It’s Just A Nightmare, Right?

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

This morning, between sleep and wakening, I had a nightmare. Not a real nightmare, but one of those where all things add up.

I’ve been worried about the 6th though I don’t think anything will happen. No, not even the congress challenging elector choices.

Look, Trump is startling naive in some odd ways, perhaps because he’s really not a politician. I have no clue why he’s calling people to DC on the sixth, but it could be anything from his thinking a large enough show of force will jolt the lawmakers into acting like human beings instead of China bought bots.

Or it could be he wants to have, as someone here said “One last rally” and a farewell to his supporters, before riding off into the sunset.

I do think the most dangerous place to be on the 6th is DC. Notwithstanding which, if I could figure out HOW I’d be there.

But here’s the thing, particularly if we have a strong showing on the 6th… The left is already jumpy, and they will lose what remains of their tiny minds.

The thing in Nashville, yeah, maybe it was a Covid suicide, but…. But it stinks to high heavens, including positioning the mobile home exactly where it should be to take out phone and internet.

Perhaps it was a test run, as well as anything else. We know we can’t trust our secret services.

So, what if they take out all phone and internet on the 6th, and then claim this was Trump supporters, and that Trump is trying to effect a revolution, and they send out people to arrest all known/prominent Trump supporters (Note this probably won’t get to my level. It MIGHT, but probably won’t.)

And then in three days internet is restored, and the phone, and the story is set of the failed Trump coup. Which, of course, allows them to move on with their political cleansing program “completely justified”?

No, I don’t think any of that will work. I think if they try it, the mess resulting will probably blow against them.

But I also can see them thinking this is a viable plan. Look, they live in stories, mostly Hollywood movies. They couldn’t find reality with two hands and a seeing eye dog. And yes, they’re stupid enough to try this.

Coincidentally, and I don’t think on purpose by anyone human, the 6th is the feast of the epiphany, which makes me feel there’s more at work.

So, guys…. It’s probably just a nightmare, and I’m probably crazy, but make sure you’re okay for the necessities, and keep your clothes and weapons where we can find them in the dark.

Things might be about to get really rough.

326 thoughts on “It’s Just A Nightmare, Right?”

  2. I’m personally of the opinion that the idiot in the RV was a Killdozer-type nut with a specific grudge, enough knowledge to do the most physical damage, and an unwillingness to take out other people with his suicide. Organizations don’t generally have the willingness to do a countdown warning to get people out of the literal blast zone, since they don’t care about people caught in the figurative blast zone.

    1. Everything he did has been done in the past — but not in combination.

      Maybe he was just a troll?

    2. It smells a lot like Stephen Pollock in Las Vegas, except this Anthony Warner guy is even more of a cipher. A modern Invisible Man. An upper middle class property owner decides to bomb the phone company. No history, no manifesto, not even an “up yours” note as far as I’ve heard.

      “Nothing to see here” so far. Not that we might get selected revelations later, to support the prevailing Narrative.

      1. I’m sure the evidence of his Trumpist/Nazi/Right Wing/Republican (but I repeat myself according to the Narrative) past is being created as we speak. It’s taking a bit longer, because they had most of their manufacturing working on GA Senate race votes.

        1. The Democratic Party response will be to ban RVs and propane tanks (of course they plan to do that as part of their “climate emergency” plan anyway”).

        2. Early gossip out of Nashville is leaning toward garden variety weirdo, possibly of the, “5G is a sinister government plot!” sort.

          1. It is. It’s a communist Chinese plot. They make the chips. They make the firmware. All the documentation and source code is in Chinese, so 99.98% of Americans can’t even find out what’s in it. It gives them access to all our data, and all our communications.

            Trump booted Huawei (which is a front for the Chinese communist party). Harris-and-Biden will welcome them right back in, and include ‘concessions’ in apology for OrangeManBad being such a dick.

            Just watch.
            ———————————
            A politician is worse than a toilet. They’re both full of shit — but at least you can flush the toilet.

            1. Biden is already promising to make the Chinese our “partner” in Space, sharing our technology with them while they share theirs with us.

              What could possibly go wrong?

              Sigh – at least I have confidence Elon Musk understands the importance of proprietary technology.
              ~

    3. Link over at The American Catholic pointed out that they left out something really important in the coverage of that warning.

      ….

      He played that song, “Downtown,” as well as the warning.

      Some idiot for the Billboard magazine actually said he couldn’t figure out why on earth anybody would choose that, other than a lame pun.
      Stupid, or does he think we are?

      You know the song, the one that goes:

      When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
      You can always go – downtown.
      When you’ve got worries all the noise and the hurry
      Seems to help I know downtown.

      Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
      Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
      How can you lose?

      The lights are much brighter there
      you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
      so go downtown
      Things will be great when you’re downtown
      No finer place for sure downtown
      Everything’s waiting for you.

      Don’t hang around and let your problems surround you
      There are movie shows downtown.
      Maybe you know some little places to go to
      where they never close downtown

      Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova
      You’ll be dancing with ’em too before the night is over

      Happy again….

      ***************

      I use to sing along with that song on the oldies station when I was a rather lonely teen.

      The guy is old enough that he probably heard it new as a lonely guy.

      It’s pretty, and hopeful, and yeah she’s singing it while she’s sad but things are going to get better.

      …except they weren’t. They were shutdown, and there weren’t any lights, or noise, or people.

      1. I had never listened to the lyrics, but now that I have it does incapsulate why shutdown is driving me crazy. I don’t need people per se, but I do need the action of the modern wild. I do okay in rural/wilderness IF my audio and visual inputs match.

        As I like to put it, right now I have all the downsides of urban/suburban life without the upsides.

        Actually, I put it as “I have to deal with all the aggravation of dealing with stupid people with the relief of dealing with non-stupid people”. Most people, if you have to interact professionally, are stupid because of the rules loved by the same people who love shutdowns.

        2. I had never listened to the lyrics, but now that I have it does incapsulate why shutdown is driving me crazy.

          *nod*

          At this point, I wouldn’t even be surprised if we found out he literally got on the loud speaker and said “I AM DOING THIS BECAUSE YOU TOOK MY LIFE AWAY. IT WASN’T WHAT YOU WOULD WANT, IT WAS QUIET AND A LITTLE LONELY, BUT IT WAS MINE. AND YOU DESTROYED IT. I AM JUST LETTING THE EMPTY SHELL GO.”

          Anybody reading this?
          Ignore that lying shadow. It isn’t you. It isn’t good sense. It’s a liar.

            1. Part of why I’m out looking for other folks’ shadows and black dogs to kick in the teeth is because I’ve heard them, too– and I know not everybody has a snuggly two year old to fight with the three year old for Mommy’s Lap and destroy that particular pit.

              1. The irritating thing about depression is that it lies with a kernel of truth. That’s what makes it so attractive… and wrong. The lies are simple enough, most times. The lie that the world is awful, hateful, and focused on suffering is that, while those things exist *in* the world, it is not *only* that.

                Focusing on one bad thing is easy. Out brains are bent toward that, I believe. Bad thing happened, remember it, avoid it next time. The key is you survived it. And survival is a success.

                1. My favourite story about depression is the Marsh King’s Daughter. It isn’t that the world is “awful, hateful” and hopeless, but that *you* are. And no matter where you go, there you are.

              2. How is someone supposed to properly marinate in self-pity if another person drags the shadow away!?

                Feckin’ do-gooders! Always messing everything up!

                1. Just wait til you get to the point where you can drag yourself out of marinating in self-pity, because you’re tired of hearing yourself whine!

                  1. Add a bit of cheese to that whine and pretty soon we’re having a party.
                    Add a few common items to that whine, say a ratty old RV, some propane, and a few other household and farm chemicals, and there are more than a few folks of an age who just might decide to register their anger over the abuse suffered under our ruling class and do a Guy Fawkes.

                    Remember, remember!
                    The fifth of November,
                    The Gunpowder treason and plot;
                    I know of no reason
                    Why the Gunpowder treason
                    Should ever be forgot!
                    Guy Fawkes and his companions
                    Did the scheme contrive,
                    To blow the King and Parliament
                    All up alive.
                    Threescore barrels, laid below,
                    To prove old England’s overthrow.
                    But, by God’s providence, him they catch,
                    With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
                    A stick and a stake
                    For King James’s sake!
                    If you won’t give me one,
                    I’ll take two,
                    The better for me,
                    And the worse for you.
                    A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
                    A penn’orth of cheese to choke him,
                    A pint of beer to wash it down,
                    And a jolly good fire to burn him.
                    Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
                    Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
                    Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!

                1. I have a son who comes over to my writing office without warning and hugs me violently.
                  He’s not a cute little thing. He’s six four and hairy and ah “a person of tan.”
                  It still helps.

          2. Ignore that lying shadow. It isn’t you. It isn’t good sense. It’s a liar.
            So much this – but the reminders DO help.

      2. The other thing was that, on one of the bodycam videos, it sounded like the RV was playing a cuckoo clock going off, and then there was more warning, and then the explosion. (Unless the bodycam guy was walking by a store with a cuckoo clock, but that shouldn’t go off at half past anything.)

    4. The guy had a record for possession, and his mugshot had that wasted look of the lifelong doper. He had a grudge against AT&T (why didn’t stick in my head, but nothing unusual for lowlife). Anyway, though they’ve tried diligently to uncover some connection to neonazis or white supremacists or terrorism, none is in evidence, and everything I’ve seen still looks like my first impression: a loud, messy suicide, with the “evacuate” announcement being to make good and sure everybody paid attention to him as he went (the timing was such that there was time to run away, but not time enough to stop him), basically “I’ll show you!”

      1. He had one arrest – in 1978, for simple possession.

        1978.

        Not exactly “known lifelong doper” – more like half (ok, 3/4) of my HS class had they been shaken down by the PD on the right weekend night back in the age of disco.

        1. The photo I saw looks like meth face. Guessing he’d done all right til this lockdown thing, then had nothing better to do with himself than fall into that pit.

      3. Considering who it is that’s telling us about this guy, I don’t believe anything that they’re saying about him.

        Including his identity.

    5. He was a D9 Caterpillar, hit by an alien meteoroid, Which then tried to kill everyone around? Or did you have some other Killdozer in mind?

      1. https://allthatsinteresting.com/marvin-heemeyer-killdozer

        When Marvin Heemeyer of Granby, Colorado, reached a dead end in his fight with the zoning commission, the logical response would have been to petition them again and await a future response. After all, Marvin Heemeyer was said to be a logical man, so it makes sense that he would take a logical approach.

