Before we start this here session, let me point out I decided to vote for Trump in 2016 the night before election day. I did it after earnest talks by both Jerry Pournelle and L. Neil Smith and partly because those two agreeing was such a jaw-dropping shock, I couldn’t fight it too well. (Tips hat to two friends now in the eternal SF convention hall.)
But still the only reason I chose Trump in that election is because he was judged less likely to have me shot in the back of the head. (Note not completely unlikely, but less likely.)
The way he governed, despite being hampered by credentialed people convinced that they knew better, was a welcome surprise. He did great things for the economy, and he got the Abraham accounts signed. Yeah, covidiocy. And that gives me some pause. But considering the other side did it harder, crazier, the only thing I can suspect is that Trump was in cahoots with him, and if he was, then the way they’re still attacking him is even crazier than I thought.
Anyway, in 2020 I voted for him with no regrets. And I still don’t have any regrets. (Anyone who swallowed the whole “called for insurrection” has been swallowing soma by the fistful. Frankly, he’d have been justified in. He didn’t. The left, conscious of their fraud and terrified of the citizenry (note the barriers and under-guard inauguration) have made a mountain out of a molehill).)
However… Well, I won’t say I don’t like Trump. I like Trump the President. I hated Apprentice. And the man is still way too much of a believer in government (or was while in the white house) for my tastes. However, for a President, not bad.
Which doesn’t mean I’m a fan, or involved in some cult of personality. Right now, I prefer Trump to DeSantis because, seemingly unlike the rest of my colleagues I see the underhanded (via surrogates) DeSantis provocation. I know Trump brought it to the public. But that’s his style. He fights in public. As another hothead, I empathize. And DeSantis. Well, only one thing against him. He’s a career politician. And I’ve had enough of those for a lifetime. Yeah, if he’s nominated, I’ll vote for him. For all the good voting does at this point. And why I think arguing Trump versus DeSantis is BS.
However, I think it’s really important for the right not to turn on Trump. The man gave up on a private career and lost money to be President. And we’re going to turn on him? Why will anyone else put him or herself out for us? The left lionizes even their failures. So, you know, sure, we’ll attract good people with that differential.
ALL THAT SAID, I DON’T KNOW TRUMP PERSONALY. THE ONLY PERSON ON WHOM I HAVE ALMOST A CULT OF PERSONALITY CRUSH IS ROBERT A. HEINLEIN. AND EVEN HE I HAVE SEVERE DISAGREEMENTS WITH. SO, CAN YOU STOP MAKING ME DEFEND TRUMP.
Does Sinal Salute, with thumb and forefinger on either side of her nose, head inclined.
So help me, peeps! You keep doing this to me, and I’m so many levels of not happy. But here I go again.
In Trump’s Defense:
I got really tired of everyone posting how Trump wanted to discard the Constitution, after he posted this on Truth Social:
There are many ways to look at what he’s saying, but the one that made absolute sense to me was this: EVERYONE who had half a brain knew there was a serious problem with the 2020 election. EVERYONE, including the courts who said no one had standing to question it, no crime had been committed till it was certified and after it was certified, well, there was nothing we could do.
The fact is that there was an enormous issue with the voting but the entire establishment rolled over by the rules and said “We can’t do anything”. And a living dead zombie was sworn in despite the clear will of the people against it. Which …. whatever. I do realize we’ve had fraud even massive fraud before. But — that I can figure out — it was never to swear in someone who is a puppet, compromised by foreign governments and determined to destroy America by doing everything he can to dismantle us. This has been done to states before: Colorado for instance, and most recently Nevada. But it’s never been done to the entire country. We’ve never had someone throw the borders open to invasion ignoring the most important constitutional duty he should be fulfilling. Or destroy our oil industry in order to destroy the economy. Or give weapons to those who declare themselves at war with us. Or– The list goes on. Including most recently trying to nullify the 1st amendment by various means.
So — yeah, there was fraud, massive. The Constitution is being ignored. And there is no Constitutional remedy for this.
It’s not that the Founders didn’t anticipate this. It’s that the remedy for it is found in the Declaration of Independence. And frankly it’s a remedy all of us with a half a wit are praying we don’t have to employ.
Is Trump calling for that remedy? No. Because he’s sane enough he also doesn’t want it. What is he calling for? New Elections. Keep in mind this is quixotic and borderline stupid, because unless we had elections by “occupied country rules” — ie. the rules of countries WE occupied and forced elections on — meaning, one day voting, paper ballots, public ballot counting, purple fingers, the results will be MORE fraud. And they’ve managed to perfect it, as we saw in 2022.
But is that what people are saying. No. People are saying “Hey, to have elections again, would LITERALLY kill the constitution.” Yeah, b*tch. That’s a real danger. Looks over at the bleeding corpse of the Constitution, while the Junta stabs it repeatedly.
What this country has suffered is what’s known as a “color revolution.” The revolutionaries come in not with tanks and guns, but under the cover of legalism. Using our own mechanisms to hamstring us. If you ignore the fact of the MASSIVE fraud, everything was done by the book.
Because the American people totally voted by the people who wanted to bring in the Green New Deal. Of course, those were the American people who did same day registration many to addresses that don’t exist, or voted without ID, because in America you can do everything without ID from opening bank accounts to cashing checks to receiving welfare, or boarding planes. They were Americans who voted only on the races important for Democrats, in votes it took days after the elections to find. And the most Americanny Americans again were those that live as bits and bites in the heart of voting machines that are hackable, unverifiable, and connected to the internet. Oh, and created by a company used to rig other elections around the world. THOSE are the bestest Americans.
And given that, of course, everything was done by the book. Because by the book is far more important than the fact that de-facto enemies of our form of government are trying to destroy us more or less openly, because what are we going to do? By the rules?
So yeah, what Trump said was stupid, but not because he called to discard the constitution. He didn’t. But because he called for new elections, when the elections are now thoroughly rigged.
However what did all my colleagues on the right do? “Trump wants to discard the Constitution.”
And I have sympathy, kind of, with the friend who was like “why can’t he be clearer.” But the fact is, as used to be the rule on the blogs long ago: There is no way you can say things in a way that won’t be misunderstood. Particularly when everyone wants to misunderstand you. Remember when they outright elided things he said to get that he’d called Nazis “good people”? Yeah, good times, that.
Now is he the most punctilious speaker? No. New Yorker, and having been — or passed as — left most of his life, he never had to police his words. It’s the habit of a lifetime. Besides, honestly, this is the guy who thinks Biggly is a word. He’s not a word person.
Yes, he could have a word person vet his stuff. We do remember that even now he’s surrounded by people willing to sell him for gotchas, right? And FYI everyone in his position will be. Remember the left selling people on Ford being clumsy? yeah.
Now would I volunteer to vet his word stuff? Hell yes. I’d take the job in a minute to be his “word interface with the world” — other than typos — and by saying that I don’t mean I WANT that job. It would destroy my life and my family’s life, and put an end to my writing career, which is the thing I wanted since I was six. BUT right now, it might be the best thing I can do for this country. And I love this country. But let’s be honest, no one is going to pick the weird girl blogger for that, and I’d probably talk back too much for his taste (or anyone’s taste.) So, whatevs. Do I trust anyone else? Well, some of you. But…. again, no one is going to tap us for this.
And if I vetted his word stuff, would he still say “appalling” things? Well, dudes, the left managed to get it out in the world that I’m homophobic and sexist. That means there is no way to speak that the left, and their right wing dupes won’t distort.
So… I have no solution, other than, stop jumping to the positions the left wants you to take. Another reason not to turn on Trump is that the left WANTS you to. And when have they wanted anything that was good for the right? Are you people simple?
And speaking of simple: remember when Trump let the country get paralyzed by covidiocy because he respected local rule? Some person to call for the erasing of the Constitution. That’s TOTES believable. Do I need a sarcasm tag? Stop jumping on this stuff like a cat on a shaken string. ARE YOU SIMPLE? Are you using only your cerebellum?
Now, one of my friends, who is one of the most brilliant people I know, saw this in a much simpler light “He’s not saying to ignore the constitution. He’s saying what happened and the blatant fraud allowed the Junta to ignore the constitution.”
He’s not wrong.
Another friend went at somewhat more length:
“
The thing people are, apparently deliberately, missing with regard to ‘termination … even those found in the Constitution’?
It is correct to say that the current mess is a failure mode that the constitution does not fully anticipate.
Strictly speaking, it is a failure mode where the constitution conflicts with the constitution.
The handwringing over Trump proposing a set of remedies that /includes/ remedies that conflict with the constitution is nonsensical when these same people were silent about other things actually done that were in violation of the constitution.
The January Sixth hearings, and attempts to impeach Trump, were about allegations that would have obviously had a defensibly constitutional reading had they actually occurred.
Every time a congress man alleged an insurrection, they offer evidence that Trump would have been potentially justified in a use of force, if he had not refrained from using force.
Trump had the executive power, under the constitution, and was charged to see laws duly enforced.
Election laws were flagrantly and blatantly not enforced, as part of a coordinated campaign of lawlessness (Covid lockdown), that happened to be coordinated with the most concentrated domestic terror campaign in forty years.
Trump was peacefully complaining, and asking for remedy, in courts and in congress.
The legislature is assigned the legislative power, with caveats. The judiciary is assign the judicial power, with caveats. The executive power is not so limited by clauses, in my recollection of reading it.
The limit of the executive power under the constitution is that it must be necessary under the responsibilities, and only be something that the executive can remedy.
It was under this theory that Lincoln’s actions can at all be legitimate, under the theory that the state of insurrection, and of laws not being duely enforced, and not suitable to remedy by the courts, so authorized and required him to act.
The presidency is explicitly given powers to act in an actual insurrection.
The Republican establishment has mainly been silent on this point. They can go to hell.
The current congress, serving federal officials, has on the record thereby blatantly made statemetns that conflcit with the constitution.
Folks for whom someone not formally in office making statements is a deal breaker, who were silent about congress, can have a sit down and think.
Despite what the constitution says, leaving the Presidency and congress vacant while the courts hear the arguments, and decide on the evidence and merits of the arguments, might have been reasonable.
Despite what the constitution says, redoing the election, might have been reasonable.
Forcing the situation forward merely established a state of affairs where elections are no longer binding. Quite a lot of people talking about this social media post can take their opinions, and choke on them.”
You know, he’s not wrong. But none of us wants that ultimate, exposed solution. NONE OF US WANTS war if there’s any other option at all.
Thing is, we’re running out of options, and jumping like catnip addled cats whenever the left waves the string, is not going to save us. No, another election, unless under great and careful measures, wouldn’t do much either.
Trump is wish casting. As right now we all are. Because we’re trying to avoid the solution of the Declaration of Independence.
It will take a miracle. Pray for a miracle.
Meanwhile, what did Trump mean?
Well, the man himself clarified it:
And I’m now done with defending Trump. DON’T MAKE DO THAT AGAIN. Do you know how many showers I have to take now?
I’ll be in my room praying for America. Even though, heaven help me, I don’t have great faith, I’m going to pray for a miracle.
But the first miracle I want is for people ostensibly on my side to stop being easily led. Please. I’m begging you. I realize we’re all social apes, but for once, please channel your inner goat.
We need a miracle.
Because the alternative to the miracle is unspeakably hard and the butcher’s bill is world-breaking.
Let the miracle start with you.
According To Hoyt 
Looks like I have some pems to write.
I was never a big poem reader. Can you set them to music, or is barding a totally separate thing?
I can, it’s just a slower process (no where near as much practice) and is going to happen after I get the book itself out. (Which HOPEFULLY will happen soon if the Current Bug will leave us all alone.)
Read them loudly at a 4/4 measure, at 120 beats per minute. Read one or two measures. Then have someone, preferably a bunch of fellows. repeat it back loudly.
Loudly and on beat. A tune helps, but can be improvised or stolen.
Re-insert a nice chunk occasionslly as a refrain, possibly in unision.
Congrats. You have a nucleus of a marching song for the coming campaign.
That will be fore the next round. But I have to get this round out of my brain (the poems not the songs) for the next round. Starting with a requested one about the battle of Athens. But must unjam the logs first.
C-130 rollin’ down the strip
64 Rangers on a one-way trip
Mission Top Secret, destination unknown
They don’t even know if they’re ever coming home
When my plane gets up so high
Paratroopers take to the skies
Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door
My knees got weak and I hit the floor
Jumpmaster picked me up with ease
Tossed my knees into the breeze…..
