Secrecy and Tyranny

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

“Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

It’s time to object now, by any means possible: To this abomination.

The head of the abomination is a buddy with our old enemies.

We cannot let this stand. If this stands, this is THE balloon.

And there it rises.

389 thoughts on “Secrecy and Tyranny”

    2. And it appears the FBI/Capitol Police have been mutating into MiniLuv. The SJW/Tranzi types did have to choose that Dystopia as a template didn’t they?

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        1. Point taken. Certainly under Mr Hoover( Am I misgendering it?) it did become a Stasi/NKVD like entity. It was supposed to have 2 major purposes 1) Enforcement investigation of federal/cross state border crimes 2) Counterintelligence (Like Britains MI5 to some degree). I wonder if the first might not be merged/handed over to the US Marshalls and the second become the FBI’s primary rasion d’etre. of course it seems to have become so corrupted and politicized that at this point you’re probably better to kill it with fire, hand 1 over to the Marshalls and create a whole new counter intelligence agency. Thos functions seem necessary, but not at the scale the FBI exists at and certainly NOT with many of the current staff. When you spend your life creating traps that even raving lunatics seem loathe to enter into (I.E. the Whitmer plot) its clear you’re doing it wrong.

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          1. I understand that 1980s through 1990s they had gotten really expert at investigating public corruption, to the point where many employees were not happy with the shift to counter-terrorism because they felt it was neglecting their core competency to focus on something not really within their realm of expertise.

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          2. I told my psych yesterday, “If you don’t believe the government is keeping tabs on you, you’ve not been paying attention the last few years.” She agreed with me, and I don’t think it was just as part of her “counseling” schtick. She doesn’t seem to be all that happy with various things going on at the moment.

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    3. While not completely surprised, I do find it disconcerting that .gov has decided to open an official office of MiniTru. Even though they call it by another name it’s clear what the intent is. :-(

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      1. To do the Party of 1984 justice, they either went for the blunt truth — duckspeak — or blatant lies — MiniTru. None of them would have weaseled about with “Disinformation Governance.”

        Say, is there another dystopia where they did weasel? I mean they’re already hitting 1984, Brave New World, Atlas Shrugged, Fahrenheit 451, Orphans of the Sky, and Harrison Bergeron.

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            1. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that “Wesly Mouch” and “Weaselly Mooch” sound so similar.

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      1. This. MinTrue is still in copyright, so and Department of Truth . . . Well, try saying that with a straight face. Even Psaki would have trouble.

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  2. “You tell everybody. Listen to me Hatcher! You’ve gotta tell ’em! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! We gotta stop them! Somehow!”

    Instead of Soylent Green, we have Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Covid, Vax, Immigration, BLM, DEI, CRT, Insider Trading, Election Fraud, Pedophilia, Inflation and more…

    All bets are off for a sane plot this year, The Author has found Joe Rogan’s stash of edibles.

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    1. Au contraire, mon frere. We Do have Soylent Green, right now, right on time ( hmmm- what year was that movie set in?? Oh yeah, 2022 ). Check this out…

      That there is straight outta the CCCP controlled internet, showing the good folks of China how to butcher, wait for it, YOU. I mean how bad can communism really be, when the good folks at the Bureau take time out of their busy days for a PSA on cannibalism butchering??

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        1. I’ve stopped buying pork this year after one of those “You know Soylent Green is set in 2022” went around, it’s just too weird of a year. I couldn’t shrug off the ick factor. Granted, I don’t eat much past bacon, and some sandwich meat.

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            1. Yes, it is very real — in the beverage aisle of a supermarket near you — and they even have Soylent Green now, prominently featured on the home page. “New Soylent Green Squares are here and as good as humanly possible! Get yours today!” https://soylent.com/

              They’re going all-in on the movie references. Pretty clever, actually, but it’s all hitting much too close to “art becomes life” for me. Ick. shiver

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              1. Clever? Its like selling Bates shower curtains or Lizzie Borden Hatchets or Baal nursery schools. I suppose you could call it clever at some level, but that it didn’t give the founder and investors a serious case of the creeps tells me what kind of folks these people are.

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                1. It’s the peak of Gen X irony in marketing.

                  I think it is dumb, but their target is college-educated IT Gen Xers and it sells…lots of co-workers use it.

                  Why was I immune? Enlisted military. I think that made me not able to be “college-educated” in terms of social class regardless of what degree I might hold.

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                  1. Well, it pretty much has to be generated by and for GenX, as I’ve found few people younger than us (and quite a few GenX as well) that even know what movies from before 1980 are. And while the current generation of teens still have a lot of life ahead of them, they seem oblivious to anything made before their birth.

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          3. Well, so much for that pork roast in the freezer. Gonna stay there awhile now.
            I can’t eat ribs because of Fried Green Tomatoes.

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                1. All of my pork (mostly bacon) was bought last year and is sitting in the freezer. I stocked up before the inevitable price increases I saw coming in the spring of 2020. I’m thinking that the next time my coworkers buy a cow I might go in with them.

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                  1. Great idea. My rental apartment freezer is packed with as much red meat and pork as I can stuff into it. When I get my own place (I’ve got a two year target) I’m going to get a chest freezer and pack it with animal protein. We’ve got a lot of opportunity in North Idaho to work directly with ranchers.

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            3. Just finishing off a juicy pork roast I made. Got it at Kroger’s so I’m assuming it’s from a pig.

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          4. Depends on where you get your pork. Hobby farmer is where we got ours. But then we are moving to beef 1/4 instead this summer. Normally we don’t eat much pork either. Pepper Bacon, Ribs, and rarely ham, unless we have half a yearling.

            But … um, yea.

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      2. The CCP? A lot of the “western” enviro radicals, including such eco-terrorists as “extinction rebellion” openly advocate the Soylent Green route in the name of “sustainability”.

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                1. Good point! But we can add either lime or dilute HNO3 as required, depending; both provide nourishment. :-)

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                  1. Excellent points.
                    I’ll own this issue. I shall report once I’ve determined the average acidity/alkalinity. Then we can prepare. :)

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                    1. Does Alkalinity/Acidity vary with diet though? Are vegans more acidic or alkaline? And can you find out the alkalinity/acidity of the average mostly carnivorous human without getting walloped? (though honestly, I could think of a few who’d get a chuckle out of it.)

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      3. How certain are you of that image’s provenance? Did you find it yourself, or did you get it from someone else — and are you 100% certain that that someone else got it where he said he got it?

        I ask because that poster seems like the kind of thing an anti-CCP group might produce as a sort of “ha ha only not funny” satire, sort of like saying “Hey guys, the CCP is so bad that they’re probably going to be telling you to eat your elderly relatives soon”. And there might be something in the Chinese text that would make that clear — but since the ability to read Chinese is not widespread among Westerners, and it’s not possible to run Google Translate on an image, I can’t be certain if this is really from the CCP, or from someone else trying to produce a Swiftian satire denouncing the CCP’s lockdown policies.

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          1. I’m saying that my first reaction to that was that it’s too obviously evil. Even as evil as the CCP is, they take pains to do their organ harvesting in secret (for values of “secret” that include “openly in contexts where they think everyone will be too afraid to spill the beans”), because they know what it would look like. To post this openly would seem to me to be a big loss of face, so I’m inclined to doubt its provenance until such provenance is confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt.

            So yeah, “A Modest Proposal” is my working theory at this point.

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      2. Yeah Every time I think that “Last Centurion” is as ugly as things could get some reminds me of RAH and “Year of The Jackpot”. Please Author DO NOT listen to suggestions from RAH. Or H.P. Lovecraft either for that matter…

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          1. Fair call. Although perhaps some of RAH’s Ideas would be fine. Requiem for example, though I’d like for our modern day D.D. Harriman get to Mars, not to arrive decrepit and prevented from ever enjoying the fruits of his labor.