        Instead, Marvin Heemeyer went home, outfitted his Komatsu D355A bulldozer with armored plates, and drove it through the town knocking down 13 buildings and causing $7 million worth of damage with his makeshift “killdozer.”

        Marvin Heemeyer’s fight with the city had begun three years before his killdozer rampage.

        1. The only difference between construction equipment and destruction equipment is intent.

          Beware of pissing off a man with heavy construction equipment!
          ———————————
          There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

          1. True on construction vs destruction– but the quote makes me want to chuck the speaking character into the middle of China.
            I get rhetoric, but the lack of proportion makes me remember that I rolled my eyes at the anarchist talk in TMiaHM.

          2. Say rather that “Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretext of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.”

            And

            This is especially true when A asserts that B and X are the same.

  3. Perhaps it was a test run, as well as anything else. We know we can’t trust our secret services.

    There is no perhaps.

    It was a test run.

    What I do not know is whose test run it was. An Antifa group that has it together? A Proud Boys type group that has decided it is time for direct action. The FBI to create a new dossier to go after Proud Boys type groups as they did with the Steel Dossier and Trump associates? Someone I haven’t thought of? Scientologists?

    But, it was a dry run. I said so within 2 hours and the speed which the FBI “found” the “bomber” and declared him dead only made me more certain.

    1. the plenty of warning, to me, rules out Antifa or other leftoid groups. Probably rules out deep-state. Both would have had higher casualty numbers for effect. Too targeted, and sanitary in too many ways. If it was a set up of him to take the fall, I’d also have expected less warnings and more dead.

      2. While I tend to agree on leftist groups I don’t on Deep State depending on the objective. If the object is to frame Proud Boys types the warning might be included to have the correct feel.

        1. Also contributing to the ‘not Antifa’ feeling is that it went off, didn’t go off early, and didn’t laminate somebody’s basement with Leftist Idiot Skin.

      4. The Weather Underground, led by Antifa mentors Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, routinely used prerecorded messages warning that a bomb would go off in x minutes.

        1. true, depending on targets, but the current set of fellow travelers are not of that mind, I don’t think. gut feel, and could be wrong. Might be a Bernie Bro.

          1. At that hour of the morning any collateral damage would have been trifling (to the extent that a single human life can be deemed “trifling”) — anybody like Antifa or the Feebs perpetrating an act such as this would NOT have played the warning (nor the song); they’d have wanted dead and maimed bodies to whip up fear in the public.

            The lack of a bloody shirt here indicates this was not a false flag or similar attack. Too much has to be cut & trimmed to fit the narrative.
            ~

        2. That was after Weatherman’s original bomb builders accidentally blew up the home (and themselves) that they were using as a base at the time. That fiasco tipped the group’s leadership off to the idea of trying to minimize casualties to avoid bad PR.

          The current crop of demostic terrorists haven’t yet come to a similar conclusion.

      5. No, this guy committed suicide the way Buddhist monks do by going to a public place, pouring gasoline all over them and self immolating to death; all without hurting anyone else (aside from the property damage). Very public protest about a condition they can no longer endure.

    2. To me speed of the ID isn’t necessarily indicative of anything, really. Presumable (not like I was there watching) there was enough of the RV left to get a VIN (vehicle identification number) plate and run the title and registration. Guy has an RV that looks like the one that was there; guy’s RV isn’t there in his yard. VIN comes back to him as the owner. Now, as to how they could ID the body for certain this quickly; beats me; not like I can recognize people anyway.

      1. It took the same FBI a week to realize a “noose” was a garage door pull.

        Their speed is political, not practical. They knew day one the garage door pull was not a noose, but they needed to “investigate”. Here they needed to have an answer right now this minute, so they picked a convenient answer (who may or may not have been prechoosen).

        Then again, my trust for the FBI is such that if on a jury and the state enters testimony from an FBI agent, unless cooberated by a non-government associated in any way source, automatically creates reasonable doubt.

      2. “Now, as to how they could ID the body for certain this quickly; beats me; not like I can recognize people anyway.”

        Once they found his house, that was pretty much a slam dunk, because they could collect DNA from hair, etc. there and run the test against the remains.

    3. It supposedly takes two to ten days to do a DNA sequence. But they secured the scene, got the crime scene people in on Christmas Day, gathered the evidence, opened the lab, did the sequence in hours instead of days, somehow matched it to Warner (who supposedly wasn’t in any Federal database, according to the DoD and FBI), and issued the first press releases by the end of the day.

      That sounds like a script from one of those crime lab TV shows. “Captain, the DNA sequencer’s giving it all she’s got!” “Well, toss in some more dilithium crystals and give it a slap on the side, we need those results NOW!”

        1. The only thing I can figure is that the guy had medical parts with serial numbers on them, like pacemakers do. You could probably look those up on a holiday weekend if you had the right access. But of course, that would mean they were not working off DNA, at least at first.

          1. I remain skeptical.

            I would expect “we know it was him” to include traffic cam vids of that guy driving that RV into the area, and then good cam coverage showing him getting out, shooting something loud enough to generate the shots fired call (maybe it was the loudspeakers dong the sound of gunshots?), then going back inside and nobody leaving the vehicle until the blast. I have not seen anything about that level of video coverage mentioned in any “news” coverage, and a lot of vid has already come out.

            No doubt that guy’s DNA was actually recovered from the debris of that RV, but explain how anyone can prove that guy was alive when it went off.

            We’re not talking about the notoriously dumb criminal class here: Any halfway decently planned op would provide evidence to misdirect the investigation. Given that all the CSI shows have “educated” teevee viewers that DNA evidence is always gospel, to the point of prosecutors complaining that juries now expect magical DNA evidence in every trial, planting that guy’s body or parts thereof in the RV would be an obvious thing to do.

            There were never even any of the pro-forma reflexive “we have already ruled out terrorism” announcements on this one.

            Occams razor obviously applies. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But lotsa oddness on this one.

            1. “My crappy workmate left nail clippings all over my area and didn’t clean things up at all. What the Hell is he doing?”

              “Giving you samples to leave at a crime scene if you have to.”

          2. The decedant likely had a wallet with ID in a pocket. The clothing remains and wallet will usually survive a blast, covered in blood-typable stuff.

            Dental work is also usefully distinctive. A tooth or two will do to confirm.

            Nothing at all out of likelihood here, in the ID of the coo-coo.

      2. The speedy identification makes my teeth itch. All of it reminds me of the “nothing to see here, move along citizen” bit. The narrative (barring “we have no idea of his motive”) seemed to come together really fast.

        Oh, and FWIW, the AT&T Nashville site was previously reported to house one of the regional NSA phone/internet snooping facilities.

      3. A DNA sequence takes a couple of hours to actually run, call it a day from “Here’s two tissue samples” to “These are a match.” The two to ten days comes from how long it sits in the queue before its turn comes. If they’re opening the lab up to run the ID they aren’t going to be worrying about the queue.

    4. That speed on the part of the FBI is not surprising. Motor vehicles have vin numbers in several places, including spot that are likely to survive an explosion. Find the vin number, call it in and look up the owner.

      1. Even if it was his RV, doesn’t mean he was guilty. That’s why they call them “suspects” until after the trial. Even if his body was there, doesn’t mean he was still using it.

        From how I parse the stories I looked at, NPD announced he was the guilty party all on their own, with essentially no investigation at all, and the papers we happy to roll with that.

        That’s *not* how police work is done. Not even in Nashville.

    5. Got to agree with you.
      It wasn’t suicide, or I don’t believe it was.
      The FBI are incompetent liars. I wouldn’t trust them if they told me my name was my name.

  4. The one thing that the Left is missing and doesn’t get is that they don’t have the military. They might have parts of the security apparatus, they have quite a few of the generals, even a few in the ranks below that. But most of the mid-grade officers and NCOs and the lower enlisted? You know, the ones that actually due everything? The vast majority are Trump supporters. And they are angry.

    1. They have the Pentagon, thanks to Obama packing the general staff during his terms. In their hierachical world-view, that’s all they need, because the soldiers in the field are just meat puppets who will do as they’re told.

      I also don’t think that they realize that there are other armies. 50 Guard units answer to their state governors, three answer to territorial governors, and one answers directly to the President.

      The Pentagon tries *very* hard to keep its bureaucratic jackboot on the Guard units, but in the end, they’re not authorized by, employed by, or answerable to the Feds.

      1. If figure much of the Guard will be out for early parts of any civil conflict eventually going as the majority of their state does if it last more than a few weeks.

        However, I’m not sure the governors will be good indicators. For example, I suspect my nominally GOP governor would not call out the Guard to support the right of center forces in a civil war but would try to sit it out. Over time much of the Guard might self mobilized according to their views here and in similar states, but that requires the conflict lasting.

    3. I’m not sure they don’t have the military. They certainly have senior brass. The question is has the control of the senior brass filtered down to control of senior NCOs. More than any group it will be control of the senior NCOs, especially in ground forces, that determine control of the military.

      1. My ground level read is that they might have the more senior E-9s, but only have a few NCOs below that.

        1. I’m too far removed to know. I figured the MCP of the Navy and those bucking for that would be compromised, but wondered about some Senior Chief on a boat somewhere in the ocean and his various counterparts.

          1. What they managed in the Pentagon (and a lot of other places) is the same thing as in schools– none of their enemies will admit it to them.

            But it’s even more so, because the military folks aren’t stupid kids, and they do have other outlets– so they put on their uniform, they put on the current flavor of BS they have to put up with, and they go to work.

            …seriously, how much do they not get military that they don’t understand they’re bad targets for this “browbeat with BS and they’ll totally buy it” stuff?

            Going off of talking to friends who are still in (including liberal-for-the-enlisted-navy friends) and relatives working in the Pentagon.

            (Think “go get coffee,” not “making decisions.”)

            1. This is America – senior brass are more often tolerated than worshipped. The average Joe is too accustomed to being sent out with the wrong equipment, wrong information, and unachievable objectives to be impressed by collar tabs.

              That is the main thing the Left doesn’t understand. Being “in charge” often just means doing the paperwork that others don’t want to be saddled with. An awful lot of junior officers in ‘Nam learned that too late to bring the lessons home.
              ~

            2. There is always an “Oh, Hell No” threshold, especially in a US military that has had 75 years of repetitive “legal order” training at every level.

              Non-military folks, especially in the various media, all seem to think every branch of the US military is basically at Prussian levels of discipline and obedience.

              This is not the case.

              1. Also see Sarah’s point yesterday about young people keeping quiet about MAGA around their parents.

                We dominate the quiet (no longer silent) majority of the culture at this point. Not also dominating the quiet part of the military doesn’t pass the smell test. It almost doesn’t pass the giggle test.

