of the “fresh scent” chemicals, many “perfumes” or body sprays, (as in, “someone across the room is killing me”) lots of laundry soaps… tobacco smoke, though thankfully that’s much less common nowadays.

             I can understand why Our Gracious Hostess gets a little gripey sometimes. Short of living in some kind of plastic bag, there’s no way to avoid everything.

             1. Short of living in some kind of plastic bag,

                –
                Until you find out you’re allergic to plastic! 😛

             2. My body cuts out the middle man and just attacks itself. Carbs make it worse, but it’s never okay

             3. I’m allergic to coconut.. That makes me allergic to everything that foams, shampoo, soap, detergent, Sodium Laurel Sulfate and all the rest are derived from coconut. I have to use old fashioned lard and lye soap like out grandmothers used to make.

          2. Clam, oysters, crab, are all meats. I know someone who is critically allergic to shell food meat.

             1. I get shell fish, because I have heard about it. Shellfish allergies have infiltrated the society enough that a dense lad like meself gets that. However up until the last few years I have never heard of being alergic to beef, or chicken, or meat…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

                1. I have heard of an allergy to “red meat” being a known side effect of catching Lyme disease.

                   1. Since we’ve a) started allowing deer into suburbs and b) not killing ticks with DDT, more people are catching it.

                   2. Well, thankfully neither my mother or myself have that side effect.

                2. Allergies are your immune system misreacting to a protein. So, sure, meat.

                   (And ER doctors have horror stories about people who refused to believe that someone could be allergic to that when they were drawing up the menu.)

                   1. (And ER doctors have horror stories about people who refused to believe that someone could be allergic to that when they were drawing up the menu.)

                      –
                      Private FB Service Dog group, can’t link to it. Conversations were regarding the hassles SD handlers have had with restaurants and access. One handler put it this way: “She (SD) protects you as much as she protects me. Without her, you will have emergency vehicles outside.” SD carried medical supplies, JIC, was trained to detect trace amounts of what the handler was allergic to, and was trained to trigger the medical distress alert device.

                      Other horror stories where a child was told that “It is okay. Just this once.” Usually peanut allergies, but not always. Peanut allergies are universally recognized now. Other allergies, not so much. What is weird is people know about juvenile T1 diabetes, but they think “a little bit won’t hurt”.

             2. One interesting potential side effect of Shellfish allergy is an allergy to Iodine compunds. This is used in many dye tracers for x-ray/cat scans. Mom was in for a heart check with tracer and she had a HUGE shrimp/lobster allergy. Forgot to mention this in the pre-check and darn near went into anaphylactic shock with the introduction of the dye to her system. Luckily was being done in a full up hospital and so they quickly resolved the issue. Don’t remember if they ever did get the imaging they wanted…

          3. I think (and let me state up front and with crystal clarity: I am not a doctor, nor biophysicist, nor even particularly well-informed on how the body works) that some people lack (or lose) the enzymes required for properly digesting some proteins (colloquially known as “meat.”) Further, the enzymes are not identical across all of those types of proteins, with different combinations involved in digesting beef, pork, chicken, fish, fowl and whatever else you might attempt.

             These indigestible bits of proteins are thus the source of allergic reaction.
             –

          4. For the purposes of discussion, food intolerances are sometimes conflated with food allergies.

             And there can be mechanisms in common.

             Suppose one has a gut that ‘leaks’. Not just the usual ‘no filter is truly perfect’, but proteins that are normally broken down before they can pass into the blood, passing into the blood intact ‘leaks’. In the blood, antigens can key onto the foreign proteins, and sensitize the immune system. Or, hypothetically, someone could have problems with proteins passing not only through the gut/blood barrier, but also the blood/brain barrier. It has been claimed that the proteins Casein and Gluten, when they do this, can have effects similar to opiates.

             Anyway, humans are exposed to a variety of substances over the course of a life. Some of these require either excretion or some pathway of metabolic breakdown. The genes for excreting a type of substance, or for breaking it down can be broken. Heavy metals, mold poisons, plant alkaloids, etc…, can be a problem if high concentrations are present in the body, and a non-obvious problem if most people similarly exposed are excreting or metabolizing them much better. Some poisons can damage gut blood barrier, or other barriers that filter out potentially allergenic materials.

             1. Food ‘intolerances’ can be small genetic differences too. One of the forms of vitamin b6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride, the kind they usually put in vitamins because it’s cheap to make) gives me horrible insomnia. I can’t get to sleep until 6 am. I have to avoid all foods that contain it, like whole wheat, pistachios, brown rice, etc. Have never been able to interest a doctor – I’m sure they think I’m imagining it. My best guess is that I have a defective enzyme to convert that form to the active form. I’ve always had this issue. In my twenties I took a 300 mg B6 supplement and didn’t sleep for 3 days.

    2. I take it that allergy shot therapy wasn’t an option either?

       1. Not as far as I am aware.

       2. If you’re *mildly* allergic to something, shots can help *some*. For some people. Others, it doesn’t do much at all. I went through that a couple of times, a couple of years of shots each time.