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          2. I do believe it’s time for a re-reading of Nyarlathotep, the story and the poem.

            “I am the last. I will tell the audient void.”

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              1. No…the Old Ones are what you get when you turn away from the Gods of the Copybook Headings.

                Haven’t you read The Call of Cthulhu?

                “The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.”

                However, I personally doubt the Old Ones’ adherents will get the ecstasy and freedom they expect…or if they do, it’ll be the Old Ones’ definition of ecstasy and freedom, not theirs.

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          3. Please no John Barnes.

            There’s already events of “The Century Next Door” series in the present day, we don’t need The Author to get more ideas.

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        2. I’m wondering if it’s the other way around… the Author brain dumped some of these things at some of those guys as fair advance warning and foreshadowing? ducks and runs

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          1. Wyrdbard that would make John Ringo a prophet in the model of say Nathan or Elijah (or perhaps Jonah :-) ). I don’t think I’m quite ready for that …

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      1. “It was a WARNING, not a plan!” Well, George, that’s what you get for thinking there was some kind of “good” flavor of socialism a nation could pursue without trending to tyranny.

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        1. So many seem to get minefield maps (DO NOT STEP HERE!) confused with dance step maps (STEP EXACTLY HERE). Only the mine explode under others and learning (or Bad Idea culling) does not occur at a proper rate.

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          1. The left views 1984, Brave New World, etc., as puzzles to be successfully completed so that they can reach their holy grail.

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            1. No, I think at this stage they have graduated to seeking complete societal destruction, based on the push for legalizing sex with children and transgenderism, along with a “green new deal” which would dump us back into the 17th century…

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              1. Do they know that’s what they’re doing? The general destroying of things they don’t like, yes, of course they know…but I can only surmise that the vast majority have no idea how much they’re destroying and where it leads, else no one would be doing it.

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                1. As usual, they think that they will somehow be insulated from the misery, because they’re Important People(tm). The historical reality (mostly gulag fodder or fertilizer) doesn’t exist in their so-called minds.

                  Were it not for the rest of us being dragged along for the ride when they ultimately have the terrible depths of their error demonstrated, I would almost be tempted to cheer for their “ideal” government coming to be.

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            2. They want to see how many they can do. Like Orphans Of the Sky for its definition of “scientist.”

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        2. Maybe he was just having some fun by writing an instruction manual for the inevitable despotism a socialist state devolves to but concealing it as a warning against a dystopian future.

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      1. It’s OK for thinking WBUR is a subset of NPR. Honestly the Venn Diagram of the two is nearly coincident with WBUR bits outside NPR having some additional even MORE insane/stupid stuff…

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    2. :takes mindreading pose:
      I sense… a repeat of the hijacking of “Bullying” to mean “I want to be justified in my bullying and make it harder for the actually wronged to fight back.”

      :clicks through:

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      1. She’s at least fairly good at slight-of-handing, but the excerpt even flatly states that the “troll” was giving freely shared, publicly available information that hurt the image she wanted to project, not that it was incorrect or threatening.

        Given the listed inclusion of Brianna Wu, chances are that the tactics used aren’t the problem, it’s when it tactics are used against them.

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    4. snort

      The dirty little secret about online harassment is that studies have found that while men engage in harrassment more frequently than women, women are more vicious than men.

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      1. Unsurprising. A man who harasses online tends to use it the way he’d use his fists in person. A woman tends to use it to systematically destroy the target’s social support networks.

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        1. It’s almost like… men and women have different social strategies, that don’t change regardless of the media or environment they’re deployed in…

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      2. I was thinking that the proposed feminization of the internet would probably result in a whole lot of Requires Hate instead of the kumbaya bullcrap they’re trying to imply…

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  5. Is the purpose of a “Disinformation Governance Board” to spread it, combat it, or spread one version while combatting another?

    BTW, I always prefer to look at primary sources: https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/dhs/dhs-standing-up-disinformation-governance-board-led-by-information-warfare-expert/ .

    Notice how competently this is done:

    “DHS and its components play a big role in addressing myths and disinformation in Spanish and other languages. Can you share what steps you’ve taken and what future plans you have to address Spanish-language myths and disinformation through a department-wide approach?”

    What better agency to convince Hispanics than the one that runs USCIS which deports some of their family members and friends?

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  6. Unless the nation goes ballistic about this, yeah, maybe, the only way to fight this would be to start terminating those members of the DHS (and others) who support it. If they’re no longer working, then they don’t have the teeth to institute or support their tyranny.

    Oh, and don’t bother eating the brains of Leftists; it’s fattening, and there’s no nutritional value.

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    2. Eating Leftist brains could be dangerous to your health.

      I usually just smile at lizard people conspiracies even as I recognize the relevance. It is easier for me to accept that those in positions of power who might appear to be camouflaged reptilians are actually infected with an alien brain parasite.

      Until I know more of the particulars it is safest to assume the parasite and the tendrils is spreads into the brain is poisonous to ingest.

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        1. “I swear, if zombies did eat brains they would completely ignore you!”
          From John Ringo’s, “To Sail a Darkling Sea,” Shewolf.

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  7. “Disinformation Governance Board” sounds exactly like what it is…a board to control the distribution of government disinformation. It’s government-corporate weaselspeak that gives away the game. I’m surprised they didn’t call it the “Sub-Department of Fluffy Bunny Protection” as cover.

    I guess they think we really are that stupid. Time to see if we are or not, I guess.

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    1. Well if they label something as Disinformation … We’ll know it isn’t. If they label something as proper information, we’ll know it is disinformation/misdirection because they are guilty of whatever … At this point, anyway. I mean their track record speaks for itself.

      1 – Hunter’s Laptop
      2 – Brandon’s health
      3 – Border
      4 – Russia Russia Russia
      5 – Inflation
      6 – Jan 6
      7 – No Voting Fraud
      8 – anything they label as Nazi or KKK

      etc., etc., too many to list.

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      1. It’s been my base starting point the last decade or so. Though I did get to keep my insurance plan and doctor (it’s a state government plan, YMMV).

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    2. Well, since YotJ is current …

      | “Somebody,” he said bitterly, “has again decided that ‘Mama knows best.’
      | They won’t tell us any bad news.”
      | “Potiphar,” Meade said sharply, “that was an atom bomb . . . wasn’t it?”
      | “It was. And now we don’t know whether it was just Los Angeles and
      | Kansas City or all the big cities in the country. All we know is that they are lying
      | to us.”

      Hey, you gonna believe the gub’mint or yo lyin’ eyes?

      Back in the mid 80s, I used to think there might be a business opportunity in curating accurate info on the web. A reliable Wikipedia, if you will. I never anticipated just how much is out there, nor how many ‘unpaid volunteers’ would hold and enforce a different idea of ‘accuracy’.

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      1. In the “Old Guy” cybertank stories a sect of librarians dedicated themselves to keeping information accurate. In a computerized age, this meant hard copies of all the important books.

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  8. And in other news, the economy officially shrank 1.4% last quarter. But the NYT says it doesn’t mean anything. Uh huh.

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    1. Hey, if you take out all the negatives it would have been positive! Stop with all the Debbie Downer misinformation will ya, and get with the program. Maaan. Our wise overlords know what they’re doing unlike the rest of us peasants.

      Of note, some FOREIGN banks are saying the US recession has started already. Goldman still believes in the Fed even though they’ve been selling hand over fist for months.

      Oh, Twitter admitted today that they lied about their subscriber numbers. Wonder what made them make that public now?

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    2. If The Turnip and chief does it again then he’s officially got himself a recession. Joy oh Joy Stagflation is back, that was so fun the first time. The Turnip is old enough he remembers that, well he probably did 4-8 years ago…

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        1. Fascinating, although between supply chain issues and people just wanting to go out and do things (including shop) Amazon may just be getting a little backlash. But declining GDP is something we haven’t seen for a bit, and in combination with inflation we haven’t seen it since late 70’s/early 80’s.