Now do “Blood On The Risers.” 🙂
… he ain’t going to jump no mooooore!
Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,
Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,
Gory, gory, what a helluva way to die,
He ain’t gonna JUMP NO MOOOOOOOOORE
Day before first jump. The cruelty. Fate was kind, though. It was too windy to get dropped from the 200-foot towers, so no risk of damage and recycle before the real thing.
Were you to somehow get that gig as filter to his speeches I offer my services as scrubber for typos, it is what I do after all. Be perfect justification for that T1 line into the desktop I’ve always wanted so I could do it real time from home. Hell, one of my duties on that old job of mine was to arrange for data reception and command capability between researchers’ home equipment and hardware on the Space Shuttle and ISS.
As for the “legitimacy” of the 2020 election note how quickly all the usual suspects scream “old news, long past, no longer relevant” as the collusion and conspiracy between social media, the DNC, and the FBI is revealed by those internal emails Elon is allowing to see daylight. Joe Biden is not now and never has been our legitimate president, and he and that son of his deserve to be investigated for at a minimum the crime of being undeclared agents of foreign governments.
T1 lines sounded great when we were on dial-up, but they max out at 1.544 Mb/s. My cable internet 20 years ago was faster than that.
The bottom tier speeds in most of the country now are at least 100Mb/s download, 10Mb/s upload.
I boggle some now when I mention the campus was served by A 56k line. Granted, this crazy new HTML thing had just been invented and gopher was a Big Deal…
I got several trips to DC in the early 80’s because my office had a deal with the Commerce Department. They had a state-of-the-art computer system with a (gasp) 10 Megabyte hard drive….
(I’m convinced the portly gent with the bulbous red nose and silver hair who held a door open for me was Tip O’Neill).
Not surprising. In fall 1979 when I went to WPI the whole of the 10 colleges in Worcester
(including WPI, Holy Cross, Clark, Assumption, Worcester State, Quinsigamond Community College, Becker Junior college(extinct in 2021) , Anna Maria, and a couple others now long gone) were served by WACCC on the WPI campus on the lower floors of the Gordon Library. The computing resources consisted of:
1 DEC 10 (KA10) with 96K main memory, 600 K swap drum and several rpo4/rpo6 (less than 6) each with either 75MB (rp04) or 150MB (RP06) and assorted tape drives (including a dectape). Student general accounts were limited to 100 blocks (~5k) at logout, accounts could be enhanced for classes, Students could also purchase and have mounted a Dectape for another 500 blocks.
A Univac IBM 370 clone, resources unknown, mere mortals only used that machine for Fortran and Assembly (BAL, IBM 360 assembly) via card decks submitted with restricted card decks as that machine also did billing and grades for the Consortium.
Access to the Dec 10 was by terminals in WACCC (~12 vt100 and vt100 clones) Several remote terminal sites at WPI had 2400 Baud for VT52 and 110 baud for LA-36 Decwriter 2. There were 4 300 baud dial up lines as well as 1 1200 baud dial up line. Holy Cross and Clark had their own high speed connections (9600 baud total I think) the rest made do with the dial ups. There were remote half duplex terminals in offices (usually bursars/admissions) at all the schools accessing the Univac. I think some of Clarks and Holy Cross’ departments had small minicomputers (PDP 8, PDP 11, DG Nova and maybe some WANG word processors and advanced calculators.
The DEC10 did get upgraded to a DEC20 summer of ’80 and it was a MAJOR improvement 🙂 .
Yep, caught me being nostalgic. Was really intending for something more in the gig to the desktop though I expect even that is peanuts these days.
Of course we did Spacelab with a 50Mb intermittent downlink (that’s bits not bytes by the way) with 48Mb dedicated to single stream FM video and the remaining 2Mb critical data.
Intermittent since we only had TDRSS coverage for two thirds of the orbit.
By the time I left ISS was doing 150Mb with plans to upgrade to 300 and six channels of digitized video.
At the U I worked with a Prof who had an experiment on the ISS that he wanted to watch but it was scheduled for the wee hours each time. He wanted to watch at home on his PC instead of coming into campus in the snow, but the NASA feed was multicast and local cable internet was only unicast. We magiced up a conversion to squirt out what he needed, but the side benefit was I got to watch 4 channels of ISS video pretty much whenever I wanted to. God’s eye view from LEO. Best desktop background Evah!
Heck, I just upgraded to 1 GB both ways for less money.
As far as I can tell, the only people actively misconstruing what he said and calling for his defenestration, are the same people who have been doing so for the past two years (at least).
It’s another attempt to poison the well of uninformed citizens (of which, there are entirely too many).
Like everyone else, I was appalled at the clickbait headlines.
Then I actually read what he’d said.
Any article about a quote, that doesn’t provide the quote itself until the fifth paragraph, if at all, is propaganda.
What a shock
Sorry Luke, what he actually said was pretty stupid. I get his gig and how he expresses himself. What worries me is his supporters that are unable to acknowledge that sometimes the man, like all humans, says stupid things. And please stop the “us vs them” thinking; its like I must be a Biden supported because we both like Ice Cream! I voted for Trump (and probably will again) but he is both capable of great things and stupid things (like us all). But if I don’t vote for him again it will be because his cult like followers scare me!
PS Go ahead and accuse me of all kinds of treason if you like – that will only reinforce my fear that Trump people might be Jim Jones Cool Aid Drinkers!
You mean his supporters who almost without fail point out that there are things they severely disagree with him about?
Tell me you have never actually met a Trump supporter without telling me you’ve never met a Trump supporter.
THIS.
There is a ton to dislike about Trump as a person. As a President he was the best one since Reagan. Makes it a lot easier to live with all the unlikable personal stuff.
I’m not even sure there was that much to dislike about Trump as a person. How much of that is public persona?
Look, the left has had to MAKE UP crap about him. How many famous people would they have to make up stuff about.
It’s starting to feel like someone or perhaps SOMEONE preserved Trump for a purpose. It feels BIBLICAL. And note the credit is not to him, but it speaks of his not being JUST the people’s instrument.
A lot of the personality stuff long predates his time as a political candidate and goes back to when he was a Democratic Party donor who palled around with the Clinton’s and others.
The best comparison offhand was to the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner III;. Often generous to a fault, could give you the shirt off his back, but could also be petty, mean, nasty, and willing to say or do anything for an advantage or simply to get revenge against slights, both real and perceived. That was GMSIII, and it typifies Trump through his long career in business long before he entered politics.
Who cares about any of his “personality flaws” or mean tweets? I don’t want to be friends with my President, I want him to: love America, fight for Americans, put Americans first, strengthen the American economy, and fight the Deep State, Big Tech, and the Main Stream Media. Trump did all of these, and no other RINO in sight does any of them, and the Dems are actively working to undermine them
Just today the news was a teenage daughter of Ted Cruz had self inflicted injuries. I know they went privacy, but the left or Satan targets families of people who might ever conceivably push back. One of his daughters had come out, shall we say, against her father. Now this.
Who can withstand the pressure? Who would not cave when faced with your minor children being destroyed? Sean Parnell quit as a candidate so he’d maintain access to his kids.
DeSantis? Cotton? Cruz? Much as others may find them virtuous and principled, not one would withstand that.
But DJT could. It’s possible. He has other flaws, but he is less open to the wickedness and snares than people think.
I think it’s the same daughter. Only the Almighty knows what sort of pressure she gets at school.
When you read the book of Judges, your first thought is that God needs a better HR dept. Every one of them very flawed. You know it is God who speaks, when your response is: “You want me to do What?!!”
“Go to the king, who likes to kill people, with a wife who is even more dangerous, tell them you are praying for a drought. Then go hide out at a small brook. It will dry up, and I AM will then send you to a widow with nothing. Then go call down fire from Heaven”. That is the story of Elijah in 1st Kings, chapter 17-19.
The author has a wicked sense of humor. He does not promise easy. He offers PEACE in the midst of the storm. I have been reading the “minor” prophets. They sound like they are writing about today. Trump fits in very nicely with the other “Judges”.
((waggles hands))
There are a few true cult of personality types, same as with every major politician. But yeah, most see him as flawed but useful.
My main takeaway on him is that he was a real estate guy in NYC and Atlantic City, and nobody could find any evidence of actual corruption. Think about that for a minute.
Yep.
The FBI and IRS have been investigating Donald Trump for more than 10 years, and have found…bupkus. Nada.
I know Trump has a tendency to exaggerate, but when he said he was ‘the most investigated person’ in the country, that was pretty accurate.
He was ‘investigated’ for years, ‘impeached’ twice, and the Democrats had…more bupkus. Nothing but a clown show. The January 6 inquisition was another clown show.
———————————
“I have looked into the darkness, Na’Toth. You can not do that and ever be quite the same again.”
You want a miracle. A developer, in that cesspool,who did nothing wrong?
Also, Trump was not raised in a church that focused on Jesus, it was a place where the pastor did very well. One of the early prosperity gospel swingers. So his is not an orthodox faith.
While Trump makes mistakes, I agree with what he said.
There’s nothing in the Constitution to handle Major Fraud in the election of the President.
As for the “us vs them” thing, I’ve heard too much garbage that strongly says “if you don’t hate Trump, then you are a mindless follower of Trump”.
I hear that All The Time about All The Things. It’s assumed (generally by the purveyors of “nuance”) that you wholeheartedly support every single facet of anything you speak positively about. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here thinking that if I loved 100 percent of ANYthing, I’d need to get my head examined.
Argh. Tell me you’ve never worked for a normie business.
Look. Most successful non-tech businesses have a “dream guy,” who is often also very good at sales. The dream guy figures out what he would like to have, and what you would like to have, and he puts that into words. Sometimes they are not terribly precise words. Very often, the dream guy has a side hobby that involves art. He’s also usually good at schmoozing, and can be scarily good at remembering names, faces, and second cousin’s dogs. (And if he’s not, he gets his secretary to keep that kind of file.)
The “dream guy” usually also has one or more “practical guys.” Often the practical guy is his wife or secretary or accountant. The practical guy is not good at making the leaps and intuitions, but is good at seeing how to make the dream guy’s wild plans into something that can work.
Trump is a classic dream guy. He used to have a secretary who was about a zillion years old and interpreted him to the world. He schmoozes everybody. He makes decisions based on input and local analysis from cab drivers and caddies, among others. And he constantly brainstorms with his mouth and his keyboard, and you’re supposed to bounce it back to him with some practicality added.
Trump makes few statements, but pushes out many plan starters. And yet, after a long public life of him doing the same thing, some people still do not get this.
If you expect Trump to be precise in his wording, you are telling him to cut out most of his brain, and stop working in his preferred style. And you also sound like an idiot without taste or discernment, to anybody who has ever worked for a dream guy.
Now, that said, Trump needs a good speechwriter who is good at interpreting him to the world. But… actually his speeches and presentations have always been pretty good, and it would be a pity for him to stop making his own comments on social media.
The main reason Trump was able to get around the filter was because his social media posts were live and unfiltered. This left his enemies chasing the laser pointer dot while his larger message got through.
They had to shut off his access completely to try to stop the signal.
But, you can’t stop the signal, Mal.
He isn’t the leader we asked for or even wanted but he’s the only one they haven’t shut up completely or compromised into compliance.
Yet.
What Trump needed were several conservative/moderate confidants who were NOT yes men/women and not captured by the system. Unfortunately Diogenes and his lamp would have more luck finding his (likely apocryphal) honest man in DC then the odds of finding a couple of those near our capitol. His own tendency towards narcissism (common in the managerial and political castes, because without it you’d slit your throat about 6 months into the process) meant the advice he got was skewed and his own reading of the situation was skewed (a case to some degree of “drinking his own ink” as our hostess puts it). The Executive order he had lined up for 2021 to help purge the Augean stables should have gone in place Jan 21 2017, no later than the beginning of 2018 once it was clear the Republican ruling class was not going to help. Easy for me to say in retrospect, he thought his opponents were playing by the rules it became clear they were not, never had been and never intended to play by the rules.
