Sniffing The Air

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I was going to write something completely different today, but woke up with an uneasy feeling.

You know, like when you’re walking in a natural setting and everything goes deathly quiet. Or when you’re in a city and suddenly every non-licensed vendor starts rolling up their blankets to shove away as if they’d never been there.

No, it’s not that there are massive and very strange brawls going on in the comment section of most “right” blogs. (Right being anyone to the right of Lenin.) That’s expected when the left does something so painfully and blatantly provocative that everyone wants to open the fourth box, but half of us are sane enough to know that’s not how any of this works.

The left thinks this means they’re winning. Just like they think every time they fail to start the civil war they so desperately want it means we’re defeated. (Yes the nuttier among you think the same) when in fact we just come up with better ways to thwart them (or let them bury themselves. Whichever comes first.) AND if they continue in this vein they’ll get what they’re asking for good and hard, and they won’t like it one bit. Neither will we, because the delayed reaction will burn itself into the psyche of this great land for generations and not in a good way. (This is not incitement, note, Fed the Fred, it’s prediction. Because you know, I live in the real world not in the f*ck-f*ck world of DC where you believe something like “Patriot Front” will be believed and followed.)

This is not about Donald Trump. Yes, he has a grave injustice being committed against him, all the graver as they ignore the very real transgressions of Hilary and Hunter and yeah, the Zhoe Bai-Den.

But you know? He’s not just a big man; he is, whatever else he is, a champion, and this is his chosen battle. He’s proven in the past — all but with the covidiocy — he’s more than capable of wielding his lance. We sent him forth. He knew he’d get hit. He’s not cried craven yet. Let him fight! He does it remarkably well and loudly.

And if he falls, we’ll find someone twice as “bad” to make DC lose its mind. Oh, maybe not this cycle, where everyone else is “wise managers” (SPIT!) but the next. And meanwhile… who knows?

The republic isn’t dead or even mostly dead, but it is in a headlock. People who want it dead have seized its institutions and means of communication…. eighty years ago. The people, though by and large, are all right and in fact getting more all right by the minute. The Trump presidency would have been impossible in the eighties, when Reagan was too dangerous. And Reagan himself was too dangerous when Goldwater was terrifying. And both of those and the overton windows of their time were created by a lockstep, unopposed mass media that maintained a semblance of reasonableness both because no one knew what was going on behind the scenes AND because they tried not to outright show their hatred for America and Americans and they drooling love for every totalitarian in existence, or even dreamed up.

Now they’ve lost that mask, and boy are they opposed. I find it hilarious that both the “news” division of mass media and the “entertainment” portion still believe that firing someone is to silence them. Doesn’t work that way anymore, guys.

So, that’s the moment. It’s not as dark as you think.

It might be terrible for Trump, but guys HE KNOWS THAT and he hasn’t backed down yet. If he was wounded or scared he’d not be running again. He is sane enough and smart enough to know what can happen. (If you think he doesn’t know about the Jan 6 prisoners, or isn’t carefully staying away from them because the worst he could do TO THEM was try to intervene, you aren’t very sane.) And no, he’s not just working on reflex. The successes he managed (peace in the Middle East) weren’t done by whatever kneejerk he was being pushed go. (And if you think he wasn’t, you aren’t thinking.)

Let Trump be Trump.

I will vote for anyone who goes up against Zhou Bai Den with two exceptions — no, not those. Pence and Christie (my fingers wanted to type McCain) because voting for snakes is the Democrat schtick, and I wouldn’t culturally appropriate them, heaven forbid — not because I don’t think they’ll at least try very hard to rig this election but because hey, they might fail to. And if they don’t, they might have to create 400k votes out of thin air, and that will be … well, then you can’t unsee it.

One thing you need to realize is that we’re not up against communists. We’re up against people who grew up as communists, but communism was an international conspiracy, with its head in Russia, and it needed that element to be even vaguely competent. Well, Russia is not what it used to be, if indeed it ever was outside the fiction written by those mad lads in Foggy Bottom. What we’re not battling is the scattered pieces of the snake, wriggling around and trying to hold on so their graft and grift isn’t discovered and isn’t taken away, and so they’re not punished. …. It’s not working wonderfully for them. Without the cover of the benevolent “We want to govern you better and give everyone a pony” Soviet bullshit, all they can do is flail around in public and show how venal, perverted and crazy they are. No, seriously, 30 years ago Noisome in California would be considered and sold by the monopoly media as the upcoming boy genius. Now he just thinks he is while the rest of the country watches in horror.