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          1. No. Their customer service has gone bonkers. Like, they changed the credit card I pay for things with. Which would be fine, but the cc they changed to is the business one, so it’s an unholy mess for taxes.
            On top of that, they put the payment address as a friend’s address that just happened to be the first on my address book.
            AND THEN when I called to complain, they hanged up on me. TWICE.
            AND sent me an email saying they were glad they’d solved my issue.
            WHAT THE EVER LOVING F?

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              2. Being hung up on only twice is, for amazon, a pretty good day.
                I didn’t have two party authentication, so somebody decided to hack my account and sign up for it.
                Amazon refused to reinstate my account because I couldn’t respond to a text to the thief’s phone number. And this was during the processing of my fraud complaint….
                But then they reinstated my account after issuing me another one and moving all my order history to it. Which was moved back to my original account. There are still buggy issues when I order as a result.

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              3. Not sure why, but I’ve had good luck with the ‘zon lately, and haven’t needed customer service from them in a few years. Flyover Falls doesn’t have a lot of odder things, and right now, we need the odder things.

                I’ve needed customer service from Dish Network (both TV and internet), and they seem to have dumped the offshore outsource, at least for daylight hours. Good service, and on a slow day, had a good chat with one of the service dudes. (Working from home, it seems.) I’ve looked into StarLink, but so far, I’m better off with Dish/Hughes.

                Tempting Murphy, I even had good luck with the state Department of Revenue service…

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              4. There are a couple of “tells” at AMZN. First, the Beezer moving on is a big one. Typically, the management that takes over when the founding pirate has moved on isn’t the same caliber and the founding pirate often has seen the future and jumped while the jumping is good. Add to that the new management often does stupid stuff to show they’re as good as the founding pirate.

                The second tell is loss of focus. Get woke and go broke is just the modern version of Parkinson’s law of corporate headquarters. Once management starts doing things that aren’t part of their business, rot quickly sets in.

                Two other things. The economy is slowing, which causes people to buy less, and the fact that expectations following WuFlu was for a brave new world without retail. What seems to have happened is the proportion of retail sales on the internet went back to the previous trend line.

                To me, the most interesting thing is AAPL, who had what seems to be a blowout quarter with the immediate futures pumping higher then puking all over the place. let’s see what tomorrow brings but things are looking very bearish and a stock market decline would be the fourth leading indicator to go south.

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          1. Yes. You should.

            Mom has been getting a call about authorizing $900 for something on Amazon. She figures it is fraud. But response is “No way in Hell”, then she hangs up. She’s been watching her CC like a hawk, as well as her Amazon account. Wonder who told her that? All 3 of her daughters, SIL’s, and grandchildren … She got the message.

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              1. are people who have made careers of playing with these scammers.

                –
                Love reading about the stories they generate giving scammers their just dues. Heck I wish I could. But definitely don’t want mom doing that.

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                1. One of the most satisfying moments I’ve ever had was when a scammer showed up on Mom’s front porch while I was living there. I got a chance to stand behind the door while the SOB tried to bully and lie Mom into something like blacktop for the driveway. When it got to a certain point I moved her aside and walked that f*cker out the front door, off the porch, and into the driveway. I was talking and cursing the whole time.
                  People who take advantage of the elderly should be killed, and I’ll be the one to volunteer for it.

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                  1. Like Biden’s handlers. I may despise him and his regime, but you can’t tell me we’re not seeing elder abuse.

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            3. Mine was getting that even though she nor anyone else in the household even has a Spamazon account. The one upside of closing down her phone number, after she passed away, was that the spam calls of all sorts now go nowhere, and she’s not always calling me up in a panic about how she’s worried that she’s in some kind of trouble with some organization or another.

              Helluva price for that quiet, though. :(

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            4. I’ve been getting calls from “Amazon” (yeah, right. Pull the other one…) occasionally for months about various expensive “preauthorized” purchases, usually iPhones or laptops. All recordings, of course, so my comments regarding my wish that they find new and exciting ways to try to breed with themselves are wasted. And no, I don’t try to get a human (or unreasonable facsimile) on the line; I just comment and hang up.

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              1. I’ve read that any response gets you put on the list of “those who reply”, resulting in more calls, which is why I no longer respond in any way to the aholes. If there were any way to have the system give a message that the line is no longer in service, but only for those calls, I’d do that. Unfortunately that’s not possible without a comprehensive list of “problem numbers”, which would be a waste of time given the almost universal number spoofing done by the aholes. Just hanging up is best.

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                1. Interesting; I didn’t know that asterisks (which I used for the “esses” above), caused a “bold” toggle…

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                    1. OK; thanks for the info. In another comment I used leftarror-rightarrow to enclose a “gah!” as a nausea indicator, and the whole thing showed up as a semicolon. Oy…

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                    2. It’s markdown, which has been used on a variety of chat plat forms and forums for quite some time, so who knows where they caught it from.

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                    3. :laughs: I debated going down Memory Lane, because I remember it being used on plain text boards to do formatting, too, but figured that was a little too dull. :grin:

                      But I just remembered I want to test underscore!

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                    5. and yeah, that’s why I kept it short, It’s just prevelent enough that there really is no telling where they got it from or why they thought it was a good idea. (though it IS somewhat simpler than HTML)

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                2. We moved two years ago but kept our old phone numbers and area code. So when I get numbers from the old area code that aren’t in my phone, the chance that they’re spoofed is pretty close to 100%.

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          2. I wish you would. It seems contrary to the fact that I’m ordering more from amazon now than I have in ages, out of “necessity.”

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  9. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that this was announced this week.
    Have I mentioned that I have a bridge for sale?

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      2. You could just steal one: “Thieves in Ohio who stole an entire 58-foot bridge last month have left the police flabbergasted.”

        He’s been caught: “A 63-year-old man was charged with felony theft, according to Akron police and court records. Authorities allege that he paid a trucking company for crane service and the firm picked up the bridge and took it to Medina County.”

        These are the crazy years.

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          2. I think we’ll find the answer at about the same time we discover why there are so many disgruntled people but none of them seems to have been gruntled.

            Also, very closely related, have you ever wondered why nobody is ever combobulated?

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          3. Hmm… Well, “gasted” is the past tense of “gast,” which means to frighten or scare. So I assume a flabber is something that tends to frighten people?

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      4. Why did I not suspect I would get that reaction here? LOL.
        But actually I do have a contract bridge bidding system I would be happy to send to anyone who is interested.

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          2. The aardvark wishes to remind everyone to play Duplicate Bridge with the cards, not the bridge. Not even if Fluffy urges otherwise. He thinks the consequences are funny.

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  10. Well, must say you guys in America are late to this party. Our Dear Leader here in Canaduh has been pushing this Ministry of Truth shite since 2021. Covid disinformation, you know. The health of the nation is at stake, and so forth. Very serious.

    They haven’t had the cojones to pull the trigger yet. Instead they have been doing stuff like have a comment period, but keeping all the comments secret. Which is illegal, as it happens. So somebody, probably Rebel News or similar, got a court order and published the comments. And behold, it was discovered that Twitter Inc. themselves, the tech bros who love them some censorship, wrote a detailed submission explaining how having a Ministry of Truth was a very very bad idea and laying out in exactly how it would all come to tears.

    It is a measure of how desperate Dear Leader’s show runners are that the Liberal Party, which is in a minority after the last election, formed a coalition with the NDPee. They did that because they plan to do things that would guarantee their party would get a vote of no confidence, and there would be a new election. Which they would lose.

    This internet censorship is meant to go after people like the Freedom Convoy, who organize protests on the internet. They want 200 Antifa burning cop cars in Toronto for trans rights. They do -not- want Joe Average showing up 10,000 strong with bouncy houses and inflatable hot tubs to protest mandatory vaxx policy and mask mandates.