                1. My enlisted nephew’s getting out when his current term is up. He doesn’t know what he’ll do once he’s out. He just knows that he doesn’t like what he’s seen since joining the Army. It’s more than just politics (he likes to mini-rant about blatant government waste he’s seen) and political attitudes. But without delving too deeply, I suspect that’s part of it.

                    2. *snort*

                      The Marines cut costs by swiping surplus Army equipment, and then bragging that the other services should be as frugal as they are.

                1. Ah yes, haven’t read Lawdog in a while. That one reminds me of an old friend who enlisted in the National Guard back in the day. He made Sergeant four times during his enlistment and ended up a private yet again by the time he got out. Last I heard he had conned a group of Russian Mining Company geologists into hiring him to do survey work in remote areas of Alaska. When they realized he didn’t actually know much about surveying, they decided to teach him that skill, rather than looking for another surveyor who could be dropped off for weeks on end in the remote wilderness and be counted on to be back at the pickup point with the job accomplished at the appointed time.

              3. Remember how Truman said that Eisenhower — who had had PATTON as a subordinate — could not handle the presidency because he couldn’t handle it when people didn’t do what they were ordered to do.

                1. Two observations: There are good NCOs riding herd on junior officers who might go there without realizing it, so it takes a confluence of oh$#it to get a command team that is that stupid, and on the other side there are always barracks lawyers who will pull that card out at the slightest excuse.

                  A well run command team will not even get close to having an opportunity to come up, and as a general rule, the chain of command is pretty robust in the modern US military.

                  Note all of the above is about actual stuff, not too-many-JAGs-sitting-around-second-guessing-frontline-decisions stuff. They should fire 3/4 of the JAGs today. Maybe 7/8.

                2. I never had to push it to the point of saying the phrase “illegal order,” but at least three times we had people who were “mistaken” in what they thought their authority was and responded to the description of what made something they had ordered illegal.

                  Husband had to actually say it at least three times that he could tell me about (including physically barring the XO from the space he was not legally allowed inside of) and enforce it a further three times, once on his own, once with his chief, once against his chief.
                  (different chief)

                  Obviously, these were things where it was merely illegal endangerment/violation, not full bore “shoot that civilian” junk.

                  They got given because people didn’t realize they were illegal– and the magic words “illegal order” did a heck of a lot to make them work.

            3. That’s an and/both. There might be some good ones playing for time in the other services, but I’m sure that the flag ranks in the USN are rotten. Swamp creature grifters *at best* Because they know, you perceive, that Mr. Trump is raaaaaaaaycist, not that he threatens said grift military culture (and advancement.

              Man. The rationalizing animal.

              One good (maybe) thing Mr. Trump did was get rid of up and out. Now if you send an undersecretary to jail for corruption, you don’t need the express approval of their fellow whores* congressional peers to stay in uniform.

              *My apologies to the men and women of negotiable virtue.

        2. E-8 and E-9 Senior NCOs are very experienced people people. Most of them are also very political animals. Both are a couple of the multitude of reasons why after a 7 habits course self eval I chose to retire as an E-7 rather than keep going. But then I was also deep into the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers at the time too, and didn’t like what I was seeing in the military in comparison.

      2. Field grade officers can be counted out–that’s Major and above. They’re ROAD soldiers after 15 years anyhow (Retired On Active Duty).
        Senior NCOs same thing. None can be trusted to think and act. They are all federal employees waiting on retirement.

        Captains and below? Maybe. E-7 and below? Maybe. It depends as much upon the character of the soldiers than it does anything else.

        Mostly they’re just a group of people who don’t have to figure out what they’re going to wear everyday. At least as far as joining in the fight, in uniform.

        1. I’d put the hard line at O-6 and above – to get to full Colonel / Navy Captain you have to be on the flag rank track, which means proof that the Koolaid has been consumed is mandatory. There are always exceptions, but the exceptions do prove the rule.

          On the other side, O-3 is basically where the non-total-screwup service commitment officers are when they can first leave.

          The grey area is O-4 Major / LtCmdr and O-5 LtCol / Commander. I do know it is still the case that if one is not judged to be suitable for flag rank for some reason, one tops out at O-5.

          1. Your refinement is perfect. Yes.
            It was the O-4s where you wondered, “which way will they go?” It was either totally BOSS cool, or a jerk that would court martial you for not clapping loudly enough at his stupid map. And then accuse you of mutiny. (Yes, even the Army has mutiny, we discovered.) I’ve known both.

            O-5s same way. Both ranks are in that liminal space where you’re still allowed to be chill if you need to be. Mostly. So if someone decided to act like a jerk you knew it was a deliberately lickspittle move, designed to suck his way up to full bull O-6 and beyond.

            In an optimistic sense, the really competent O-4/O-5 are on the side of liberty. REALLY on the side of liberty. And they know how to blow things up, which is always a handy and enjoyable thing to know how to do well.

            I think we have things on our side.

        2. I read this after walking away and doing something else. It’s too harsh. Too sweeping.

          There are trustworthy senior soldiers. I’ve known them. They are much finer people than I’ll ever be. Kurt Schlichter (COL, Ret) is an example; I think he’s a great guy, trustworthy and straightforward.

          I spoke of the majority I had seen or known or heard about from good sources. These, I’ll stand by my original thoughts.

            1. Yes. I know a few I trust at the O-5 and O-6 level in the Reserves and even more O-4s. I also trust almoat all of the E-7 and below I know. Not 100%, but a high enough percentage.

              1. I developed a theory about rank and time in grade when I was in (Retired as an E-6 in a career field where it was almost impossible to make E-7) – I called it Sgt. Mom’s Theory of Career Nervousness, which postulates that career enlisteds all want to retire as an E-7, and officers want to retire as on O5 or O6. (The really ate-up want to retire as generals) Coming up on twenty years TAFMS is when it becomes clear if you are or aren’t going to meet that goal – so a TechSgt. or a major with 18 years or so who hears that clock ticking, is going to be very, very nervous about doing anything to negatively impact their chances of that next magic promotion. Such people are purely horrible to work for, as anything that you might do which makes them look bad … well, your ass is grass and they’re the lawnmower.

          3. I’ve mentioned before here that but for a back injury I would have been commissioned in 2002. Which if I had, and had stayed in, would put me coming up on 18 years right now, and possibly O-5 or O-6. (Probably not O-7, but a couple of the really, really good cadets may’ve gotten there.)

            And you know what the single defining event of ROTC cadet hood was for my cohort? 9/11/2001. I haven’t kept in touch with any of those guys, but I don’t think it was different for anyone.

            So that’s an interesting cohort to have at that rank. Absolutely knew we were going to war going in. Were at war. And the enemy attacked civilians, and the media was trying to protect the enemy . . . I can’t say how they’ll jump, but I think it’s significant that the immediate post-9/11 group is in those middle ranks now.

            1. And this is across the board – I met academy grad Navy reserve officers who were getting Individually Augmented to fill billets in the war zones, so if one stayed in at all past the minimum commitment when one was absolutely certain to be sent where kinetics were kineticizing*, one was either a career flag wannabe or honestly in the service to put the service in the service.

              * Excluding pilots – different culture – those with no command ambition stay in as long as they can keep flying cool hardware. I wonder whether the AF ever solved their retention issue with the F-16 pilots that they stuck in CONEX boxes in Nevada to “fly” drones over the middle east.

  5. Oh, and I’m thinking not so much a test run as an example of how-to. Yeah it took out internet, but it really crashed 911 systems all over the place (Knoxville’s went down). “Look, I’m fecking checking out, but here, use this idea as you see fit” sort of thing.

    1. This, I think, is entirely possible.

      Even if it was a very dramatic suicide without any prodding… somebody just so tired of trying to explain why stuff is a Bad Idea.

      1. It used to be, back when I was studying the field in the early Eighties*, a thesis in Anthropology that suicide was an act of aggression — and certainly a big showy suicide such as this is aggressive. If he was only interested in sending a private message there are much less public ways to do it.

        The message is actually pretty obvious, in spite of the many efforts to use it for other objectives.

        *Now? With how far out on that Marxist limb the field has crawled? It’s anybody’s guess.
        ~

    2. > crashed 911 systems

      In the IT business, the term for that is “criminally negligent.”

      Business runs on data. Even moderate-sized businesses have non-overlapping connectivity if it’s available in their area. Certainly so in Nashville. It’s not just “best practice”, it’s basic business. For a police/ambulance/emergency setup not to do that means that someone decided not to do it. That would be whoever was in charge of setting the 911 system up, and every person who has been in administrative charge of it since.

      This is like “field-programmable voting machines with open USB ports” stupid. It doesn’t happen accidentally.

      1. Last I knew (ten or 15 years ago), the big new thing was to put 911 services on VOIP.
        Everybody’s moving away from plain old reliable copper line.

        So of course losing your Internet is going to take out your phone. They’re the same thing, now.

        1. POTS for the win! But who actually has a hard-line phone anymore? (Looks around, sheepishly raises hand.)

    3. That’s well within my definition of a test run. Lots of white hat security people demonstrate something can be done without intending to do it as a fire for effect mission.

      Hell, that’s the whole beginning of Sneakers which is still my favorite hacking movie.

      1. I actually sat through that whole movie while at home. Musta been good. At the time, 4 or 5 minutes in I’d tend to wander off, and I don’t think a lady was involved with the watching, either.

  6. I’m praying that it will be a big, wonderful rally, that any Antifa et al stuff gets handled quietly and without major injuries, and that there are no, zero January 6 surprises.

    As for the other stuff, well, let’s see. The media have just discovered that someone’s been derailing trains in the PacNW, someone cut off natural gas to Aspen and the surrounding environs (and wrote Earth!First on the pipelines, which might or might not be a false flag. I don’t think we’ve heard from them in quite a while, but that does fit the “monkywrenching” they used to be known for.)

    Keep your pantry and medicine cabinet stocked and your powder[ed milk and sports drink] dry.

    1. You’re nicer than I am. While I hope Antifa is handled quietly, I’d be happy if Antifa got several people with serious injuries. Maybe they would understand just what they are sowing.

                1. That’s one of the best features of the guillotine. No incremental costs associated with using it.

                  Hey, the French never got any complaints!

        2. There is enough spite in me to hit back when struck, much as any red blooded American. The individuals that have instigated and perpetrated the whole nonsense of the riots need to be punished. Those in government and government bureaucracy need to be held accountable to the full extent of the law, and cases of treason (which I *do* believe exist, and need to be investigated honestly and thoroughly) need to be tried and sentenced accordingly.

          That said.

