Getting Their Horns Caught In The Thicket

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

I read somewhere between amusement and horror that the Biden administration wants THE WORLD to create a worldwide corporate tax, to “alleviate poverty” and so that “everyone pays their fair share.”

Of course the reasons they give are nonsense. There might be some idiots who believe them, but by and large they’re nonsense.

And then I realized why they wanted this, and I started to cackle.

Seriously, guys, they have their horns caught in the thicket.

Rams get their horns caught in thickets because Rams response to anything is to well…. ram it. But thickets catch and don’t let go.

Like Rams, the left — the entire Marxist continuum from social democrat to communist — has a one size fits all solution.

Mostly their strategy is “divide and conquer.” Pit races, classes, etc against the other and then pose as the one thing that keeps these people from killing each other. (“Uniters” you know?)

But one of the ways they do that and keep people quiescent is by taxing the “rich” (a totally arbitrary class) to give “the poor” (a totally arbitrary class.)

In the US, and partly because of tech corporations and the stupid way they’re acting, corporations are “the bad guy” though the left culture has painted them as such a long time.

So the dems want to bleed them dry and pay for boondoggles which enrich their cronies but which they sell as “for the people.” Perfect setup, right.

Well, sure, perfect setup when the “corporations” aka, bit employers depended on HUGE infrastructure like vast machinery, etc. As I’ve said before, the left’s ideal world, the place they want us to go back to is the 1930s.

Nowadays most corporations and even manufacturing are mobile. Really mobile.

So their grand strategy can’t work — which I’ve told you for a long time — and they should have known. “Raise corporate taxes” means the corporations flee. “Tax the rich” ditto. And their “let’s stop all gig work” is only going to bite them in the ass as most of it goes underground.

You can’t import a structure from the 1930s and impose it now. If you try, it just runs your head into a thicket. And then you’re stuck.

They’re stuck. They’re re-starting to build the border wall, because they have SOMEHOW tweaked this is not an early industrial society. Illiterate peasants can’t find “good union jobs” and become a voting block. For one coming over the Southern border is not like crossing the ocean on a ship. They aren’t here forever. They’re here for a buck.

And they want the world to tax corporations, because that means the corporations won’t run from the US…. they think. Let’s suppose they manage to impose their will on the world (I doubt it. I think mostly it will be YEARS of discussions in the UN, amounting to nothing.) Other countries will NOT ENFORCE that tax. and the corporations will know it.

The Junta only tells itself it will work.

And then it hit me: it’s the same as the $15 dollar an hour minimum wage. Nothing to do with “living wage.” It’s their attempt to prevent jobs and employers from fleeing blue cities that bleed them dry. If payment is the same everywhere, they’re sure they can keep them because of the “advantages” of cities.

But since the advantages now involve feral homeless camping everywhere, crazy edits on what can be open and closed, releasing criminals to roam the streets, etc. even if they get that national minimum wage…. it ain’t gonna work.

It’s as I told you guys: They can’t win. We can lose (though our loss is another route.) But they can’t win. The economics just don’t work. The country that has financed every other country through Marxist insanity can’t go into it without the world starving. And Marxism falling.

There is no one to SUPPORT us while we go crazy. None of this works.

They have their horns caught in the thicket of reality.

And you can never break free from reality.

Be not afraid. This is going to be horrific, but brief.

To your stations, go. Prepare to survive and rebuild.

424 thoughts on “Getting Their Horns Caught In The Thicket”

  1. So, the American President is trying to dictate policies to the rest of the world? I’m sure the Left will be decrying this blatant imperialism any moment now.

    Any moment now.

    Any moment now.

    5. It’s never imperialism when Marxists (or Jihadists) do it. Just look at how the people who scream “Imperialism” were silent about Soviet imperialism and are silent about CCP imperialism.

      1. When Marxists do it it is known as a “Peoples’ Republic” and therefore CAN NOT be imperialism.

        The fact that the People are not generally given any say in the operation and policies of the resultant regime is a mere incidental occurrence.
        ~

  2. Like the analysis.

    I most definitely have nothing useful to add.

    It’s all sarcastic comments about how, no, really, we are really doomy doom DOOOOM doomed.

    Personal projects, and stress, mean that I’m short the oomph for new analysis, or information we don’t all have.

    I’m angrily frustrated enough that I’m looking mainly at answers that are not real, viable solutions. Despite knowing that I can have a feasible perspective on things instead.

  3. I would suggest they’ve gotten themselves ahold of a Tar Baby (sev’l, ackshully) but that story is racist raaaaacsit and never told in Wokemerica.
    ~

    1. And that word mysteriously appears. Let”s try it now.

      Testing, testing: “Wokemerica”

      WPDE

      1. OK, my test post with the verboten word didn’t show for yet, at least not when the comment above posted. . Who would have thougt the proggies would object to the W word?

        1. It seems as if Sarah has instructed WP (may it drop into the abyss) that the word.is not to be forbidden – at least, on her blog
          ~

          2. I stand (well, sit – this ain’t one of Rumsfeld’s standing desks, for which my decrepit knees shout blessings) corrected.

            The test post of Wo*emerica failed.

            (Raises wallafist skyward and shales it) Dar you, WP, darn you to heck!

            * = k

            1. (Adjusts knee brace again.)

              Yep, as of right now, my test post is still post-toasted. I’ll check later to see if it’s a 24 hour double-sekrit moderation.

                    4. Wow. Appending an ‘m’ to ‘woke’ suffices to trigger the trashy censorbot/butt. And replacing the ‘o’ with a ZERO doesn’t help. Now I really wonder WTH is up with WP shenanigans.

                    6. It seems it will … but it is nowhere near as felicitous a construction. Perhaps taking a page from their playbook: WoKKKemerica?
                      ~

                    11. Bloody Zarquon! Someone must really have in for the Hannibal, MO Amateur Radio Club.

                      (Yes, WP ate the normal URL, so the image was downloaded, renamed, uploaded…)

                    12. By George, I think you’ve got it! Clearly, Big Tech perceives Ham Radio as a threat to its dominance!
                      ~

                    13. I’d like to believe it’s just a crazy nutty kooky nonsense conspiracy theory… but then, a year ago… so were the events of the first Tuesday & Wednesday of this past November.

                      I might need a bigger axe. Maybe electrified.

                3. I’ll also note they’ve now, in the last two days, taken away my ability to ban or unban custom words.
                  that is…. precious. I need to move out of the service in the next month or so….

  4. As all economics texts say, corporations do not pay taxes, people do. This whole thing is a scam to fool the less well off; that someone else will pay, when everyone pays in unemployment , lower wages and higher prices. A scam.

    1. THIS THIS THIS.

      Corporations will happily raise their prices in order to pay these taxes, confident that they are not losing any advantage to their competitors since all the corporations got hit with the higher rates. And the taxes are so high now that there’s a big hit to the bottom line, so, sorry, no raises this year, cubical farm employees and unionized or otherwise production line workers.

      Then the corporations each pay their lobbyists to try and get a targeted tax break in order to gain a competitive advantage on their competitors. But when they do, their prices don’t come down nor do pay rates increase.

      So corporate taxes are passed through to individuals, and “corporations” as a class do not suffer except in the worldwide competitive environment. But that’s OK, cheap stuff comes in containers from the Middle Kingdom, we don’t have to worry about US corporations being competitive with those based elsewhere, nor US corporations relocating elsewhere for tax advantage. Putting America First is raaacciiissss.

      1. Corporations may not pass all of the tax hike on to customers and workers. You have to keep in mind the elasticity supply (for labor) and demand (for their customers). Some of the tax hike may be passed on to shareholders (AKA pension funds).

        1. But conversely, corporations will not absorb the impact of higher taxes by not raising prices, letting it impact earnings and thus share prices. And that is the premise of all the Dem’s demagoguery on corporate taxes.

          1. And who owns the most corporate stock? Public employee unions and government pension funds! The hits, they just keep a-comin’! 😦

          2. True. No matter how you slice it taxing corporations is stupid, the tax just gets passed on to customers, suppliers, and shareholders in varying proportions (that have nothing to do with tax policy). That’s why I think we should just get rid of corporate taxes altogether and tax dividends as regular income. Between that and the savings at the IRS – most of the tax code deals with what constitutes a corporation and what expenses they can deduct from their taxable income – I think the budget would actually come out ahead.

            As an added bonus there wouldn’t be any difference between a for-profit and a not-for-profit corporation, so the Lois Lerner types wouldn’t be able to stymie future TEA party-like groups.

            1. One way for corporations to absorb the tax increases without raising prices or cutting investor returns is to cut costs. This might mean smaller, slower raises (although not for top executives) or smaller bonuses – but it might also be done by cutting perqs, such as employee dining facilities or by reducing investment in R&D for product improvements or new products.

              Probably a bad idea to reduce R&D o product lines competing in the woorld marketplace, but really, hasn’t the USA been among the world’s top innovators far too log? Shouldn’t we step back and let some other companies take the lead?
              ~

            2. First, we should get rid of individual federal income taxes and cut the IRS by 80%. Set 140 million people free from their annual Tax Hell!
              ———————————
              Nobody has so little that some asshole doesn’t want to take it. And the government is full of assholes.

              1. That would be my ideal tax plan, get rid of all current federal taxes and replace them with a head tax on the states. It would automatically balance the budget (a state that has 1% of the population pays 1% of the expenditures), it allows states to experiment to find the most efficient form of taxation, it makes tax evasion easy to prosecute (if you vote for a state budget that doesn’t appropriate the correct amount to the IRS you go to jail), and it provides an disincentive to fudge the numbers for your state’s population higher (you might get another representative but you also get a larger tax bill).

                Taxes aren’t going away, there are legitimate functions of government that need to be paid for.

                1. Problem today is all the illegitimate functions we’re paying for… 😛

                  And they KEEP ADDING MORE illegitimate functions! In six months this ‘commission’ is going to ‘recommend’ stacking the Supreme Court to rubber-stamp their destruction of the Constitution, starting with the 2nd Amendment.

                  1. Maybe, but that legislation is never making it out of the Senate and such a recommendation would ensure that the Democrats are annihilated in the midterms.

                    2. There will be. Don’t forget that the Democrats need legitimacy in the elections just as much as they need victories. Winning the elections after trying to pack the Supreme Court would require so much fraud that nobody would care what the federal government said.

                    4. They need both. Winning an election does them no good if everyone ignores them afterwards.

                    6. Sort of. Normalcy bias means that most people will ignore abnormalities. At least for a little while. Keep stacking up the abnormalities and people will start realizing that things are no longer normal and react appropriately.

                    9. They still care, although admittedly to the same extent as an Iranian mullah in a 24-hour marriage. Else they wouldn’t be pushing the Electoral Fraud Act (aka: HR1) nor imposing omerta on calling it fraud.