    Because just wait until you see the protests for the Home Equity Tax. That’s the new one they really want to get done, where they take your money when you sell your house that you live in, should you be so lucky to have one.

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    1. They do -not- want Joe Average showing up 10,000 strong with bouncy houses and inflatable hot tubs to protest mandatory vaxx policy and mask mandates.

      –
      I thought commies were all in favor of the Working Class banding together against their oppressors? Why do they REEEE!! so hard when it actually happens?
      ———————————
      ‘Progressives’ suppress free speech because they don’t have the means to suppress free thought.

      Yet.

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        1. I think of Monroe-Alpha Clifford from “Beyond This Horizon.” Not a leftist per se, but a romantic, with a very unrealistic image of “the good old days.”

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      2. Because they want the working class to follow the bait and rise against Goldstein, not big brother

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    2. Ah. Heck. Here in one of the homeless central, currently being swept under the “rug” because of World Track Meet this Summer (but I digress), we are 100% expecting to be told “There are not enough people living in your home. Off to the senor center.” Seriously. Mom is terrified. Even my BIL’s has mentioned it jokingly – semi-jokingly, anyway. Only one of them adds “we don’t have to worry”, the one who lives with his spouse in a 5th wheel, in his MIL backyard (MIL is 95. Or as he says, better than living IN the house).

      Liked by 1 person

  11. They do not realize how close they are to someone less sane than I simply sniping them off every time they step out of a building. They really don’t.

    And I am afraid that that may be the only thing that makes them realize that their choices and deeds do carry consequences, and that the consequences do, indeed, apply to them.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “They do not realize how close they are…” Indeed, they do not.

      I think they do have a very lively fear that one of these 10k to 100k crowds of irritated/angry people might realize that they outnumber their so-called betters in the august halls of government a thousand to one and make regime change happen right then and there.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I think they’re not of one mind. Some of them want to provoke a violent response so that they can crush that small fringe minority with unacceptable right-wing views, using their tanks and fighter-jets and nuclear weapons to PROVE once and for all that the 2nd Amendment is an antiquated pipe-dream of racist white men that should never have been ratified in the first place.

        Some of them are terrified of a violent response, and want to finesse things so that people will accept that it’s too soon, and then that it’s too late, completely missing the time to act – or at worst to at least manage to futz communication so that the violence arrives piecemeal and can be defeated in detail.

        And the advanced Orwellian doublethinkers hold both views at once.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. “…completely missing the time to act…or…at least manage to futz communication so that the violence arrives piecemeal and can be defeated in detail.”

          They seem to be doing a pretty good job of this right now. Although it could be that what looks like piecemeal failures to act and coordinate are actually the prelude to a mass convulsion.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. At least two ways to look at a series of test runs that didn’t work.

            a) The test series is incompetently prepared, and will continue to fail in the future.

            b) Folks are iterating through experiments, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and will find a working approach eventually.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. B presumes a non-memory situation, where the failure of Iteration X has no effect on the results of Iteration X+1

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              1. There are two series of test runs.

                One by the would be tyrants.

                Another by people strongly motivated to screw over the tyrants, but not yet suicidally depressed.

                They are not symmetric.

                Tyrants are screwed, precisely because of memory. Test runs served as warnings, and we took note. Their continued effort is them being screwed up in the head.

                The opposing test runs are different. Because the points ‘our’ people are working out how to attack, are not really very smart in adjusting defenses. They are using people who can learn, but the central tyrant wannabes are mostly blind to being able to learn. Some the ‘lessons’ tyrant wannabes have learned include ‘hit it harder with a bigger hammer next time’. So, they have a vulnerable attack surface in terms of ‘make them lose their temper in public’. ‘We’ are searching for a) things that will work bigly for a time, before adjustments are made b) subtle fundamentals that make things worse for the opposition. One Bigly, the honkening. That seems to no longer work, but there will be more opportunities.

                Like

      2. Agreed.
        There’s a reason for the obsession with Jan. 6.
        The congresscritters who were cowering under their chairs and begging the Capitol police force to start shooting protestors, were forced to realize two very important things:
        1) That if the mob wanted their blood, they were as good as dead.
        2) That the pullars of strings considered them disposable.

        The more self-aware also realized that the mob would be justified.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Idjits also fail to realize that if it really was an insurrection, there is grounds to refuse to seat everyone who voted in Pelosi as Speaker shortly before.

          Liked by 2 people

      3. Well, they’d simply be following an established democratic (not “Democrat”; ) process; I note it in my email sig: “Merry Romanian Christmas! (I have a little list…)”.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. The ones pushing it don’t, because they live in places that is not a super high risk, have security, etc. And their underlings? They want the right to start the fight. They are trying to push to a fight or die, and as soon as someone they can paint as right-wing pushes back, there will be all the necessary support for pogroms

      Like

  13. Some of them are probably hoping for that. With the thought of using it to declare martial law.

    Like

    1. You don’t need all that to declare martial law, Dorothy. Dear Leader up here in Canaduh fled Parliament and declared martial law over bouncy houses on the front lawn.

      Later this week we may see them declare it again over a bunch of bikers driving around Ottawa with Canadian flags. As in they might really invoke the Emergencies Act again, if the same number of bikers turn up as what we have around here in Port Dover on Friday the 13th. Last year during the CoronaPocalypse 35,000 turned up to Dover in August, normally crowds of over 100,000 are expected.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. The Reader has a question for any lawyers here. The 1st Amendment says ‘Congress shall make no law…’. If the enabling act for DHS allows this monstrosity, isn’t it unconstitutional? And shouldn’t the vote to kill it at the Supreme Court be 9-0. If not, whose heads go on pikes?

    The Reader has another question. What is a good source for pikes in this day and age? The Reader is asking for a friend.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Farm supply stores are a wealth of opportunities in this regard. I have one just down the street, and plan a trip soon. (They also sell fly rods and flies and reels and beautiful clothing to wear in the river and…..)

      Liked by 1 person

        2. I dunno about burning undead bodies.

          Anakin did a lot more damage after he was dragged through lava then he did before.

          I think it made him angry.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. You have to burn the undead until they’re all the way re-dead. It’s burning the undead without finishing them off that causes problems with that method.

            Like

            1. Our superhero gaming group found that smoking DNA was the best cure for recurring supervillains…..

              Like

      1. Leaf springs are your friend.
        But if you’re leaving it rusty, make sure your tetanus shot is up to date. That’s a good Vax to have, because nobody wants to get up close and personal with lockjaw.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Side note: apparently the tetanus shot is more of a directed allergy than a vaccine. It’s the toxin that gives you lockjaw, not the bacteria, so the shot stimulates your allergy system to, effectively, make you allergic to the toxin. Because your system freaking out and nuking it and the surrounding tissue is ultimately less damaging than letting it run loose.

          That’s also why it needs periodic boosting; it’s not actually using your primary immune system at all, and allergies change over time.

          Like

          1. That is excellent to know; thanks! I knew about periodic boosters, but I thought the shot was the usual immune system alerter against bacteria. Although come to think of it, it is called “tetanus antitoxin”…

            Like

    3. If MiniTru tried to ban anything it would be verboten the First Amendment. If it put out a list of “disinformation” that Facebook and YouTube banned it would arguably run afoul as well. If they simply tried to put out their own propaganda…well we aren’t buying it when it comes from organs with vestigial respect like WaPo or NYT, why would we buy it coming from She-Goebbels?

      Like

      1. From the video, it sounds like they’ll mostly be sending out documents warning Secretaries of State of “disinformation” on the stuff they want to set a narrative on.

        For some of these folks… I wanna hear what they’ll say!

        Liked by 2 people

        1. “The defendant in our multi-million libel suit (or applicant for a license to pratice law, medicine, engineering, etc.) made the following claims about Leftoid XYXYZ. Those claims were evaluated by an impartial government organization and determined to be false. The defendant / applicant was formally notified according to our policy and continued to make those claims despite that. This definitely rises to knowingly repeating false information, and may constitute actual malice against the plaintiff.”