          With very few and isolated incidents we have never been a country that condones political violence. A peaceful transfer of power is what the whole thing was designed for. The fact that the left, from the four years of failed coup attempts to the denial at the ballot box and the subsequent massive fraud surge, has been trying to steal the presidency is very telling as to what has been going on behind the scenes.

          They are desperate.

          Desperate to keep Trump and the American people distracted. This is a game they play over and over, and most of the time it works. But they made a mistake with Trump. And with the people who voted for him- twice- in record numbers. They made their whole news cycle about Trump, and people are interested in what he has to say. If they don’t report on Trump, their numbers tank. If they do, at least some of his message gets out. And folks are more and more finding other ways to get the message out.

          What’s going on behind all the hysteria? That’s what I want to know. If Biden gets in office, that story will never be told. Of this I am quite certain.

          I am equally certain that if vigilante violence ensues because the police *won’t* do their job, the prosecutors *won’t* do theirs, and the judges *refuse* to follow the law, then we will *all* be the worse off for it. Vigilantism is not justice. And neither is the twisted caricature that masquerades as the law when the law is not followed. *Both* things are bad.

          What I want is to be free. I want the same for those who want to *take* away my freedoms- I want them to be free to try and fail or succeed at their own pace, so long as their actions don’t take away the freedom of others.

          And that’s the crux of it, I think. I read something to that effect today. That to the man who values freedom, equality is slavery. And to the one that demands equality, freedom is equally anathema.

          Only the two things are not the same, at all. A free man does not need others to bend to his will to remain free, though he will defend that freedom when necessary. The one that demands equality *must* oppress his fellow man in order to remain equal. In one case, your happiness depends ultimately on yourself. The other is a codependent mess of abuse and mutual hatred.

      3. I’d be fine with BLANTIFA (Michael Yon’s acronym that I stole) dead in the streets, piled high, carcasses burning Rohirrim style.
        I’m not exaggerating. I honestly feel this way. I’d be happy that some beautiful group of people destroyed that cancer. I’m sorry people get caught up in such things. I also understand some of what it might take to put things to rights.

        We used to hang people.

    2. Harumph. Back in the old days, any time there was a terrorist attack, at least two major, three minor, and four largely-imaginary groups issued press releases claiming credit…

      1. And the police would hold a press conference, far too soon for them to actually know, stating there were absolutely no ties to terrorism.

    3. I’m imagining it as a movie/TV show in which a group of retired SEALs or Delta Force is quietly slipping in to take out Antifa provocateurs before they can strike. Just a bunch of patriotic Americans ninja-ing through unnoticed, quietly putting down people looking to cause trouble.
      ~

      1. One of the best scenes in the movie The Grapes of Wrath is when Henry Fonda and the boys target the dudes coming to cause trouble and take them behind the barn, so to speak.
        They were rendered ineffective.

  7. So some of what’s come out about the bomber leads me to think the “COVID suicide” might be close to the truth. It is interesting, though, that nothing has really come out about the guy, beyond he was a loner, he was in IT, I saw something indicating at one point he’d made anti-PD comments, and that this might’ve been in the works for a couple months or more.

    But, to the fear of our hostess, I could honestly see, if the left tried to pull the stunt described, a LOT of people would reach for their keys to the fourth box. I can see the left being maybe *just* crazy enough to think they could control the backlash if they tried it, and I can hope that there’s still enough adults on that side of the fence to keep the children in line to prevent them from trying it.

    1. But, to the fear of our hostess, I could honestly see, if the left tried to pull the stunt described, a LOT of people would reach for their keys to the fourth box.

      THIS.

      No one is going to believe any story they come up with if that happened.

    2. The real issue is every official institution has, over the past four years, proven that the people in charge only care about getting the “right” outcome and will lie, cheat, steal, and break the law to do so and knowing if they do those things there will be no price.

      Thus, they have no credibility left when the story, even if the truth, matches their goals.

    3. So, he made anti PD statements, and thus when he decided to go all splodey downtown he parked his winnesplodo, on Christmas morning when few would be around, at the curb in front of the common knowledge ATT switching building* and then proceeded to warn everyone to get away so as to try and not hurt anyone including responding police.

      If he had issues with the PD why not go park in front of the police HQ for Nashville, or the courthouse, and then play his warning?

      Adding up is still short of the total.

      * Listen to the released bodycam vid – cops were chatting about that building and all the ATT switching it contained while they were rousting the homeless to “get thee a couple blocks thatatway”.

  8. I do think the most dangerous place to be on the 6th is DC. Notwithstanding which, if I could figure out HOW I’d be there.

    But here’s the thing, particularly if we have a strong showing on the 6th… The left is already jumpy, and they will lose what remains of their tiny minds.

    *gestures around the royalty of elfland* For obvious reasons, grand gestures aren’t on our list.

    Still wishing we’d put a windfall we got a few years back into ammo, not debt…..

    1. ammo components too
      I see a bit of drop in price on ammo, but still a pricey 80¢ a round often enough, but primers are hens teeth and at least 25¢ ea and you gotta buy 1000, when you can find them.

      1. Yeah, I really wish I would have grabbed the offered “I’m moving – help me load the truck and you can have anything I don’t pack” 9mm reloading setup that was offered free a few years back.

        I thought that I already had too much stuff.

  9. I found a re-furb kit (new springs) for a certain item my pops left; I already have a certain amount of consumables, never enough for wants, but probably enough for needs.

    1. worse comes to worst, one can always make a spring, and while it might not be as sweet and nice as factory, you just make two, or three or what ever you need. This Old Totny has a nice vid on springs:

      Tony’s my kinda guy.
      weird
      Also my kinda guy. Mark at Anvil via C&Rsenal

  10. Being at one of these demonstrations where you are at the mercy of being cut off and herded by police or overrun by the counter demonstrators is insane. You have no control. You have no line of escape on foot. You likely came in from the suburbs where your car is parked on a train or bus that may not be available to take you back. You don’t know how to post bond in this strange city if there is even opportunity. If you have medical issues the police aren’t going to care. Around here they let you lay on the jail floor seizing for days until you die. The places they happen prohibit weapons and may check that as you enter. You may not be able to retain phone, cash, or ID. Yet people come and bring their children!
    Don’t be stupid.

      1. Being cognizant of danger and of the bad intent of the other side is not the same as being a coward.

        1. Reread his post.

          The one statement he specifically does not make is to be aware of the dangers. Every single sentence is “there is danger, therefore you are a fool to do it”.

      2. Ian!
        Mackey is a friend and VERY MUCH an adult.
        I get his point. He’s worried from the POV of individual survival.
        BUT the reason I’d consider it is that national survival matters more to me, which probably/certainly means I’m broken in very specific ways.
        However I CAN’T go. Driving that far is out of the question/the flight with mask is out of the question AND my asthma is way up right now, which means I’d get there just to collapse.
        HOWEVER I see Mackey’s point and appreciate it.
        Stop being rude.

        1. He should have stated it that way then, instead of saying that anyone who puts themselves in a dangerous situation because it needs to be done is a fool.

          1. I can see his point. I can see Sarah’s point. I can see your point.
            No need to squabble children (Children? I’ve probably at least two decades on 99% of the posters here. -grin-)!

            Halfway seriously; in my four score and two years, I’ve found I can learn from just about anyone, even if I disagree, even if they have a bias, even if they have less intelligence and/or experience, even if their intellect is far superior to mine (& the smarter ones are hardest to learn from. They assume everybody knows, -for example a friend of mine is quite sure everyone knows the slug is a unit of mass measurement accelerating at a rate of a foot per second squared when the force of a pond is applied.) , if I pay attention.

            2. I suppose the force would depend on the pond. Some ponds have snapping turtles in them. Some have gators. But not around here.

              The U.S. left coast is notably deficient in gators and crocs. Tis a shame. They might improve the environment by eliminating certain strains of noxious critters from it. Or, at least, improve the breed by removing the terminally stupid.
              ———————————
              Natural selection — making the world a better place, one idiot at a time.

        2. The names around here! Is the “Mackey” who is “riteturn” the April Mackey? If so, YOUR BOOKS ROCK!!!
          As for the tone, I read it about halfway between Ian and Sarah.

    2. “If ye love wealth better than liberty,
      the tranquility of servitude
      better than the animating contest of freedom,
      go home from us in peace.
      We ask not your counsels or your arms.
      Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
      May your chains set lightly upon you,
      and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
      Samuel Adams.

      And me.

    3. That’s the advice I gave my sons. Although I wasn’t worried so much about the police as the fact that the mob itself could easily turn on them; especially the leftist ones. (And yes, both boys lean left one slightly, the other whole hog.)

  11. If the “swamp” tries to stage some sort of event on the sixth, it would kick my threat meter up several notches from its already high level. I am likely to believe any media spin to be pure lies. I’m already tired of feeling like a scapegoat…”deplorable” “bitter clinger” etc. I’m too old to take part in any kind of civil unrest, but such things come even for those of us who want no part in it and I do have some useful skills.

    1. Well, we know or are pretty sure of two things. The other side are:
      1. Cowards
      2. Scared

      A scared coward is a dangerous beast.

    2. To quote the late George Carlin:
      “When someone tells me to lead, follow, or get out of the way, I obstruct!”
      There are an infinite number of little things even old farts such as ourselves can do to throw a sabot into the gearworks.
      For the history challenged, when mechanized industry was taking over the jobs of textile workers in France (or perhaps Belgium) they were known to throw their sabots (wooden shoes) into the machines to jam the gears. Wiki says this is apocraphal, but still a good story as they do admit both that the term originated in Europe and factory workers of the time did wear wooden shoes.

  12. The real nightmare is the Democrats steal the Georgia Senate seats and then pack the Supreme Court so they can impose their “fundamental transformation of America”. In such event, red states should simply close their borders to trade with blue states, for example Texas and other fuel producers should refuse to send natural gas and fuel oil to blue states, electricity generated in red states should be cut off from blue states, food grown in red states should not be shipped to blue states, etc. The US does not have a large enough military anymore to try to compel the red states to do their bidding, not unless they order the Air Force to literally blow up red states.

      1. I believe I saw something about evidence of hinkiness in Pennsylvania vote counts (along the lines of “more votes counted than cast”) at Instapundit yesterday, and now this:

        Expert: Biden win ‘suspicious,’ 289,000 election-changing ‘excess’ votes
        by Paul Bedard, Washington Secrets Columnist | December 30, 2020 08:43 AM

        An analysis of the 2020 presidential vote suggests that there were 289,000 “excess” votes for Joe Biden in states his victory over President Trump was small, and that differences in votes by neighbors were “suspicious.”