          “You don’t want to come to the office to get the shots? Do you think you can stick a needle in your body?”

          “I can stick a contact lens in my eye; a needle is beneath my notice.”

          1. I had the grid done on my back when I was kid. Turned out I was allergic to almost all dusts, pollens, molds, etc. No foods or medicines though. Took those allergy shots for a couple years. Worked great for a long dang time. I never got hay fever or an allergic reaction to anything (other than coastal bees, which I developed as a kid) up until a couple years ago I could stand in the nastiest pollen storm, in a moldy barn, and stack hay and never have any reaction. Now there is a certain plant that grows along old logging roads that I get a reaction to in the spring when it is flowering heavily. But I’m still good around everything else.

39. Pollster has apparently found what is pretty much proof of vote fraud:

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/11/14/democracy-institute-pollster-yes-i-think-this-election-was-stolen-n2579970

    “Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton in every major metro area around the country, save for Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlanta and Philadelphia.”

    Funny how those four cities swung the four states that provide Biden rather than Trump sufficient electoral votes to win the presidency. This is absolute proof of fraud and in a sane world would be sufficient to overturn the results in those four cities and thus those four states.

    1. Easier to hide extra votes in large cities than it is for rural populations.

    2. Ehhhh … it is convincing evidence of fraud having occurred but insufficient for a non-Leftist court to rule votes invalid. A Leftist court would look at the disparate impact and reach the desired conclusion, but textualist courts are limited to what the laws actually say, not what they’d say if we ran the world.

       Like coming back from the kitchen with a fresh beer and finding your pile of poker chips short twenty bucks – you know it got took but that doesn’t grant license to take it away from anybody else at the poker table.
       –

       1. Except that this is more like coming back and realizing someone has replaced your straight flush with 4 deuces.

          1. and while you are noting it to others, it is suddenly swapped again and not even a pair

40. The view from the ground is gut wrenching anger. Still trying to do it the right way or we risk becoming as lost. Just moved from a ddep blue to a totally red state and could not be happier. Living behind enemy lines is very stressful. You know not your true friends.

    I am curious as to your reasoning behind the comment “expect in December” You have stated this before. It does track with what I see on the ground, coupled with the sleepless nights and a horryfying sense of foreboding for the last year that I cannot shake.

    Love your perspective Sarah and your stories. FYI my family is descended from an Ancient Planter in Jamestown. Lots of first pioneers to Ohio, KY, Tn and CA. So we have a long history of skin in the game.
    First time posting.

    1. There is no reasoning, actually. Just really strong gut feeling from anger around us.

       1. December is when the Electoral College votes.

41. Perfect summary of the Democrats/left, via Insty open thread:

    

    1. In related news, I see Antifa are being sore winners again.

       1. Speaking of Antifa/BLM mobs (they really are not distinguishable at this point):

          https://www.theepochtimes.com/encountering-antifa-in-front-of-the-marriott_3579646.html

          1. Paywall. [spit]

             1. Insty has a blurb for part of it (that is where I obtained the link).

          2. When could you ever really tell them apart?

             1. I believe that some Antifa members are African-American.
                –

       2. They are also proving that they are an international radical leftist terror organization as they attacked people in Germany who were protesting against the latest dictatorial lockdown decrees:

          https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/16/watch-police-fire-water-cannons-at-antifa-in-germany-as-they-shut-down-anti-lockdown-demo/

          Antifa of course are the real fascists, no matter how many times they scream that they can’t be fascists because Antifa “stands for anti-fascism” while social media and establishment media carry their water.

          1. Water cannons? What is wrong with those idiots?

             Have they no REAL cannons? Have they no grapeshot? 😛

             Those wackos are trying to bring down civilization. Either civilization stops them, or falls.

42. Of course this expose on even more Biden corruption gets run on November 14, 2020:

    https://nypost.com/2020/11/14/biden-cancer-initiative-spent-millions-on-payroll-zero-on-research-report/

    1. What a false Charity that does nothing with a big name democrat at the top? Madam Hostess May I borrow your shocked face for a moment (as the shock reaction on a Rigellian is, well hard to distinguish if you do not have a sense of perception)? I am Shocked, Shocked I tell you that any Democrat Politician would behave in such a manner!!! Thank you Madame Hostess you may have it back now.

43. We are not dealing with irrationality. We are dealing with 4 years of uninterrupted organized brainwashing by the MSM.. Rational arguments are futile in such cases.

44. I went to a ‘Stop The Steal’ rally today, just to show support. I’d say there were about 2,000 people, many waving flags and wearing signs. I saw a skeleton sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck holding a sign: ‘My vote counts!’

    About 10 police cars, four or five small groups of cops standing around watching, protesters smiling and waving at them. I said to one of them, “Your car’s not on fire. That’s the difference between them and us.”

    There was no sign of the news. No news vans, no reporters, no interviews. We got 15 seconds on TV. Apparently, looting and burning is ‘peaceful protest’ but NOT looting and burning isn’t protesting.