                      But it won’t be long until they’re no longer embarrassed about it.
                      ~

                    10. They frauded in plain sight because they had to. If they didn’t care they wouldn’t be trying so desperately to silence anyone questioning 2020 or trying to fix the loopholes they exploited.

                    11. *nod*

                      Even my crazy cousins are in the full on screaming “it can’t be” or “but he deserved it.”

                      Lacking that?

                      ….

                    13. The Democrats have already ‘won’ two illegitimate elections and are now convinced that nothing can stop them, no matter how much blatant fraud they pull. They’re not even bothering to hide it any more. By next year they won’t even have to pretend the elections are honest, and after they confiscate our guns there will be nothing anybody can do about it.

                      I don’t think they can pull it off, but THEY DO.

                    15. I don’t think they get to confiscate our guns. I also don’t think we get to next year before things blow up biggly. It’s possible, but unlikely.

                    16. Each victory has cost them legitimacy. Normalcy bias has kept them above water for now, but each time they challenge it they lose more people.

                      They also aren’t confiscating any guns. They don’t have enough lackeys with a suicide wish. They might be able to get one or two through red flag laws, but any more than that WILL trigger the boog.

                    18. I don’t have any faith in the elections, I just realize that the Democrats will either lose the midterms or lose legitimacy. People were willing to overlook the abnormalities in 2018 because the party in the White House pretty much always loses seats in the midterms and there were a lot of GOP retirements. Fewer people were willing to overlook 2020 but there was Wu Flu and mean tweets. The amount of fraud the Democrats will have to perform already to overcome the administration’s existing unpopularity is massive. Doing wildly unpopular things like pack SCOTUS or gun control will strain even their abilities to fraud.

                    19. there was Wu Flu and mean tweets

                      –
                      We have neighbors. He is a stanch Trump supporter. She’s “Independent”. She is just glad that the “meany horrible man” is gone. Now things will be quiet. My response “um, Okay?” and walked away. She is not going to know what is hitting when it hits. He is an accountant with his own firm. She manages the firm (all two of them). They are both over 70 … Their grandchildren are in medical fields … All of their family are isolated from the cancel culture of the woke crowd. But if she thinks that isolates them from the troubles that she is sure has been by passed because “bad man orange” can’t issue mean tweets anymore. Boy is she in for a shock awakening.

                    20. People are beginning to realize that all of the vitriol and most of the hate of recent years has come from Democrats. Trump was purely incidental.

                    21. Agree.

                      Listen will they? No. All Trump’s fault.

                      Just like the current surge of kids being left unattended in the dessert or dropped off over the border (more dramatic since happens over a wall) are all Trump’s fault. I don’t understand how that is true. I don’t care how they phrase it. Or “spring surge, would have happened anyway.” Um. No.

                      Honestly. The only way they might get a clue is for the local law enforcement and border control parade pictures of the kids that have died. There has been at least one actually reported, at least on Fox News. There are hints that child hasn’t been the only one, but reporting appears to be suppressed.

                      Or how people not paying rent won’t result in more homelessness. People won’t lose their life savings.

                    23. They find dead kids every year.

                      That one that got attention in Trump Year 1 or so was so beloved by the BP guys because they found the kid alive, after being dumped in the desert, alone.

                      Usually, they get sad little corpses.

                      More people? Yeah, there’s going to be more dead.

                    24. Yeah – Trump’s failure to “solve” the problem (a failure caused, in large part, by their obstruction) is why we have the state we’re in now. Not to worry – they’re going to attack “root causes” because that always works!

                      Although I am not sure shoveling billions of dollars to corrupt governments is going to fix those causes.
                      ~

                    26. I cannot recall, over the last fifty years, Leftists ever objecting to dead kids except when they can use them to attack conservative policies.

                      For example, they seem okay with all the damage done to kids in NY’s public housing by lead paint and ill-maintained utilities.
                      ~

                    28. Jeff, you make many valid assertions. It’s just this: Rulers and tyrants do not need legitimacy in order to rule as tyrants.

                    29. True, but America can’t be ruled by tyrants. Unlike the other countries you may point to, America has several centuries of history as an actual democratic republic. Russia under Lenin wasn’t that much different from Russia under the czars, Mao was just another emperor, so they could get away with behaving like totalitarians. That’s what the people expected.

                      Americans are used to having their votes mean something, even if they lose. When that stops they will take action to return to that state. You’re seeing it now in the drastically increased support for things like voter ID. 2020 was hinkey enough, even among many who think it was largely fair, that people want some additional guarantees that they aren’t going to be disenfranchised by fraudulent voters.

                    30. I’m optimistic about the future of the Republic, strangely enough. Your words contain truth, especially the line about how Americans will not live under tyranny.

                      I agree. But I wonder where these Americans are? I’m in such a dark place up here that all I see are terrified communists.

                    31. That may be a function of where you are physically. It is likely also a function of most of many not saying, but doing. Around here? Masks, more and more are quietly vanishing. They’re the exception not the rule in my home town. The big city (for Southern Midwest values of big) I’ve run into 2 people who give any shits… mysteriously without a complaint filed, They’re not dealing with customers anymore.

                      Our church doesn’t require masks or distancing.

                      People look at the news and quietly buy more ammo. I know of several folk with relatives east and West who’ve come out here and done the same.

                      Every Sheriff they’ve bothered to ask out here has straight up said that gun confiscation=the entire department calling in sick forever. And that’s on the polite side. Most people aren’t talking, they’re doing. Which is a major reason for current ammo prices.

                      People are doing and praying for another way out… because when this round cooks off it’s going to be ugly. It’s likely to be an ugly the like of which the world has never seen. We’re the world’s longest fuse because there is no ‘a little bit violent’ there is the horror recorded by the European observers of the Civil War (OUR war terrified a continent that’sbeen at war with itself for millennia). Push us out of ‘friendly brawl’ and there is only blood. And only a fool wants it to go there. WANTS to risk destroying everything.

                      So people are preparing (which includes ignoring stupid ordinances), praying, and watching for that trigger. What will it be? No idea. Will it be enough of the population for us to win? From what I see, yes. It will also be brutal beyond probably even our imagination.

                    32. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for posting all the details. I feel calm reassurance now, which is more normal for me–my area is dark indeed, and it warps my spirit.

                      I got a blessed dose of painful reality yesterday from a family member. That reality releases me from any obligation to stay in the Pacific Northwest, for any reason. I am now free to dream and plan my move–Montana, Wyoming…. I need mountains, Gandalf. But more than that I need Americans like you describe, police chiefs like you describe, real people.

                      I agree that this is going to be uglier than anything the world has seen before. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.

                      I didn’t realize the world, including a bunch of commies in America, think we are the “world’s country.” Our middle class is the only productive class in the world that can finance all the other countries. BECAUSE WE ARE FREE. All the tyrants want is the fruits of our labor, to distribute throughout the world, for all those dachas on the lake.

                      And the answer to that is “NO.” I’ll stand with the toothless boy from Appalachia and shoot a hole in your chest until the ammunition is gone before I’ll consent to be Boris Johnson’s slave.

                      It’s a new day dawning in the Pacific Northwest. For me, anyhow.

                    33. We’re already starting to see some prominent liberals speak out against CRT. I think we’re going to lose some significant swaths of territory – my scenario where the Democrats lose elections is my best-case, not my most-likely – but only for a while. At the end of the day our system just plain works (I was going to say works better, but it’s not hard to work better than “not at all”) and once the preference cascade shifts against the vile ideology that says otherwise people will want to imitate Americans again.

                    34. Jeff, you write so well to express your point. I really appreciate it.

                      I can’t rule out what you think is likely to happen. Evil is so strong, I’m swayed by it, and maybe give it too much power. It’s hard for me to see clearly these days.

                      There is so much good to be saved and savored. I don’t want to believe everything I love is going to go crashing down in flames.

                    35. Thanks. It helps that the idiot quotient here is very low. I don’t have much patience.

                      I don’t think everything will come crashing down in flames, though I do think we passed our last opportunity to avoid extensive bloodshed last year. As Sarah has repeatedly pointed out, we have the advantage that our philosophy actually works. Every time their philosophy escapes out of the faculty lounges and salons it creates massive suffering and destruction. Americans, even the apolitical ones, aren’t used to that. They aren’t like Chinese, Russian, or African peasants. I think that they’re going to push back against the irrational demands of the Left and the more irrational the Left is the more they’ll push back. Trump has shown them an alternative path and as more people are called racist for things like wondering why a BLM founder can afford a mansion the costs of following that path are reduced.

                    36. I cannot recall, over the last fifty years, Leftists ever objecting to dead kids except when they can use them to attack conservative policies.

                      –
                      Kid accidentally killed by police responding to a violent crime = Outrage! Riots! Looting and arson! EEEVUL RRRAAACIIISSSTS!!! REEEEE!!

                      Kid killed by a violent criminal = meh.

                      Such are their priorities.
                      ———————————
                      The Democrats trust criminals with guns more than they trust you.

                    37. Popular legitimacy? No.

                      But they absolutely need the fear, loyalty, or tolerance of their security forces. Which is a complex issue.

                      One of the fundamental problems they have is that their senior and middle managers were trained in the US, or elsewhere.

                      If you are trained in the US, you have a view of security force behavior that is shaped by what they will do when they perceive that popular legitimacy exists. It is very easy for a politician manager to assume that such behavior is an invariant physical law.

                      If we assume that there is some foreign master plan, and that the foreign master planners understand security forces that operate without popular legitimacy, there is little reason to think that they can easily translate that expertise to the current situation in the US. Because the inertia of the American services was developed when the old logic of apparent popular legitimacy held, and the foreigners are not used to so naive and entitled a public or security personal.

                      This relates to things I have discussed before. a) We need to be careful about putting our faith in reduced order models of human society. That is the opposition’s heresy and fallacy. b) There are times when the safe, shrewd forecast is ‘behavior will change, but on a schedule and in a way that we cannot predict’. c) They don’t have the force structure set up, anywhere near set up, for ruling a public that /knows/ that popular legitimacy is no longer a thing. d) They are clearly stuck on old thinking in terms of aspects of security force reliability, and not going back to first principles to find something that will work in the new circumstances.

                      The whole situation with the National Guard in DC shows clearly the wrong old thinking in terms of security force reliability. Sure, if someone wants to be dictator, they need reliable personal security. But for the purpose, the design could have come from a Gu jar of blind brain-damaged angry morons. Possibly there is some secret intelligent purpose hidden in that. Still, Jeff’s optimism is not without basis in reality.

                      Over FFN, drakensis has written a fair number of civil war themed fics.

                      m dot fanfiction dot net/u/347490/drakensis

                      The ones I will recommend are Battletech, Gundam, and maybe an Exalted.