        The study by economist John R. Lott Jr., noted for his statistical analysis of guns in America, called into question the victories declared for Biden in Pennsylvania and Georgia and cast a cloud over those in Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

        “The precinct level estimates for Georgia and Pennsylvania indicate that vote fraud may account for Biden’s win in both states. The voter turnout rate data also indicates that there are significant excess votes in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin as well,” wrote Lott in his report tweeted earlier today by Trump.

        Lott, quoted often by Secrets on gun issues, and recently named a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs, presented his report as an independent model that shows the potential for fraud and other voting problems that should be considered as courts sort through suits challenging the election results.
        [END EXCERPT]

        I have a ton of respect for Lott’s credibility and diligence, based on the fact that for thirty-some years the Left has been unable to refute his assertions on guns — but for that same reason they will never accept his stats o voting.
        ~

        1. Read that and I agree with the guy. Lott does more than get the numbers right, he provides the sources to show he’s right and doesn’t add in quibble bits to fudge a result he wants.

          He’s gone a lot deeper into it than I did, and even on a cursory read I couldn’t see how the numbers added up to a Biden winning with enough legit votes.

        2. Just start with the 2.6 million mail-in votes counted in Pennsylvania — where they only sent out 1.8 million. From there, follow the truckload of ballots that we KNOW about, shipped from New York to Pennsylvania in the middle of the November 3rd/4th night. Consider the fact that those election and counting ‘irregularities’ took place while vote counting was ‘stopped’ in ONLY a few big Democrat cities in the EXACT 6 states Biden needed to ‘win’ the election.

          As the International Lord Of Hate has observed, there’s statistically improbable, and then there’s ‘violates the fundamental principles of the universe’ improbable.

          1. Occam’s Razor: The Left frauded exactly the amount needed to get a Biden win; and it was too much to not be blatantly obvious. The only reason why we don’t have open and shut cases is nearly every state in the Union has election processes deliberately designed to enable fraud without leaving lots of evidence lying around; hence the need for witnesses. That’s why it’s so damn easy for them to say, “but there’s no physical evidence”, or “It’s past the cut off date to challenge”, or “You’re not a resident voter so you don’t have standing because voting in our state can’t harm you in yours.” The absolute worst BS. Even Orvan’s feces smell better than that.

            1. The no-way-to-get-standing stuff is what bothers me the most going forward from the legal perspective: Judges have ruled that before the election there’s nothing that has happened yet to challenge so you don’t have standing to challenge election laws that are in direct violation of state constitutional constraints, during the election you don’t have standing because you can’t show you are an injured party, and after the election it’s too late to challenge even if you are demonstrably an injured party because you missed your window to challenge. Basically there is no way to get standing to challenge election practices that are extralegal in the courts.

              And then the local party folks say they can’t do anything but roll over and certify the illegally conducted election because challenges should be addressed in the courts.

              This is a major huge thing. – and not one of those legal mumbo jumbo things that loses the wider public in minutia. Everyone can see it’s a clear catch-22 that is glaringly obvious.

              I’ll leave the resulting progression if the laws do not matter as a logical exercise for our Federal law Enforcement web monitors.

          2. and where, exactly, did you hear about that? Sorry but if there was 800k more mail in ballots than those sent out, trump would be talking about it on tv every twenty seconds

            1. Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it seem that Trump has a hard time getting on the television these days?

              I’m not sure about the 800K ballots claim, but a) check my comment about John Lott’s findings elsewhere this page and b) check this Instapundit post Tuesday evening:

              NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Pennsylvania Republicans find ‘alarming discrepancy’ twice the margin of Biden’s victory. “According to the GOP analysis, county election results showed 6,962,607 total ballots were reported as being cast, while the SURE system indicated that only 6,760,230 total voters actually voted, which is a difference of 202,377 votes. The Republicans said this 202,377 gap, coupled with 31,547 fewer presidential race votes seen in county data, amounts to ‘an alarming discrepancy’ of 170,830 votes, which is more than twice the reported statewide difference between Biden and Trump.”
              https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/422956/
              ~

              1. Even of the people who still bother with television, how many can sit through a full half hour of “news” without hammering the channel button like a rat at the kibble dispenser?

                The bulk of the people who “watch” television are those trapped in restaurants and waiting rooms with them.

                1. Ma watches maybe 20 minutes a day now, if that. Local news and weather in the morning. Anything else means a DVD or such. When I visit, I understand the desire for local information, but the… garp that surrounds it (and not just the commercials) make it trying.

            3. He has been. We have been. Jim Hoft at The Gateway Pundit is all over it. Bannon’s War Room is all over it. Rep Andy Biggs is talking about it. Devin Nunes is talking about it. Matt Gary’s is talking about it.

              Every MAGA radio person is talking about it.

              If you need links that will have to wait till I get home.

            4. The 800K excess mail-in ballots counted (excess to ballots mailed OUT) was reported in testimony to the PA state legislature. This link to Sharyl Attkisson’s site describes all of the “significant claims” of election/vote-counting shenanigans that she had collected as of 20 Dec: https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/12/what-youve-been-asking-for-a-fairly-complete-list-of-some-of-the-most-significant-claims-of-2020-election-miscounts-errors-or-fraud/
              She briefly describes the biggest items not just for Pennsylvania, but also for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin (and a few others that we don’t consider “swing” states).

    2. > The real nightmare is the Democrats steal the Georgia Senate seats and then pack the Supreme Court

      It’s pretty apparent they already *have* the Supreme Court. Lock, stock, and gavel. Well, except maybe for Thomas, but the Supremes have upheld the concept of collective guilt in American law, so he’s as dirty as the rest.

      2. I’m seeing the accusations that Lin Wood is leveling against Roberts. Wow. I have a screenshot of the message (Don’t know if it’s a tweet, Gab or whatever), but it’s wild.

        Transcribed from the screenshot:

        >Posted by Lin Wood @LLinWood 8:01pm 30 Dec 20

        >A bit more on CJ John Roberts.

        >I have publicly accused hime & Justice Breyer of
        >being profane anti-Trumpers.

        >I have linked Robers to illegal adoption, Jeffery
        >Epstein, pedophilia & prior knowledge of Scalia’s
        >death.

        >Did Roberts skip class on defamation?

        >Maybe not…

        /end transcription

        No word from Roberts. Not sure if Wood is still alive…

        Is 2021 going to be 20’s weird cousin?

          1. They’re saying somebody cracked into one of those Don’t-minion vote stealing machines on live TV. How are the Leftroids going to cover that up? Like a cat trying to bury his shit in the middle of your hardwood floor!

  13. To those attending the rally: you’re braver than I.

    P.S. watch what you post: ‘responsible individuals’ are scouring Parler and other sites for recusants making problematic posts so they might be removed from society.

    No word yet on if they’ll ever get to celebrities who talk about blowing up the white house or hold up a mockup severed head of the president, but I’m sure they’ll get there any time now.

    Lists are being made.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1342483479079100417.html?fbclid=IwAR3VrQ0IFwX55HtuXLcNrT7-i89BD-xz0c46zVH_9UeTADaNdiL-8GI_hxs

    1. I’m sure we are all feeling much, much safer with individuals like ‘socialistdogmom’ doing all they can to remove such dangerous people from their livelihoods

    2. The FBI’s “Omnivore” system started monitoring internet traffic in the mid-1990s. It replaced an earlier, pre-WWW system whose name I forget, and It was in turn replaced by “Carnivore”, and then commercial software. That’s entirely separate from the CIA and NSA monitoring systems.

      People used to put “FBI cookies” into their taglines on usenet to contaminate their search results. Interestingly, the Goog has only a couple of hits on Omnivore and nothing about its predecessor(s). You’d think they’d be well-known and commonly referenced by IT security types. Oddly, Bing and Yandex give exactly the same search results. Hmm.

      1. Duckduck comes up with the wikipedia pages for both Omni and Carni, then a bunch of articles.

        For me, Bing and TehGoogBeEvil came up with pretty much the same selection for the search term I used ( ‘omnivore surveillance’ ).

      1. I came to the conclusion awhile back that there is no such thing, really, as safety. Too many things are beyond my control. I’m OK with that.

      3. I all ready know what crimes I’m guilty of. Thing is, if they come after me for things other than those crimes, that’s a tell that they’re engaged in un-Constitutional tyranny. Hello Gulag and Reeducation camps, or an unmarked grave. They can’t come in unless I have my lawyer present (and preferably friends and neighbors watching); and if they try, they’d better bring a lot of bad guys with them.

  14. I suspect on the 6th Trump announces his plans for the next four years, and heads start exploding:

    (Assumes no magic/weird change to 2020 election)

    > American Greatness Party / Bull Moose Party, and pick off the sane from the Uniparty/bootspartei. RINOs become Whigs2.0.

    > Shadow government – endless kibbutzing what he would be doing instead.

    > New Media project, like bought or started a network/sites/streaming. Yuge disruption to MSM.

    > 2024 campaign kickoff, and not necessarily Elephant. Also possibly Trumpspawn. Heh.

    > Declassify dirt. Stir pudding. Napalm the swamp shadows. Political “Glass the planet” reveal.

    > Litigation factory / lawfare.

    > something totally out of Saturn orbit

    Trump is a disruptor. I do not see him just shrugging and moving on. He is also a major, major punchback artist, and does not appear to be big on cheek-turning or axe-burying. Heh.

    2020 was Operation Enduring Cluster####.

    2021 is Operation Karma Popcorn

    1. i really don’t think so. Trump making a third party would likely ensure that neither gets the presidency ever again, and this of course assumes that the Democrats don’t just manufacture however many votes they need. Most of the ‘moderate democrats’ are still going to vote democrat because the news will still tell them orangemanbad and they believe it.

      1. No, but Trump could pull the mainline and tea party GOP away from the elitist RINO/DIRCs (Democrats In Republican Clothing) like Romney.

          1. Trump easily pulls sane blue collar / union folk out of the Donk party. He has done more for blue collar / union jobs in 4 years than 50 years of Donks.

            He occasionally gets disgruntled Burnouts.

            He gets anti-swampers from both sides.

            Note: Republicans replaced Whigs in 10 years, winning the Presidency, by being the Abolition party.

            Trump is wildly popular.

            -if- he wants it, it is there for the taking. The repubs-in-name-only screwed him bigly. He could destroy them.

            Just imagine the damage he can do, to both, by simply switching party. Half his fans wouldn’t even blink.

              1. He already did it once…

                –
                Yes he did switch from Democrat to Republican to run for President and win … Can you hear heads exploding when he switches back? I can. President Trump is first and foremost about the party of Trump and America. The rest of the world can go hang outside the bubble of America and the Constitution. Doesn’t matter which official party he belongs to.