As I said before if he is nominated I will vote for him in 2024 as I did in 2016 and 2020. He is far superior to anyone the Democrats will put forward, and certainly better than mid pack easily upper quartile for the Republicans. If he goes 3rd party/Bullmoose the Dems won’t even need fraud to win. If he fights dirty against whatever candidates against him (other than RINOs like Mitt or Liz Cheney, hammer their silly asses, Reagans 11th commandment does not apply to them) it won’t be any better than 3rd party and again the Dems won’t need (much?) fraud to beat whoever is the opponent. If he were a Cincinnatus or a Washington he step back and become a power behind the throne using the leverage he’s got to keep his people motivated keep them poking at the election system and put the Candidate’s feet to the fire on matters of national sovereignty , immigration, education and other points where Republicans have a tendency to the squishy side of the force.
Suburban Banshee,
That is probably the best description of President Donald J. Trump I have ever read. I agree with it completely and commend you for having done such a good job interpreting a man who many find complicated beyond their ken. Sarah is lucky to have you as a commenter.
“There’s nothing in the Constitution to handle Major Fraud in the election of the President.”
Or any other Federal election, That’s because the Founders put election control at the state level, and expected it to be handled there.
And the other certification things were also the constitutional remedy, which Pence decided not to use.
There’s also Remo Williams, of course.
THIS THIS THIS THIS.
IMO (and I don’t pretend to be a legal scholar) the certification is essentially the vote as far as the Constitution is concerned. After the certification of the Electoral College is done, the only Constitutional remedy is impeachment.
Passing strange that this is the only part of the Constitution that people think is only “pomp and circumstance.” A barely educated clerk could open the envelopes and add up the votes, reporting the result to Congress. Especially in the first election, when only ten envelopes needed processing. (North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified, and New York failed to select electors in time.)
Way, way too much of that.
Those who have served in the armed forces, or have served in elected or appointed public office, or who are naturalized citizens, have sworn an explicit oath that they “will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Those who, like myself, have at maturity taken on the rights and privileges of citizenship, have sworn an implicit oath to do the same.
ANYONE who, being a citizen of the United States, whether by explicit or implicit oath, that votes for an illegitimate junta, OR neglects their responsibility to do so – yes, they have violated their oath, and should expect to be named as traitors.
Then we start with Milley. snarls
I’m right ahead of you on that. Filth.
Kathy, now we’re going to have an issue. WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST FILTH. Used as fertilizer, it makes things grow. So it has a use, unlike Vanilli Milley.
OMG. It’s come to this.
I declare my undying allegiance to usable refuse in any forms!
“All things bright and beautiful all creature’s great and small, all things wise and wonderful…” and even shite … “the lord God made them all.”
Honestly. Watching that man walk down the stairs of an aircraft we pay for, his head wrapped in useless rags and plastic shields is just too much.
Watching the FICUS fall up the stairs was at least entertaining… 😛
Especially by the third time. We were taking bets on whether he’d make it or not.
Biden has been ‘falling up’ for almost 50 years, and has finally ‘reached the top’.
If you are suggesting that Vanilli become useful fertilizer I wouldn’t object.
Milley, Mathis, et al. All of the heads of the various departments who lied to Trump’s face and stabbed him in the back, which would be about 1/2 his cabinet or more. Most or all of the Joint Chiefs. Most or all of the senior leadership of all the US departments of various things. Most or all of the middle leadership, too.
The rot was as bad or worse than when Grant was president.
Funny, the two are much alike. Strong, bluff, not-softspoken men who were/are willing to take the hard road and to stare down the competition. More in danger from their own people than actual enemies.
There might be an issue with Mathis. The reverence that the jarheads give him based on my extremely limited poll count of one almost seems greater than Chesty. Not surprising tho’, the Corps isn’t a real branch of the military, it’s the cult of the military. 😉
Start with Milley? Up one: start with SecDeaf Austin!
Austin, IMO, is a tool. A political appointment that causes problems, yes, but less so than this: Milley swore an oath that he has violated. He has helped the enemies of the very Constitution that he swore to protect. The pain of that should be death.
Austin was an officer before quitting the military to be SecDerp, and required a ‘special’ exemption to do so. A Secretary Of Defense, if a military officer, is supposed to be retired AND to have been so for several (two? four?) years before taking the office. Part of that ‘civilian control over the military’ we’re supposed to have.
Doesn’t help much when the military top brass and the civilians are all equally corrupt.
———————————
When police arrest violent criminals to protect innocent people, they are Jackbooted Fascist Stormtroopers.
When police arrest innocent people at the behest of corrupt politicians, they are National Heroes.
When “them” spends the past thirty years (minimum) demonizing “us”, and acting against “our” interests at every juncture, then “us vs. them” is the state of things, whether “we” wish to acknowledge it or not.
And this “they” applies every bit as much to Bob Dole, Bill Barr, and Mitch McConnell as it does to those who openly call us deplorable and advocate for our disenfranchisement.
I speak the truth.
We have turned our cheek not seven times, but seven times seven times.
We have treated our opponents under the presumption that they were acting in good faith, despite the glaring lack of evidence.
Now, we stand on the brink of being forced into a servile condition.
Here, at the eleventh hour, we draw our line in the sand, declaring not one step further.
It matters not if I think Class Warfare is unnecessary and foolish when the clique currently having power believes in it wholeheartedly and insists upon aggressively prosecuting it.
Last 30 years? How about since the 1960’s, even the 1950’s or 1940’s.
Don’t forget the actual communist/red/socialist takeover of Hollyweird and the Media industry in the 50’s and 60’s, if not before (and a conspiratorial whisper of ‘funded by the KGB…’ which was proven true after the Soviets fell…)
Look at all the actual terrorists who in the 70’s became the darling of the college set. Look at the race pimps, including Liz Warren, who played politics for their own pockets and set the nation on fire whenever they could.
It’s been going on long more than 30 years.
Remember, if it hadn’t been for malfeasance in Chicago, JFK would have lost to Nixon, which meant LBJ would never ever been president. A known stolen election, of which the Republicans did nothing about.
I’m a huge fan of POTUS Trump, and I do not drink cool aid.
Having a different opinion is nothing more than that. You should see how MAGA argues amongst itself.
Have you ever been to a rally? I haven’t, but it might be a good way for you to meet some real MAGA people. Let them know you’re scared of them. Talk. Work things out. It would be good for everybody.
Good Lord. On this blog we’ve had to the death fights between regulars over minor stuff…
ROFL. Well, one does not want to be a poor guest.
Well, some of the Huns enjoy arguing. I’m not one of them but more power to those who do.
One is now curious if a massive row with another poster is req’d for “regular” status.
Thankfully I have enough whiskey at the moment I don’t care. 😉
Agree with Evenstar. Also not one to enjoy arguing. Not even when it is obvious that the posters arguing are in “violent agreement”, and can’t see that they are, as Sarah puts it. Sometimes the posts going back and forth are hilarious (which I think they are doing deliberately), most the time, it is just sad. Then there are those posts that take up Sarah’s challenge to run off the bots who sneak in. Everyone has their hobby horse they stick up for, come thick or thin. I’m just not very good at it. While I might post something once. I am not going to keep it up. There are those here a lot better at this, and enjoy it.
no. Not required. ALSO not fighting with BGE. He’s one of the civilized ones. You’ve been warned.
My Lady of Words – he is family. The Dark Rose of dreams, sweet Erinn grá mó chroí, is the mother of us both. We come from different fifths, we go to different churches, and himself has horrible taste in sports teams ;), but She is our mother. And no matter how much we may squabble and bicker, I daresay we will always remember that, even when the peat coals have died and the bastible is cold, and the grim slender hungry man stalks our people again.
Once upon a time I had a subscription to NewsWeek (a class required that or U.S. News & World Report. I went with the less expensive option. It was also, of course, the cheaper option as I found). At that time they had a page of Quotes of the Week and George H.W. Bush was President. He was asked about the women running for senate.
NewsWeek: “I hope they lose.” — Pres. Bush on women running for senate.
Sounds sexist? As presented, yes. Did he say that? Yes. Was NewsWeek reporting in good faith? No.
NPR: When asked about the women running for senate, President Bush replied, “Since they’re all Democrats, I hope they lose.”
That’s not sexist, merely partisan. And when NPR is more honest about things than…. well, how crooked?
Thanks Sarah for helping me regain some of my sanity! Sorry about the “hot water” bill! It feels like we nothing but bad choices in the years ahead. It is only possible to try and choose the least bad.
Like you I was enthusiastic for Trump in 2020 and after being very reluctant in 2016. It is not Trump per se that worries me but it is the cult like behavior of many of his followers. They accuse you of outright treason if you dare to read his words and express concern at the literal meaning of what he wrote. He is a fallen person, like everyone else, and says and does both great things and totally stupid things. Why can’t he, and his followers, just admit he said something stupid when he says something stupid? Do you not see how obnoxious it is to go ballistic when anyone dares to question something about him?
We literally are questioning things about him.
An observation I found interesting way back when went along the lines of “Trump’s enemies take everything he said literally but not seriously. Trump’s voters take him seriously but not literally”. As a fairly Odd person, I recognize the “thinking out loud” style of “we have germs, bleach kills germs, maybe we could find a way to base Covid medicine off of that?” which was promptly reinterpreted as TRUMP SAID TO DRINK BLEACH!!1!eleventy!! (As a dysfunctional-family survivor, I also recognize “we hate you and will put the worst possible spin on your every action”. THAT sends me into obnoxious, ballistic defensive mode, but I’m aware of my emotions and don’t let them drive when thought is called for.)
A thought on the “cult”: imagine that for thirty years or more, everybody in authority tells you you’re unwanted, you have to make up for anything good you (or your parents, or your grandparents) received by stepping back and letting somebody else take your chance. If you object, you’re evil. You’re stupid, regardless, if you don’t believe this is Good and Progressive. Then somebody comes along and says “your problems matter too.” I have no trouble seeing how this might lead to…excessive loyalty.
Just a thought, not trying to start a fight. (Currently. I’m seeing lots of returns to “talking point” phrases which are lifting my cute little hackles.)
And let’s not forget that some of the “Trump supporters” are actually Russian or Chinese bots with scripts, or “soft power” human employees working Moscow or Beijing business hours. They are out to cause division and shut up the actual American commenters, as far as I can tell.
Anything that says “I’m for Trump and I hate Jews” or “I’m for Trump and I hate black people” is probably the work of a Trump enemy.(Among other tells.)
Yep. We don’t get many of these here, since I blocked Russian IPs. … Though there are a few smarter ones.
Heh. Reminds me of the good old days on AM radio, when “I’m a lifelong Republican but…” would come on Rush. It’s the same old song and dance. Out of tune, poorly conceived, shoddy acting and all.
YEp.
Seminar callers/posters are so predictable.
You can tell they don’t actually know anyone on the other side because they all have the same arguments and presume that it will be a lightbulb moment for the rest of the people on the thread.
They have no idea that what they think is such a profound argument is actually VERY tedious and threadbare. We’ve heard it all. With bells.
AND they also believe that we care what they think about us.
Plus their mothers are hamsters.
…and their fathers smell of elderberries 😀
SNAP.
CRACKLE.
POP.
(couldn’t resist)
And if they do not leave, we shall taunt them a second time!
Fetchez la vache!
And their fathers smell like elderberries.
I would say that their mothers were hamsters, but that is clearly an insult to hamsters and also clearly false as hamsters are chordata and darn few democrats (and RINO for that matter) have any kind of backbone or central nervous system. They’re all Jellyfish.
Jellyfish mock Mittles and Vichy Mitchy for being spineless. 😛
do the hamsters also wear combat boots? (for some reason that was considered a slight in my youth)
Or someone you “know,” from a lifetime in the public eye says, repeatedly, “You’re great people. You’re wonderful people. You do great things. I love you,” instead of sneering or dismissing you. These….people…with TDS don’t seem to realize how powerful that is.
My gosh, so much this. For one of the few times in my 56 years on this plane of existence, we had a President and “politician” actually complimenting the working people that make this country great. That is such a rare thing to hear. Normally Washington only holds up the super-rich and the elites for praise, and constantly tell us how bad we’ve been as a nation and how we constantly need to change to their way of thinking to “do better.” To see President Trump talking about how traditional America’s values are the correct ones, and how he’s going to back those of us up who hold them…no wonder there are millions of people who would charge the gates of Hell with a kid’s squirt gun if he told us to.
Yes, a president who cared more for the common man than the intelligensia and bureaucrats and lobbyists.
Whereas the potato-in-chief now actually told a union worker that he didn’t work (as a politician) for the worker, but that the worker worked for him (him being the future potato-in-chief.)