          Civil, not criminal, lower standard of proof etc. And the government hasn’t done anything except provide data. And of course the Good Guys are there to enforce the Enabling Acts against “insurrection”.

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          1. The defendant / applicant was formally notified according to our policy and continued to make those claims despite that.

            Are you worried about competition, since you have flatly stated that you withhold information for your claims exactly because when someone goes and looks at the available facts, it doesn’t match the story you want to tell?

            Like

              1. You keep making that kind of accusation.

                And I keep going, and finding your own posts showing that I have told the truth.

                And then you slink off for a few weeks, do the “subtle” jabs, until you work back up to trying to get a cheap shot in again.

                And we cycle through. Again.

                Like

                1. That was applicable to you, since you’re fundamentally dishonest. And you knew that when you linked…. dishonestly.

                  Like

                  1. Just like I was a liar when I reminded you that you had demanded the execution of a woman for not following medical advice… shortly before the Kung Flu hysteria hit.

                    And just like I’m dishonest any other time that you actually included names, made claims, and I provided people with the whole story, including when the facts went directly counter to your claims.

                    But thank you for demonstrating that yes, you only object to the whole idea because of who it’s targeting, not because the very idea of “disinformation” is nonsense.

                    Like

      1. I’ll just stick with my high-voltage cordless pole saw. Silent until used, and I think a bit more likely to make discouraging…. patterns on the ground.

        Like

    5. “Ah, see… Congress is just authorizing the set-up of the agency, right? They’re not actually making a law to do so. And all the rules that this agency will put in place, well… that’s not “congress making a law” either.

      So your objections really don’t apply…”

      Like

      1. That’s what I’d think the “logic” would be, also. After all, look what the bastiches were able to do (mis)using the Interstate Commerce Clause…

        Liked by 1 person

  15. I’m sitting here trying to think of something very determined to say, and I can’t think of anything other than “Yep, it’s go time.”

    I’ve also learned recently that Idaho is barely red. More pinkish. And many of my sisters in Christ love them the idea of big guv-mint taking care of their special needs kids, and solving every other problem in their lives.

    I love this Republic, and I will not let this stand.

    In honor of my Mama, who would have been 88 today if the clot shot hadn’t given her a stroke last year. We fight!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Flyover County has a question in the May election about trying to shift the Idaho border to cover the Deplorable counties. If it happened (yeah, right), Idaho would go redder, and the remains of Oregon would get bluer.

      Mom’s 99th birthday was a little while ago. She’s now in the hospital with a couple of nasty infections, with a nominal 2 week stay in the memory care unit once the doctor’s go-ahead is done. Elder Brother is handling the basics with his daughter. Eldest and SIL are estranged from the family, and I’m not in a position to do the multi-thousand mile round trip. (No idea if she took the clot-shot. Some questions were better not asked.)

      $SPOUSE and I have been expecting something like this to happen, and there’s mixed emotions. The signs have been present for several months (or longer–weekly calls generally got an “Everything’s Fine”, even when it clearly wasn’t. Mom’s a terrible liar…) She had a good life, but now, it sucks, without any prospect of it getting better for her. She outlived both her younger sisters and two husbands. Frippin’ Rainbow Bridge, but there should be a heck of a Welcome Home party when she gets there.

      I’m glad/hoping she’ll miss the balloon festivities.

      Like

      1. So sorry. I knew it was getting close to my mom’s time well before my dad would admit it. It’s just so draining.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. My heart ached with empathy reading this.
        Take really, really good care of yourself while this is playing out. And blessings on this “Mother’s Day” weekend. It’s tough.

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  16. Beyond being the baloon going up, as a signal that the .gov is about to ” do something” about those deplorables who will not submit, the head lizards’ comment that she had been working on this for two months says that the organizational planning was started almost as soon as the zombie was installed.
    The primary threat I see from this agency is that it will provide cover for the fact that the fix is already in for the 2022 elections, and that 2024 may as well not be held at all.
    The MinTru will also try to suppress news of the causes and effects of the food shortages which are coming this Winter and next Spring when the inadequate crops have been sold overseas, and the US Dollar drops to its’ actual value.
    (I still have a collection of Weimar German Marks)
    I try to avoid being black-pilled, but I think that the Four Horsemen will be riding soon, and that they will be keeping us company for a long while.
    I intend to work to support reasonable candidates in the 2022 and 2024 elections, and to “vote harder”, and I hope it works. I know. Hope in one hand, …
    Prepare as you can, and remember that Maslows’ Hierarchy of Needs neglected the first need, personal safety and security. See to that.
    John in Indy

    Liked by 2 people

    2. I’ve been saying the fix is in for the Senate at least for 2022 and beyond.

      House is a lot harder to fix because of how spread out it is, but given 2020 I suspect they’ll at least try. This is to silence anything but “cleanest election everest” months before hand.

      In fact, I’ll put my marker down now, regular posters on conservative sites will find their registration somehow disappeared after the last date to register for 2022 in the name of “cleaning the voting rolls, which you conservatives demanded, right”.

      Liked by 1 person

  17. In Serenity, there is a scene where Mal tells the Agent rather bitterly that he should be very happy to live in the brave new world that he is creating. The Agent looks surprised and tells Mal somewhat wistfully that no, he will build it but he will ever live in it because he is unfit for that sort of peace.
    Before the boog, consider carefully what you will be at the end.

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    1. “Before the boog, consider carefully what you will be at the end.”

      That is something Mike Vanderboegh often preached over on Sipsey Street. Always keep the moral high ground because winning at the cost of your soul is a net loss.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. I know what I’ll be after the end.

      Why the f*** do you think I’ve been warning people about having it. I’m exactly the kind of person they will bring in for jobs they will claim were done by rogue people after.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. There’s a very good reason why the people with the skills to do so haven’t yet. They KNOW what the price to be paid is.

      You can also see that sort of thing with our Founding Fathers. There were decades of encroachment upon the things they held dear. Many of the signers of The Declaration lost their fortunes, and some their lives.

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      1. Yeah. I am nowhere near their capabilities, but I know too much history to want the dice rolled. But…. I have a daughter, and I don’t know if there is any way out of the slow strangulation that will destroy her life other than a violent spasm. I crack wise about crosses ringing Parliament Hill, but I know the most likely outcome is Madam G wanting to be fed, the Directorate, and the Corsican.

        ________________________________

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        1. The violence is coming. It’s merely a matter of when. When looking back, things often would have been better had it come sooner, with less death and despair in the long run. But it is hard to make that decision at the time. But eventually it’s coming.

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          1. A consideration of how bloody– going off history, these sorts work by making folks sure they’re alone.

            When they could better throttle information, more folks felt alone, more folks would lay down and die.

            Less resistance, more blood.

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  19. For the Puddleglums herein, who know it’s all going to go very bad (but fight anyway) Roosh V. shared a good book about The Saint of the Prisons.

    Heinlein was right: Even if the torture breaks you, it cannot keep you. That’s some worst case horror from Romania, the which I would not put past some of TWANLOC.

    And so is Mrs. Hoyt because In the end they lose, we win.

    And if you can spare a prayer for me today, it is Once More Into the Breach.

    *Sure we’re living in AINO, we’re a conquered tribe. Be Aeneas. “Sorry my sweet chickadee, gotta go found America”)

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Like China and 1984 I assume our left views Romania as a model.

      Either Carter or Clinton had a (junior) economic advisor who said Romania would be the greatest economy in the world if only given access to western technology. Why should a great nation needed others to provide tech was unexplained.

      Liked by 1 person

  20. When Trump first started talking about the Deep State I admit I thought it sounded a bit paranoid, but holy crap, the last few years have done nothing but prove him right.