                It was his original switch from democrat to republican that had me worried originally. But hey (as already discussed to death), he was not HRM Hillary. He was an unknown. At best he couldn’t be worse, right? That we wrought what we needed was a pleasant wonderful surprise.

                Not holding my breath. Expect to be disappointed come Tuesday through Jan 20th … but I have a sliver of some hope …

                (What can I say? I’ve always been that kid, time after time, going “All this horse shit means there is a pony in there somewhere!”)

            2. Your history is wrong. The Whigs imploded as a political party before the Republican party was formed. The core of the Republican party was former Whigs.

              Viable third parties are mathematically impossible in our election system, it’s either one or two. If Trump were to form a third party it would just be a reincarnation of the Bull Moose Party that let Wilson get into office.

              1. The US Whig Party died from the internal fight and split over slavery. The Republican Party was founded explicitly as the anti-slavery party, pulling in the anti-slavery former Whigs, like Lincoln.

                The Republicans were a new party, not a third party, when they started winning elections.

                And I agree, now it’s even more impossible to do anything but tip the vote balance by stealing votes from the main party closest to any third party positions – see Ross Perot’s run pushing Billy-Jeff over the line, or even the LIbertarian votes in this past election.

                1. It was the Democratic-Republican party that split over Abolition. The Republican faction took in some of the Abolitionist former Whigs. The anti-Abolition rump of the party took the name Democrats. After the 1860 election, they could see where the politics, demographics and economics were all going against them, and wanted out. Then the war went against them, too.

                  Today’s Democrats still haven’t forgiven us for winning the Civil War. All their rage against the Confederacy is just an attempt to cover up their own past. Jim Crow laws, the KKK, ‘colored’ and ‘white’ facilities, keeping black kids out of white schools — all those injustices originated with and were supported by the Democrats. Their overt expressions of racism flipped from anti-black to anti-white during the 1960’s, but their base nature hasn’t changed. They have always been exclusionist, elitist, and racist.

                2. I wouldn’t mind seeing some kind of ranked choice voting implemented. It would still probably result in either the Democrat or Republican winning the elections, but it would give us information about who supported the Republican because of his position and who voted for the Republican because the Democrat was worse.

    2. Declassifying isn’t going to happen right now. The department(s) currently in charge of the declassified documents will slow-walk getting them out (as has happened in the past when Trump has declassified information) until the 20th, and then (assuming he takes office) Biden will reverse the decision.

      1. Trump is the declassification authority. He says so, and sends it out, done deal. He has access to all sorts of stuff, and a keen memory.

        Will he? Don’t know. Can he? Absolutely.

        1. Just because he declassifies something, doesn’t mean the relevant agencies have actually turned it loose.

          1. Question. What is to stop HIM, or his staff, from taking the relevant documents or reports on those documents when leaving? After all they’ve been officially stamped unclassified?

            1. He can write “By my authority as President of the United States of America document xyz is declassified as of this time and date, signed, DJT” on a Trump Hotel notepad and that’s it.

              One question is, could POTUS attach a document to a tweet and argue his act of putting that document into the public domain constitutes declassification by action. I’d argue yes, but the declassification act is so straightforward that he should just do the notepad thing first and then tweet it out.

              1. That is what I thought. Request documents to be on his desk and in his in Box, ASAP; no reason, just do it. On paper “Declassify the following.” Hand off to send over paper with US Marshalls. As soon as they step out the door. Tweet: “These documents are declassified.” Attach first one. Repeat for each. Repeat on FB and MeWe. Email to his favorite reporters and some that aren’t.

                1. Problem being that the documents then have to be placed somewhere accessible to the public… BEFORE any possible subsequent administration can come in a reclassify them. And the functionaries responsible for doing that will slow-walk it.

                  1. Yes TIC will slow walk the documents to public space. Which is why President Trump, or someone he trusts (at this point his children, their spouses), has to have a physical and electronic copy. Physical to be able to protect it, copy it for dissemination. Electronic for immediate release via every social media available as well as broadcast email. Even if that electronic copy is scanned pages. Scanned, not scan to text converted, or at least there needs to be both versions to prove the text converted is accurate. Then later the response is “XYZ was declassified. Released by my staff. Why is official channels taking so long? Ask Biden.” Any one of us would add “Oh wait …” but doubt President Trump would.

                    Granted TIC might slow walk the documents to President Trump. Which is why the declassification order has to be handed to someone with an another order of produce these now and give them to these people. Possible to even do? Who knows. I’d hope that President Trump already HAS a copy, and saved it, off site.

  15. A bit of Good News (IMO) is that my relief check will be “live” Mon Jan 4th.

  16. Oh, the next four years will be interesting. Don’t quite know how or when the bugaloo will kick off, or what Trump will do — but China Joe and Kammie the Ho will overreach, and spark a backlash. That is guaranteed.
    See y’all in the reeducation camp, if we’re not lucky. Maybe we can travel there in the same boxcar… 🙂

  17. “I’ve been worried about the 6th though I don’t think anything will happen. No, not even the congress challenging elector choices.”

    I saw earlier today that Senator Hawley – not one of President Trump’s staunchest supporters – plans to support challenges, so there will be votes. Nobody knows how those votes get counted, however, as the thinking is that the “by state delegation” vote only occurs if there is a tie i the Electoral College. Thus majority votes in each chamber determine the challenges, which means the usual party line voting: all the Democrats and about ten percent of the Republicans voting for the Democrat-+preferred result.

    Somebody will probably argue for a by-state vote, which would possibly be determined by the Supreme Court … although those bold upholders of Constitutional Order would likely punt it back to Congress, ruling (6-3) that the procedural rules for such matters are determined by the legislature.
    ~

  19. Right now, the only thing I can really do is keep calm and bugger on. Increasing the stockpile of stuff in small but needful amounts. Getting as many of my meds refilled as early as I can to make sure that I’ve got enough just in case things go weird. All of my bills are paid off, there’s a bit of money in the bank and in other places, and I’ve done everything I can reasonably hope for at this time.

    But, I think it’s going to be at least a wild few months as things change.

    1. Well, I just went and ran off copies of class stuff for Jan 4, because 1) the line at the copiers will be EPIC on the morning of Jan 4, and 2) the lines for legal and tax documents at Ye Chain Coppee Shoppe will be epic as well.

        1. Some teachers didn’t run off their start-of-the-term copies before break. Others are discovering that they need more of something, or to change something, or that X lesson won’t work for [whatever reason]. It happens every year, sort of like the sun rising in the east and water being wet.

    1. …”of complications from COVID-19.”

      Sure. Plain old pneumonia gets a lot of people at that age, and being that she died in Los Angeles, her death certificate would probably say COVID even if she was run down by a truck.

      1. It’s actually an oddity: There have been several industry types of that age who passed recently, and none of them mentioned the WuhanCommieBug in their announcements.

        Having absolutely no mention of EmperorPoohsFlu was common enough in the feeds I see that I was pondering about what politically correct objective dying not from the CommunistCovid could be in service of for the inevitable arrow cultists.

      2. Investigators have found that a number of ‘COVID19’ deaths in Wisconsin were literally run down by trucks. Others were shot. Some had recovered from COVID19 six months before they died. Paying hospitals extra for every reported ‘COVID19’ death couldn’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with it, naaah, that’s crazy talk.

    2. Dawn Wells was a really nice woman. Son 1 spent a weekend as her escort for Granite State Comicon back in 2015. If all celebrities were like her, they’d never have any problems.

  21. 2020 just took a swan dive into “beyond-weird” territory.

    My approx ten year old cat, who has never, not once, -ever- so much as walked on a lap, and does -not- not like to be picked up or held,

    Just plopped down in my lap purring, totally chill.

    (Boggled)

      1. Lilly (my Beagle) has seemed to be wanting more attention than normal.

        I’m wondering if she’s reacting to my mood or something.

        1. Yes. Cats and dogs have been bred, (intentionally or not) to be in tune with human beans. They know our feelings better than we do. So pay attention. They won’t lie to us or rationalize the way we do.

      2. Sara the Lab-Aussie has been very needy, though with Angie the Border Collie across the Rainbow Bridge for 3 weeks now, it’s understandable. She had been an only dog for a couple of years, but that ended 13 years ago. At her age and condition, I doubt $SPOUSE and I will leave her alone in the house for longer than an hour or two.

        And yes, she’s aware that we’re on edge.

        FWIW, POTUS seems awfully certain that he will be in office come 12:01 on January 20th, 2021. I think he’s a lot better than Bullwinkle.

      3. “Special K” is a good barometer. When stuff may/is hit the fan, she is in her command bunker under the couch.

        But she does occasionally find my boggle button. Like digging into the end of a row of books via bookend and tunneling to the other shelf end to lurk and “ambush” me. Or hiding my car keys in my boot. (Why…)

        1. THIS.
          Animals know things. My two cats, Jimmy and Fiona, have both been snuggly lately, atypically so.

      5. “We have (naturally) hardly any firsthand evidence for what happened at Edgestow that afternoon and evening. But we have plenty of stories as to how so many people came to leave it at the last moment. … Not a few had gone because of some trivial event which seemed to them an omen–a dream, a broken looking glass, tea leaves in a cup. Omens of a more ancient kind had also revived during this crisis. One had heard his donkey, another her cat, say ‘as clear as clear’: ‘Go away!’ “—C.S. Lewis, “That Hideous Strength”

      6. Stop letting Val watch the evening news or listen to the radio. Poor thing. Traumatized by world and national events like the rest of us.

            1. It’s odd to hear the loud THUMPing of little kids running… after not hearing such coming from a team of draft horses that were not merely plodding along.

              1. I finally figured out HOW they do that– if you watch, sometimes you’ll see them running and 75% of the motion is up and down.

                So they’re more stomping the heck out of the floor with very slght forward progress.

            2. My cat’s nickname is Elephant. Never would have thought a cat could stomp her feet like that before we got her.

              –
              Our last cat, all 9#s of him, was named “Thump”, for the way you could hear him coming down the oak stairs. The new kitten, almost a mirror image (bigger paws, at 9 months he is 12#’s and still growing), we named TJ (Thump Jr), also because he is not quiet coming down the same stairs. TJ’s sister is quiet as a mouse coming down those same stairs, and so is our older fluffy cat. It’s hilarious, the quiet two will rocket down the stairs together, not a sound, then we’ll hear TJ … We’ve had 14 cats now. We’ve never had two cats as noisy. (Unfortunately we don’t have two cats who can’t navigate the stairs quietly at the same time. We lost Thump at a way too young of an age, before the kittens came into our home.)