45. c4c

46. Looks like HRH Jay Inslee is getting an early start on the Biden plan: On Monday, WA State will ban “private gatherings”, limit restaurants to take-out only, and restrict ALL retail to 25% capacity for four weeks. So no Thanksgiving for you, prole, and have fun standing in the sideways rain* waiting in line to buy groceries. Don’t count on Christmas either, prole, because you probably won’t show enough appreciation for his wisdom and will need to be punished further.

    All this in a state where we have 3x the “cases” that we did at the peak of the first wave, but only 1/4x the fatalities. That tells me that this disease has become 12x LESS fatal, and it wasn’t really all that fatal in the first place. And in about 75% of the land area of the state has had almost no effect at all.

    (* November-December is when Seattle rain stops being “aggressive mist” and gets serious, along with near-gale winds)

    1. Wonder when enough people in WA State are going to get fed up enough to literally drag “HRH Jay Inslee” out of his office and throw him in the crowbar hotel pending impeachment? Oh yeah, that would be considered kidnapping and conspiracy and DHS and FBI have too many undercover agents screwing that up. Oh well, guess we’ll just have to wait for some single “nutcase” to go “The Hood” on him.

       1. Oregon’s Kate Brown is doing the same. Effective Wed, 11/18, for two weeks, which covers Thanksgiving & Black Friday, at least in store shopping. Took mom & friends to airport for their trip. They will be back next Sunday, late. Her next trip is in ’22 (I think).

          Sis & BIL are figuring their 3/2021 trip is DOA. Hasn’t been cancelled yet, but they figure it will be. Our plan was a road trip, but that depends on what the different NP do. If we have to get extra entry passes beyond the NP pass, like Yosemite, Rocky Mtn, and Coral Reef, NP did then IDK what we’ll do. OTOH there I go being logical again. After all this will be all over after the 6 to 8 week shutdown after Biden/Harris take over late January. I do NOT want to buy London Bridge or whatever is being scammed.

          1. Honestly the one upside of a Biden administration* is that it might kick Brown and Inslee (spit) upstairs and relieve us here of their direct attention.

             1. We went to worse with Kate Brown when Kitzhaber resigned. OTOH the Oregon Secretary of State is republican. You might be right! We can hope.

                1. With a brand new prog SECSTATE in the wings …

                2. The current RINO in as Sec-State is just about as bad as the progtard who got elected. When Dennis Richardson (R, solid conservative) died, the *public* part of the deal that got Clarno(? it’s before coffee) appointed was that she wouldn’t run again. It’s clear that the *private* part of the deal was that the investigations that Richardson was doing (that could have let him be governor–weird constitution we have) all got quietly dumped.

                   Her Country Club RINO certificate got renewed when people were complaining that they have been switched to Dems via some shenanigans at DMV. “They probably changed it when they were drunk.” was the excuse. Grr.

                   The capper was the post-election firing of the elections chief. He was complaining that the Vote-fraud-by-mail system was by no means secure, since it was running on Windows server 2000 (I think I have the nomenclature correct) and that MS doesn’t support it with minor things like hacker exploit fixes. It seems that there was never enough money to get the system upgraded to something with current protection.

                   I find myself wondering just how many of the state-wide contests were jiggered to the D or Pass-this-crap in the propositions.

                   At least with an obvious progressive in the office, you don’t have an expectation that there will be fairness to conservatives. That [redacted]? I don’t think “traitor” (metaphorically, not legally) is too strong a term.

                   1. The current RINO in as Sec-State is just about as bad as the progtard who got elected.

                      –
                      So the current RINO Sec-State is to Brown what Biden was to Obama? Ouch.

                      Not surprised. Oregon can’t be that lucky.

47. Crazy pills? No.

    History is reverting to the mean on both freedom and prosperity pills? Yes.

    Enough of the population is brainwashed into hating that which allows more than base poverty and slavery to the most violent that we are about to experience a few generations, at minimum, of “bad luck”.

    And in the time since the election I have really just lost the ability to care. It is what most people tell me by their actions they want. Let them have it, good and hard.

48. The continuing saga of unidirectional glitches (thread):

    🚨Just wow.

    A recount in NH for a county legislative seat, gave the Dem an additional 380 votes and the GOPer and added 1,600 votes.

    In Windham, NH a recount added a few 100 votes per seat where only 8K-9K people voted. This is a HUGE % change of votes.https://t.co/JsqJdPoW8Z pic.twitter.com/QRiRy6bvui

    — Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) November 15, 2020

    1. My gut instinct after checking the electoral map on Wednesday morning was that NH, VA, and CA should have all been red states (heck yes, even Cali!). The more statistics and down ticket race results come out, the more I’m being proven right.

       My gut also said that Trump would pull in a landslide and that the DNC was going to use the mail-in ballot to harvest votes. I got proven right on both of those accounts as well.

       Hopefully my gut instinct about Trump turning this situation in his favor and coming out a winner like he has through his whole first term is on point too. *praypraypraypray*

       Btw, thanks for plugging TheDonald.win. I checked it out. It’s helped my mental health a LOT to be there.

       1. On the run up to the election it looked more and more like CA and NY had a chance of being in play.

          By the time this is all done they might end up that way after all.