    Liked by 3 people

    2. I knew it as the Northeast Liberal Establishment and the Administrative State before Trump, and underestimated its full extent, but I’d known it was there since late high school years. I had an academic scholarship to the type of elite school that feeds the colleges they recruit from, and the speech some senior State Department guy gave one day in the end boiled down to “After college, come join the State Department (or possibly other parts of the federal government if you aren’t quite up to snuff), because we’re really in control of America and the world. The politicians just think they’re in control.”

      Like

    3. The Deep State is the inevitable end result of giving bureaucracies power. It’s a primary reason why Chinese dynasties always collapsed in a morass of in-fighting and corruption while the country outside the capitol fell apart. If you don’t periodically pare them down and restrict their power, the Deep State is the result.

      Liked by 2 people

            1. I listened to the audio version of ‘China’, by John Keay. Seemed like a decent survey of the entirety of China’s known history.

              Like

            2. I recommend Mark Edward Lewis’s The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han, China Between Empires: The Northern and Southern Dynasties, and China’s Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty.

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            4. I recall my library had a good series from Cambridge, and I used one volume in particular.

              It has been a very long time since I’ve had any of the other books I used close at hand.

              Like

            5. The Harvard History of Imperial China in 6 volumes is good value and a good overview
              Spence The Search for Modern China is indispensable

              I have one obscure one that I’ll have to go pull off the shelf to remember. His thesis that China has always had to be “managed as a mass”:is quite interesting

              The other one is about Americans in China or how FDR, John Kerry, etc., family money came from running opium into China. FDR fancied himself a China hand and a lot of the mistakes made by the USvthat led to Mao came from that. I’ll have to find it on the shelves.

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              1. And speaking of China., and you might be excused not knowing since none of the press has covered it, … hmmmm ….. Evergrande has run past the grace period after missing their March payment. Several creditors are filing to have the Cayman company rolled up. By itself, this does nothing to Evergrande as Chinese insolvency law is a mess and the process is political. What it Would do is force the rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s, etc.,) to pull the trigger, on the Cayman subsidiary, which would force the hedge funds to recognize the losses. The greatest unknown is around the stablecoin people like Tether *. It’s been rumored that they are big holders of Chinese property company debt and a default would cause them to have to mark to market, which would probably reveal they are insolvent.

                I’ve been bitten by this issue before since the old rule of law has been suspended, particularly when dealing with a China, but the thing with this is that most of the western companies deal with the Cayman subsidiary, they’re based there too, and that is subject to law, British insolvency law essentially, and British judges. Won’t touch Evergrande in China because CCP, but it would hit the stabkecoins and hedgies like Citadel.

                I’m fairly sure that Tether etc., is not just a rumor, there are no other sources of short term paper with sufficient volumes and high enough interest rate to explain their balance sheet.

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        1. Congress doesn’t have term limits. Attempts by states to implement them on their own congress critters that they send to DC have been shut down by the courts as an improper limitation on what the Constitution has to say about who can run for those offices. And the Deep State is generally a reference to the Federal bureaucracy (though the states each have their own mini versions).

          Your snark is misplaced in this instance.

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          1. There are levels that term limits have been enacted.

            It has, predictably, strengthened those who don’t have to run for election.

            That doesn’t stop it from being the standard response to this type of story, which is why he snarked on it.

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            1. Again, though, there are no term limits for any member of Congress. Nor is it possible for anyone except Congress to add them, as the courts have actively blocked any and all attempts by others to do so.

              If you want to talk about states, then that’s another matter. But the comments attached to this post so far have been focused on the Feds.

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              2. Term limits can be enacted without Congress getting involved other than by calling a convention for proposing amendments as required in Article V when called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures; the ratification process is unchanged.

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                1. I’ve only heard one answer to the problem that made any sense. It was front Scott Ott years ago.

                  His idea was this: Term limits is unconstitutional, so remove access to power after a two-term period (whatever time period makes sense, 2, 4, or 6 years). After that, you can’t serve on a committee, can’t chair a committee, can’t wield any power whatsoever.

                  There are problems with this, but it at least addresses it at the power/influence level.

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                  1. That’s actually sort of interesting, and would solve (assuming it could be enforced, de facto as well as de jure) the problem of too much power; the ones affected could serve as “gray eminence”-type advisors, but with zero power. The only issue I see, assuming that it could be implemented (and that power junkies would continue to serve under those conditions; by no means a certainty), is that, in Congress as it currently exists, you’d have about 3 senators and 25 or 30 representatives (or fewer; I don’t have the demographics at hand) making all the decisions. Eventually, you might have none.

                    Ponders…

                    Hmmm, that would be ideal, wouldn’t it? :-)

                    Liked by 1 person

                    1. I’ll see if I can find the episode where Scott talks about it in more detail. It seemed pretty complete, but I’m not the wisest on these issues.

                      Like

                    2. I lean more toward an age maximum.

                      “No person shall be elected to the offices of President, Vice President, United States Senator, United States Representative if he or she shall have attained the age of seventy years at any time before or during the term for which he or she may be a candidate.”

                      Perfectly fine to appoint replacements who are 70 or older, or to have officials in the Line of Succession who are 70 or older – they could not be re-elected.

                      Needs a constitutional amendment, of course.

                      I also like what I read at Instapundit this morning – United States Senators may not seek election to United States President. Focus on your own house, folks.

                      And then, bring back the spoils system. Every appointed official tenders his or her resignation on on inauguration day; those who do not are dismissed for insubordination. (This works best if the incoming administration has vetted candidates who support the new admin, and slams their approvals through Congress). This would be in contrast to a certain administration elected in 2016.

                      Then, new appointees transfer most senior civil service people to Los Angeles and Chicago – no parking, everyone gets a transit pass, and good luck to them.

                      One might criticize: this will make the business of government very hard! Exactly.

                      I had an uncle from Chicago. He always voted for the incumbents; his theory was they already had most of their graft, and need not gouge so deeply as new guys would. Look what Chicago has now.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. I also like what I read at Instapundit this morning – United States Senators may not seek election to United States President. Focus on your own house, folks.

                      I’d suggest something like “cannot run for federal office while holding elected federal office.”

                      Could easily argue me down to state or federal, though I wouldn’t go so low as like school board.

                      You want to run? Resign first.

                      Liked by 2 people

            2. California put term limits in quite a while ago. (Moonbeam was grandfathered, so got to do damage 8 more years.) The resulting clusterfucks are partly due to the term limits…

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              1. I’ve watched it several times.

                Have had arguments with folks that yes, there is a cost to replacing guy-who-knows-what-is-going-on with new-guy-who-might-be-better, and then watched them just keep CYCLING THROUGH new Great Saviors so the poor SOBs never get a chance to figure out where the toilets are, nevermind how to catch folks screwing with the paperwork.

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                1. We had portions of that in Flyover County in the Tea Party era. Three county commissioners sit on the board, and over two elections, all the incumbents were de-elected. Of that group:

                  One became a state senator (hard-headed conservative, but it’s Oregon, Jake)
                  One got wrapped up in land-use scandal and de-elected.
                  One (the moderate) was collateral damage and de-elected.

                  OTOH, we got two good moderate-to-conservative commissioners as part of the deal (one did a great job, but is retiring, the other, also doing good, and is a shoo-in for reelection), and one who’s working on his own scandal–neglected to recuse himself when his son was working for the selected vendor… He’s not up for election this cycle. Said commissioner already had the lowest profile of the bunch.

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                  1. Worded it badly. The GOPe incumbents were defeated during the Tea Party heyday. The list (state senator, scandal, collateral damage) is of those who replaced them, with the final list what we have now.

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          2. What is misplaced about it? People talk about adding term limits to Congress on a regular basis, failing to realize that it will divert even more power to the background functionaries.

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            1. You’re the one that talked about adding “more” term limits. Again, the Federal legislative branch doesn’t have them. And attempts to add them outside of Congress adding them itself have been ruled unconstitutional.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. Yeah, no term limits on staffers, bureaucrats, lobbyists, or people behind the curtain…

              Looking at Fauci for one.