                      State of the Union, State of the Union II, and Davion and Davion (Deceased) are all various Battletech AUs.

                      Those That Carry On is a rather nice fusion of three different Gundam settings, and likewise has some of the logic of a civil war. This is the only on of these five that doesn’t include a source of information about later events that should not, strictly speaking, exist in universe.

                      Reincarnation: May Come With Teething Problems is a little more questionable, but it still has a little of the right flavors. Even if it doesn’t really include enough material about the setting to understand what is going on. And the Realm kinda has an opposite problem to the US.

                      These are fiction, hence much too simple, and not anything like the complexity of real people. But the basic problem holds, limited information about what decision makers may do, and things turn on stuff that will be a surprise.

                      The opposition has no better idea of how they can measure for loyalty than they do for measuring being intelligent enough to do a superior job of ruling others. Changing regimes means that the leadership of existing forces has slightly unpredictable loyalties. Adding new forces at the same time means the the true leadership of the new forces, and what sides they will pick in factional politics, is much more uncertain.

                      The current regimes /needs/ those new forces in order to last, and probably cannot ensure the political stability of them. People who will say anything because they are ambitious, are ambitious, and will be tempted to replace leaders as weak as a Gu jar of morons.

                      The old popular legitimacy was stable. When the current situation collapses, perhaps someone can take power with a new security force that they’ve made personally loyal, and build a stable base of support. But, that will be really hard. Supposing that the situation is most likely to stabilize after a return to popular legitimacy may not be wrong. I’m simply not willing to trust my faith to that model.

                    38. The thing is that in America the people are part of the security forces, easily the largest part. That was the purpose of the Second Amendment. That’s also why the Democrats are so adamant about gun control. Except that it’s too late for them. There are already enough guns in private hands to outgun most militaries on the planet several times over. Banning future guns won’t change that and nobody is going to be turning their guns in. The Democrats will never be able to project power beyond the first ring of suburbs in a hundred or so cities, and that’s only if the Americans decide that it’s not worth the cost to actually conquer them. We’d be far more likely to set up border control stations at the onramps to the ring freeway.

                    40. Maybe, but the larger militaries have significant numbers of things like tanks and artillery that make up for a large shortfall in rifles.

                    42. The flip side to “quantity has a quality all its own” is that quality can quickly raise the quality necessary to compensate into unsustainable levels.

                    44. Yes, and so far as I can tell “addressing the root causes” = throw money at the horrifically corrupt governments down there. Because that’s always worked SUPER WELL in the past.

                    45. There’s a hell of a lot more money to be made in managing a problem than in solving it.

                    46. It’s funny – as far back as I can recall Leftists have denounced the Pharmaceutical industry for treating symptoms rather than curing disease. Is it possible they’ve taken their model from Pharma or is it that they’ve recognized a fellow practitioner of the scheme?
                      ~

                    48. Yes, and so far as I can tell “addressing the root causes” = throw money at the horrifically corrupt governments down there. Because that’s always worked SUPER WELL in the past.

                      –
                      It has worked out great for the Non Governmental Organizations that handle the money, and, just by coincidence, make such generous political contributions…
                      ———————————
                      A politician is worse than a toilet. They’re both full of shit — but at least you can flush the toilet.

    2. But a scam with a purpose. The mega-corps will be able to duck the taxes far easier than smaller businesses; simultaneously, they will create a lot more dependency on government. Presto, you get a small group of mega-corps that act as instruments of the government as it imposes its will on a large dependent population, resulting in Mussolini style facism as the government structure. Of course the Democratic Party version will be globalist and thus seek communist goals (and will confiscate the vast bulk of private property to be owned/administered by the government and its corporate subsidiaries). But wait…there’s more! The fascio-communism will be identity group based, thereby adding in Nazi style racial group fascist elements and CCP style racism into the mix. This will result in stuff like the below, on super-steroids:

      https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/08/harvard-doctors-promote-race-based-discrimination-in-boston-hospital-in-order-to-be-antiracist/

      Yes, they can’t win. But we all can lose and suffer accordingly. Indeed, even if we win, it will be extremely costly and painful.

      1. Fascinating report at the link supplied. If I lived in that city, I’d be thinking of how to sue the **** out the hospital for extremely illegal anti-white discrimination.

        1. No, no, anti-white discrimination is the GOOD kind. 😦

          Everybody knows the remedy for discrimination in the past is more discrimination today!

    3. Yes, but as long as they get you to blame the corporation for the prices, etc., THEY are ahead.

      1. Hey – it works with gas prices!

        What Is the Average Profit Margin That a Gas Station Makes on a Gallon of Gasoline?
        Last Updated Mar 26, 2020
        For gas stations, the average profit margin for a gallon of gas is roughly 2.5 percent. For all of their products, gas stations made 3 percent net profit in 2013 and 1.6 percent in 2012.

        Most of the retail price of a gallon of gas, 69 percent, goes to the cost of crude oil. Taxes are about 13 percent of the price. The refining process for the oil accounts for 8 percent of the overall charge. When gas prices rise at the pump, individual gas stations receive little added income. For many gas stations, 75 percent of their profits comes from the sale of other products, such as food, medicine and accessories.
        [Emphasis added]
        ~

        1. > Taxes are about 13 percent of the price.

          Pumps here used to have a little sticker that says “Includes 55 cents state and Federal tax.” The state web site says tax is now only 24.5c per gallon.

          Strange. The price-per-gallon has always been within a few cents of all the surrounding states.

    4. You have to be careful when you say this in an argument. I brought it up one time and never got to say the second half of the sentence. I got as far as “corporations don’t pay taxes” and was then overwhelmed with howls of “EXACTLY, AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM”.

  5. On a somewhat related note, Bill Gates is pushing a fantastic scheme to combat global warming.
    He wants to fund an effort to insert huge amounts of reflective material into the upper atmosphere to reflect back sunlight and shade the planet. Most objections revolve around uncertainty as to what the real effects would be.
    I beg to differ. Since learning this I have posted in several fora a request that someone who has old Billy boy’s ear buy him a history lesson from the early 1800s. You see, in 1815 the Tambora volcanic eruption did precisely what he claims to want. Largest and most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history. Propelled an estimated fifty cubic miles of ash, vapor, and chemicals into the upper regions of Earth’s atmosphere. The next year, 1816, is commonly referred to as The Year Without A Summer. Entire northern hemisphere experienced winter weather up into late spring and an early fall and winter. Massive crop failures, famine, and the death, destruction, and illnesses that inevitably follow.

      1. I saw something lately that indicated that Bill had gone the path of Paul Ehrlich and that the world (at least the portion he considers worthwhile) needs fewer people to clutter up the view. Beyond showing a matched pair of fingers, “You first, Bill!”

        The entire thing reminds me of a Man from U.N.C.L.E. book where the Good Guys(tm) joined up with the usual group of Bad Guys(tm) to fight a bunch of nutters who wanted to eliminate all life on the planet. FWIW, the Doomsday Machine(tm) was located somewhere in San Francisco(tm).

          1. The Dagger Affair, by David McDaniel. And yes it was published; I have the paperback.
            McDaniel did several U.N.C.L.E novels and all of them are fun.

            2. Looks up publication history. Man, I was young, then. I was reading James Bond novels, with the sexy bits going wayyyyyyyy over my head.`

          2. The description of the McGuffin in that book came to mind the first time I saw an antenna design that was iterated by “genetic algorithms.”

    2. Well, done in a carefully controlled manner it would be a solution IF the planet was actually warming above safe limits.
      But it’s not. It’s nowhere near the medieval optimum much less the Roman optimum.
      Somehow the left forgets there’s a reason temperatures warmer than the present day ones were labeled optimums!

      1. It amazes me that whenever people whine about the “Hottest Year on Record™️“ nobody points out we didn’t start keeping records of temperatures until the end of The Little Ice Age.

        1. Of course not — they didn’t have thermometers!

          The thermometer was invented in the early 1700’s. Before that, they couldn’t even measure temperature, much less keep temperature records. The barometer was invented in 1844, just about at the end of the Little Ice Age.

          2. They didn’t have weather instruments but we have tree rings, glacial ice and a Man, a terrific data masseuse.
            ~

    3. Year of no summer …

      Let’s pay attention to more recent examples.

      Pollution in 1900’s had doomsayers, in ’60s, saying humans were bringing on the next glacier age because the pollution was blocking the sun. Starvation on the horizon don’t you know …

      Mt St Helens in 1980 erupted to cause ash to thinly blanket the upper atmosphere (thicker short term to the east) disrupting sunlight access.

      Heck this last fall, locally the temps dropped 10 to 15 degrees due to the smoke and ash in the air from local fires. Summer before last temps dropped 5 degrees due to smoke from California.

      None of these had the effect of 1815 Tambora volcano eruption …

      1. Ash in the stratosphere has some cooling effect but sulphur dioxide has an even bigger impact. Tambora was a colossal eruption. A more recent example was Mount Pinatubo, which had a measurable effect. Also, not all eruptions have the same proportions of ash vs. sulphur dioxide, and it take a really big eruption to get enough of either launched high enough. Launch really isn’t the correct word, since it isn’t a matter of ballistics. More of a thermal plume rising.

        1. Ash? You want atmospheric ash? I give you a 20K foot plume!

          Volcanic eruption on Caribbean’s St. Vincent forces thousands to evacuate
          A volcanic eruption rocked the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent on Friday for the first time in over 40 years – prompting the evacuation of thousands of people, according to reports.

          The La Soufrière volcano’s eruption, which was confirmed by the seismological research center at the University of the West Indies, sent plumes of ash 20,000 feet skyward, according to the local emergency management agency. …
          ~

          1. Did you spot this tidbit in the article?

            Quote:
            Officials planned to place them aboard cruise ships, send them to nearby islands or take them to shelters elsewhere in St. Vincent that are outside the danger zone.

            About 16,000 people who live in the red zone will need to be evacuated in efforts that could be hampered by the coronavirus pandemic, Joseph said.

            Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves told reporters that people have to be vaccinated if they go aboard a cruise ship or are granted temporary refuge in another island.
            End Quote:

            So what happens to those who aren’t yet vaccinated but live in the red zone when all the on-island shelters are filled up??? You have a real threat NOW but that isn’t as important as maybe possibly somebody can’t prove they got a vaccine for a disease they MIGHT get, or maybe have already had and recovered, and …? And how is crowding them into on-island shelters any less of a disease risk than putting them on cruise ships where you could keep them isolated in their rooms? Or quarantine them in hotel rooms on the other islands?

            Take a look at the worldometer.info covid stats for “Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.” To date, 1789 cases, 10 deaths, 1653 recovered. Their vaccination program only kicked off on March 3, 2021.