          1. I’m curious about Illinois, too. Urbana is always going to be blue (college town), but according to family that lives there, Springfield went red and the suburbs of Chicago were chock full of Trump signs.

             1. mmhmm

                I had hears variants of “IL is in play” too. But Chicago’s fraud machine is so legendary that beating it isn’t really considered; I voted more on principle and for personal reasons.

             2. >> “the suburbs of Chicago were chock full of Trump signs”

                Wait, are you saying Chicago really IS MAGA country? Holy crap, we may have to exonerate Jussie Smollett!

                1. Chicago suburbs are not the same as downtown! It was such an incompetent fraud too. Kind of like this election….

                   1. I know. I’m just joking. I probably should have included a smiley to make that clearer.

                      1. I knew it was a joke. I was trying to joke back. Must need more emojis….

                         1. Emojis and that legendary sarcasm font that people have been asking about since, oh, the days before the Blog Wars.

                2. I’ll get my Get Off My Lawn hat and recall when the Chicago ‘burbs were frequently a sufficient counterbalance to the city. I suspect as liberals left Chicago itself, they kept voting left in the suburbs, and being Chicago, kept voting Dem in the city. (Along with dead relatives, pets and doorposts.) [Wonders if Grampa Pete is still voting Dem. It’s only been a half century since he died…]

                   When the 18 year old vote was put in play, the Champaign County leadership was trying to keep college students from voting as residents. I left in ’74, but it was getting clear that it was a losing battle, and that the county and cities were going to get clobbered by batches of young brains full of mush. Sad to see I was right.

             3. It should now be obvious that those yard signs were part of a Democrat Deep Fake plot to stimulate Trumpian Overconfidence.
                –

          2. That will be eliminated by Democrats who control those state legislatures in the next redistricting that is due after this year based on the 2020 census.

             1. Which includes 15 to 20 million illegal aliens. So even if they don’t actually vote illegally, they still exert an illegitimate influence on our elections.

                1. The Resident Undocumented Occupants may not be legally permitted to vote (although with defenestration of voting controls …) but they do affect reapportionment and drawing of district lines, inflating the political power of Blue concentrations.
                   –

             2. I saw that the R’s did quite well at the state legislature level, so barring blue-state blues, redistricting may now be pleasant for the Donks.

                (This also depends on how much the Dominion/absentee fraud is reversed for downticket races. No idea how far that’s going to go.

                1. Arggh. *Not* be pleasant, not “now”.

             3. Here in The Glorious Peoples Bear Flag Republic the census will simply establish the size of the pie – how it’s allocated to the maximum number of Democrat seats. i.e. the redistricting, will be run by the Dem-appointed redistricting commission, whose members’ future livelihood on various government boards and commissions depends on them not pissing off the ruling Democrats and getting added to “the list”, so, yeah, Thanks Ahnold.

                And you can find videos of him “guest lecturing” to political science minds full of mush bragging about getting that passed.

                Aside from the comedy value of watching Ahnold trying to explain math, even election math, the rest is quite sd.

             4. Due to increased political segregation in society and SCOTUS decisions limiting gerrymandering they have a far more difficult time with redistricting to gain seats. That is what underlies the resort to Dominion Virtual Gerrymandering Software.
                –

          3. I think they were, honestly. I’ll be right blunt here, I think that other than the hurry up and fraud at the end, most of what Biden got were fake, stolen and fraudulent votes. maybe 25% of his votes were “real”

             1. From my experience being a crawl-over-broken-glass-to-vote-against The Dowager Empress voter in 16, and then voting against this time China Joe because if I wanted to be ruled by Xi I’d move to China, I am certain there were a number of “voting against orange man because CNN told me to – does not matter that the other option is a dark comedy version of The Walking Dead” voters, but I am also certain, because the three letter press are complaining so loudly about the very thought and suppressing all who express that thought, even when they show up in hundreds of thousands to protest, that the Voting Dead votes and the simply fabricated votes are what put China Joe and the Ho anywhere close to surpassing Barry Sotoero’s total votes.

       2. Talked to my mom, who is absolutely convinced Trump can’t win. But then she gets European news….

          1. How’s her English?

             If it’s any good, you could point her toward a nice blogger of Portuguese ethnicity who used to be an accountant…

             😛

             1. Only one person in the family speaks English: my brother. And he’s not comfortable reading it if it’s more complicated than oh, a recipe.

          2. If this is even half true, it may give everybody an “out”:

             https://the-american-catholic.com/2020/11/16/release-the-kraken/

             “We have so much evidence, I feel like it’s coming in through a fire hose,” Powell said, while noting that she won’t reveal the evidence that she has.

             “They can stick a thumb drive in the [voting] machine, they can upload software to it even from the Internet … from Germany or Venezuela even,” she said, adding that operations “can watch votes in real-time” and “can shift votes in real-time,” or alleged bad actors can “remote access anything.”

             “We’ve identified mathematically the exact algorithm they’ve used—and planned to use from the beginning” that allegedly switched votes to Biden, Powell remarked.

             If it can be invalidated based on malware, and we can clean it up, then there’s face-saving options for the non-malicious Democrats.