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              1. That could be done with legislation; no Constitutional issues involved (cue wailing and the gnashing of teeth among the career bureaucrats). I’m referring specifically to bureaucrats; lobbyists are not government employees, staffers already travel with the pol (so no need to address) and those “behind the curtain” can be taken care of by tragic accidental discharges (“But I didn’t know anyone was there!”) ;-)

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                  1. Yeah (for now): “I didn’t know it had real bullets!” (Actually “cartridges”, but it’s Alec the Clueless, so…)

                    Like

          3. If enough people had the will, we could impose our own term limits by just not re-electing the incumbents.

            That doesn’t address the worst problem, though — the ruling political parties dictate who we can vote for. Their stranglehold on the electoral process is what gives us candidates like Biden, Pelosi and Clinton, not to mention all those damn RINOs. Jellyfish mock Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney for being spineless.

            We are forced to choose between bad and worse. Booting the rascals out just gets us more rascals.
            ———————————
            Elections are far too important to be left up to a bunch of uncontrolled voters. The Party MUST exercise oversight and management to prevent mere voters from electing the wrong candidates!

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Personally, I’m in favor of preferential voting. Even if you can’t stop the dominant parties from becoming corrupt you can make it easier to get a new one off the ground by eliminating the “wasting your vote” problem.

              It would require an amendment, though.

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    4. Hey, I worked for the Feds briefly…I knew it was real….everything important was controlled from above…Politicians were viewed as idiots to be appeased–not far off really!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. We periodically re-watch “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister”. Very educational on the topuc of bureaucracies.

        Like

  21. snort then you weren’t paying attention. Or rather you were paying attention at the WRONG TIME. I said. From the Beginning that Obama was an empty soundbite in a 3 piece suit. a puppet if you will. I don’t think that anymore after PSaki slipped during an interview and said she loved working for PResident Obama. I think he’s part of the Cabal and was the front man for it during his tenure. I’ve also said since the beginning that Biden is a senile puppet. On that one I’m wholly correct. He was part of the ruling elite at one time. Now he’s just a beaten, senile, and ill abused old man

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        1. Once long ago I interviewed at the NSA. The folks I interviewed with were rather straight laced but all in all seemed like rational reasonable folks trying to protect the country they loved/admired from a dangerous world. I would have been proud to have been part of that. Somehow almost 40 years later they’ve gone insane. At this point a .25c kinetic strike from orbit seems the only solution for Fort Meade…

          Liked by 2 people

        1. As noted they were spooks, but they seemed to try to avoid blatant violations of their charter (admittedly at least parts of their charter are classified, so who knows whats in there). And they were OUR spooks. Somewhere (perhaps after 9/11) the got more power, and as the old saying says Power Corrupts and Absolute power corrupts absolutely…

          Liked by 3 people

          1. And they were OUR spooks.

            roll to disbelieve

            The assertion that someone can be a spook and not be a supremely morally fucked up person is the height of “extraordinary claims”.

            At best they might be someone like The Operative.

            Like

            1. Ian on this we have to disagree. As noted in another comment I was willing to be one of their people. I am not incorruptible like my Lensman namesake, but there’s a reason I chose a superannuated oil can shaped boy scout as my nom de plume. One of my strongest rules comes from the gospels Mt 5:37 “Let your yes be yes and your no be no”, my word IS my bond. Would I have made it in that world 40 years? I don’t know I doubt it. I’ve had a mere secret clearance and I found it VERY stressful to have to remember what I may and may not talk about. I suspect top secret special compartmented stuff would be 10 times worse. That being said the functions (Signals, crypto, intelligence, code breaking etc) that the NSA (and CIA, FBI, and NRO) are supposed to perform is absolutely critical to defending a country particularly in the modern world. Without it you’re asking for 9/11’s and Pearl Harbors in an unending row. Are the members of these agencies Saints or Lensman? Umm, no, more correctly hell no. What has happened is that their purpose has been perverted. I think likely because those that I interected with nigh on 40 years ago still had belief in absolutes. As you recruit from the “brightest and best” at Ivy league schools that view is GONE, The number of Harvard or Yale or Cornell or (choose your favorite school) grads who believe in absolute truths and the rightness of the American purpose is nearly the empty set. With that view of morality and dislike of our country it is unsurprising the moral rot sets in like gangrene over decades of time.

              Liked by 2 people

    5. So, next up for Elon Musk is starting a private internet alternate via Star Link. And when he becomes the world’s first deca-trillionaire from that he can afford to buy Google like he just did Twitter.

      Like

  23. This is totally nothing to worry about. Just a Ministry of Truth within the National Security Apparatus telling proles what they can say about what.

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Unfortunately, this (genuinely scary) kind of… starkly evil hijinks from fine gov’mint-fellas like Homeland Security, and / or Cybersecurity and Infrastructure, isn’t truly new at all, at least not since early February.

    Because they’ve basically been saying, at least that long — if you’re not with us, as in 100% signed-up to the (our) latest narrative of the week, you’re a (no-kidding) terrorist threat to national security:

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has partnered with the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency (CISA) to roll out a terrorism advisory and, with it, a series of “graphic novels” called “The Resilience Series” to combat “Mis-Dis-, and Malinformation” (MDM). The series is one shameless piece of a larger puzzle that is now our government-sponsored American propaganda machine. It is stark evidence of how committed U.S. government agencies are to their current totalitarian agenda. DHS and CISA are effectively being weaponized to label certain classes of Americans as terrorists — and unfortunately, it isn’t the first time.

    Thus starts the (rather long but content-packed) Feb. 10 piece on all this from Uncover DC… (uncoverdc dot com slash 2022/02/10/dhs-attacks-american-citizens-using-terrifying-tax-payer-funded-propaganda-campaign/) while the (embedded in above story) shorter post from Liz Wheeler (fellow traveller with such as Michael Knowles and Ted Cruz) simply says:

    This is the most shocking thing I’ve read in a while. This document was published by DHS. Biden is weaponizing DHS to label… well, you… as a terrorist.

    So if the DHS / CISA collaboration (or maybe more like conspiracy) to get Americans to fear any statement that’s not ‘approved’ is continuing, it’s only logical their next step might be to cook up a Ministry of Approved Truth to tell everyone what to believe is true next.

    It’s also worth noting that ‘malinformation’ is apparently a new word coined/used mostly by Great Resetters… and might mean something like, if it’s not our approved 100%-truthy information, it’s mal-information.

    (Personally, if it’s Mal-Reynolds-style information, I want to hear it. And that might just be the paradoxical results this DHS/CISA plot mostly gets. “Oooh, look, certified malinformation, DHS-disapproved! Gimme!”)

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Malinformation: Anything that is demonstrably and self-evidently true (and thus can’t be either misinformation or disinfo), but is harmful to the official narrative.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. (Personally, if it’s Mal-Reynolds-style information, I want to hear it. And that might just be the paradoxical results this DHS/CISA plot mostly gets. “Oooh, look, certified malinformation, DHS-disapproved! Gimme!”)

      I aim to mis-inform.

      Looks like the Reavers are upon us, folks.

      Liked by 1 person

  25. My brain just stopped processing. I can’t even! But that’s because I’m Odd, I guess. I’m pretty sure that most of us who comment here are somewhere on the “to be labeled terrorists” list.

    Liked by 2 people

  26. Pingback: Just starin’ at the sun | Dio's Workshop

  27. “focused specifically on irregular migration”

    What the heck is “irregular migration”? Is this a new euphemism for illegal aliens?

    Based on what I’m reading, I think Musk has forced them to announce this program early. It’s clear they’ve been working on it for a while now, but hadn’t said anything. Suddenly Musk starts to free Twitter from their grasp, and within a couple of days this monstrosity is unveiled.