There is no cult of personality of Trump. He’s a tool. If he falls, we’ll get a bigger one. The cult of personality is a leftist scream.
Yep. We’re not followers. We’re citizens. We elect Representatives to act on our behalf, while we’re making money and taking care of our families. Politics is dirty work, so most honest folks don’t want to get into it.
Leftists, on the other hand…
I’m reminded of what you (and others) have said: Trump wasn’t the last resort, Trump was the warning shot. I have no idea what that shot’s kicked off, and I am scared as hell to find out, but serfdom doesn’t appeal somehow.
Very much this.
Or as someone else put it, “Trump is not the engine failing. Trump is the CHECK ENGINE light.”
Yep, that’s another thing the left and the TDS-afflicted don’t understand: he’s the symptom, and if you suppress him, you’re going to get someone who could be much worse.
As I tell some people, “This is how you get President Buckman. You don’t want President Buckman.”
From Col. Kratman’s “Caliphate”. No I generally don’t want that except when the little guy with horns and tail in the red suit on my left shoulder says, “How Bad could it be?”. Then my brain and the other guy say, What are you forgetting every frick revolution including the treatment of the Loyalists in ours? Tar and Feathers is lethal as burns are not easily fixed in the 18th century. I think Kratman’s “Caliphate” ends up better than Say Mr Schlichters timeline.
Cults of personality are what the left does; look at the cults they have built around Obama, Hillary, etc. I don’t recall ANY news anchor/op-ed person on any network, much less a major one, calling Trump “a kind of god” the way the idiot on NBC talked about Obama.
Does “Cheeto Jesus” count?
Cults of personality tend to preclude humor about the object of the cult.
Kind of my point 😊
Also, that phrase generally came from leftists.
I saw signs McCain enjoyed that sort of adulation. Which made him a definite, “Hold your nose and think of Palin,” canditate.
YES
All claim of “Personality Cult” are HILARIOUS after Obama da Foist.
I prefer to think of him as “Barry the O, political descendant of Benny the Moose.”
That also works. I was use “foist” to mean…. foist…. that ‘first’ might come to mind is accident…. }:o)
Political descendant or reincarnation?
Note I come from a no-reincarnation religious tradition, but I’ve caught expressions and looks that…. well… Hence calling Barry “Il Douche.”
There has to be. Otherwise you might have a reason to not fall in line.
Trump gave up everything to try and save this country. He’s been demonized, his wife has been threatened with gang rape, his business has been put through a kangaroo court, and his children have been smeared with despicable lies. I’m surprised he can put together a coherent sentence at all. I understood his meaning immediately when he spoke about the election theft. Our Constitution has a flaw, and it might be a fatal one.
I’m going to keep fighting with my words as best I can, against the doomcriers who always despair about the media’s smears and are always ready to give up. I will not give up.
That was so blindingly obvious that I am saddened anyone actually had to say that. Thank you, Sarah, for another thankless task.
I have been estimating that butcher’s bill at 10% of the population for a decade. With half or more frontloaded to the first few days (“a very ugly weekend.”)
And that’s assuming that Russia and China don’t get cocky…
A real big problem is that the other side sees 10% of the population being killed as “a good start”. How the fuck do we fight a movement that wants, at the end of it all, humanity wiped from the face of the Earth?
I believe more and more that this is the final battle and the left are openly on Satan’s side.
The Reader suggests we ensure they go first.
Nah, sure most humanity, but it always resolved to their wet dream of them being in charge with just enough uneducated serfs to cater to their every whim.
Which ignores historic evidence that such folk are the useful idiots that the real power seekers manipulate to seize control and then send to the camps as their reward.
The UN Chief and Castro-Trudeau essentially parroted Agent Smith’s “humans are a virus” speech from The Matrix:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/12/07/u-n-chief-guterres-scolds-humanity-as-weapon-of-mass-extinction/
You asked “How the f××× do we fight a movement that wants, at the end of it all, humanity wiped from the face of the Earth?”
Bluntly? Start with them. Their nihilistic dream dies with them yes? The remainder are those who disagree and value life.
The gentle version involves neutering them. The more direct involves helicopter rides or such. Tsk.
People fund getting feral cats “fixed”. Can we get snip clinics set up for our feral Marxoids?
Best way you can counter them is four or more kids.
Four or more for Freedom!
Well, the way things are going with the gender confusion, a lot of poor deluded fools are self sterilizing. There will always be those willing to sell hard fought for freedom in exchange for chains. And they refuse to go where their loudly demanded changes are already in place, because those places are without fail worse off than here.
They’re not serious people though. The ones that claim humans are a pox upon the Earth. If they were, they’d be dead already. They’re just playacting. Role playing their own private apocalypse. They are so insulated from the consequences of real life that they think their fever dreams are reality.
Much as I’d like to see them prove their dedication to the cause, it will never happen. And until they are slapped in the face, hard, by the wet fish or reality they will never truly see things as they are, and start to question.
OF. OF, not OR. Typos. I has them.
BROTHER.
You know what it reminds me of? Duke in Farnham’s Freehold.
Duke had serious mommy issues.
Most of the poor sods castrating and sterilizing themselves do too. Sometimes mommies explicitly push it.
In Duke’s case, that’s exactly what happened.
Occasionally someone in my community will say something like, “Gay and trans people are super common, just look around”, and my unvoiced reply is, “We’re goths†, we’ve got an absurdly high proportion of people who were one way or another were abused as children. You can’t use us as a valid sample population for anything.”
† (and goth-adjacent subcultures like bdsm, polyamory, Burners, etc.)
(Hi Sarah! I’m back, at least a little. Been distracted lately.)
If they were serious, there would be “Die-Ins” with actual deaths.
Simple. By killing every last one of their agents of influence and ensuring that children are taught better.
These days that sounds more and more like a non-issue.
If Russia and China get cocky, they’re more likely to blow their own feet off. Alaska MIGHT have an issue maybe. Depends on the state of the coolant.
If I were in Taiwan or Ukraine, I would worry. But honestly, it’s starting to look like China is so happy to mess with Russia, that it’s cheating Russia with fake goods and malware, even when the Chinese are guaranteed sweet sweet money in a financial crisis.
So yeah, maybe Russia vs. China.
The same thing with other stuff. China could be sucking up to India and other Asian powers, including South Korea and Taiwan, and getting more power in Asia as a business market of prestige and as a leader. But nope, they have to mess with their supposed inferiors and torque them off.
And the same thing in Africa. Or worse, because they do more blatant criminal acts.
China doing horrible stuff and buying people in US politics is probably the least blatant they’ve been, in torquing off other countries that haven’t even been hurting them. Maybe because Chinese kids go to school here.
Individual Chinese people are great in many cases, but their country’s leaders are self-defeating in their brands of evil. Amazingly so.
Our biggest risk is the inevitable fallout from a massive nuclear exchange between Russia and China.
They share a lengthy border, and millennia of misadventure. Only a matter of time.
Nothing I’ve seen indicates they have functional nukes for an exchange. Or enough of them for anything but a wet firecracker war.
I would bet substantial bling that both have enough functional nukes to ensure the other can’t survive as an organized state if there was an outright war.
A double dozen functional missiles with 100kt MIRV loads will do. Most especially if those are heavily jacketed with U238 to boost yield and fallout.
We can essentially gut either country with the 20 MIRVed missiles on one Ohio class Boomer. I have no doubt Russia and China can each manage 20-30 successful lanches. Both can reasonably reliably get loads over 20 tons to orbit, yes? Double the load for a suborbital lob across Eurasia.
If Russia isn’t maintaining their conventional forces, it may be because they chose instead to maintain their “Strategic Rocket Forces”. Because -that- can badly damage either China or the USA.
Example: The goldbricking shirker soldier that neglects his rifle, but keeps handy a pair of grenades in case closely pressed. “One for F### you and one for F### me and you.”
At this point China can be destroyed as a functioning society with exactly 2 nukes that reach their targets and function; one on the Three Gorges Dam and one on Shanghai. The Reader is pretty sure both Taiwan and Japan are aware of that fact.
Any country can be destroyed as a functioning society without hitting a single land based target-just simply explode a high yield high altitude airburst for the EMP and watch modern civilization come to a screeching halt.
There was a test and study about that a while back. I think Obama was in office at the time. Insty had a link. IIRC, the conclusion was that while an emp detonation was a problem, it was much more recoverable than it’s generally made out to be.
That has more or less been disproved already.
AND far more likely to be ABLE to do it than Russia.
Don’t even need a nuke for the dam.
And Russia is similarly vulnerable: wipe Moscow and St. Petersburg and there isn’t anything else to speak of.
And the chorus of “Ding dong the witch is dead” (translated) will be audible from Australia.
I’ll take it down to 1 nuke. Set it off underwater in the Straights of Hormuz as an oil tanker is going through. Almost all of China’s oil comes through there. If it is shut down for more than a couple weeks, they’re done.
I wouldn’t. I understand the culture of totalitarian regimes. They MIGHT THINK they have enough nukes. I doubt it, though.
Oh, I’m sure they have that on PAPER. The thing is, neither country actually knows what they have because the officials up and down the line like like rugs (and honestly they make rugs look like rank amateurs!)
You’re acting like Russia DECIDED to have a shit conventional force then wield a war with it. No. All the paperwork said that things were ready to go and everything was fine. and… it wasn’t. Why do you think that wouldn’t apply to everything else?
What I’d half expect is for the mighty missile to launch…….and then come down again nowhere near the target. Maybe in Russian territory.
At this point. I’d be more worried about the Russians releasing something nasty in Ukraine, in hope they could pass it off ad a winter bug.
“All the paperwork said that things were ready to go and everything was fine.”
Remember that scene in Red Storm Rising where the decision has been made to launch the invasion within 6 months, so get ready? The first thing they do is publicly shoot 4 Colonels for falsifying readiness reports, and then start hard training and get rid of more. That didn’t happen because it couldn’t without risking a general mutiny.
Particularly nukes, which need regular maintenance.
And Russian maintenance (see Chernobyl) tends to be ‘do the dials say what they’re supposed to? no? make sure the dials say what they’re supposed to.’ (usually by messing with the dials not fixing any issues)
Yep.
Chernobyl was NOT a result of bad maintenance. Chernobyl was the result of a Politburo apparatchik telling the operators to do stupid shit to the reactor, and nobody there with both the authority and the gumption to tell them not to.
Read ‘Chernobyl’ by Frederik Pohl. He went to Russia and talked to some of the folks who were inside the control room that night.
———————————
There are forms of stupidity that businesses can’t indulge in. There are no such limitations on the stupidity of government.
Chernobyl was a result of the EXACT SAME policies that maintain their nuclear weapons.
The specific night was dumb calls. What got them there was years, and years and years and years of the only thing that matters is that the higher ups get the reports that say what the higher ups think they should say and anyone who doesn’t make it so goes to gulag. Where do you think the ‘no one had the gumption to tell them not to’ came from for crying out loud?
It is possible they even know they don’t have nukes. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they take advantage of the braindead morons in charge in the West?
Really, what would Biden, Macron, Trudeau et Al do if the invaded Taiwan? Sanction Chinese prescription drugs, computer chips, textiles, lithium, other rare metals, solar panels, windmills?
Yeah right. They have us over the barrel they sold to us. We ain’t doing squat.
Therefore they aren’t quite ready to try a bluff.
China can’t suck up to the surrounding countries, even if the CCP wanted to. EVERYONE in that part of the world – except maybe the Japanese (who probably just hold them in contempt, instead) – hate the Chinese. You know the crap that the US still gets to this day from South and Central America about the Banana Republics? Pretend that the Banana Republic policies have been going on (off and on, and badly, I’ll add) for two thousand years, and you’re looking at the relations between China and its neighbors.
The current attitudes in Beijing aren’t helping matters, mind you. But China would have to do a lot of work before any of the surrounding countries trusted it.
How much are they worried about china? KOREA made friendly noises at JAPAN. This would be like my elder Georgia in-laws resurrecting Sherman to fight on their side.
I usually race through books, but I’m plodding through Keays’ history of China. And yes, it looks like the leadership does the same things over and over. I tend to believe Xi is trying to become Emperor.
You may very well know much more than I do, so take what I said with a large grain of salt.
Thanks for mentioning Keay. The Reader has added that to his pile.