49. So just recently I discovered that the Bush Administration, like most politicians of either ilk, like war to help the other elites make more money. And they don’t give a single Fuck for all the men and women that die and are mangled in the process. I was heart broken. I asked my disabled, very socio-politically savvy veteran hubby why did you serve? He says: “I serve my country, not it’s politicians. I protect the Constitution.” So with the Progressives promising us Nirvana, I am fear a storm of retribution( for believing in Trump) in the form of higher taxes, higher gas prices, higher grocery bills, etc. And then my proud husband winks at me and says “I am the Storm”

    1. I may be wrong, but I honestly think Bush began the Two Prog War with the simple intention of providing thee Middle East with a messy object lesson on how unpleasant life could get when you attack the US. Later he was a seduced by the siren song of ‘Nation Building’ (which was a guaranteed mess from day one) and the ‘logic’ of fighting the terrorists in the Middle East instead of on our soil.

       We really should have wrecked the place and LEFT. Bush had enough spine to order the wrecking, but NOT enough to leave, sayin, “behave, or we’ll be back!”.

       But remember at all times; the narrative of that War has been corrupted by the Fascist left from day one. People seriously believe that no WMDs were found, when the opposite if true on every level.

       1. “Wreck and leave” was complicated by a couple of things.

          The first was that we couldn’t find Saddam Hussein. Getting rid of him was pretty important.

          The second was that Obama did finally leave… and ISIS promptly moved in. Things could have been handled in a much better fashion than they were. But I don’t think that there were any easy solutions.

          1. Third factor: history shows that with fanatics, Dresden / Tokyo levels of wrecking are required…. and there’s no way our Disloyal Opposition would have allowed that even if W had the fortitude to do it.

    2. Fox and a few others have direct evidence of WMDs, etc.

       1. The problem with Iraq wasn’t removing Saddam. It was the idiotic and inept “nation building’ that came after. They should have found the first viable group of generals, told them “you’re in charge now, don’t break the agreements Saddam kept breaking, don’t abuse your own people, and don’t support terrorists. If you, we come back. You don’t want us to come back.”

          1. Hindsight, of course. IIRC, I think at least one portion of the arguments in favor of attempting nation building was the knowledge that being “hands off” of Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out contributed to the situation that existed in 2001.

             Unfortunately if we *had* followed the less involved path there would have been *other* negative occurrences … it is even possible that in that alternate universe, it would seem apparent that walking away “was a bad idea.”

             Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

             1. In fairness, I had that view at the time Saddam was removed. Afghanistan and Iraq are two very different situations, partly due to location and partly due to the make up of the populace. Iran would have been limited in the mess they could have caused if the Iraqi military had been left intact. Yes there would have been sectarian strife, which makes it par for the course for most of the Middle East

             2. The biggest problem was gutting the nation-building in favor of being “nice”– which means genuflecting to the cultural demands of psychotic a-holes, and ignoring that the culture demands that those who want to survive also make demands like psychotic a-holes if they’re not going to be treated as raw meat thrown to dogs.

                1. The main difference between ‘Nation Building’ and good old fashioned Colonial Paternalism is that Colonial Paternalism WORKED. It wasn’t necessarily NICE. It often treated the subject people like livestock (the Dutch were especially bad, for some reason). But it kept the psychotics down, it kept the areas it was imposed on at least marginally productive. It advanced civilization, if for purely selfish reasons. And in some areas (*cough* British Empire other than Ireland *cough*) it was actually pretty good.

                   Nation Building DOESN’T work.

             3. Hindsight only in that those with the foresight to say it at the time were ignored in favor of “We’ll make them be a western democracy! Iraq can be the 51st State!” idiots.

                Choosing a new general to put in power is a time tested tradition because it works unless you choose a weak general. Making a conquered middle eastern state into West Virginia is not such a tradition because it never ever worked ever.

          2. The message should have been, “You’re in charge, or whoever can take it from you. You wanna persecute your people, that’s between them and you. You annoy US and we’ll be back. And you don’t want us to come back and play another round of ‘Let’s make the rubble bounce’.

50. The only explanation is that they are “crazy cakes” and should be locked up in insane asylums.

    1. I should continue with– With all of Biden and his family’s corruption, what a friend told me that she hated Trump because of “locker room” talk. WHAT??? I’m beginning to think even the normals are crazy.

       1. These people know no history, not even recent history (*cough* Churchill *cough*).

          Trump is a mild and rather milquetoast return to normal political speech. He only looks bad to some people because for the last few decades all the politicians have been shined up used car salesmen.

          1. As a lazy person – where did you hear about those things? IIRC, Jackson was a bit foul, as was (I think) Grant – both being old school generals I am unsurprised.

             1. Mostly just things you hear from time to time…

                But the number of politicians who ended up dead or missing a limb on the wrong end of a duel gives a pretty good hint.

          2. And the left’s pols who weren’t polished have by and large had the media running cover for them, the last few decades.

          3. Biden has a 50 year track record of denigrating other people. Of course the media has provided cover for him for those same 50 years.