Remember, DURING LOCKDOWN, with “rent a rioter” in full display, and the TV amiably trying to convince the locked in populace that we were in a full race war (most of the rent a rioters were white felons) and that everywhere was super dangerous (BTW notice they’ve tried to re-start the riots two summers now, and nothing happened. Because that kind of illusion can only work when everyone is locked in AND everyone is watching TV more than usual because of the “pandemic.” They can’t restart the pandemic — oh, they’re trying — so they can’t restart the rent a riot either. Though they will Jan through March of 2024 do their level best to REALLY get us in a world war. If they have to bomb one of our cities and blame the Russians for it in order to have the power to mess the elections again.) and with them running psi-ops against Trump back to back on every TV screen, people went out and voted for Trump in numbers never heard of for a sitting president, ever. Despite his refusing to stop the Covidiocy (which to be fair he had no power to) and even making noises of going along with it to an extent (including the vaccine.)

The people are fine. Our overtaken institutions can and will inflict misery on us, but not as much as they think they can, because they don’t control as much as they think they do. (Totalitarians never do, and these aren’t very good at totalitarying.) It’s going to be a touch few years or couple of decades, but we’ll survive, and start putting the FDR (that Admirer of Stalin) legacy to rest at last.

SO– So why am I standing here, sniffing the air, and wondering if I should at least get out of the way of whatever is about to come through?

Well…. blog comments.

No, bide a while. Listen. Yes, there’s a free for all donnybrook even in staid blog comments. Not here, but there have been a couple now in discord groups, but….

That’s normal.

You know what’s not normal? We’re missing most of our agent provocateurs. I have one I’m watching, but I’m not even sure he’s one of them. Might just be awkward (No one here is ever awkward, right?)

I mean, I blocked the ijit who runs around the net screaming about me, but that’s just the latest mask of Chlamydia. But there were a good three or four others whom I counted on to say something appalling/try to push me into a dicey position when things were fraught.

They were here, in unprecedented numbers before Jan 6, trying to push me to attend and even offering to pay the way. (I can’t claim I expected a set up. I just couldn’t see any purpose to the gathering except “one last hurrah” and I hate traveling.) They were here for everything even the stupid Maoist poster proposed demonstrations, and the fake trucker convoys.

So where are they?

And it’s not just here. The only ones I see in other blogs are the obvious ones like Chlamydia. (Who might in fact BE technically Chlamydia. Forget how he’s been identified. For one, the person mentioned wasn’t old enough to be having arguments with us 22 years ago on all the blogs, and he WAS under one of his names. I think really those names a conglomeration from a call center somewhere possibly even abroad. Which would explain the out-of-touch nonsense.)

But all the semi-plausible, a list of which I keep in the back of my head and don’t ban here are gone. And all the semi-plausible are gone everywhere else too.

And I’m worried. At a time like this? It’s not natural.

I don’t see anything, but the illegal vendors are rolling up their blankets and running.

Listen, Clarice, it’s not the silence of the lambs that worries me. Lambs can be silent because they sense the predator, yeah. But that’s lambs and right now there’s mighty few on either side.

What worries me is the silence of the weasels and coyotes.

They usually get louder before attack, and much louder when they’re trying to herd us towards something inadvisable.

What would make them fall silent?

What in heaven’s name would make the weasels and coyotes disappear?

I don’t like it.

Keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark, and be ready to jump out of the way.

Something wicked this way comes.

446 thoughts on “Sniffing The Air”

  1. ‘What in heaven’s name would make the weasels and coyotes disappear?’

    Hmm. Working within a D&D metaphor, my only guesses would be (a) white dire wolf/Big Good Coming, (b) black dire wolf/Big Bad Coming, or (c) Star Spawn Emissary/freaking Cthulhu or something else too weird to be classified beyond the category of WTFrell-Is-That.

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    3. C…. They found out, the hard way, the Thing they summoned was beyond there ability to banish? Then.. 1) is “it” silencing them… 2) “it” has ‘eaten’…. 3) they’re running skeered 4) Yes. ?

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      2. Hm. Time to make like Morgan. (The Dunwich Horror… brought a Really Big Gun to an eldritch abomination fight, and it WORKED.)

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      1. One of my favorite conspiracy sites (halflife*: 2 weeks max) thinks we are slooooooooooowly heading towards Option A, and those who are in the crosshairs are doubling/tripling down. Maybe not so slowly anymore, like going bankrupt.

        Either that, or B has already happened and they’re just waiting for Zyklon B and the boxcars to get past the derailments.

        I’ll go with A or C. I think we’re too damned obstinate for B to get accepted.

        (*) Time between conspiracy theory broached to “everybody** knows that; it’s been admitted by TPTB”.