      7. Our cat has also been unusually needy, and unusually vocal, of late. Usually she’s very quiet (was an alley cat as a kitten), but she has been meowing quite loudly of late, and continually soliciting cat treats, to the point we had to cut her off. She can’t live on a diet of cat treats, and that’s what she’d be doing if we gave her all she wants.

        1. Our 3, and my dog, have been super needy lately too. The dog and older cat neediness can be attributed to losing Thump last May, even though the cat didn’t even like the little, then big, interloper. But the kittens we didn’t have until after Thump passed. They are nine months, so could be a stage. Or learning that meowing example of older cat gets you more attention. Probably both. The dog gets constant attention because she knows I have to listen to her for medical alert. Given the times she’s probably just taking advantage. Hearing others say they are having the same happen with their pets has me going … “wait a minute”. Sure there is some extra stresses because of 2020. But we don’t have the financial ones. Inflation is going to be a concern, eventually. But isn’t yet. Not borrowing that problem. They can’t up our biggest 3 pay outs arbitrarily no matter what new interest rates do. They are stuck with our 3.35% (house), 2.94% (car 1), and 1.9% (car 2) rates until we pay off the amounts.

  22. I can’t believe this took ANYTHING out, let alone 911. As TXR said above, that is criminal negligence.
    The company I work at has designed our network to lose entire CITIES, let alone a measly co-location facility somewhere – and we are TINY. Even back on 9/11, losing all New York connectivity didn’t bother the rest of our world (e.g. London, Tokyo, and Chicago stayed up and talking).
    Individual facilities go out all the time; backhoes are the primary culprit. Having one blown up is an extreme case, but there is no technical difference between cut fiber and a missing building.

    1. The big switching centers were an artefact of the technology of the day, but even in the 1950s there was redundancy. The Cold War, you know. And Tennessee is full of targets – lots of hydro plants, plus Oak Ridge and some easy-to-kill population centers surrounded by mountains to help concentrate the effects of nuclear weapons.

      They didn’t have 911 then, but they had redundancy for the Civil Defense network. Which was nationwide. Which someone chose not to use.

      “Enquiring minds want to know.”

      1. I had never listened to the lyrics, but now that I have it does incapsulate why shutdown is driving me crazy.

        During O’s time, a lot of the federal level stuff (only part I was looking at) went to no-fail-safe options for their networks.

        I think I mentioned in here, that my husband was going nuts telling them this is a bad idea.

        The military ones, at least, have work-arounds that don’t require that the ONE central location be up, and the ONE route to it be open, anymore. After only a few years of him very literally (probably in a chorus of hundreds) saying “I told you so, and I have it in writing.”

        1. With the 2020 fraud, hindsight, and that one ‘hack’ where the Obama appointee outright gave the contract to a Chinese firm, it seems plausible that this was malice. In fact, I would be inclined to say that I would have to be incompetent to assume coincidence. Of course, my taste in hobbies informs my assumptions for what a competent Bob would look like, so that is not a standard I would apply to everyone.

      2. I remember GWEN (though I never heard GWEN myself): Ground Wave Emergency Network. A Low Frequency (around 160 KHz?) radio network for passing information (if not as fast as other methods – if they were still there) in the event of nuclear attack – and presumably Other Disasters.

  23. I don’t know what will happen 6 January, I don’t think it’s a Hail Mary play on President Trump’s part. He’s shown himself to be a master of the long game, almost every time, over the last four years, he seemed to put his foot on his mouth it ended up sooner or later, up an opponent’s posterior.

    Wait and see and as I keep suggesting, have a plan D
    and keep any material you have classified under 49 CFR § 173.171 dry..

      1. So, you mean . . . perhaps . . . for once we might actually have Three Wise Men visiting DC for Epiphany/ Orthodox Christmas? Truly a miracle! 😉

  25. There will be wrangling in the swamp on Jan 6, but I would look for the can to get kicked a few days further down the road. Supposedly, DJT just ordered new some new furniture for the Oval Office. Rudy and Flynn are hinting there will be a surprise and the prez is not giving up. Who knows? Whichever way it goes, there’s going to be a lot of hair on fire.
    Nashville explosion has spread odors all the way down here to FL. Feels as bad as JFK, Lois Lerner, Benghazi, Las Vegas, on and on. Suspect told old girlfriend he was dying of cancer. He gives, by quit claim, property to a 29 yr old woman in LA and she has no idea why.
    Things about the RV that I noticed (stripes and placement of square thing behind window), and now I see some others did: https://www.sgtreport.com/2020/12/its-not-the-same-rv-official-narrative-of-nashville-suicide-bomber-melts-away-as-rv-supposedly-used-in-the-bombing-found-to-have-different-stripe-accents/.
    Other vids out there showing it could have been a missile/drone strike that actually caused the explosion.
    How do we know he was in the van,, alive, in one piece? Maybe it was Epstein. Oh, sorry, FBI’s got us covered. I’m placing my foil hat on the table. I need it for the foreseeable future.

    1. I had seen comments about the RVs not matching, but didn’t have links. Thanks!

      I’m not sure if Warner was perp or victim, and the quitclaim stuff could be consistent with greedy Deep State actors. (“Hey, he won’t need it anymore, and it’s a nice house…”)

      1. And for what it’s worth, John Wright’s blog is currently up now. Not sure if it’s going to last…

  26. Whereas officials have wantonly and senselessly squandered the public trust, future trust is going to have to be earned.

    It may be sound to take the most disadvantageous possibility, and assume true until proven otherwise.

    Item: The Supreme Court is only the highest court in the formal legal system. The American people are a a higher court than the supreme court, and do not have strict standards of admissible evidence.

    Item: Recently federal courts have made decisions that could be considered an abandonment of jurisdiction. Or, with the results of 1/5/2021 in front of the American people, proof that the ordinary course of judicial proceedings is not sufficient to suppress the combinations that have been preventing the execution of American laws. See Lincoln’s speech of 4/15/1861. This would definitely satisfy criteria permitting Trump to authorize Lincoln’s remedies.

    Item: What if such evidence as 1/5/2021 becomes entered into the court of the American people, and Trump does not immediately authorize more serious remedies? Trump’s movements are known to the deep state, and between the deep state and the big tech censors, he does not have a secure means of communicating with us. If 12/25/2020 was the deep state sending a message to Trump, there is a possibility that they can threaten his family in a way that would slow him in being able to publicly authorize what might need to be done.

    Might be wise to make assumptions now, and only change those assumptions if and when we explicitly hear otherwise from Trump.

      3. Well, I do work to moderate my tongue some, for certain reasons of personal aspiration.

        I’ve not quite given into depression enough to say ‘yeah, that will never happen, any work on cool thing x is strictly private sector for you’. 🙂

        However, they probably meant the people person sort of Fed.

        If I were that much of a people person, I could see a path towards doing something. Precisely because I see no path for me to prepare (and keep quiet about), and precisely because of tying myself to an organization that makes me uncomfortable (for the sake of cool thing x) am I so unhappy and coming here to vent.

        But being suspicious of me is outright reasonable, especially now. I’ve tried carefully not to say where I live, my identity, where my money comes from, or what my job skills are. Nobody now should be trusting anyone on the basis of the information I have provided here.

      4. Bob From the NSA is a popular sock-puppet in the comments over at Ace’s blog. Kind of makes me wonder if someone got confused.

        ^^;;

        1. Pretty confused, then!

          I thought it was common knowledge here OUR fed is Fed the Fred. Though Fed the Fred hasn’t posted lately . . .

    2. “Whereas officials have wantonly and senselessly squandered the public trust, future trust is going to have to be earned.”

      “One awshit wipes out a thousand attaboys.” So it’s gonna take a LOT of attaboys to climb up to *ground* level considering….

  27. 2020 gave me the Fickle Finger of Fate Award Monday, when I got out of the shower to answer the phone and my husband said, “Come in to work, the receptionist quit.”
    I normally go in in mid-January, but had agreed to come starting next week. (The lady handling reception was going to go into the back and start her “real,” job). I was looking forward to one more week of keeping my own schedule.
    Yeah, at least I can go to work, and yeah, I am getting paid, but it still sucked to get that call.

  28. I don’t poo-poo your dream because I have had too many come true. I’m hoping you are wrong. On the other hand if I could, I would be there. I also think President Trump is naive; however, I think his children are not and are taking note. Hugs.

    1. It’s uncorroborated, sure. But have nonstate actors attacked American soldiers? Most definitely. Have they received support, materiel, information from state sources? Again, not a question in my mind. Was one of those sources backed by China? That’s an interesting question. One I’d like to see answers to.

      1. It’s uncorroborated, sure.

        I think you misunderstand: I’m saying that the MSM running the “Russia issued bounties!” story at panic volume corroborates that China did it. Because they always project.

        Unless I’m misunderstanding you…

      2. Okay – change the direction of the action: bugger ’em with cold, um, how do you say in English, cucumbers?
        ~

  32. About military and police cooperation with Prog oppressors.
    Police probably will do so, at least at first, and nominally.
    A Chicago police blog (secondcitycop.blogspot.com) notes many police are “going fetal” in response to idiotic City policies.
    No overt resistance; but avoid, delay, ignore, etc, on an individual level.
    Military will, I think, resist more, and more effectively, as the military operates in larger units and with more complex machinery.
    Think of a helicopter, and how many things that the E-4 / E-5 mechanic / crew chief has to get right for that thing to fly. X 10000.
    Think also of white mutiny ” but sir, you told me to do that. I’m not a mind reader. ”
    I don’t know what to expect in January, and that bothers me.
    John Sage

    1. The Denver police STOOD BY and let the antifa destroy downtown. I knew they were crooked, but I thought they were on the side that defended the city. Turns out they just follow the mayor, who pays their wages.

        1. It depends. And it is regional. We don’t have any problems with the way police enforce laws in this town. They do it regardless of the age, sex, color, education level, income level, etc. of the person. You break the law, and are a dick about it, they’re going to come down on you.

          1. And when the “law” is “Pick up that can Wear the Mask, Citizen”?

            The problem with the regional argument is that it is the inverse of the popular vote / electoral college problems: Maybe only 0.1% of departments are scum, but they are where all the population is. That is an issue from both a perception and number-of-people-affected angle.

            And even the good departments are still blatantly violating their oaths of office, and proud in doing so.

        2. That’s like confusing Seattle with Smalltown USA– there are still good cops in even bad cities, but they tend to either be fanatics (there BECAUSE it’s bad), get out as soon as they figure out they can’t overpower the political considerations, or become the sacrificial pawns for actually doing their job when it’s not politically convenient.