             1. Biden has generally denigrated the right people, s it wasn’t denigration denigration. More like Truth to Powerless.
                –

51. After thinking about it a good bit, I suspect it boils down to a lot of people both want it to be true and believe that the words make reality, so they are chanting the words as hard as they can to feel that they have control over the outcome.

    I think that’s also why they fear us speaking: it refutes the idea that their words can control the events.

52. Sarah, I’m not sure if your website is self-hosted or hosted by WordPress, but I thought I should mention in case you hadn’t heard already that WordPress has begun deplatforming some popular blogs that are hostile to the Left’s narrative.

    1. Yep, just saw a link to this: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/15/the-treehouse-is-deplatformed/

       WPDE–more like roll left and die, I suspect…

       1. Of course as a PLATFORM, rather than a publisher, they are not permitted to discriminate between content that is not criminal in nature. Such discrimination is the equivalent of cancelling people’s phone service because the provider does not like what the people are saying on the phone…..and have no doubt that if the left gets their way then THAT is what is coming next.,

    2. Any place I can look if WordPress does that? I need this community for my sanity.

       1. If us goofballs contribute to preserving your sanity, you’re really in trouble.
          ———————————
          Sanity is like anything else — best practiced in moderation.

          1. Communal sanity is different. I think that is what’s practiced here

             1. One of the Laugh In hosts claimed, on the show, that it was not a TV show, but national group therapy. He might have been right about that.

                1. Cue Arte Johnson voice: Verrrryyy Interesting!

       2. We’re on MeWe. Nothing stopping you from recreating your Evenstar profile, complete with picture, there.

          1. I hate social media but I’m gonna do this.

    3. It’s hosted through WordPress.
       I’ve had five emails on this today.
       I OWN the domain, and if this goes down it will be up on my own domain by morning, but I REALLY need to take a day and make backups.

       1. Will you provide the web address for the domain’s new location and how will it be disseminated?

          1. Unless I’m completely missing something, the “web address” will be the same as it is now:

             https://accordingtohoyt.com/

             That’s why personally owning the domain name is such an advantage. It’s far easier to move from one hosting provider to another. I own over 50 domain names myself. (Don’t ask — long story involving multiple long-term business plans).

             BTW, Mrs. Hoyt, if you’re reading this, PLEASE make a backup of your website as soon as possible and then DOWNLOAD the encapsulated backup file to your own computer. By all means go hog wild then with uploading a copy to a free cloud service like Dropbox and also writing yet another copy to a DVD-R/BD-R optical diskette and/or an external hard drive. The more the merrier. ^_^

             Also, the original backup should only take ten minutes, tops! From where in the world are you getting this “take a day” stuff?

             https://wordpress.org/support/article/wordpress-backups/

             1. From the fact that I’m technically declined…..

                1. Contact me if you need any help. I’ve been away a long time — cared for my mother with a brain tumor, until her death, moved, other crazy stuff — but came back close the the elections.
                   Anyway, I am pretty good with tech, and highly disgusted with Big Tech censorship.

             2. Also copy the backup to a removable device. Then remove it.

          2. Considering that Mrs. Hoyt was one of my sources for the idea, I’m sure she has an information chain of folks with access to sites like MeWe, Gab, etc. who can get the word out up, over, and around the usual tech chain.

             It might be helpful to have a “third tier” chain of people you keep track of with blogs/websites who are connected to Mrs. Hoyt etc. No one single point of failure.

             And we’re probably too small to matter, but yes, I need to look into backups as well.

          3. Should be the same. I own the domain name.

             1. Got it. Thanks

       2. Silver lining: finally WordPress Delinda Est.

          1. Well, she still has to run the blog on some kind of software even if the company that made it crashes and burns.

             Any better options out there?

             1. no, but that’s not something they can interfere with.

                1. Wellll…. don’t bet on that. My company has its software set up so that it has to check for updates periodically and at least theoretically can a) refuse to release them to you and b) refuse to allow the software to start without them.

                   1. It’s part of the whole “you didn’t buy the software just the license” thing Jerry Pournelle used to rant about.

       3. No time like the present was never more apt. Forego a blog day or put up a short story then start the backup procedure.

          Think how much better you’ll rest and of the deep satisfaction coming of having tended to needful business.

          Seriously, if Biden brazens this out and they steal Georgia you will want to make sure the full text of your thought crimes is available.
          –

53. WTF, Joe? You call this scam honoring your deceased son?

    WTF, MSM? How is it this was never looked at before the first primary?

    Tax filings reveal Biden cancer charity spent millions on salaries, zero on research
    A cancer charity started by Joe Biden gave out no money to research, and spent most of its contributions on staff salaries, federal filings show.

    The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife Jill Biden to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes,” according to its IRS mission statement. But it gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington DC aides it hired.

    The charity took in $4,809,619 in contributions in fiscal years 2017 and 2018, and spent $3,070,301 on payroll in those two years. The group’s president, Gregory Simon, raked in $429,850 in fiscal 2018 (July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019), according to the charity’s most recent federal tax filings.