            You can see what a horrible risk it would be to just start putting people on those ships and getting them out of a REAL danger zone. Oh, the population for SV&G as of 4/07/2021 is 111,209, so the evacuees are 14.3% of the population. And they want to nitpick who goes where??

            *sigh* just MHO.

            1. With any luck, the people who have not been vaccinated will say “screw you” to the people who are trying to condemn them to fiery death.

              Maybe do a few experiments on whether throwing their leaders into the pyroclastic flow will sate the volcano’s wrath

              1. Just remember, you can’t drop them into the volcano from helicopters. Volcanic ash chews hell out of the engines.

                2. Perhaps trebuchets would work? Start with a few low-ranking members of the House to get it properly zeroed, then auction off the launching rights for select Representatives, Senators, Executive Branch members and Social Activists (e.g., Stacy Abrams, Al Sharpton, the BLM founders, Obama’s ghost-writers …) and, should that not sate the volcanic spirits, start firing off various “journalists” such as Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, Christiane Amanpour, the full cast of Morning Joe, the hosts of The View, the staff of Slate … we might mix in a few Rhino representatives, such as John Boehner …some pro-athletes who’ve swerved outside their lane … certain loud-mouthed actors who have trouble sounding smart even when pronouncing somebody else’s words …

                  I’ve got a little list … they’d none of them be missed.
                  ~

                  1. I fear that flinging in all those wankers would royally piss off the Volcano Gods, and then there’d be Hell to pay. 😛

              2. Have since read a couple other articles on the ongoing eruptions. Main hazards are the ashfall and the pervasive sulfur smell. The eruptions could last for weeks, and it could be months before people can go home again, assuming their houses haven’t collapsed under the weight of the ash.

                1. IIRC, the main cause of death in Pompeii was poisonous gas. By the time lava and ash fell everybody there was already dead.
                  ~

                  1. It didn’t fall, apparently. Pyroclastic flow. Which is apparently fast enough that it might have been the killer.

    4. Iron filings dumped in non production ocean areas causes a bloom of CO2 absorbing critters. This can easily be scaled up to any needed size. When the critters die they go to bottom of sea w the CO2. The left does not want to fix the ( nonexistent ) global warming. The left wants control.

      2. Those blooms might not make much difference to the global system. They would use up resources in the ocean that normally would circulate to another area where plankton already are, causing less CO2 absorption there.

        This plan, as well as Gate’s global parasol, are part of the real conversation we should be having around climate change. It doesn’t really matter what’s causing the change, the real question is if stopping the change would cost more than dealing with the change (of course, if the change is beneficial then stopping the change would cost more).

    5. Also see the fall of Rome and the end of the Medieval Warm period and for the contrary see the end of the little ice age that followed the medieval warm.

      They’re all caught up in the illusion of control. Perhaps too smart, but certainly too little wisdom.

      1. The end of the Roman warm period coincides with an increase in volcanic activity including an eruption in Indonesia believed to be even bigger than the Tambora or Krakatau eruptions of the 1800s.

      2. That movie has some of the worst worldbuilding I’ve ever seen. They suffer an Ice Age, but fortunately they invent a perpetual motion engine. And the best solution they can come up with is to put everybody on a giant train. Couldn’t you use the neverending energy source to, I don’t know, warm things up a bit? And it’s supposed to be a metaphor for capitalism, of course. You’d think a South Korean director would know better than to heed the siren song of Marxism with the mother of all object lessons a short ways across their border, but apparently not.

        1. And the tracks, the train, nothing ever needs maintenance. It will just keep working forever in spite of all the avalanches.

        3. Uh… did you not notice all the nonsensical stuff Wonka did? Why would you expect his protege’s solutions to be rational?

        4. Yet it is a better inditement of environmentalist panic given the ice is caused by overwrought attempts to reverse global warming.

          Nice name, btw. Wish Howard had been lived to finish it himself.

      2. Yeah. It’s all of a piece with using “populist” as a slur. They really think there’s too many of the “lower” classes, i.e. anybody who hasn’t bought into their eliteness and doesn’t spout all those garbage luxury beliefs that they’ve made required for class allegiance.

        They think that without those other people cluttering up the earth, they will get their heaven-on-earth. Immanentizing the eschaton again, silly stupid idiots.

        1. Whether “populist” is a slur to some extent* depends on what the people want.

          If the people want the boot off their neck, not a slur.

          If the people want their buggy whips subsidized, definitely a slur.

          * “some extent”, because there is also the position of our alleged elites that the people should sit down and shut up, divorced from any particular policy.

          1. When what ordinary people want is GOOD it’s “democracy.”
            When what ordinary people want is BAD it’s “populism.”

      3. If that is true, then they really are knowingly or unknowingly in league with the devil.

          1. Everyone talks about how prophetic Orwell was but I think C.S. Lewis has him beat. I should reread The Screwtape Letters.

            1. Better yet, have somebody read it to you. There are several marvelous audiobook versions. John Cleese is superb but all are excellent.
              ~

              1. Had it on tape, tape died. It’s it still available on CD?
                Cleese does bureaucrat so well.

                1. He did a training video “Meetings, Bloody Meetings” that was well worth sitting through the rest of the boring meeting on how to improve our meetings…

                2. Ebay seems to have some available, Amazon offers a few (slightly overpriced) used editions of the tape collection, [SearchEngine] indicates CDs and MP3 downloads are available.

                  And, of course, there’s Youtube.
                  ~

              2. The thing that got me with Cleese’s performance was that it wasn’t all funny. The last chapter has a bit in the monologue that breaks me down: just the faintest hint of *regret*. “Not only did he see Them, he also saw `minute voice-catch` Him.” Cleese wasn’t JUST a funnyman.

            2. Also read, “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.” It was specifically aimed at the American educational system and boy, was he right.

        2. No – nobody is in league with the Devil. Some fools think they are but in the end they find out otherwise.

          They think they’re making a Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact but there’s no parity of power in his deals.
          ~

          1. eh, you don’t get what you want, of course, but by the same token, the Devil’s only making himself the more miserable the more he succeeds.

    9. “… Massive crop failures, famine, and the death, destruction, and illnesses that inevitably follow.”

      IOW, for Gates and his clique, a buying opportunity.

      If you believe the world population needs to be reduced by 80% and don’t have an Infinity Gauntlet, you need to work through other avenues.
      ~

    10. I met people who worked with Billy back in the MS-DOS days. Bill is not the sharpest pencil in the box. Bill is not even the sharpest crayon in the box. Bill is a middling coder. But Bill is good at acquiring work and bluffing in sales meetings, and at ruthlessly exploiting the work of his employees to kill off competitors.

      Not exactly sure why he’s an authority on anything other than middling coding or predatory competition strategies.

      1. Bill Gates is a superb judge of talent. That’s his skill. He is also the luckiest man on earth. Had IBM not chosen his kludgy MSDOS for the PC — and there were many better choices — and had every corporate purchasing master not waited for IBM, he’d be just another Harvard dropout coder.

        We don’t rate the power of luck and circumstance highly enough. Yeah, you have to bi in it to win it. But who wins it among the in is pure luck. Gates is a perfect example, Zuck the schmuck a better one. It’s why Obama’s “you didn’t build that” resonated so strongly with them. They know. It’s why they act so guilty

        1. My understanding (from a mid 90’s PBS show, so take with a grain of salt) was that IBM was negotiating with the developer(s) of CPM. They called at his home to talk but he wasn’t present. Wife was present said she could talk (she was an officer of the company) they said she had to sign the usual giant IBM Non disclosure clauses and she balked. They walked. were already talking to Mr. Gates for the BASIC, he heard that they we’re having issues, offered to do it and grabbed up QDoS a little across the city Seattle company, and Voila MSDoS.

          1. I read that a few decades ago so PBS *might* have that right, though the version I read omitted the wife as officer and objections to the NDA.

          2. Gary Killdall (the head of CP/M) was gone from home flying that afternoon. Once again, Gates lucked out.

        2. Bill is basically Zuck with the emotion chip installed. Same lack of empathy and the standard psychopathic “people are objects” vibe, but he doesn’t come across quite as lizardy.

        3. This. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t care as much about “tax the rich”. The rich at that level are mostly lucky, not “productive”. And after Zuck paid half a billion for election fraud, I think confiscating it is a fine idea. Not that the goverment will do anything good with it, of course.

          1. Have fun starving since most of your food is grown on the land that makes folks “that rich”, at least on paper.

            And they don’t have the fluid income to get cut-outs from the envy triggered robbery– their value is literally only ” we feed everyone.”

            …

            Yes, this is why situational morality is evil. You won’t protect the devil himself from wrongs, your rules are nothing.

            1. Quote I ran across a long time ago, that I took to heart, and applies here – from A Man For All Seasons.

              Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law?
              More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
              Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
              More: Oh? And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

            2. This.

              I’ve met some folks who I’m pretty sure have too much money for anyone’s good.

              I’ve never seen a proposed law that would cut them down to size, without destroying the lives and fortune of the many, many more numerous people I’ve met who earn their wealth.

    11. Taking one more step towards Bond villainy, I see. Good thing Elon has all the rockets.

      2. I have an unbreakable rule in life: Never piss off a man who has orbital launch capability.

    12. There was a movie made about this back in 1991 called Neon City starring Michael Ironside and a pre-Buffy Juliet Landau (Drusilla); needless to say the results did not go as planned; indeed they were disastrous.

    14. We don’t understand the climate well enough to know what increasing the planet’s albedo will do, but we definitely understand it well enough to attribute every deviation from what we arbitrarily decided was normal to a small change in an atmospheric trace gas.

        1. Everything is All About Us.

          I have literally heard someone say that because there are now humans, the fact that the climate changed before mankind came along is moot. Now, it has to be us.

        2. I was watching a Great Courses lecture series on food through history and the professor brought up the fact that the medieval warm period was significantly warmer than what we see today and immediately followed it with “but climate change is much worse today because we’re the ones doing it” in much the same way someone would make the sign of the cross to ward off the evil eye.

          Once you start considering them religious zealots the behavior of the Left makes a lot more sense.

    15. Has anyone told him to stop modeling his plans after schemes Bond villains would come up with?

  6. I’m feeling more cheerful than I should, perhaps. It seems to me that the Red states are reverting to the original idea of the United States of America.

    We just had Biden declaring a bunch of ineffective, impotent “executive orders” on guns that do absolutely nothing unless the states go along. Blue states will, but the Red will not. Biden wanted a nationwide mask mandate, and the Red states scoffed. Biden wants a vaccine passport, and Florida and Texas have already passed a law rejecting vaccine passports. We are supposed to be a country of states with a weak federal government allowed a few important tasks, like defense and the courts, and that’s all. Could we see a return to that? Biden is weak and senile and pathetic. Maybe the communists should have thought this through before installing him in office. A ram stuck in the thicket, indeed.