I learned about him here. What goes around….
China may very well decide to fish in the troubled waters of the Russian East. Still, It’s a race between the two of them to see who runs out of young people first, not through war but through lack of births. Both countries are terminal.
Watch South Korea to see what China will be like within a decade. South Korea is in a really ugly place.
FWIW, I decided to vote for Trump standing in the voting booth in 2016. What decided me was that, since I live in NJ, it wouldn’t matter who I voted for anyway. That didn’t stop the exhilaration and delight that built up all through that night. Clinton losing was a world historical event. Think of what the courts would look like had she won, not to speak of the wars we avoided. Good money in war.
Just the Bruen ruling that is currently tearing through gun control laws like a flaming chainsword through wet toilet paper is a complete table flip by itself.
Then there is Dobbs.
Then there is the continuous chipping away are Chevron deference… on and on and on.
Ditto. In Oregon. Been like this for decades. Clinton took Oregon in 2016. Biden in 2020. Not because anyone in this household voted for either. We didn’t. I was as shocked as anyone when President Trump won in 2016. Didn’t surprise me a bit at all the left’s screaming.
Ah. You’re an optimist. I think it will be more than 10%. Maybe a lot more.
As for Russia and China: they’re cocky. They just are in worse trouble than us. They got nothing.
You’d think that China and Russia of all places would know better than to get into x a land war in Asia.
But dictators gotta dictate.
I really hope they haven’t been working on their resistance to iocane powder.
Anyone now or formerly in the military deplore the idea of armed conflict. (well, except for a few nutjobs)
Having said that, I would rather leave the fighting to those of us least likely to fall prey to jingoistic thinking.
I am old, fat, disabled, and unlikely to survive the conflict. Having said that, I have nothing to lose or gain – except the knowledge that I would leave this country safer for my grand kids. After that, it’s their job to continue the cleansing.
Water the Tree, folks. It’s our turn.
Remember Athens, Tennessee!
I’ll admit, the likely models I see for a second US civil war seem to have a nontrivial likelihood of turning into a Bronze Age collapse scenario.
Basically opening red team move is a withdraw from the cities and cut the roads. After that I really don’t see the blue team doing anything more productive than rioting out of control and burning their cities down.
Question is what the radius of damage will be and how much critical infrastructure links it takes down. The system right now is intensely fragile and being managed by folks who think it is evil and immortal.
No easy way to isolate most US cities. You can slow the trucks, but there are dozens of roads for alternates.
Because the City leaders and supporters ain’t stupid. They will use armed convoys and horrific reprisals if needed.
Lotta kids in cities. Gonna starve -them- too?
Yep. The thing that worries me is things like infrastructure. North Carolina, recently. Some bits and bobs that are critical to, oh, things like drinking water, power, and sewage treatment? Fragile. Not easily replaced.
Some idiot decides to go nutters, and tens of thousands suffer. Starve a city? A city of tens of thousands can be crippled by a small team with about an hour’s worth of work, if that. Riots, sickness, and chaos will claim far more lives than starvation, much faster, and much uglier.
Disasters happen, and Americans adapt and react. Another thing that concerns me, is if/when the decline gets bad enough that we start losing people to more than just stupidity, random tragedy, and criminality, but to simple lack of the infrastructure, supplies, and trained people to address the problems. Think NHS, but worse.
No riots in NC and minimal looting. You can’t rely on it in a conflict. Remember that the chaos in recent past years was -actively- planned, organized, funded, staffed, and supported through non-opposition by the Left.
That -won’t- be the case in a notional red/blue Boogaloo.
Quite the contrary.
Reports on attacks on substations are popping up on Twitter. North Carolina, Oregon…
Until it hit the national news, I hadn’t heard about Oregon. I live in Oregon.
Attention is bad, on certain things. Critical voonerabilities? Attention bad. You want to fix these things quiet like. I get why they are not in the news. I get that addressing these things takes time.
I am more than mildly irritated that repeated warnings of such voonerabilities going back over forty years have been poo pooed, ignored, and swallowed by bureaucratic morass. These things were not surprises. They were, and are, known. To anyone with so much as a toe in the industry. Top to bottom.
The logistics chain, the schedule, it doesn’t appear out of thin air. People knew that this sort of critical infrastructure did not have replacement parts available 24/7/365. You wait months for scheduled repairs on the equipment.
grumble grumble cuss cuss
I’ve spoken to a few former military members who did funky stuff in service who have sat in on various tabletop exercises that municipalities hold. They’ve each said that the exercises are pretty much worthless for planning on catastrophes they haven’t already dealt with. Whenever they’ve recommended various areas be hardened they’ve been ignored by the bigshots. I’ve heard more than once that someone with the knowledge/skill set to actually do bad things to a city would only need a couple of hours of work to bring an urban area to a screeching halt for weeks at a time.
Those vets you talked to evidently have their heads on straight. When all it takes is 200k to save potentially 200mil in damages, but you can’t guarantee the damage will occur, bean counters get awful shy about those “hypotheticals.”
And as far as knowledge/skill sets go, that bar is low. Shockingly low. A .22 and a mind bent on mischief can do a LOT of damage in a VERY short time. Deer rifle? Major damage. You don’t need big booms. You don’t need spec ops sooper sekrit squirrel stuff. You don’t even need to kill anybody- or even threaten another human life.
The amount of “WE TOLD YOU SO YOU BLEEPING IDIOTS” that’s running around recently should set some ears burning.
My daughter and I have skulled out the exact tactics by which a planned terrorist attack could cripple the city that we live in – using our local knowledge of the lay of the land. I will never share this speculative plan with anyone – because I am certain that it is doable. And I don’t want to give anyone ideas – either terrorists or ‘glowies’ looking for an easy mark.
I do hope that our local law enforcement authorities have been thinking along the same lines as my daughter and I, though. And worked out a strategy in response.
NYC, SF, LA are all horribly vulnerable.
As for the starving kids, if it goes to war, that’s what will happen whether or not anyone wants it.
You are not familiar with Mordor West. It is full of choke points. The seismic activity that created the bay, channels transport. The home of the demon has one bridge north , and another east. It is at the tip of a 50 mile peninsula.
After the “selection”, I estimated the world wide death toll from an American Civil war at 2 billion. You die when there is no food. It is called starvation. No fertilizer, crop yields drop. No water for irrigated crops, no food. No transport. No shipping. No supply chain. No food. Starvation.
My current estimate has jumped to 3 billion, since the left hates nitrogen, and fosal fuels, and have done their “best” to create a famine. When we start to play, China will invade Taiwan. It will not go well for them. Three Gorges vanishes, along with all the cities downriver. War rages around the world, not just here at home. Civilization crashes. We enter dark ages, all we can do is pray. It is impossible to prepare for the horrors to come. Appreciate our current golden age, appreciate coffee, chocolate, and fruit out of season.
It is still possible to turn from this catastrophe, but the Left must be convinced of the consequences of THEIR actions. Now, they press on at full speed toward a cliff, because it is the only way they know. They think they will get North Korea, the result will be much worse.
Mordor West is a bit of a special geographical case. Seattle is close, but there are enough roads that you can’t truly isolate it without besieging pretty much all of western Washington and Oregon. To isolate NYC you’d have to occupy large amounts of other urban terrain. For any port city, you’d have enforce a naval blockade as well. Minneapolis or Atlanta would require whole divisions of troops and nearly continuous siege works.
“Just” cutting the roads packs a whole lot into that one word.
The leadership in large cities is already tormenting their residents. I don’t know how much loyalty they’ll get from their people in a pinch.
And as far as armed convoys go, I never understood why the rioters in Asbury Park trashed their own neighborhood when Deal, full of mansions, is literally within walking distance. (I know, I walked there regularly). The “foot soldiers,” available to blue city mayors are not very, ahem, thoughtful.
Come on now. This isn’t Nextdoor, Twitter, Facebook, TikTock, you can use words like, reality challenged, common sense challenged, not very bright, stupid, idiots, short sighted, intelligent challenged … 😉
OTOH maybe all those words are wrong. It could be that they feel that trashing their own neighborhoods means they might actually walk away. Where the obvious wealthy neighborhoods they leave via ambulances or morgue wagon. Whether true or not. It is a huge perception. That the wealthy can, and do, pay for protection. 100% not willing to be
bulletshock absorbers for their masters.Because of the same process as “roll left and die”. Their process is “Trash own neighborhood. Look pitiful for cameras. Get concessions.
It only started picking up after 9/11, when New Yorkers started seeing it as a refuge.
Didn’t help that the city has had a succession of mind-bogglingly gullible governments. As in, falling for the con of building “Michael Jackson World,” on the boardwalk gullible. The mayor (I think it was the mayor) caught buying cocaine across the street from the police station was almost entertaining by contrast.
Gullible? Why would they choose anything but the path of least resistance even if they knew better?
Gullible and greedy, the perfect marks.
Happy Pearl Harbor Day.
The world will not make it to the Centennial of the 1st Great Depression;
Juggernaut’s carriage approaches, and the Powers of the Earth flee before it in
fear and panic, throwing their plans under its wheels in futile attempts to stop it.
“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it is too late.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune
I don’t really see any signs that God has moved up his timetable, and the natural world seems to be doing okay (except in CCP China, land of no birds to speak of). Human misery has overall decreased. It’s human messing with people from above that seems to have increased.
Also, your Dune quote seems to contradict your Juggernaut statement.
For what it’s worth, here’s a proposed constitutional amendment on voting that I drafted some time ago:
Elections for Senator and Representative, and presidential electors if the state legislature chooses to hold popular elections for them, shall be held in the following manner:
All voting will be in person at designated polling stations, on the designated election day and within the specified polling times. No other in-person voting will be allowed.
Should a registered voter be physically unable to appear at his designated polling station, he may request an absentee ballot which shall be provided upon the showing of proof of inability to appear at the polling station. Such request must be made no later than two weeks before the designated election day. Absentee ballots must be presented to the designated collection location before the end of the election day, by mail, courier, or physical presentation, and must be signed by the voter and witnessed by another voter, both signatures to be verified against voter rolls, and sealed against tampering with state of the art security seals.
All voters must be found in the voter rolls for the designated polling station, must sign and have the signature verified, and must present a photographic ID that requires proof of citizenship to be issued. Upon verification of the voter, voting will be allowed. Voting, whether via machine or other method, must provide a paper copy of the vote which will be considered the actual vote. Said paper copy will be checked and verified by the voter and marked as valid by a poll worker using secure means of validating the ballot, then, if desired by the state, scanned into a file of votes. The paper copy will then be deposited into a locked ballot box and will be used in any recounts requested. Upon the insertion of the last verified valid ballot into the locked ballot box, said box will be sealed in a tamper-proof way until it is opened for counting. Boxes with the tamper-proof seal broken will be considered spoiled and the ballots contained may not be counted.
Upon completion of the voting process, all voters will be required to mark their left index finger with indelible ink which is not removable for a minimum of two days.
All federal voter rolls will be purged two months after the designated election day. Citizens may reregister for the federal voter rolls starting one week after the purge of the voter rolls. Registration for the federal vote will continue till the end of June of odd-numbered (non-federal-election) years. Registration will require proof of citizenship, a valid photographic ID that requires proof of citizenship to be issued, and proof of current residence within the legal jurisdiction where registering. Registering citizens must be over the age of 18, or must provide evidence that they will be over the age of 18 on the date of the next upcoming federal election. Voter rolls will contain a copy of the voter’s signature, which will be checked against at the polling place during every federal election.
Election officials at all levels must allow election observers to scrutinize their activities at all times, and may not perform any election-related activities at any times when they are not under public observation. Violations of this clause provide criminal liability as described in enabling legislation.
Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
I like it. Alas this means snowballs in Guam have a better chance.
Yeah, pretty much my thinking too.
Overall, I like it, save for the “boxes with the tamper-proof seal broken will be considered spoiled” bit, but only because I can easily see the Leftists “accidentally” breaking the seals on boxes from Republican-heavy jurisdictions, thereby ensuring the opposition votes are not counted.
Absolutely and they would use their Antifa blackshirts and other members of their Red Guard cadre to go around to precisely spoil ballot boxes in areas that Democrats expect to lose.
You mean we would have to organize a counterforce and USE it?
Speaking of counterforce, I hear the D’s have a brilliant plan to lower the voting age to 16.
As if we didn’t have enough low information voters as it is.