    Simon, a former Pfizer executive and longtime health care lobbyist who headed up the White House’s cancer task force in the Obama administration, saw his salary nearly double from the $224,539 he made in fiscal 2017, tax filings show.

    Danielle Carnival, former chief of staff for Obama’s cancer initiative, the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, who took home $258,207 in 2018.

    The charity spent $56,738 on conferences and $59,356 on travel that year. The following year, the travel expenditure swelled to $97,149, and the non-profit spent $742,953 on conferences, tax filings show.

    But under grants distributed, it listed zero.

    Simon had said that the main point of the charity was not to give out grants, and that its goal was to find ways to accelerate treatment for all, regardless of their economic or cultural backgrounds.

    [SNIP]

    After only two years, the charity “paused” its operations when Biden and his wife stepped down for Joe Biden’s presidential run.

    Although the organization is still officially active, according to the IRS, Simon said in a 2019 interview that without the Bidens at the helm, the charity lost its edge.

    “We tried to power through but it became increasingly difficult to get the traction we needed to complete our mission,” he told the AP in July 2019.

    Neither Simon nor Biden could be reached for comment last week.
    –

    1. It WAS a charity. They took in all those poor lobbyists left unemployed when Queen Hillary was denied the crown.

    2. Par for the course. These charities don’t spend money on actual productive work. Instead, they spend a small amount of their “donations” on social events that “raise awareness” of the issue that they were supposedly created to combat. The rest of us would ordinarily refer to such social events as “parties”.

       The rest of the money gets spent on lining pock… er, I mean, salaries for the board that helps run the charity.

    3. This nonsense is far more common than most people realize. It doesn’t really darken my opinion of Grandpa Gropes much either. This can happen without the sponsoring celebrity or politician knowing anything about it. And often does.

       I never EVER give to United Way. Not because if the Leftwing charities it supports (though that would be an issue if not for MY issue) but because EVERY CITY I have lived in or near has had a MAJOR embezzlement scandal with its United Way organization. Every. Single. One.

       There’s something systemically wrong with its structure. And I doubt it’s the only one.

       I would also LOVE to see a deep audit of a LOT of ‘respectable’ charities like The American Heart Association. Just as an example, everyone blathers about Big Tobacco, but I would like to see a serious exam8nation of Big Anti-Tobacco. I doubt they’re all that different.

       1. United Way also has a nasty schtick where they “partner” with a corporation, which then commits to get its employees to “contribute” to United Way via payroll deduction. I got the card with my check one day, “just sign here and give to your supervisor.” A few weeks later I got a call from HR, trying to browbeat me into signing away TWENTY PERCENT of my paycheck.

          Not no, but hell no.

          That was undoubtedly one of the contributing factors to the end of my time there as a corporate sarariman.

54. The warnings were there. Some conservatives heard, but liberals were never told, or closed their ears and eyes.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/a_criminal_enterprise_aka_the_democratic_party.html?fbclid=IwAR02aRaLMfLLDAfAJlFFwpyIGRNBUqTV-9SSKeFQCe47efY8S0O02-qUEmk

55. Nomination time:
    https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21757306-december-2020

56. 

    1. What in the ever loving bent sanity of ours is THAT.

       1. The Kraken has been released!

          But since this is a pro-Trump Kraken it takes the form of a Rare Pepe.

          1. *gibbers*

             1. Someone hasn’t spent nearly enough time on the internet.

    2. That’s just … horrifying and also hilarious.

57. Hello, I guess comments are moderated, so please feel free not to publish this message (I’m not a people’s person.. 😁).
    I’d just like to point this link to your attention:

    They are interviews to witnesses of the fraud in Detroit, but it looks like few people have seen them so far (it looks like Twitter and Facebook block them…no surprise…).
    It’s the first time I write here, but I have you in my contacts on Facebook (which i’m hardly using anymore).
    Sorry if you have already spoken about those interviews here, but sincerely I don’t read very regularly here so I’m not completely sure.
    I’m not american and still yesterday night while I was listening to those witnesses i was feeling sick and I’d like people to see them. I simply thought you were the right person to point that link to.
    For years I thought about moving to the United States, and every year I took part in the lottery for the green card, but a few years ago it became very clear to me which direction the States were going, so I stopped applying (you don’t leave a communist country for another communist country …). I still naively did not imagine things were going to get this bad … I’m trying to help for the little I can do by sharing information…
    From what you write, it looks like you are feeling very down in these days, but please try to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel (and this goes for me too… I tend to depression). I think this time it is too big to be swept under the carpet, and it looks like people are finally starting to wake up.
    Recently I moved to Parler and Mewe. My profile on parler is metalluisa if you want to check I’m not a troll.
    Hugs, Luisa

    1. That’s horrifyingly brazen. This sort of contemptuous “screw you” behavior is specifically why our dear Mrs. Hoyt has been driven to near madness by the seemingly inevitable supremacy of the socialists after decades of their Long March through our institutions. Frankly, it’s stirring in me personally a crow’s murder of remarkably ugly feelings. One can only imagine that untold hundreds of thousands of Americans are experiencing extremely itchy trigger fingers indeed. These people on the left genuinely think “a touch of the old ultraviolence” is only in the movies. -_-

       1. These folks should think upon the fact that various foreigners would happily detonate a nuclear weapon in their fair city, and only the US military, and those US intel folks who aren’t detailed to the “overturn US elections” department, stand in eth way of that.