    1. Maybe, maybe not.

      A few weeks ago, I saw someone suggest that with just a puppet in the Oval Office, we might be on the verge of massive turf wars breaking out in the bureaucracy.

      1. the only ones the leftoids hate more than those of right are those on their spectrum who don’t quite agree with them on everything. Then someone finds an ice axe in their head.

        2. Yep, they are still fighting the same Nazis, even though those “right-wingers” ceased to exist decades ago, but which International are we on now?

            1. One of the funnier events in 1942 was the 180 that the American Communist Party did as regards Hitler and Germany. Prior to Operation Barbarossa, German invasion of Russia, the Germans were our friends and allies. A New York minute later they became the scum of the earth, and every effort must be made to come to the aid of our good Russian buddies.
              Guess some things never really change. The left always claims that the current narrative is the natural order of things no matter how much or how quickly things have changed.

              1. Same thing in France, with the French Communists doing everything they could to oppose the war effort.
                THAT certainly didn’t end well.

      3. There are a number of indications that nobody is running the show right now. That silliness they had firing all of the WH staffers who had ever used weed is the sort of thing that really only happens with a headless beast.

        Which also means the VP is not running the show either. The different divisions are just doing their own things on their own initiative.

            1. Functional bureaucracies most resemble the court of Louis XIV, where all the infighting and factional competition and gladiatorial games in staff meetings and such goes on, but there’s an executive in charge that basically decides on the bounds and direction of effort, declares winners of the various internal combats, enforces interdepartmental peace treaties, and deals with those who step outside the lines of allowable behavior.

              With nobody in charge, the factional fighting and internecine warfare and make-and-break alliances all are unchecked, and escalating oscillations of weird and unpredictable policy pronouncements come out at random intervals.

              And this form of weakness is very much seen and recognized by our enemies.

        2. tbh I’m not convinced that Commie-la is capable of running anything. She’s also pretty unlikable. So it looks like things are sloshing this way and that as different power groups push and pull.

      1. I commented to the cashier at Publix (they confirmed it’s a management thing) that the CDC couldn’t keep its story straight from day to day and they gave me the sort of nonverbal response that means, “Yep.”

        @!! WP.

    3. Although the mask mandate came off today in Alabama it looks like medical offices and chain stores are continuously require masks “per CDC guidelines.” We’ll see how long that lasts.

      2. At this point, stores with mask rules are stores without my business.

        I’ve been a good sport about it longer than I should have.

          1. Yeah, but neckerchiefs are still okeydoke for everywhere but my doc’s offices here in Silicon Valley, which tells you exactly how much this is about functionality and how much about form.

          2. Oregon, pretty much too. OR-OSHA gets sicced on businesses who let patrons appear without some kind of face cover. The county is not eager to enforce the covidiocy, but state fines can be too much unless the business is bound and determined to flip off TPTB.

            Not sure what the orthopedist insists on. The check-in clerk told me to cover my nose, but I’m sorely tempted to use the headband mounted face shield next visit. I can breathe fairly well with that. The single layer of bandanna works if I can leave the nose uncovered.

      3. Heh. Meanwhile they finally rolled out the federal IM telling us not only do we have to continue wearing masks inside federal buildings, but we have to do it on federal lands! ie, if one is out in the field, doing inspections, etc…we’re supposed to wear a mask. Outside. In the middle of freaking nowhere.

        Oh! And we are supposed to “strongly encourage” companies that operate on federal lands to do the same. I can tell ya right now what the response of any given oilfield worker would be when this is suggested to them. (I know, because it would be my response as well, if I could.)

        Oh, and the IM doesn’t expire until SEPTEMBER 2022.

        Freaking insane. I’m trying to scrape up the energy to relaunch my efforts to learn stenography/captioning so I can maybe go be self employed in a somewhat saner field…but I gotta admit, spare energy is hard to find right now.

      4. Local food stores all require masks here (dang county commission). But everybody knows it’s theater. This is the mask I use and nobody ever questions it.

          1. Oh, in the restaurants and bars I can be unmasked – it’s the grocery and department stores the county is making enforce it. At Wal-Marts (either supercenter or neighborhood market) there’s an employee at the door making sure. Even at Publix if you go in without a mask they give you one to wear.

            1. The Oregon gatekeepers went away* after the first lockdown ended. They didn’t come back for the subsequent screw-tightenings.

              (*) Mostly; one sporting goods store has one, but the radical leftists in Salem have such stores nervous. One could see Chinavirus as an excuse to shutter a gun store.

              1. Yep – they did that here. They even made the local BassPro close their gun department while other areas were technically open with draconian distance and spacesuit requirements.

                1. Chinavirus restrictions. Is there any part of the Constitution they can’t be used to infringe?

        3. The local stores still have the masks required signs up, but don’t enforce it (and never have). Early on, most people wore masks. Now, most quietly don’t. The poor employees are still forced to wear masks (much as I am at my job), but they don’t say a word about customers who don’t.

          1. Word is that Oregon Health authority plans to do a perma-mask mandate until they declare the pandemic ended. I”m assuming Fauci rules, and a bunch of fed up people.

            A lot of places “credit” Despicable Kate Brown for the mask mandate we already have.

    5. “It seems to me that the Red states are reverting to the original idea of the United States of America.”
      “Blue states will, but the Red will not. Biden wanted a nationwide mask mandate, and the Red states scoffed.”

      The original United States didn’t have this as a possibility:
      Red State: “No vaccine passport.”
      DEA: “No prescription capability for doctors. No drug factory license to make, or ship drugs in. Etc. Etc.”

      The question is how far they dare to push it; they have the tools to give it a veneer of legality.

      1. Red State: We’ll license our own doctors for prescriptions and offer a tax break for in-state production of prescription drugs. If any of your agents attempt to interfere the sheriff will arrest them. I guarantee he can bring more deputies than you can agents.

        1. “Why would we send an agent? That’s why we have cruise missiles. And factories don’t dodge well.”

          As I pointed out, they have the tools…. if they’re foolish enough to use them…. and if they are allowed the time.

          1. OK, now you’ve slid into doom porn. They don’t have the tools, ordering someone to fire a cruise missile into US territory is going to blow up bigger than any crisis over prescription drugs.

            1. You are quite possibly right; after all, I’m only looking at the actual statements of the people being put in charge.

              I’m pretty sure the writings of Lenin were dismissed as doom porn too. “No one will actually do that.”

            2. Seems to me I saw* just a few days ago that the Russians are testing an undersea cruise missile, with nuclear engine, that is supposed to hug the ocean bottom until emerging and taking out its target – with a nuclear warhead.

              I doubt they’re reticent about to whom they sell knock-offs.

              Given their technical expertise it may well not be reliable, or may be more lie than truth.

              Sure would hate to fid out. Danged shame there’s nobody driving down the price of petroleum.

              *I think it was at Instapundit.
              ~

              1. That’s been Russian vaporware for years. There are some major technical challenges associated with that, not to mention the fact that such an attack would trigger a MAD response with zero chance of making a significant dent in the attacked nation’s nuclear arsenal.

          2. They do that ONCE… and they NEVER get to do that again. Or rather, that’s ALL they will be able to do. And those poor bastards. Except no sympathy because bastards.

            1. That was rather the point of “if they’re foolish enough to use them”. I didn’t say they weren’t foolish. And it may indeed only work once. I wish I was as certain that it will only be once. Because Foxfier is only our little community’s example of the phenomenon that “my friends at agency X couldn’t be involved, so don’t….” even as the friends stand by while the foolish lay the foundations for 1933 style laws..

              1. Heaven forbid that anyone nay-say when you’re calling for the death of All-Fill-In-The-Blank, because they’re all evil.

                So, so terrible to point out that it’s based on a bad assumption, because I know, first hand, people it doesn’t fit– and in those cases that I do know someone who even somewhat fits your claimed blanket description, they are at best actively disliked by their co-workers.

                But I suppose that’s another figment of my imagination, just like my linking your other execution demands which aged poorly in the age of wu-flu.

      2. VaxPass must have polled really extremely very poorly for this WH to have actually stated a position in opposition so quickly.

        It continues to amaze me that there’s no cognitive dissonance in making someone produce their VaxPass and photo ID to do everything, except vote.

        1. I’m not sure how much actual meaning they attach to the slogans they spew out. They’ve only been taught what to say. Do they make any connections between the various bits?
          ———————————
          Not everybody should go to college. Some folks, you send ’em to college and you just wind up with an educated idiot.

        2. I suspect they’re going to let “private” industry handle that for them. A word to their cronies in the insurance industry, and it would be mandatory to get a job or even enter most businesses.

          1. See, the thing is, HIPAA (as Sarah noted) and ADA together seem to make controlling access to anything based on something like medical history…problematic.

            Lots of lawyer billing hours in that.

            1. What medical history? All their insurance has to do is say “Unless you require masks your business premiums will double. No exceptions.”

              1. Of course any insurance company could have all the business they’d want by going the other way.

                Prices aren’t arbitrary.

                1. They sure aren’t…. and every insurance company is going to weigh the benefits against the dead certainty of their odds of defending the lawsuits by customers, employees, etc. by our plaintiffs bar with Derek Chauvin juries.

                  If we actually had a legal system where facts and evidence mattered in reaching impartial verdicts, pricing might have a rational basis. In the one we ACTUALLY have…..

                  I mean, if facts and evidence mattered, we wouldn’t have either lockdowns or mask mandates, now would we?

                  2. You might have a point if there were any legal precedent for holding an employer or business responsible for an employee or customer contracting an easily-communicable disease.

                    This is just more doom porn, as evidenced by your assumption that Chauvin’s jury is going to come back with a guilty verdict.

          2. That’s exactly how they will handle it; I’m already seeing it with pain-killer restrictions before the Wu Flu.

  7. > crop failures, famine, and the death, destruction, and illnesses

    All upsides, given Gates’ comments about reducing the world population.

    1. Tied to the reports that Gates is now the biggest farmland owner in the country, his comments don’t sit well. There’s more than one way to have a catastrophic loss of crops.

  8. And of course, the corrupt Pope is on board with this with his latest about how we need ‘global governance’ because universal vaccines/climate change.

    1. Pope Communist I is not catholic and I’d call him an antipope, but the Antipopes were still of the church. He’s of the anything but.

      1. For the first Jesuit pope Francis is (or should be) a bloody embarrassment to his order.

        1. He’s rather typical of the society I’m afraid, and I say that as a Jesuit boy. They completely lost the plot when they shifted from AMDG, (to the greater glory of God) to a “Man for Others.” With a few exceptions, they’re lost.

          2. TBH, I have not had any real contact with Jesuits since high school (1970). The Jesuits I knew well enough to have a opinion about seemed pretty sensible to me so I was surprised when Francis turned out to be a Marxist Loon.