If they’re going by mental age, they’d have to lower it to about 2. A whole lot of Democrat ‘leaders’ act like spoiled 2-year-olds.
And then after the teacher’s unions spend the days indoctrinating them with leftist propaganda, the teachers will then ballot harvest all the students in a way that will result in those who don’t hand in a ballot with the “correct” vote being persecuted.
It’s simply another scam to rig elections in their favor. The last thing they want are genuinely free and fair elections.
I like that plan, too. But … snowball, hell, et cetera.
The Citizens United case, which allowed virtually unlimited corporate political donations, sealed the fate of the US…Now the parties don’t need the citizens at all…As to Trump, I think he still has great value as our sacrificial lamb in the 2024 “elections”, in which the election of a braindead hobo like Fetterman will be proclaimed the will of the people…
Snort!
You realize that you’re agreeing with Obama? [Sarcastic Grin]
That case started with a Corporation created a film/show that strongly criticized Hillary Clinton and it was “considered” a campaign denotation for Hilary’s opponent.
The Supreme Court stated that it was a Matter Of Free Speech on the part of the Humans who owned the Corporation.
The Left “loves” films that mock & ridicule conservatives but hates films that mock & ridicule “their own”.
That’s what the case was all about.
The free speech issue is quite different from the campaign contribution issue..and I suppose that since the commies will always cheat (SBF said he gave maybe $1 billion in “dark” money to the Democrats), I suppose that it doesn’t really matter….
THIS.
Translation: The Left has NO sense of humor. Compare… ANY Democrat President post Reagan with…. Reagan. “…wake me up.. even in a cabinet meeting.”
Whereas with the FICUS it would be “Don’t wake him up, even in a Cabinet meeting. Who knows what nonsense might come out?”
Citizens United was a defense of the ENTIRE INTENDED PURPOSE of the 1st Amendment.
You mean the decision that struck down the most blatant provision of the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Act?
Not that it helped all that much – except that it forced the Swamp to deploy more obvious and violent measures to quash dissent. Which is probably a good thing, in the long run.
Hmm, I’m seeing less of a problem with allowing people/groups of people to speak out for/against a candidate than I’m seeing with mysterious ballot drops without oversight and electronic voting that doesn’t keep a real record of votes. While money can buy a lot of advertising that can change some votes, it’s the non-accountability of the actual votes that is the problem.
Who cares if Joe Blow spends a billion dollars ranting against John Smith?
THIS.
You do realize that’s bullshit, right?
Did you miss the “pyrrhus” label? 😛
No, I didn’t.
So you don’t want any documentaries about Hillary?
Are you even familiar with the case?
If I had to watch a documentary about Queen Hillary, I’d need a bucket… 😦
but I want them to exist.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, in this case. Full transparency. No matter how vile. Bring it all out into the light. Let the normies, the politically agnistic, the unaware, the too busy for politics, the deluded, the ignorant, and the frightened followers ALL see what’s going on.
I’d like to see it done for the Republicans too, mind. This isn’t partisan. I don’t care who it is, dirty deeds need to be punished, and there’s a mortal lot of dirt in the swamp.
I’ll admit that I don’t see the problem with a butcher’s bill, as long as it’s primarily the Left getting butchered. Not a single one of them is less evil than Mao, Stalin, or Hitler. Those monsters killed millions of people, but they didn’t have mass rape of children. Meanwhile here a child disappears every 72 seconds. And that’s only the ones they actually kill.
So here is where we are as I see it.
About half the population has no idea what is actually going on and just votes for the party they have always voted for because they believe that party has their best interests at heart and the other party is evil.
Both parties have their own financial interests at heart and don’t care one whit for the voters. Both are being run by cabals of evil powermongers/rich oligarchs and deep state blackmail artists.
About half the country knows that the parties are in it for money and power and these voters are trying, and have been since the Tea Party, to make their concerns known to the rest of the country.
The evil powermongers/rich oligarchs and blackmail artists have a massive boot on the neck of information so the uninformed will not become informed.
Trump was momentarily successful in nudging this boot partially to the side to get a non-official message out to the masses. For this he must be taken down at all costs and no one else like him shall be allowed to rise. The evil cabals know they are in a war of existential proportions and are willing to riot, kill, imprison and/or impoverish anyone in their way. *See the last decade for examples.
The informed voters still hope the worst can be avoided. Meanwhile, they pick us off at will.
Yes it will take a miracle. I continue to pray for one.
I agree, and the hilarious but tragic part is that neither party has any interest in its voters, and the Republicans actively despise their base….
You made me cry. But that’s OK I’m going to share this.
Here’s something to read that might apply:
“A HREF=”https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/a-prophecy-of-evil-tolkien-lewis?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2″>”A Prophecy of Evil: Tolkien, Lewis, and Technocratic Nihilism”
It talks a lot about Lewis’ warning book, The Abolition of Man. (Very good book and very prescient.)
I forgot to say that one very good point in the essay is that too much anxiety makes people long for control, to the point that they want to control everything.
And we live in a world full of anxious people, whose anxiety drives them to do crazy things. To cut themselves up. To declare other people not really human. And so on.
Oh, ugh. You can’t read the whole article without subscribing to the substack. Well, darn.
Anxiety is the entire basis of all modern news media. It’s what drives the incessant need to click, watch, and read, and so everything that gets published is calculated to push that button.
Lewis was one of the ones I read when I had a lot of “why” questions when I was an atheist. I started getting more politically aware around that time, as atheism became agnosticism, then finally admitting the faith that was always there.
Much of his work is still relevant to current issues. And occasionally, eerily prescient.
Interesting. Reading Lewis served to reinforce the Reader’s faith at a point in life where it was flagging.
Funny how quiet the same people outraged over Trump’s poorly worded statement when Nancy Pelosi mocked the Constitution when Obamacare was rammed through (“The Constitution? Are you kidding me?”) or how Obama and other leftists repeatedly disparage the Constitution as “outdated” or even worse, declare it to be an “instrument to preserve white supremacy” that must be abolished”,
Their only problem is 1) Trump said it, and 2) he didn’t call for replacing the Constitution with a Marxist people’s republic.
Goofy monarchist nobleman gets arrested for allegedly being involved in a coup attempt in Germany:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/heinrich-xiii-prince-suspected-plotting-be-german-kaiser-coup-2022-12-07/
Saw that. I’m curious what exactly triggered the raids. It doesn’t sound as if there were all that many people involved with him, so it doesn’t seem likely that he had any concrete plans to do anything other than stockpile weapons (which might be illegal in Germany, mind you). You can’t exactly take over a country the size of Germany with just a couple dozen people. What caused the authorities to decide to act?
I assume the authorities saw a chance to make an example of the hardcore nationalists, even if they weren’t that serious a threat (or were the local equivalent of the FBI agents in the communist and anarchist groups here). My understanding was that Germany is kind of like France, in that the average citizen needed to jump through licensing hoops and belong to a hunting club (and store their guns there) to own firearms, but that Germany was more restrictive. (Rural France had a fairly lively gun culture as late as the 90s/00s, don’t have any good intel on present day). So yeah, stockpiling firearms would be more of a red flag in Germany than here.
As far as how much of a threat such people could be to the current order, Germany has a really embarrassing military right now, but I don’t think they’d lose to 25 people, no matter how heavily armed (short of ABC weapons) the 25 were.
Of course, in Germany (as in several of our blue cities) a ‘stockpile’ of weponry could consist of a rifle, a pistol, and a single-barrel shotgun with a dozenh round of ammunition . . .
Even with the guns angle, it still seems like an awful lot of trouble for what appears to be just a couple dozen guys. Thousands of police? Really?
It feels like pulling out dynamite to get rid of an ant trail.
This hullaballoo over Trump’s somewhat unclear message reminds me quite a bit of the kerfuffle several years ago about things that Orson Scott Card said. The people complaining the most were misrepresenting what was actually said/written and taking it in the most unfavorable way to Trump/Card. When actually looking at the message, it made sense withing the context of what was being written about and in no way called for violent abolition of the Constitution.
Now, if you want insurrection that document starts off with, “When in the course of human events….”
PRECISELY.
Remember when Trump said “If Congress won’t act, I will”…no wait, that was Obama. Remember when Trump said “I have a phone and a pen””…no wait, once again that was Obama. Remember when Trump changed Obamacare by diktat because they couldn’t implement it in time and certain provisions when they took effect would hurt likely voters who would vote for his party…oh wait, once again that was Obama.
Funny how the President who actually acted as if the Constitution didn’t exist was Trump’s predecessor, Obama, something being continued by the Obama puppet-masters running Biden.
For all his faults, Trump actually took steps to return powers that belong to the states under the Constitution back to the states., He was thwarted in doing even more by the establishment which hated to see its power taken away from it and returned to the states and people where it belongs.
Well, it was pretty obvious the fix was in when Obama was able to create and implement DACA as an executive order, but Trump wasn’t able to rescind it.
I do like to recall that our Founding Fathers were not shrinking violets.
New Hampshire Constitution
“Do I trust anyone else? Well, some of you. But…. again, no one is going to tap us for this.”
For this, we should be thankful. Because books.
“NONE OF US WANTS war if there’s any other option at all.”
Nobody sane wants a war in their own backyard. Though I will admit that rolling a battalion into certain major metro areas that are in de facto defiance of the Constitution (among a whole bunch of other laws, regulations, rules, and common decency to name a few) to enforce martial law until order is restored is a nice daydream at times.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=nuke+em+from+orbit+it%27s+the+only+way#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:9de58e27,vid:aCbfMkh940Q
Thank you for this! It is reasoned and on-point. We have people on our side who are repeatedly running off and shouting the latest lie or spin on what Trump said. I’ve seen it again and again. I watched the Covington high school boys being confronted by that elderly fool banging his drum in their faces and I was astounded by the propagandists whose running commentary was the exact opposite of what I was seeing. And then I was later further astounded to listen to people I knew repeat that garbage. Then the whole Kyle Rittenhouse thing, again, the truth stood on it s head and family members and friends so lazy or programmed that they could not see what really happened.
I have been completely honest on here with my opinions regarding Trump. I voted for him twice. I think beheadings would not be punishing enough for the devils who have heaped more slander and hate on him than Hitler got to date. And I’m continually astounded by the people on our side who ‘just want to move along,’ who preface every defense of Trump with, “well, I don’t like when he does x, y, or z, but…” That is such BS. Some of these people have been surrendering to the deep state since the 2015 republican primaries. Cruz… he was the guy I was gonna vote for. But he let his weak side out when he essentially walked right over the Trump supporters, elderly many of them, after they’d been beaten up by antifa/BLM thugs. And Crus said, in essence, that ‘they deserved it with their ‘free speech.’ Forever after Cruz became for me, “Mister Constitution.’ But Cruz’s moment of weakness didn’t deter his supporters. And some of them, the anti-Trumpers (anti because he got more women than they ever could, because he has more money than they, because he is more popular then they, or better able to take a punch)… these people are still in our army and every little setback and every slimey mis-representation or twisting of something Trump said, they’re flying off the handle, either looking for a rock to hide under or creating tension in the ranks.
Well, good for you. And like you, I don’t give a damn if I never sell another book because of my views and what I hold to be truths. We have way too many ‘patriots’ who want to ‘move on’ after our country has been hobbled, perhaps forever.
Good one
Just ran across a suit now at the Supreme Court, Brunson V Adams, https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/DocketFiles/html/Public/22-380.html
Read the Petition for Certiorari. (It’s scanned, not text, so hard to copy and paste.) If I get this correctly, the argument is 388 officials of the US Government – Representatives in the House, mostly – voted against a 10-day investigation of the election, and in so doing violated their oaths of office. If confirmed, all could lose their offices, be ineligible for further elective office, and their actions Jan 6, 2021 would be nullified.
Whew! That’s kind of interesting, eh?
And the Supreme Court won’t grant cert. Done.
“DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 1/6/2023.” We’ll see. They did ‘reach down’ and take it before 10th Circuit could rule.
But actually hearing the case would be a really bold move for SCOTUS, not a thing I’d expect from 4 of the 9.
“He’s not saying to ignore the constitution. He’s saying what happened and the blatant fraud allowed the Junta to ignore the constitution.”
Thing is you’re smart buddy isn’t the only one saying that, I’ve also been saying so and I’m far from alone in doing so. The problem is (One of the many many big problems that are.) that if the lie’s shouted often enough and loud enough they’re believed by far too many or at least accepted.