    Hopefully that means that it’s not as ready to do its job as it might otherwise have been.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. yeah, some idiots in major news sites apparently took issue with my saying on instapundit that it’s one of the few constitutional federal functions, and if they abdicate it, the states can take it over

        Like

    3. What the heck is “irregular migration”? Is this a new euphemism for illegal aliens?

      They’ve changed their minds on that whole militia thing and want everyone to be part of one now.

      Like

  28. Haven’t read all the comments yet. But the usual suspects are saying about the new committee “Who wouldn’t want disinformation rooted out?” at press conferences.

    My response (to the TV, so, grain of salt) “Anyone with a smidgen of brain cells remaining?” Obviously not Zombie Brandon and his administration.

    Oh. Sorry for insulting Zombies …

    Liked by 1 person

  29. This whole “disinformation” thing so reminds me of Babylon 5 and the Ministry of Truth and the Night Watch. But that was science fiction, right?

    Like

  30. We haven’t Kippl’ed for a while. I thought that this gem would be appropriate:
    Recessional
    BY RUDYARD KIPLING
    1897

    God of our fathers, known of old,
    Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
    Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
    Dominion over palm and pine—
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    The tumult and the shouting dies;
    The Captains and the Kings depart:
    Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
    An humble and a contrite heart.
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    Far-called, our navies melt away;
    On dune and headland sinks the fire:
    Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
    Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
    Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
    Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
    Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
    Or lesser breeds without the Law—
    Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
    Lest we forget—lest we forget!

    For heathen heart that puts her trust
    In reeking tube and iron shard,
    All valiant dust that builds on dust,
    And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
    For frantic boast and foolish word—
    Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “Recessional” always, for some reason, brings to mind “Soldier, Ask Not” from Gordon Dickson’s novel of the same name; I guess it’s the religious militancy in each:

      Soldier, ask not – now, or ever,
      Where to war your banners go.
      Anarch’s legions all surround us.
      Strike – and do not count the blow!

      Glory, honor, praise and profit,
      Are but toys of tinsel worth.
      Render up your work, unasking,
      Leave the human clay to earth.

      Blood and sorrow, pain unending,
      Are the portion of us all.
      Grasp the naked sword, opposing,
      Gladly in the battle fall.

      So shall we, anointed soldiers,
      Stand at last before the Throne,
      Baptized in our wounds, red-flowing,
      Sealed unto our Lord – alone!

      Like

  31. What True The Vote has been doing:

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2022/04/28/the-georgia-ballot-harvesting-dam-is-starting-to-crack-n1593593

    “Conservative activist and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza worked with True the Vote to produce a movie, 2000 Mules, which will be released next week. The film details the investigation into widespread ballot harvesting and fraud in the 2020 election.”

    2000 Mules will tell the story of the election of 2020 and much awareness will be raised, but shining a light onto wrongdoing only does so much. Americans are sick and tired of seeing Leftists get away with blatant cheating, politicization of public resources and offices, and unethical and illegal behavior.”

    Emphasis added.

    Like

  33. My brain isn’t flexible enough to wrap around this. The government has announced a censorship agency. Yeah, they call it something else. One wonders, do they really think it’s what they say it is or do they think we’re that dumb?

    Liked by 1 person

  34. In case people didn’t realize the shame… Nina Jankowicz, the new head of this disinformation board, had a three-album, convention concert, career as a Harry Potter filker (Wizard Rock or wrock), as “Nina Myrtle” of the Moaning Myrtles. Good voice, good piano skills.

    How the heck can you go from sustained jokes about toilets and a self-pitying mean girl ghost, to becoming Joseph Goebbels with a smirk? And in your adult life, singing your own songs about how great establishment politics are?

    I know, I know, but it still saddens and sickens me. And of course she went to Georgetown, so there’s St. Ignatius Loyola rolling in his grave.

    Like

    1. I’ve seen some of the social media posts and videos by this woman and I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s stark staring mad. But whoever picked her for government work is even madder.

      Like

          1. They are nuts. I was at a social event that had a bunch of Swarthmore and Harvard professors and grad students, and for the most part I was not impressed with their grasps on reality.

            Like

    1. Ken, are you trying to get tagged as a Fed? I ask in all seriousness, because if you’ve read Sarah’s blog, you know what’s been suggested, besides “contact your Congressman/woman/whatever-it-is-today and suggest that this not get funded because it is sailing into unconstitutional waters at flank speed.”

      Liked by 1 person

    3. Maybe an accident could happen to the cat spy plates on the walls of the the director of the Disinformation Governance Board’s office.

      The loss of the cat spies would slow them down at least.

      Like

  36. I have just been watching downhill Barbie car racing and can only say that America is a great country. No other country could conceive of such a thing, even British Cheese chasing pales in comparison. Fear not.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’ve never seen the Barbie downhill, but I confess I love Swamp Buggy racing on a slow summer afternoon. When those beasts plow through the ‘Ssippi Hole and only one machine emerges from the mud? Pure America.

      Like

  37. It is time (1) for a national conversation (2) on the public health hazard (3) of Agoraphobia.

    Agoraphobia is the irrational fear (4) of allowing unfettered access to a forum where questions of public interest can be discussed. Questions of public interest, such as whether certain officials have done so poor a job that they should be forced to drink Hemlock (5).

    IE, I am an asshole who feels entitled to your opinion.
    IE, I am trying to demand fawning concurrance, as opposed to having people point out that my words are vibrating feces.
    IE, I have found an easily abused loophole.
    Actually, this is a very rational concern. In many cases, censorship is motivated by the sane awareness that if rational men were freely communicating, they would conclude that the censor should hang.
    Guess my opinion.

    Like

      2. I posted a comment with 2 URLs in it, and for the first time got “awaiting approval”; it then disappeared. So I guess I broke a rule…

        Like

          2. They could even use a slight modification of the original motto: From “The Sword and Shield of the State” to The Sword and Shield of the Statists”.

            Like

          3. Question, you sure this meme isn’t drawing a deliberate similarity? It seems to be a deliberate riff vs. what they’re actually using.

            Like

            1. Assuming this was in response to my comment(s)…Oh, I’m sure the resemblance is intentional; that’s what makes it so delicious.

              Like

                1. Sorry, but no. The KGB emblem is the actual one (I even have a coffee mug with that one on it, that I got from a friend with connections at either NSA or the CIA, back in the ’80s; apparently they have/had an internal “gift shop” with similar stuff), but I assume the meme-maker used that to generate the “Ministry of Truth” one, with the obvious implication.

                  Like

                  1. No. It seemed like you were saying that the emblem you posted was the real emblem from the new agency here in the US. I recognize the KGB emblem without having to look it up.

                    Like

                    1. Ummm…OK. I certainly had no such intent; the site on which I found it is the “meme” equivalent of the Bee or the Onion; take a look at some of the others there (This one: https://meme.aho.st/new-canadian-flag/ is a good example, which I hope no one would think is “real”). And it just seemed a wonderful way to show an equivalent function (since AFAIK the original Ministry of Truth in “1984” had no emblem [corrections welcome]).

                      Like

      1. A really odd thing about agoraphobia and claustrophobia. My mother had a bit of both at the same time. She had to force herself to go outside some days, and was very comfortable in her home with very high ceilings and multiple windows in almost every room.

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        1. It’s a matter of threat-vector-control.

          I’ve noticed that barn cats brought indoors when very, very young tend to be agoraphobic to an almost hilarious level.

          Our Bruiser Cat From Hell hated cats, would attack any cat she saw, zipping out the door if you weren’t fast enough, then realize OH MY BAST THE SKY IS THERE!!! and belly-crawl to cover.

          Like

  39. J. Edgar Jazzhands (thanks to the person who coined that one) made an interesting admission in one of her videos, which Tucker Carlson shared on his show. She admits that the most popular social media posts tend to be . . . from the Right.

    Shines a new light on what’s going on, doesn’t it?

    Like

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