            1. Father Mitch (Pacwa) is an awesome Catholic geek, so I must assume that they are an order of Jesus Geeks.

              And thus, some of them, especially the loud ones, will sacrifice their geekdom to be “popular.”

              1. I’m surprised Father Mitch is still in the order. James Martin the gay actor priest is what the order is now

                When the choice came for my boys, I refused to let the society have them; breaking a long streak of men in my family going to the Jesuits, which goes back to the end of the last suppression My son-in-law is a Jesuit boy too and he tells me I was correct

      3. He’s a Marxist pope pushing “ liberation theology”. Simply wrong on the causes and answers to wage gaps and the poor.

          1. JP Kalishek said:
            LT/BLT is Marx, god added
            G*d added for some values of G*d, and not much in any case.

            1. True. But it was literally made as an attempt to convince the devout Catholics of Latin America to go for communism, and Pope Commie is an acolyte. If it isn’t rooted out, things will not go well.

            1. And is yet another example as to how the one thing the Soviets were really good at was propaganda:

  9. And then it hit me: it’s the same as the $15 dollar an hour minimum wage. Nothing to do with “living wage.” It’s their attempt to prevent jobs and employers from fleeing blue cities that bleed them dry. If payment is the same everywhere, they’re sure they can keep them because of the “advantages” of cities.

    So, same as the “common sense” regulation on home schooling.

    They want to FORCE all the non-functioning aspects of public school on the home school groups, nothing to do with the goal of “teach” but much to do with “our people.”

    1. Higher minimum wages means less entry level hires. If all goes according to ‘woke’ plan, no cashier stores, such as this, soon coming to a neighborhood near you: https://soranews24.com/2021/04/03/whats-it-like-to-shop-at-family-marts-first-unmanned-convenience-store-in-japan/
      probably followed, in the not so distant future by Boston Dynamics robots as stock shelfers.

      Why if this keeps up we could end up with many folks on the government dole, sitting home, not working but voting by mail as they’re told to vote!

      Naw, the latter could never happen, unless the government comes up with a planneddemic or some such.

      2. In the long run, it can’t happen. People need something to do. Look at the inner cities and consider, what if instead of 10% of the population it becomes 25% or even 40%.

        At some point, the idle population without any investment in today much less tomorrow will reach a critical mass and destroy everything out of boredom and the search for a thrill.

        Of course, that’s a “we all lose” scenario, so I’d rather avoid it, but more than a generation of farmed welfare voters being more than 1/3 of the population won’t survive. They at least need something of apparent value to do.

        2. This was a common complaint of mine about certain types of grim dark future fiction. They pictured societies in which there were no morals and everybody was thieving from everybody else, and I generally complained that such societies couldn’t survive. Unless there was some other source of wealth to feed off, and generally they didn’t bother doing that.

        3. Someone quite cynical would observe that vast swaths of welfare voters make excellent cannon fodder in the coming great wars of conquest.

          1. Though I would also note that when the USSR became worried about the population numbers available as future conscripts they outlawed abortion and restricted access to contraception. If the Dems ever make that change you can be certain glorious victories are bubbling in collective “mind” of the aristos in power.

              1. That only works when random destruction is needed. Very few strategic goals are achieved by random destruction.

      3. Nah, we’ll go to a different form of currency. Illegal and unofficial of course, but one that’s effective enough to mostly enable fair trade.

  10. Well, yeah, it won’t work because it’s been shown time and again that it doesn’t work. It’s caused havoc and hell in different parts of the world at different times. I guess this is our time and place for it.

    Meanwhile, I’m contemplating all the shootings of POC by white males, because, you know, the media.
    I’m also thinking what a good idea it is that the gubmint in France(?) wants people at the beach to wear beer flu masks even when they’re swimming. Thicket of reality?

    1. I give ABC news at least a tiny bit of credit for covering the South Carolina shooting, given the victims were white and the shooter…wasn’t.

      1. How they cover it though shows how invested they are in creating and maintaining narratives that fit leftist orthodoxy. When the perp is white, the narrative emphasis is on race and the inherent systemic evil of America. When the perp isn’t, the narrative emphasis is on “the gun violence crisis” which is described as a “public health crisis”.

        This is deliberate. They fully intend to use decrees in the name of public health in the same tyrannical manner they have done with the CCP Virus in order to systematically take circumvent the Constitution and to take away people’s fundamental rights.

      2. Does ABC hold broadcast rights for the NFL? Focusing attention on the league’s lack of adequate concussion protocols is responsible for this shooting.

        Besides, how could any ex-NFL player ever pass a background check? The game is a ritualistic acting out of militaristic metaphors.
        ~

    1. NOW you’re talking, bucko! This made me laugh and laugh and laugh. I love Chad.

      “Tax stamp this, MOFO!” Bwaa ha ha ha.

      1. meanwhile, irl chad is in prison on a dozen charges and is expected to be out when he hits age 98

  13. This has been proposed before and the EU is very receptive to it…. but outliers like Ireland and the Jersey islands just won’t cooperate…. These guys just cannot get the principles of Economics down, just cannot quite get there.

    1. It doesn’t help that in some EU countries, tax evasion is the norm rather than the exception.

      1. It was here when taxes were more confiscatory – when the rates were reduced, the incentive vs. penalty calculus shifted to the risk not being worth the effort for the majority.

        Change things and things change.

        1. Nonsense, the only things that change are the things we want changed. Just ask any Democrat.

      1. I see no reason why anyone, inside the U.S. or outside of it, should comply with crazy American leftists.

    3. The only countries that are receptive are the ones who want to charge high taxes without people having a refuge. This creates a certain problem.

  14. They aren’t here forever. They’re here for a buck.

    Yes and no. A lot of them come with the intent of returning home. They even send money home to buy and build homes.

    Homes a fraction never return to inhabit. Along the way they got a partner (married or not) and a child or two who are US citizens. They never wanted to become Americans, but had children who are de jure even if they are raised as Mexicans (this seems to be a mostly southern Mexican thing for some reason).

    This is yet another problem with birthright citizenship for people who use parent are physically in the US, but have no intent to be in the US. You get people raised with the values of one culture while inhabiting another leaving them neither fish nor fowl.

    1. I get the sense that southern Mexico is more tribal, literally as well as in the cultural sense. So the kids are part of the tribe, and are raised that way, no matter where they happen to be. I’ve read some things about goings on in that part of Mexico that make everything north of Oxaca seem like paragons of the rule-of-law (as compared to eye-for-an-eye going back to the End of the Third World.)

    2. Sure. It still happens. But not like when you needed to cross the ocean. And not with the CURRENT crop who come for the benes. The benes dry up, they go.

      1. Even in the 19th century, there were people who came with every intention of going back. And many who did. (Overlap between the groups is –less than perfect.) The Italian who returned from America so rich that he lived like a signore was a 19th century commonplace. (Thomas Sowell noted they also brought back interest in education. They enrolled their children in schools much more frequently and produced a professional class.)

  15. I would suggest they’ve gotten themselves ahold of a Tar Baby (sev’l, ackshully) but that story is racist raaaaacsit and never told in Wokemerica.
    ~

  16. I would suggest they’ve gotten themselves ahold of a Tar Baby (sev’l, ackshully) but that story is racist raaaaacsit and never told in Wokemerica.
    ~

  18. I would suggest they’ve gotten themselves ahold of a Tar Baby (sev’l, ackshully) but that story is racist raaaaacsit and never told in Wokemerica.
    ~

    1. I try again, with hope that a new intro slides it by:

      I would suggest they’ve gotten themselves ahold of a Tar Baby (sev’l, ackshully) but that story is racist raaaaacsit and never told in Wokemerica.
      ~

    2. I try it in pieces …
      I would suggest they’ve gotten themselves ahold of a Tar Baby …
      ~

      1. … (sev’l, ackshully) but that story is racist raaaaacsit and never told in Wokemerica.
        ~

        1. And now, the exciting conclusion:

          … racist raaaaacsit and never told in Wokemerica.
          ~

            1. Sigh. So much effort to deliver so small a joke. Apparently WP balks at the portmanteau “Wokemerica”.
              ~

            2. Sigh. So much effort to deliver so small a joke. Apparently WP balks at the portmanteau “Wokemerica”.
              ~

            3. Sigh. So much effort to deliver so small a joke. Apparently WP balks at the portmanteau merging of Woke and America into a single word, dropping the initial A from the second word.

              Is it the word that must not be said?
              ~

                1. I was bopping around the WP admin pages for dayjob the other day and tried to find the “list of forbidden comment words” and failed.

                  Sarah has relayed that I have in the past accidentally hit one she had set, but I can’t find where one would do that, nor view the default Verbotene Wörter list.

                  1. So it’s only the combination of Res and WokeAmerica that’s banned. Makes sense.

                    1. The term I was using was WokeAmerica without the initial A in America deleted, achieving a smoother vowel movement.
                      ~

                    2. I just tested RES’s word just this morning; Judging by the posts from him, it’s going into double-secret moderation. As of a few minutes ago, my test post isn’t showing. No notification, though I don’t have an account with Automattic, it just didn’t post then.

                      I suppose there’s somewhere that WP did a post of the list of the forbidden words, but their auto-censor program banned it. Sigh.

                      WPDE!

                3. Interesting – although WP (my its crafters forever rot in Tantalus) “lost” my attempted post it did initiate emailing subsequent comments as they were posted. Useful to know, on the “yes, your insurance covers damages to your house; after the deductible you get $23.57” sense.

                  Knowing the word WP bans, attempting to post in full:

                  I would suggest they’ve gotten themselves ahold of a Tar Baby (sev’l, ackshully) but that story is racist raaaaacsit and never told in Woke*merica.
                  ~

      1. At this point? Probably not worth it unless to override the Forbidden Word blockage. I’ve already spent overmuch effort and annoyance for so trivial a jest.
        ~

        1. BTW – I’ve now been Stage 1 Covaccinated (Moderna – because I am the very model of a modern minor wallaby) as has Beloved Spouse. Should either of us shed skin, develop hives, sprout inappropriate hair or acquire peculiar nocturnal proclivities I will endeavor to post warning.

          ~

          1. Em and I have had both stages of that, and between 12 and 36 hours later we had at least some flu-like symptoms, mostly muscle aches and fatigue. The second was worse than the first, to the point I visited the doctor. Her comment was that this was common even among her younger and healthier staff. Budget a day or two accordingly.

          2. Ah, I too am “House Moderna.” Felt a bit crappy after first one. From what I’ve heard of 2nd shot, I’m expecting some sick days later this week…

  20. The EU has been trying this for years. This could be great for Africa, they could set up as tax shelters. Watch the lefty heads explode dealing with that.

    1. I gather there are some terrific investment properties in Caribbean properties, well able to provide all of the elements sought in modern corporate headquarters.