Many, shucky darn most, dangit almost 100%, even on the right, preface any 6 January comments with “I, of course, don’t condone the rioting but…”.
There was no riot! Video shows capitol police inviting folks past the barriers. Video shows multiple cops beating a woman to death. Video shows capitol cop murdering Ashli Babbitt. The crowd was mostly orderly. Yes there were a few exceptions but such does not constitute a riot. I suspect most, if not all, damage to property was done or at least instigated by FBI agent provocateurs.
No, I don’t like Trump, he’s not someone I’d, if such were possible, include in my small circle of trusted friends. That not withstanding, I applaud President Trump as President, he had my vote and hopefully has my vote in 2024!
If that was a riot, then Black Friday at Wal-Mart was the Hundred Years War.
And Cabbage Patch Kids frenzies were World War Three.
From what I’ve read, there was something that arguably might have been a riot. The cops had a line in place when the protestors first arrived. Apparently at some point a group arrived (it’s not clear who, but at least one witness whose account I read mentioned that they appeared to be organized, and knew what they were doing) and forced its way through that line. After the line was broken, the cops decided to go ahead and invite the builk of the protestors in.
The breaking of the line would be the riot.
Also, we know that there were scuffles during certain points. I’m not entirely sure when and how it happened, but the cops that appear to have beaten Boyland(sp?) to death weren’t standing by watching people go in through the door. I will note that I don’t know why the cops were going after people when she died. I’m not sure how her death and the events relating to it fits into the timetable.
I disagree. There was no riot. I see your response as proving my, if it’s said loud enough and often enough it’s accepted, right. I’m sure you see it the opposite way. Life’s interesting.
My question about Boyland remains, though. What was going on when she died? What caused that particular group of cops to attack her and others in her general area?
Heck, what caused them to shoot Babbit? they seemed to want to “prove” there was danger by killing people. women, specifically.
Babbit was reportedly climbing through a broken window into an area that no one had visited yet. I haven’t heard anything that disputes that. The officer who shot her had likely not been in contact with protestors up until that point, and presumably freaked and decided to go supercop.
Though if you want to go the conspiracy route, it’s worth noting that he probably should have been fired after he left his loaded gun in a public bathroom while on-duty some time before the protest. But apparently nothing happened to him as a result. If there was a plot to specifically kill a protestor (not a specific protestor, but at least one of them), a promise to withhold punishment could be seen as leverage over him.
Except she was not. There are films. He was looking but far away from the window.
I’ve seen the films and advanced through them frame by frame during the seconds in question. I actually downloaded them just after the event in case they disappeared.
Babbit was climbing through a window that another protestor had broken with a bike helmet about 15 seconds before. The several SWAT-armed cops and plainclothes supervisor type on her side of the window had backed off from the doors/windows and did nothing. The shooter stepped out from an alcove just to the left of the doorway (looking in from Babbit’s side) and no more than a couple of feet in from the doorway, raised his pistol to shoot up at her, shot her from about six feet away, and then stepped back into the alcove out of view of the camera while she fell back to the space she had come from.
The SWAT cops then “rendered assistance”, which to me sure looked like they cleared a space and knelt down next to her and proceeded to dither, not even putting pressure on the wound. It’s likely that she was already a goner and nothing they could have done would have helped, but it was remarkable how ineffective they were at even attempting first aid.
Could well be a fault on my part, but your argument makes no sense to me. I see murder.
I’ve been a little …. well, goose over my grave, because before the demonstration so many people insisted I go. NEW people here.
I’m almost sure if I had I’d be dead, somehow. Or someone who looked like me. I mean, they have lousy targeting.
The “January 6th insurrectionists,” are simultaneously a “danger to our democracy,” and utterly incompetent as revolutionaries. What rioters worth the name don’t bring along their Molotov cocktails?
Lt. Fuzz: Do you like my report, Sir?
Gen. Halftrack: Words fail me, Lieutenant.
Gen. Halfback in thought: Gagging sounds, however…
(How I feel about the entire 1/6 circus).
Honestly? WHY would the most heavily armed faction in America NOT take guns, if they intended violence?
This was the first unarmed insurrection in history, committed by the most heavily armed population in history. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
But as long as the trials are in DC, with DC judges and juries, backed up by “active and passive” Stasi, facts matter way less than show.
It was a Mostly Peaceful Protest. 😮
Our Gracious Hostess said something downthread (or upthread?) that sticks with me…Donald Trump is a tool. (Maybe a little bit in that context, too, and admit it, you were thinking it, but that’s neither here nor there.) He’s what we wanted to use in 2016 to ratchet the Overton Window back to the right a bit. In 2024, we’ll just have to grab a breaker bar to put on the Trump wrench. And they don’t want to see what we get out of the toolbox if THAT fails.
To be honest, I’m a little surprised the balloon hasn’t started to go up already. The anger out here in 2020 was genuine and building. Two years later it feels like it’s dissipated. Is our attention span as a people really this short? Are we really so easily distracted by sportsball and Kanye and Entertainment Tonight? Maybe so. Or maybe the fire’s just died down a little bit and is awaiting the right combination of wind to flare back to life and this time, it jumps the fire pit out into the grass and all Hell breaks loose.
I think the balloon hasn’t gone up YET. But the anger has not dissipated. Dear Lord, it doesn’t even feel like Christmas.
Hell, and Warnock just “won” in Georgia. So now Chucky has a 51-seat majority. Let that sink in. The party in power during a mid-term election, which always loses seats, GAINED a Senate seat, in the middle of killer inflation and the COVID hangover. This is the time where I constantly have to remind myself that it’s not me that’s the weirdo, it’s them.
And it’s Trump’s fault. Of course.
I will admit Walker was not the best candidate, and I gather Trump talked him into moving back to Georgia and running. But he’s still better than Warnock.
Nah. it’s the MACHINES fault.
Of course he “won.” It’s fraud all the way down.
Definitely does not where I am. People just seem to be getting angrier and angrier, with shorter and pettier fuses.
Yeah. Everywhere I look.
Just the other week a customer in a snit about ID check stated “I could shoot you.”
Oddly enough, I think coworkers and management thought I’d be a nervous wreck after that.
My reaction was just… tired, really. I’ve been threatened before, if you look like you’re actually going to try I’m going to duck and throw things. And if you corner me I have decades of repressed aggression, and I Have Had Enough.
But I now have the bad feeling that day may at some point come.
yeah. I have the feeling too.
I had to call Amazon about a Raspberry Pi computer that was supposedly delivered, but I did not receive. Turned out the vendor was squirrelly (no offense to actual squirrels intended), it was delivered to the wrong place, and a refund was requested to the wrong account. She told me it would be straightened out.
Half an hour later I got a confirming E-mail. In the third paragraph she praised me for, basically, not being an asshole. I find it sad that ‘not being an asshole’ is rare enough to merit special notice.
———————————
G’Kar: “Isn’t the universe a wonderful place? I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”
Not being an asshole seems to be increasingly rare, yes.
Partly because from the other side of the counter the options appear to be either be an asshole or be blown off. And people have decided to not bother with one blow off first in the hope they’ll find someone like you who will actually help.
“Go ugly early and avoid the rush.”
Possible in a lot of cases. In this case, though, the customer had already tried for 50% discounts on items that couldn’t be discounted more than 10%; in one case, the item had basically minor scratches and you’d be painting it anyway.
Customer then wanted military discount (another 10%) on top of that. Which is legit, but for which a photo ID must be checked. Because it can only be given to the military person or their spouse, when they are there, in person. Period.
Customer stated that checking ID was racist, and things went downhill from there.
I once had a coworker tell me (our first conversation!) he could break my neck without touching the person sitting between us.
Knew and worked with him for years. Veteran of six voluntary tours to Vietnam. He was an alcoholic, with two personalities. Sober, best guy to have at your back in a dark alley. Not sober….well.
I had to endure his mid-life crisis at close range, given I was on the other side of a cubicle wall and could hear every phone call. I seriously began to figure what I could use on my desk to defend myself if he came after me. Fortunately, he got put in mandatory AA and actually lasted long enough for it to take. I knew when I overheard him rip someone mocking AA he was gonna make it. He resolved the various dramas in his life, cleaned up his act and, so far as I know, retired after marrying the good woman who’d been waiting all along for him to straighten out.
I’m having more snits than I like. Trying hard to cut them off or at least apologize.
Anger is tinder. Without a spark, nothing will happen.
The spark evidently hasn’t shown up yet.
Also, there’s been things that have been winding the tension down a bit. Musk’s takeover of Twitter has put more people into a “wait and see” mode, as people wait to see what interesting things he brings to light and whether those revelations can be utilized. Victories in the Supreme Court have helped ease tensions just a bit.
Things are still very much in flux right now.
Sparks are happening every day, all the time. Most of the time conditions do not allow a spark to spread and destroy.
Looking for sparks is silly; look for conditions.
Read up on Spain in the 1920s and 1930s (A.H. Lloyd’s book is a decent starting point, even if it feels like it was mostly targeted to wargamers). There was a lot of stop and start turmoil before the civil war started.
as I’m sure milady recalls from the run-up to ’16, I too am not the worlds biggest Trump fan, and I too get tired of having to defend him. (there is so much to dislike about the man, can’t they stick to those, without having to make things up or intentionally misunderstand him?)
I did notice I didn’t have to do an all too regular defense, this Dem change of Admins when the usual early E.O. for something every President since I forget when first takes office then signs. Maybe Slow Joe and his crew forgot, or the XL ban just buried it. So, I guess, Thanks for that. I haven’t had to sully meself about it.
Trump tried to play within the rules.
The next “disruptor” likely will not.
And -that- should terrify the Left into dropping the cheating. But sadly, it won’t.
They don’t think the right will go that far. They’re too used to the right following the rules. That makes a certain amount of sense. The right wants to follow the rules, after all, since they’re essential to a civil society. That’s part of what makes them “conservative”. So the left assumes that the right won’t change in that fashion.
Well, most of the left, at least. One of the reasons why Taibbi is doing what he’s been doing for the last few years is because he realizes that sooner or later the right will give up on the rules and start doing what the left is doing. And when that happens, disaster will ensue.
I suspect a lot of jaws dropped when Tom Cotton basically said, “Too bad, so sad,” to the CEO of Kroger the other day.
Why did Tim Cotton tell CEO of Kroger that?
Summary of the summaries I found: Apparently (due to business dances I have not been able to follow) they’re having some issues and wish to acquire Albertsons to help with those issues. The Dems’ Anti-Trust Senses are tingling and there are noises of blocking the merger. So Kroger started making eyes at the GOP to help them. Tom Cotton basically told them summary: ‘you’ve been treating us like trash for how long now? You really expect us to help?’ followed by, and I quote though from memory, “I’m sorry this is happening to you, good luck with that.”
Makes sense.
Is Kroger nationwide now? I know I was surprised in 2015 when I went into a grocery store, in Arizona, and I was asked if I had a loyalty card for the store. Answered “Oregon, So probably not.” Response “Kroger? Maybe?” Me “Wait! Really?” (Of coarse I have a Fred Meyers one. Also Albertson but that is phone number and rarely use it.)
There has been speculation locally on whether Kroger will acquire Albertson/Safeway or not. It would result in at least one Albertson closure in Eugene/Springfield (Division Ave). Which has everyone in N. River Road area absolutely thrilled (okay 100% sarcastic JIC). Because it means losing another pharmacy. Pretty much just leaving Fred Meyers. Oh, there is a WinCo, but it’s hours are horribly limited. We use Costco. But son uses Fred Meyer (not sure he can transfer to Costco without a membership, that just isn’t justifiable.)
Safeway is Kroger already, I believe.
Albertson’s bought Safeway a few years (decade?) ago. Ended up shutting down Safeway stores locally.
They listed the Kroger company as the largest in the nation for grocery stores with Albertsons at 4. It was a news article so places salt and claimed that if the merger went through the group might rival Wal-Mart in size.
My caveat: this is an industry I have not paid attention to as far as who the big boys are so I have ZERO clue as to how much of a lumbering behemoth the merger would make or if it would be one of those LUMBERING BEHEMOTH zoooms back to reality proportions actually toddler.
Kroger has basically been nationwide for decades. Their stores named Kroger have been geographically limited, but their subsidiaries are all over the place. Back in the ’90s when I worked at a convenience store it was owned by Kroger.