          At some point some lazy fellow, recalling this election, may decide that jumping through all the hoops and doing all the JAG-compliance to drone-strike that guy loading that container in order to keep Detroit or Milwaukee or Philly down at the background rad level is really too much work today.

58. And it looks like Amazon’s music player may have removed the ability to search the library of songs you own.

    They’ve been trying to push me into their “music unlimited” program for a long time now. Looks like just one more brick in that wall.

    I miss my Cowon MP3 player. I’d get the music in CDs and rip them to am lossless format that the Cowon could read, and it had days of playtime with fantastic audio quality. But they used a goofy proprietary connector form their USB port which finally failed, so I’d shifted to using the Amazon Music app on my phone. Convenient, but the sound was never quite as good. Now it looks like they’re dropping basic features from it too. I own the mp3s, so I’ll probably just need to find another, more functional music app to replace it with, but it’s sad to see it heading off the deep end.

    1. There are plenty of other MP3 players out there that work off a standard USB connection to a mini-USB connection. Sandisk makes on as do many other companies.

59. Speaking of everyone losing their minds, I see wordpress is kicking Conservative Treehouse out the door (https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/15/the-treehouse-is-deplatformed/).

    Hope you’ve a backup host plan in case they come for you, Sarah.

    1. I own the domain. I have where to put it. Mostly I went with wordpress hosting for security.

       1. Glad to hear that. I figured you’d be aware and ready but sent the info just in case.

    2. And now WP lists an offense:
       “Proliferating or creating verifiably false claims or content that could undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.”

       https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/11/16/update-from-wordpress-automattic-on-treehouse-deplatforming/

       1. So… banned for being truthful?

          Sent from Workspace ONE Boxer

       2. & just think, as short a time ago as 2 November, our Tech Lords thought it acceptable to question the electoral system; https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/11/02/computer-experts-sound-warnings-safety-americas-voting-machines/6087174002/

60. *small querulous voice* I haven’t lost my mind…it’s backed up on tape…somewhere…

    1. Magnetic or paper?

       1. 8-level metallized Mylar punch tape! Magnetic tape can be erased, and paper tape turns into mush if it gets wet.

          1. Hah! I have mine backed up on five and a quarter floppies!
             –

             1. tape. But I lost the tape.

61. A minor note on the title of this blog, one which I believe I have granted ample time for some other soul to make: No, not everybody has lost their mind; many were mindless to begin with.
    –

62. Dropping this down where the right-side wall isn’t so tight:
    accordingtohoyt says, at:November 15, 2020 at 10:38 pm
    “I will trust them also.”

    First, all claims that there was NO vote fraud are as evidence free as they assert claims of the existence of voter fraud. In the absence of evidence the burden of proof ought be on the side asserting honest elections.

    This does not mean throwing out results, it means rigorously re-checking the ballots. Where chain of custody processes have been hopelessly compromised it might indeed mean disallowing ballots. If the problem s of sufficient scale the only solution might be entirely eliminating a state’s Electoral College representatives, or, pursuant to the Constitution, determine the presidency by vote of state delegations in the House. If the former, So sorry, Pennsylvania, so sorry, Michigan, try electing a competent government in the future. (Note: this would still put Biden in the White House – he would have a majority of Electoral College votes.

    But we ought not allow claims of “no evidence of fraud” pass unchallenged. There is ample circumstantial evidence, there are more than ample “red flags” as Larry has pointed out. Claims of Dominion representatives cannot be accepted as persuasive given their obvious self-serving nature. They are on par with “I only get it for the articles” and “I was just standing on the corner, minding my own business” for credibility.

    There might be no problems with the voting, but if the people asserting that were convinced it is so they ought have no problems with investigation of the processes.
    –

    1. One simple test would seem easily performed. On Limbaugh’s show today Sidney Powell told guest host mark Steyn that the voting machines were internet connected and had been updated less than twenty-four hours before the election.

       SURELY those are testable assertions. CAN those voting machines be connected to the internet? When do they last record updating? (Yes, such records are falsifiable but they are a first order item of inspection.)

       Audio of the interview available here at approx. the fifty minute, ten second mark:
       https://www.steynonline.com/10765/election-by-algorithm
       –

       1. “Secure system” + internet connection = fail.

          They shouldn’t even have a USB port. It should be some proprietary connector, accessible only after removing a panel with a numbered wire seal and funky screws. And the port should only be live after moving a dozen DIP switches into the correct configuration.

63. Your boss at Instapundit was demanding this lockdown last March. He called those of us who were against it trolls who didn’t care if the elderly died.

    1. You do realize he also didn’t either boot me out or tell me to cool it, when I was saying it was a stupid thing, right?
       Amazing! differences of opinion were actually allowed!

64. Pingback: Happy Flatten-The-Curve COVID-versary, Fellow Sheeples… | The Universal Spectator

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