      Just as there are interesting developments in medical centers in those islands, eager to fill the function for Americans avoiding Obamacare strictures as America traditionally provided for Canadians in pursuit of timely treatment.
      ~

      1. RES, I am reminded of the column written by a music industry “insider” back when music piracy was a thing, when the pirates were proposing that they do that with their servers:

        “If they won’t extradite, that’s why governments have cruise missiles.”

        Of course, this was before the precedent established that Americans overseas could be drone struck….

  21. Ireland will not want enforcement officers for the unit . I was dismayed. The states can’t do much , but they will try. Oceans has some songs that are better but they are refusing students for seats. Gag.

  22. Since there’s absolutely no hope of a “global corporate tax” enforced by all countries… they’ll back it off to what I think they originally had in mind, to wit: If a corporation does ANY business in the U.S., then it must pay U.S. taxes on all its global income. Some states have already tried to pull this (taxing income made in other states, not sure how far that succeeded).

      1. Given how desperately the Democratic Party is trying to trash the economy, that might be the objective, not a side effect.

    2. Mixed on US cases. Taxing world wide income has been poorly received as lowering taxes creates more business opportunity and jobs. The Biden proposals are sick, harmful ones. I will return the materials to you on Monday.

    3. California tried it. Thus far the courts aren’t having any. I suspect the breathtaking chaos involved in doing it gives pause to even the proverbial “Hawaiian judge”.

      1. Ah, that’s what I was remembering. California thinks it’s the whole country. They already lost a court case around trying to impose CA’s farming standards on other states.

        1. I’d really like the courts to tell California that the regulation of interstate commerce is granted to the federal government, so while a state may pass laws governing how products are produced in that state, they cannot say anything about products merely sold in that state.

  23. Credit where due, the Biden Administration has brought Unity:

    Real Clear Opinion Research Poll: School Choice Support Soars
    Parents and families have been on a rollercoaster when it comes to K-12 education in the time of COVID-19. A new poll from Real Clear Opinion Research finds overall support for school choice is increasing as parents need more options than ever.

    Major findings:

    – 71% of voters back school choice. This is the highest level of support ever recorded from major AFC national polling with a sample size above 800 voters.

    – 65% support parents having access to a portion of per-pupil funding to use for home, virtual, or private education if public schools don’t reopen full-time for in-person classes.

    Read the Whole Thing
    ~

  24. Mixed on US cases. Taxing world wide income has been poorly received as lowering taxes creates more business opportunity and jobs. The Biden proposals are sick, harmful and wrong.

    1. And all 197 recognized nations will meekly go along with the idea!

      I expect some kind of “or else” with teeth would be involved for some of them.

  25. But since the advantages now involve feral homeless camping everywhere, crazy edits on what can be open and closed, releasing criminals to roam the streets, etc. even if they get that national minimum wage…. it ain’t gonna work.

    |
    The advantages also include requirements to pack into jammed public transit unless one is in limousine class, right after a vastly overhyped pandemic. Ain’t gonna happen.

    And that’s already been recognized by business, who are canceling business space leases en masse in urban centers:

    https://wolfstreet.com/2021/04/05/office-slump-gets-ugly-in-houston-san-francisco-los-angeles-manhattan-chicago-washington-dc/

    1. Also (same site): https://wolfstreet.com/2021/03/26/as-rent-spreads-shrink-end-of-exodus-rents-in-san-francisco-silicon-valley-at-multiyear-lows-but-soar-in-sacramento-fresno-lake-tahoe-area/

      Silicon Valley residential rents are down 18% from the high in July 2018; meanwhile in Placer county, which stretches from the Sac area up to Truckee and the state line at Lake Tahoe in the Sierras, rents are up 30% year over year.

      The absolute difference in rates in one reason, but as the post says:

      But people have other reasons to move… a passion. Once you no longer have to show up at the office except occasionally, why not move to where you really want to move to, even if it doesn’t save a lot of money, or any money.

    1. A strong mix of Demolition Man, Gattaca and Idiocracy is what the future holds in store unless people push back hard against the leftist nonsense.

      1. The funny part about Idiocracy is the lefties love to point to it as what would happen if the righties ran everything…

        When I (finally) watched it, I had the opposite thought…

  27. Psalm 16 English Standard Version
    A Miktam of David.

    Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
    I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    I have no good apart from you.”

    As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
    in whom is all my delight.

    The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
    their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
    or take their names on my lips.

    The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
    you hold my lot.
    The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

    I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
    in the night also my heart instructs me.
    I have set the Lord always before me;
    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

    Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
    my flesh also dwells secure.
    For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
    or let your holy one see corruption.

    You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

    1. For a very long time ATF had the reputation as the federal LE organization where the applicants who fell below the bar and failed to get jobs at all the other FedLE organizations were able to get jobs, so this jerk’s record of working there is not as impressive as he thinks it is…

    2. Sure lays out what they have in mind for us, don’t it?

      But I’ll bet they don’t do a thing about the 23+ heavily armed Muslim terrorist training camps that have sprouted all over the country…

      https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/01/fbi-confirms-existence-of-jihad-training-camps-in-rural-america

      www DOT foxnews DOT com/story/frightening-film-on-u-s-terrorism-training-camps

      americanpatriotdaily DOT com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/map-1.jpg
      (can’t find the interactive map I wanted)

      1. Jihadist supporters suing Facebook to get them to ban groups that speak out against Jihadism:

        https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/04/09/anti-free-speech-muslim-group-sues-facebook-for-not-removing-sites-opposing-jihad-violence-n1438713

        I anticipate a lot of these kinds of suits, which will be pretty much the same as the sue and settle ones with government, where activists sue and the party sued quickly capitulates because both sides want the same result but need to circumvent prohibitions on their doing so that would normally prevent them from instituting such policies or taking such actions.

        1. Thanks, had missed that one. Yeah, that sort of sue/settle scam has been very successful, notably for “environmentalist” groups.

  29. Related post I put up yesterday: The Logic of Insatiable Centralization–

    People and businesses have been leaving New York City, and the state of California, at a considerable rate. Some of these people/businesses are *resources* from the standpoint of government and its leaders: they are tax money on the hoof. Cuomo, de Blasio, and Newsome would surely like to have a way of keeping them there. Would these leaders, if they were allowed, favor a legal prohibition on exits, or at least a prohibitive tax penalty for such exit? This is the logic of the Berlin Wall, or of the Reich Flight Tax, the Reichsfluchtsteuer. Such things may seem impossible in America, but the Dems have pushed for a lot of things that would have previously been considered impossible in America.

    Comes now Janet Yellen of the Biden administration, with a proposal for a global minimum tax on businesses, thereby nailing the feet of companies to the floor and keeping them from going elsewhere to avoid excessive exactions. Just as Blue-city mayors would rather not have to worry about offering a tax system that is fair and economically-rational, the same is true of the Blue Biden administration.

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/65647.html

    1. What was with the site (and even the RSS feed) demanding a login yesterday?

      Also, look up the wealth tax and exit tax that California has floated a couple times. Same general thrust. “You have money. We want it. You will not escape with so much as the shirt on your back.”

      I’m reminded of something I once read from a Soviet escapee: that there was no prohibition against leaving the USSR. Rather, the stumbling block was the exit tax, which back then (1970s) was somewhere in the range of a million US dollars.

    3. The US already has a punitive regime for “rich” people who want to give up their citizenship.

  30. Yeah, that $15 an hour wage. That works out to (full time) $31,200 a year.

    Just before coming over here, I was reading a WUWT post on the insane policies that are making their energy the most expensive in the nation. One statement there was that black households have a median income of $56,200 in Los Angeles. And 57% of them are still living in poverty.

    Blue cities cost a lot more to live in than $31K a year (assuming that between deductions and tax credits, they actually end up with that much – most won’t). A coworker of mine, at the same company, same job, was being paid 150% of what I was (and about 10% more than the woman who was our department head, who also lived in Tucson). He lived in Pasadena, in a house and lot 50% smaller than mine in Tucson. I had more disposable income than he did, too – me with three kids and a non-working spouse (at the time), him with a working spouse and two kids.

    1. It will be interesting to see what happens with remote work pay policies. Previous job instituted differential pay based on location, so a programmer living in NYC got paid a lot more than a similar value programmer in the rural midwest. Current job does not have differential pay, so living in a low cost area makes more sense.

      1. Of course, every State now wants to tax based on where the work is actually being “performed” – so if you are VPNing in from say Kansas to Manhattan, New York State and NYC want to tax you at their rates – which you don’t get back from your credit in Kansas. Almost got caught in that for a remote job in San Diego before I dug into it. (Never took that one; did do one in Phoenix that I drove to every day for a while.)

        1. My company (worldwide) runs into that A LOT…. to the point that since 2005 any place I went that had a higher tax rate than where I lived, they reimbursed me the difference and treated it as part of their rate calculation.

    2. This point – that what you are paid matters less than what you can buy with it – is the subject of a long-remembered passage in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court.

      So it isn’t exactly news.
      ~

  31. There’s no way the lower corporate tax countries are going to jack up their rates because Janet Yellen says so. Pfft.

    As for the random $15/hr. living wage scam, I see it as more than just preventing jobs and businesses fleeing expensive Democrat-run cities/states. It’s an attempt by the politicians to put a bandaid over the shotgun wound of millions of jobs gone thanks to those same politicians. Those lost jobs were career-long, family sustaining, upwardly mobile jobs, mainly in manufacturing. What the politicians want is for low-paying service jobs to take up the slack for those not content to merely sit around and collect welfare. Those jobs weren’t designed to be career-long gigs (the era of starting out as a part-timer at McDonalds and working your way up to regional manager is long over). They were your first jobs out of high school, prison, welfare, immigrating to the U.S., the military, etc. or maybe a part-time gig in college or maybe your last job after you’ve retired, just to get some pocket change and see other people. They were never meant to raise a family or build an upper middle class lifestyle. Or live in a cool expensive loft in SoHo. But the politicians have to keep the peasants from revolting, so they put the burden on businesses that hire a lot of low wage service employees to jack up their pay. Big fat corporations like Walmart or Amazon can afford it but small businesses cannot and there is only so much cost they can pass on to customers. Either the small business closes shop or it employs a bunch of people under the table. The politicians distract people with cheap class warfare while it covers up the fact they are the ones who are forcing folks who would be working an oil rig or a mine or an assembly line into being Walmart stock boys and fast food burger jockeys.

    Obama was more than happy to pass off a huge number of people into part-time and gig economy jobs. Now his party is doing its best to kill off those gig economy jobs because freelancers aren’t interested in fattening up SEIU or the Teamsters or AFL-CIO any more than they already are.

  32. I did my little bit today, and planted some snow peas and sugar snap peas. I was also going to plant the rest of my hardy veggies, but I discovered that I hadn’t expanded the garden bed quite enough. That last section had some parts that still needed to be worked, so it’s going to take a fair amount of working before it’s ready to plant.