Might guess I’m not widely traveled in the US.
Ralphs is the local Kroger subsidiary in my area, and I believe they own Smart and Final (which also has local stores), as well.
I don’t know the full details, but I think (I’m not sure) that the CEO had come to Congress looking for relief from government regulations. However, Kroger is incredibly woke – to the point where they were forced to pay a six figure settlement after firing an employee who refused to wear some company-mandated pro-LGBTQ attire while on the job. When making his statement, Cotton basically said (paraphrasing), “You guys go full-tilt in support of the other side’s policies within your company, but then expect the Republicans to knee-jerk support you when you come looking for help.” And then he concluded with (and this is a quote), “I’m sorry this is happening to you. Best of luck.”
BIL used to be a store manager for Kroger. He essentially was fired for not fully following a company rule that other managers admitted they did exactly the same. Had to do with paperwork, that was accurate, but didn’t go through the proper process. Lets just say BIL is not woke; plus been with the company long enough that his compensation package was pretty high, lost about $85k of stock options that were month or two from vesting. (Long enough ago, that current woke issues not the problem. Although he’d be 100% nailed for not following the current woke policies, like not firing the employee who refused to wear woke gear.) As a store manger he couldn’t sue. Store managers can be removed at the company whim, no explanation, just “good-bye”, but odds are they’ll use something. Ironically he was recently approached by corporate to please come back. Even offered his old store back. From what BIL told us, his response was less than polite, and then went downhill from there (didn’t swear). Bottom line. No and Hell No. He still shops there, if for no reason other than he knows how things work, that knowledge keeps the grocery bill down.
I sure didn’t know that Kroger is going after Albertson/Safeway because of problems. One would think that would be stupid. OTOH that is just what PSC did to Percon, in 1999. Which I watched from the perspective of being a Percon employee. Visible “this was the wrong thing to do” cracking signs appeared in 2001, ended by parting out pieces by the end of 2002, but not before mandatory budget cuts and parting of people happened (my department lasted unscathed until Aug 2002). I got cut. But at least it was a year after my Percon employment stock options were paid out, at the 1999 purchase price (about 8x – 17x the price PSC stock was bouncing at).
If they’re expecting ordinary conservatives to behave like the GOPe politicians, they’re going to be quite surprised when the balloon does go up. The GOPe is quite likely to get the same treatment the left gets.
No. They’re like the Winter Lady in Dresden. They think being able to cheat is a super power only they have.
So now the commentators on Fox, and some Republicans, are saying they need to ‘play the game by the rules we have’ by exploiting early voting, mail-in ballots, drop boxes and ballot harvesting in order to win enough elections to get the rules changed.
If their plans do not include raising the dead every two years to vote, conjuring up ballots out of thin air in the middle of the night, running crooked vote-stealing machines, and otherwise violating the Constitution, the law, and every last vestige of honesty, they are doomed to fail.
Not only are they afraid to say the words ‘election fraud’ out loud, they are too chickenshit even to hint at them. No, the Democrats ‘won by playing the game better’. Like they don’t have the machines rigged, the decks marked, and the dice loaded.
Where are we when our notional ‘allies’ won’t even admit what we can all see happening?
———————————
There’s statistically improbable, and then there’s ‘violates the fundamental principles of the universe’ improbable.
THIS.
Apparently Europe intends to not only freeze, they intend to starve as well:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2022/12/07/germany-bans-proper-farm-fertilizing-to-serve-climate-insanity-n1651744
The officials imposing this stuff will be dining on steak and lobster after flying off to another WEF meeting in their private planes.
Yep.
And the Dutch government is seizing a good-sized chunk of its farmland from the farmers who own it. The government is paying for the land (though no doubt not what the farmers would get from a private entity). But it’s a “forced sale”.
“The Republican establishment has mainly been silent on this point. They can go to hell.”
See Romans 1:18-32. It was essentially Trump alone who defeated Roe v. Wade. Years and years of previous GOP clowns paid lip-service to conservative religious, political, and fiscal views and then shat on them. And us.
They need to do an immediate 180 or my family just won’t vote. There is no point in encouraging those slimy grifters. I mean, they’re not all as blatant as Romney and McCain; but it’s obvious they hate us.
In other news, don’t mess with geese.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjQsw1AXEAEC92X?format=png
c4c
Interesting article Sarah. Well done. And yes, the results were fraudulent in a lot of areas.
The reason that the GOP refuses to go there could be a) they are gutless b) they are also cheating in primaries mostly, c) they are compromised in their personal or professional lives, or d) they are paid not to go there via some way. Probably a mix of reasons but it effectively has made the Constitution what Justice Jackson argued that it could not be, a suicide pact.
A second plug for the AH Lloyd book, Long Live Death about the Spanish Revolution.
e) their campaign conslutants – who get paid for winning elections, not for the quality of governance between them – counsel them to “avoid drama” and pretend that our institutions are securing our rights like they are supposed to.
I’m going to be a little more charitable and add that a lot of them are in denial. They simply do not want to believe the other guys really hate us. And some of them are convinced, “if we only keep taking the high road, people will notice and join us because we have proven worthy of their trust.”
Less charitably, there’s (sadly) a lot of class-consciousness, too. They are more comfortable with their opponents, who went to the same schools, have similar habits, etc. So they assume good faith because of class, where they’re uncomfortable with the crude and vulgar folk who actually give them power.
Having said thar, the people who really, really make me angry are the folk who proclaim how awful Trump is and how stupid anyone is to support him in any way because he made them uncomfortable. Their own sense of personal integrity and righteousness meant they could not possibly support That Man because he was just socially unacceptable. I know one guy who voted for Biden (and still blames everything about the 2020 and 2022 elections on Trump) because he just KNEW Biden would, of COURSE, lead from the center and restrain the left wing of the Party. Pure denial and wishful thinking. He could not, and still can’t, soil himself by voting for such a vulgar and unpleasant buffoon as Trump, so he completely discounted anything negative about Biden. He’s all over Biden now, but everything is still Trump’s fault.
I agree with him on a lot of issues, but that, “My personal sense of being a Good Person is much more important than voting for the good of the country,” shtick bugs the heck out of me. Even when I know he believes he did.
America transplanted a potted plant from his basement to the White House, claiming he got more votes than the Lightbringer Obama.
While his opponent got twelve million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016, which speaks against a widespread rejection of him out of revulsion.
That is plausibly the result of either of two scenarios, neither of which speak well of our nation:
Either is indicative of a depth of thought as shallow as a bird bath, and a total disregard for the very reason this nation was founded: “to secure these rights”, free of the Implied Obligation to SUBMIT that the Progressives have attached to “our democracy”.
If our Constitution allows liberty to be supplanted by that Implied Obligation – either by fraud, or by a “tyranny of the majority” – amendments or replacement to prevent that are likely called for, since we can’t trust our leadership to prevent that supplanting
But if the potted plant known as Joe Biden actually got 81 million votes, we have a greater problem than fraud: we have a critical mass of people in this nation willing to impose tyranny upon themselves and their neighbors, upon the direction of a “leader” to do the Nice Thing,
It might be possible. It shouldn’t be, and if there’s any sanity in the world it couldn’t be…but it still might be, and it terrifies me. I’d much rather face fraud.
I suspect that Trump really got around 82 million votes in 2020. I doubt that as many as 60 million actual, breathing U.S. citizens voted for Biden.
From Pennsylvania’s own official state government web site we know that they counted 2.4 million mail-in ballots, even though they only sent out 1.8 million. No one has been allowed to so much as comment on the discrepancy. When Pennsylvania ‘paused the count’ in the middle of Election Night, Trump was ahead by…wow, about 800,000 votes. What a remarkable coincidence. When they ‘resumed counting’ a few hours later, somehow, Trump had lost his lead while the count was ‘paused’.
———————————
Candidate Joe Biden, August 2020: “We have assembled the most extensive, comprehensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”
Minutes later: “What do you mean, I wasn’t supposed to say that?”
I am fully convinced that 81M votes were counted for FICUS. I highly doubt there were 81M living/breathing citizens who filled out a ballot for him.
It is not enough to win elections. One must do more than be a placeholder between them, if our rights are to be secured.
Trump was more than a placeholder, even when he had to trend Ashchol to extend respect for our rights. The Nice People™ of the GOP apparently do not see the value in that.
Who can be trusted these days to be as effective at respecting, and securing, our rights as Trump has been? DeSantis is earning our trust, but he could still go the way of Scott Walker if he starts listening to conslutants who are only focused on “winning” and not performance between elections.
Here is the risk in the knee-jerk criticisms of Trump: let Trump be trashed, and the conslutants will have the ears of DeSantis and other career politicians again and our rights will be an afterthought to them as they chase “winning” only. It is the confrontational precedents Trump set, that gives a new generation of conservatives the confidence to ignore the conslutants and act to secure our rights,
Until we have a reliable and effective replacement who will ignore the conslutants – even if it means Mean Tweets – that is the risk we take by trashing Trump.
You mean like this? 😀
The covidicy with Trump makes perfect sense when you remember that he’s a bit of a germaphobe.
I like DeSantis.
I prefer Trump over SeSantis because what needs to be done is nasty dirty work and Trump is already dirtied I will applaud him as he takes out those that wronged him and the nation.
I’d like DeSantis with clean hands when the dirty work is done.
DeSantis has 20 years or more, but for Trump it’s 2024 or never. He’d be too old, and the momentum would be gone.
Speaking of “elided” statements
What Trump said was “big-league”, not “biggly”. Consider it yet another “I can see Russia from My house!”
“Everyone knows” he said it. . .
Uh. THIS you might consider my deafness responsible for. That’s what I HEARD.
Love ya, Sarah. In Dec 2019 the world was humming. We had the greatest economy in our history with tens of thousands of regulations thrown away, the worlds leading terrorist was taken out with one missile rather than 20 year wars, China-Russia-Iran-NK were being subverted via economic leverage rather than diplomatic grift and war, our border was under control, the military was figuring out how to drive ships again, peace in the ME where actual leaders there REVERED Trump because he treated them like professionals rather than subjects that our ‘diplomats’ used for their own grift… There was a Trump apparel store everywhere here in MN(for godsakes) except the Twin Cities.
With rare exception Trump was never even given the basic extension of credibility as the true professional he really is when the board room is closed. Nope, everyone in the world – the pundit class included – who have never actually created a product or took a risk just had to be rid of him.
Contrast all of that with what we have now – Mitch McConnell purposely removing MILLIONs of Trump generated PAC cash from candidates the People chose in AK, AZ, NH, and GA while lobbying for his wife’s CCP shipping business. Yeah…
As far as I can tell right now DeSantis will be purchased by the donors as Ken Griffin of Citadel recently mentioned.
I will take what Donald has actually done and withstood all day long. I work with executives who make him look humble, therefore, I understand what he says immediately. People need to quit being sally’s and toughen up.
A reminder of how plain dumb the current regime is:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/12/07/facepalm-karine-jean-pierre-reads-wrong-answer-during-press-briefing-n1651719
In unrelated news, the Biden clownshow has successfully gotten Brittney Griner sprung from prison in Russia and on her way back to America, in return for sending a known Russian arms dealer back to Russia. This has me absolutely furious out of all proportion to its importance but I’m still pissed off.
I’m right there with you. Infuriating
I’m sorry, but she knew the law, she broke it, and she should serve her term. The Marine who is still in a Russian prison after four years? If we get anyone back, it ought to be him.
The basketball player who expressed hatred for the USA and kneeled when the national anthem was played,
Meanwhile the ex-Marine who served his country remains hostage in Russia on truly bogus charges.
Meanwhile the release of the arms dealer who supplied anti-American terrorists, cartels and plain violent criminal gangs, is accompanied by yet another Team HarrisBiden demand for banning gun ownership by American citizens.
Tells you exactly what their priorities are. as what they are doing speaks for itself.
Sarah, I recently started reading you after a friend on Facebook posted one of your Instapundit entries. You almost perfectly echo my feelings about Trump and do so eloquently and with humor. I’m glad you’re on our side, keep up the good fight.
Oh, and take time out to finish that book. I have a feeling it’s going to get crazy in 2023.
Best,
WylieinNorman
Apropos of absolutely nothing, I just imported ‘Patton’ to my computer and the raw video file from the DVD was 7.62 GB. 😛