          Like the Seattle cop who was fired for enforcing the no smoking orders against pot at the same time he was doing it for tobacco and vaping.

          1. ………..

            So anyone in the blue in a big city is almost certainly corrupt, unless you roll a few natural 20s and catch a brief window of good cop.

            This is definitely a better situation than what I described.

            1. *shakes head* No, most of the cops YOU are going to interact with will be the guys being chewed through– the new, young idealists who want to be cops, and got hired, and will in three to five years be former cops who now do something more respectable, like security on rent-a-box storage.

              The guys the frequent fliers and high profile guys will deal with, and those going-to-burn-out guys are supervised with, are going to have to be political to survive.

              They may still do a crowning moment of awesome when the chips are on the line, like J Jonah Jameson and the claim not to know who took the Spiderman photos.

              They are police, not god-kings. The idea that they have to be paragons is what the guys who make those cities a mess uses, when they’re destroying people for being non-omniscient people.

              1. They are police, not god-kings.

                They are the enforcers of the law, that means the standards are supposed to be much, much higher for their behavior.

                Wake me when — outside a media targeted case — a cop gets 1/10th the punishment for a lethal screwup as what a random citizen gets for a mistake with no damage done.

                The idea that they have to be paragons is what the guys who make those cities a mess uses, when they’re destroying people for being non-omniscient people.

                1. No. That is what the philosophical foundations out our society say.

                2. In the current day the agitators aren’t creating the gap; they are exploiting a wide and getting wider by the day rift between the police and what they so condescendingly call “civilians”.

                2b. Of course, if you go back far enough the agitators did help pour acid in the cracks when they were mere cracks.

                1. They are the enforcers of the law, that means the standards are supposed to be much, much higher for their behavior.

                  The standards are objective.

                  The ones applied against police by the politically minded? Aren’t.

                  For an example:
                  It isn’t less OK to shoot a guy charging you with a knife because he’s high on pot than it is because he’s drunk….unless his family has a sob story about him being mentally ill, and the news runs with it.

                  THAT is the omniscient standard for “good” cop that is nonsense.

                  A related one is cops never telling rude jokes on their private facebook feed, off duty– or before they ever joined the forces. Although that one is at least a higher standard, rather than an impossible demand.

                  Throwing the book at them when they are caught doing illegal things? Actually caught, not just accused but investigated? That is a standard.

                  and what they so condescendingly call “civilians”.

                  Because heaven forbid that someone notice who is wearing a uniform to designate that they’re being held to higher standards. Let’s all have the vapors because gosh, it’s not like every other group that uses a uniform to denote they are separate will talk about the genera civil population being civilians.

                  Better string up doctors and nurses while you’re at it, they’ve been calling non-professionals civilians for at least 25 years.

                  1. THAT is the omniscient standard for “good” cop that is nonsense.

                    That isn’t the type of standard I’m talking about.

                    This is (modulo “we investigated ourselves and found us innocent” concerns…):

                    Throwing the book at them when they are caught doing illegal things? Actually caught, not just accused but investigated? That is a standard.

                    > Better string up doctors

                    …why am I not surprised that another field known for its God-Complexes is doing this?

                    It isn’t strictly that I have a problem with this outside of literal military/civilian distinctions. I would not mind a fireman saying it for example.

                    Which neatly brings to mind a couple examples: In an emergency I expect (prediction, not judgement here) to see soldiers getting between danger and citizens. Same with a fireman.

                    With cops its a 50/50 chance of whether they do that, or use you *as* the cover.

                    1. This is (modulo “we investigated ourselves and found us innocent” concerns…):

                      The funny thing with those accusations is that with a few minutes of research, you can usually find that the investigators weren’t objectionable until it was believed they’d come back with the “wrong” answer.
                      Even if that standard requires ignoring that they came back with answers folks were fine with up to that point.

                      *************

                      And this has clearly hit the Ian wall, so I’m out.

                      No-one reading is going to be unclear of the lines drawn.

          2. And remember: “Back the Blue” is like “ACAB”. It is a slogan with no room for those variations.

            Of course you will find both scum and saints in the police. Rather like most other jobs.

            But it took months for the scattered Good Cops to finally rear their heads about the lockdowns. That is not a good record to point to.

            1. Problem, the slogan has a meaning, and a movement– explicitly fighting the villanization, not protecting police who violate their duty.

              Got started in no small part because of the political pressure against enforcing rules on cops who were caught being bad.

              But it took months for the scattered Good Cops to finally rear their heads about the lockdowns. That is not a good record to point to.

              Which you know because the news in the politically controlled cities told you so.

              Ignore things like people right here who pointed out that their local police never did enforce the unlawful orders, and made it clear they wouldn’t– the news said it, let’s go with them.
              *eyeroll*

      1. The adjutant in _12 O’clock High_. Who managed to delay, obfuscate, send back for corrections, and otherwise sit on all the transfer paperwork until Gregory Peck’s character could get the squadron whipped back into shape.

  33. “We’d have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those darn kids!”

    Tech Expert Shocks GA Election Fraud Hearing With News He ‘Got Into’ Voting System With WiFi
    By Victoria Taft Dec 30, 2020 10:31 PM ET
    The man who invented and patented the technology that lets you scan items at the grocery store, create an airport boarding pass, and generate authentication codes just blew the doors off the Georgia State Senate subcommittee hearing on elections.

    Tech expert Jovan Hutton Pulitzer claimed that to the extent there were election issues in Georgia, they could be explained by simply looking at the paper ballots. And he claimed to prove in real time that the system was susceptible to manipulation via WiFi because his team had broken in and were in it at the time of the hearing.

    Pulitzer basically threw down, telling a Georgia Senate subcommittee looking into voter fraud to show him the ballots, give him two hours, and he’d show them if there was election fraud in Fulton County.

    I only care what that piece of paper tells us. The paper, the paper. Verify the vote, verify the vote.

    […] I can determine where ink comes from, where paper comes from, whether it was mailed, whether it was folded, the difference of a duplicated press” and a mass copier.

    Pulitzer wants to see the paper ballot because what he’s seen so far looks entirely janky.

    He told the lawmakers that it’s not about the code in the machines that caused 93% of them to be set aside to be “adjudicated” by humans; all he needs to do is get a look the “Holy Grail” – the physical paper ballots.

    In the nearly hour-long presentation at a special hearing with the subcommittee (see it below), Pulitzer demonstrated the differences between the paper ballots in two different areas of Fulton County that he claims clearly differentiated between Democrat and Republican Party ballots.

    A bar code was put on Republican ballots while none was put on Democrat ballots, he claimed. Furthermore, he said, the alignment cues used by a scanner to read the ballot were out of alignment on the Republican ballots but not on the Democrat ones.

    If the machine worked according to programming none of us would be standing here. We’re standing here because something broke. I don’t care about the machine. I don’t even care about the code that was written into the machine. What I care about is that physical artifact. That physical artifact has material differences from district to district that should not be there. Why are they there? I’m not talking about code. That’s how this gets derailed.

    He said he could tell immediately if a ballot was real or counterfeit.

    You could look at every section of the ballot count even the spike and tell if that was a real or counterfeit ballot.

    We will tell you instantly what came out of a mass copier versus what came out of a printer. Did a human fill this out? Did a machine fill this out? Was it mailed or was it not mailed? It can be compared against spoilage or adjudicated by number or, last but not least, we will tell you have we seen this number before. Did we see it keep popping back up?

    You will see what gets run over and over and over and over again. That is the problem of why we must see – the physical ballot is the Holy Grail, the second one is the digital scan.

    I’ve spent the last 24 years studying the way paper and machines and internet react. I’ve spent the last six years studying the paper reading details at the nano level. I can tell you what paper came from China. I can tell you the person who handled it was a smoker. All of it is detectable with the physical ballot.

    But the most shocking moment of the hours-long hearing came later when the issue of whether others could break into the voting system and modify the data (the votes) in the voting system came up.

    Pulitzer said he was assured there was no way the system could give or send signals but that wasn’t true because, he claimed, his team had penetrated the system using WiFi.
    [END EXCERPT]

    Gee, if only something newsworthy had come out of those hearings.
    ~

    1. Forty-eight minutes and thirteen seconds:

      Possibly the best three-quarters of an hour you will spend this election season. If time is tight, skip the first thirty seconds.
      ~

    2. Wouldn’t that just set the cat amongst the pigeons, if the bogus ballots could be traced back to China? After all the uproar about imaginary Russian interference in the 2016 election, they’d HAVE to go all-out investigating such blatant evidence of Chinese intervention, right?

      Right?

      Why do I hear crickets?
      ———————————
      Major Strasser has been shot! Round up the usual suspects!

  34. I am still praying and hoping for a miracle. God likes to do things so that one cannot mistake it for anything else. I most not despair.

    1. Amen. I’m fighting the black dog by reminding myself that there are G-d things and Alma things. I need to work on Alma things, and pray to the Most High about the G-d things. And then leave the G-d things alone!

  36. If we want the fruit of the Tree of Liberty, individual freedom, then WE are going to have to cultivate and fertilize it. We have relied on others to do that work for far too long. Deponite Libros!

    Come to DC on the 6th.

  37. Shamelessly borrowed from Peter Grant’s blog today, a bit of Lord Acton:

    Lord Acton put it well, almost two centuries ago. Here are a few of his aphorisms that are as true today as they were when he said them.

    The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

    Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.

    Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

    1. Fits right in with one of my favorites:

      Governments can only print money; they can’t make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.

      I think I made that up. Never saw it anywhere before, anyway.

  38. As a contrarian jackass, I feel compelled to state that 2020 was a good year… for me… in some but not all ways.

  39. Something that won’t happen but “ought to”:

    Apparently the plan is for Mike Pence to roll in a Dominion voting machine (or a knock off that looks like one). He’s then going to pull out a USB drive, update the software just before the count, and use the machine to count the elector ballots.
    […]
    Remember, this will be on national television. The count will not only come out fractional, but it will result in more votes than actual electors AND result in Trump winning more electors than Biden.

    The chamber is expected erupt in chaos. Obviously the count will be challenged. Pence will then conduct a ‘recount,’ but he will use the machine to print the recount ballots and then hand count those. The recounted number will be similar to the original count, only changing by a couple votes, but it will result in Trump winning by even more than before.

    via https://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/mike-pence-intends-to-count-the-electoral-votes-on-a-dominion-voting-machine/

    1. “OK, so this thing is reporting 637.20159 votes for Biden, and 172.06308 votes for President Trump. Was that how you all voted?”

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