    I also decided to make the third bed even larger and give the squash their own area when it gets warm enough to plant them, instead of double-cropping them on the peas. Undecided at the moment on whether to try to succession crop beans on the peas, or something else.

    The tomatoes I started indoors are growing nicely, although it looks like I may need to replant some of the peppers. At least this way I’m getting a head start on those crops, so with luck they’ll transplant well and give me plenty of tomatoes and peppers.

    And I was able to pull my belt in another notch, so all this work is making at least some progress on my winter weight gain.

    1. I already have volunteer peas 4 inches high. Sweet/snap mix, given they were in adjacent rows and I didn’t care if they partied. I plant them between the corn rows (they’re happy to climb up the corn, tho I put rope or a stock panel between to keep the corn from falling over), which does a good job of keeping the peas cool and producing much longer than if they’re out in the sun… corn overgrows ’em about the time it gets too hot for peas.

    2. Until my knee is reasonably well healed, I can’t prepare the raised beds. The larger outdoor ones are out this year. They’d also need extensive covering for the 2-3 June hard freezes we get because Zone 1. I *might* be ready for that, but not the tilling and spreading the good soil I hadn’t bought. So, the neighbors got the seeds, and not much grilled zucchini this summer.

      OTOH, I’m up to getting the greenhouse pots ready, so we’ll do tomatoes in there, and $SPOUSE will use the 2′ x 8′ raised beds in the greenhouse. We’re betting those won’t need the tilling. We still have to set up the water bottles and the barrel for thermal mass; otherwise it gets too cold at night. Last year was fairly bad for tomatoes; dehydrated very few, but we got a reasonable amount of fresh. We’re going to grow the varieties that do well, especially the cool climate weather tomatoes. Siletz and Siberians for the win!

  34. > The economics just don’t work.

    Speaking of which, at least locally, I’m seeing shortages again at the grocery and hardware stores. Empty spots on the shelves, not restocked across multiple visits. Usually the stockers fluff things to hide that.

    1. I’ve not been paying much attention to spot shortages in general but have nonetheless noticed that the “hot” variety of my favorite brand of taco sauce is usually out of stock at Walmart, so much so that when it makes a rare appearance, I’ll quickly scarf up six or eight large bottles.

      More peculiarly, the Walmart section devoted to plastic storage totes is eerily empty. Perhaps problems with Chinese imports?

    2. I stopped by Sonic a bit ago, and they had a bit notice on their annoying LCD screen about some items on the menu not being available due to nationwide transportation problems. They never had *that* even a year ago when everyone was panicking over trucking shutdowns.

      2. One of the two ham radio outfits I use (DX Engineering) has had some major backorders. Ordered a desk mike in February, they missed the original commit, and the end of March. Now, it’s for April 22nd. (Japanese manufacturer, with a reputation for building in Japan.) If the April shipment gets blown off, I’ll cancel the order; looks like I’ll be using more digital modes than voice, anyway.

        Ham Radio Outlet seems to be mildly impacted, but they can scrounge stuff from various places. Most normal stuff came from Left-coast locations, but I’ve had a few things come from Atlanta. Size helps at times.

        Various sites (and not just Zerohedge) are noting that shipping worldwide is crazy, with jams in a lot of different places.

    3. Heh. Until someone invents a replicator that can, as the Star Trek ones apparently do, create something out of nothing (srsly, WHERE do the replicators get their matter?! Mind you, I’m going on just what I saw in the shows, so maybe one of the novels tries to explain it) it ain’t gonna happen.

      (And given that I found those replicators in TNG onwards to be the single most unbelievable thing about the series…)

        1. True, but the transporter didn’t apparently rewrite the entire economy. Though it DOES seem to be a source of bizarrely miraculous cures/solutions that they then promptly forget later on.

          Truth be told, I am a big fan of that meme/thread out there that posits that humans are the “Hold my Beer and Watch This” of the Federation. 😀

  37. Removes incentives for companies to relocate to lower tax areas. Only an idiot nation would agree to this.

      1. Yeah, in Canada only the government is stupid. In Europe the stupid goes a lot deeper.

  38. Pingback: Let downs and uplifts | Dio's Workshop

  39. Sarah, I’ve been thinking about the whole Lefty dynamic and Critical Theory in particular. It’s been reminding me of something for quite some time now. To the point where I can make predictions about where they’re going to go next, and then they go there.

    It’s Deja Poo: I’ve seen this shit before.

    Finally figured out where I’ve seen it. The Moral Hygiene Movement and Herbert Spencer’s “Social Evolution” nonsense. The Moral Hygiene nuts topped out in the 1890s and finally died in the 1930s, killed by their success in ramming Prohibition through in the USA and other countries. Also killed by the appearance of their ultimate expression, the Marxists and the Nazis.

    The last dregs of it are dying now with the legalization of weed and other things like magic mushrooms. (Don’t yell at me, I’m just telling you what the tea leaves are saying. It’ll be legal by the end of 2022 unless something bad happens to the Harris/Biden machine. Maybe this year.)

    The NPC Brigades are behaving -exactly- the same as the Moral Hygiene Hordes of the late 19th Century. Tell me Carry Nation doesn’t look like a classic wild-eyed SJW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Nation

  40. I realize many here now eschew Power Line as unreliably conservative, but some of the participants there have always been more Trump-Tolerant than others, as John Hinderaker demonstrates today:

    TRUMP WINS IN MICHIGAN
    I have said several times that I don’t know whether the Democrats stole the 2020 election, but I do know that they tried hard to steal it. Their efforts included relaxation of voting standards, especially relating to mail-in voting, wherever they had Democratic Secretaries of State. Typically these changes to voting procedures, not enacted by state legislatures–likely in violation of the Constitution–involved waiving a statutory requirement of witness signatures to verify the identity of the person who mailed in the ballot, or otherwise made it more difficult to check the validity of mailed ballots.

    Often, as in Minnesota, such changes were made via collusive litigation supposedly adverse to a Democratic Secretary of State, but actually in corrupt cooperation with that individual who would promptly “settle” the Democrats’ case by agreeing to do whatever the activist plaintiffs wanted. This was done to make voter fraud, which favors Democrats, easier and more widespread.

    The Trump campaign filed lawsuits in several jurisdictions, arguing that last-minute changes to voting procedures by Democratic Secretaries of State loyal to the Biden campaign were illegal. Those cases are now wending their way through the courts. In Michigan, Trump won a victory at the trial court level last month, when a state court judge held that the Secretary’s “guidance” on counting of unverified mail-in ballots was issued in violation of Michigan’s Administrative Procedure Act. In other words, the Secretary of State needed to follow the statutorialy-required legal process, not just issue an order to help her party by encouraging cheating.

    This is key language from the opinion:

    Examining the “Signature Verification and Voter Notification Standards” through that lens, the Court agrees with plaintiffs that the same constitutes a “rule” that should have been promulgated pursuant to the APA’s procedures. The standards are generally applicable to all absent voter ballot applications and absent voter ballots, and it contains a mandatory statement from defendant, this state’s chief election officer, see MCL 168.21, declaring that all local clerks “must perform their signature verification duties” in accordance with the instructions. In addition, clerks must presume that signatures are valid. That this presumption is mandatory convinces the Court that it is not merely guidance, but instead is a generally applied standard that implements this state’s signature-matching laws. See MCL 24.207 (defining “rule”)…

    This decision might be reversed on appeal, if Democrats hold the majority in the Michigan Supreme Court, but its logic appears sound. The Democrats engaged in a great deal of last-minute chicanery to lower electoral standards last year. They did do by hook or by crook, wherever they had loyal Secretaries of State willing to violate state law to erase protections against voter fraud. Why did they do this? I think it was because they knew voter fraud would help elect Joe Biden. Does anyone have an alternative explanation?

    I should add that the Democrats’ assertion that numerous courts have rejected the Trump administration’s claims of voter fraud is fatuous. There is no court in which the necessary discovery on the factual issue of voter fraud has been conducted, let alone a court in which such claims have been rejected. That process, if it occurs in any court, will take at least a year and a half to complete, probably longer.

    Some of Trump’s cases have been dismissed on standing or mootness grounds–it is too late, in other words, Joe Biden has been inaugurated–but no court has allowed fact-finding, followed by a ruling that Trump’s claims of voter fraud were factually incorrect, or that Joe Biden carried a particular state, notwithstanding significant illegal votes in his favor. Maybe ongoing litigation will shed light on these factual questions in the years to come. Maybe not.

    What we can say for certain is that election integrity is important to a large majority of Americans. In my own allegedly-blue state of Minnesota, 69% of registered voters said in the Thinking Minnesota Poll that they want voter ID. My guess is that the national percentage is even higher.

    We have two parties in America: one that wants free, fair and honest elections, with only legal voters casting ballots, and doing so only once, and one that wants ballot harvesting, unverified mail-in voting, unattended drop boxes into which anyone can drop any number of ballots of unknown provenance, and so on. It isn’t hard to see which party has confidence in the power of its ideas to gain the support of most Americans, as long as only actual, living and legal voters cast ballots, and they only vote once.

    The integrity of our elections will be one of America’s most important issues in the years to come.
    ~

    1. As I told a friend who’s an adamant fraud denier:

      There are a lot of questions about the 2020 election. Massive election fraud perpetrated by the Democrats answers ALL of those questions. If you deny that there was fraud, you have to come up with an alternate explanation for EVERY ONE of those questions.

      So, what is more likely? One common cause, or 50 different rationales applied in 50 different ways?
      ———————————
      My grandpa voted Republican until the day he died — but he’s been voting Democrat ever since.

  41. I sss that Nate Silver has committed an unforgiveable act of heresy, attacking the High Priest of Covid. It’s apity; he was a pretty good Baseball analyst.

    Nate Silver Accuses Dr. Fauci of Gaslighting on COVID Transmission
    Dr. Anthony Fauci lost the trust of many of us a long time ago. His praise of New York COVID-19 response was certainly the last straw for me, yet, even after Fauci violated D.C.’s mask mandate, and advocated for double-masking despite acknowledging there was no data to prove it worked and his failed prediction that Texas would see an explosion of cases after the state opened, he’s been treated as an untouchable by the left. He’s been the number one poster child for mask-wearing and social-distancing post-vaccination. When he says, “You still can’t do this” or “You still can’t do that,” many people listen.

    But, there are cracks emerging in Fauci’s untouchable status.

    “It’s pure gaslighting at this point to say we don’t know whether vaccinated people spread the virus,” wrote famed pollster Nate Silver on Twitter. “Tons of studies—including from the CDC—show that vaccines massively reduce (though probably not entirely eliminate) transmission.” …
    ~

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