        (**) 50% of everybody, anyway.

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        1. Yeah, even in my darkest moments I don’t think we’re heading towards boxcars any time soon, key words any time soon for those particular moments. Hopefully it’s A but things seem to be building up for C!

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          1. Boxcars are unlikely unless they can manage to mass confiscate firearms. They’ve been trying, but haven’t had any luck with that, and a lot of their attempts are actually being reversed.

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            2. Although the sheer numbers of boxcar Normies, who would have happily helped round up their unvaxxed neighbors, colleagues, abd famil, or sent the unmasked ditto to prison blew me away.

              The wanna-be evil overlords, and their willful court eunuchs know their psyop worked. And the Useful Idiots who sacrificed friends, family, honor, and duty to go along… Can they face themselves?

              I think that’s where the Pride fight & backlash are coming from. Aside from Corporate Marketing, the same U.I.s who were Heroes of the People by muzzling kids, destroying small businesses, criminally negligent in denying care, medically raping vulnerable people, also overlap with Save the LQBT+/- crowd. Front row seat: The biggest Branch Covidians were all in on Drag for toddkers. They need something, anything, to avoid facing themselves.

              So here’s a way to get back up on their pedestal and justify the harm they caused by being apstupidly, criminally wrong.

              If it works as a reset button for these Narrativists… I can’t help but wonder… What do the aristos imagine is going to be the Next Big Thing they can use the UIs for?

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            3. If we are told the wire window boxcars are for mass deportations of illegals, how many “americans” stand by and cheer?

              Never once imagining they are next to be “relocated”.

              No.

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                  1. Sorry, I subscribe to a more archaic method of dealing with invaders. Invaders will be shot, hung, thrown off a cliff, stabbed, etc.

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                    2. Since the enticed think rape, robbery, and raiding are fine, I don’t give a fig.

                      Yeah, they were brought in under false enticements and they are doing Very Badm, so they need to be exterminated.

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                    3. Seriously 90% of the “this is actually bad, we need to fix it” that I grew up with — rural washington state– would be fixed by “oh, and laws apply to illegals.”

                      My sister’s sexual assault/harassment was not important because… it was a household of known illegals. The guys who tried to run my mom off the road to rape her were not a “thing” because illegals. (her dad gave her a gun. They stopped. For HER.) 1975.

                      I literally grew up with no auto accident except the drunk 14 year old forced to drive my classmate killing someone, or causing major damage.

                      (there were frequent incidents; the poor little SOB just happened to be pressured in when he killed the girl who was Hallmark casting for president)

                      But the rest?
                      I had to explain to my husband that yes, people did moron spins on purpose when folks might drive up the road. BEcuase…who cared?

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              2. Oh, that’s just nonsense.

                You may as well go scare yourself with the existence of law enforcement meaning that they’re going to use that on us, too– which they’ve tried to get us to believe– and it still doesn’t deal with the issue of guns.

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                1. Well, they HAVE (mis)used it on us. See countless examples, of which J6 was only the most egregious recently.

                  That’s not an argument against laws, it’s an argument for hanging the misenforcers.

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                  1. That’s not an argument against laws, it’s an argument for hanging the misenforcers.

                    Well, applying the proper use against the misuse, but exactly.

                    You don’t destroy a basic tool because someone used it wrong.

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                    1. OTOH, refurbishing a tool often involves a certain amount of filing off defects. I’m pretty sure the filings would object…

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                    2. Still not even close to the “in theory, this could possibly be used against me, but unjustly rather than justly– thus it is stupid to allow it at all, no matter what the value of it.”

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        2. Consider the number of Chinese operatives caught while trying to illegally cross the border. Estimate the number of Chinese operatives currently in the country. Ballpark figure of 30,000; could be more, could be less. Now have said Chinese operatives all attack key points of American infrastructure all at the same time: power transfer stations, a fuel tank truck under or on a few key bridges, the water supply points for our major cities. (Look, San Diego and Los Angeles have big frigging unprotected water pipes running hundreds of miles across the desert, talk about a soft target!)

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          1. The Left Coast is an unlikely target for Chinese disruption. The Reader thinks the Chinese still need Californians to disrupt the rest of the country.

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          2. I think it was Michael Yon who opined a few weeks ago that based on his observation the Chinese were now sending in Jedburgh Teams.

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              1. Given the numbers involved, the Reader thinks the two thoughts are not mutually exclusive.

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  2. This is what immediately came to mind. Dang it, I sure wish I could write like this!
    ” Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
    And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
    That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. “

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  3. Okay, so, after fighting with WordPress over trying to reset my password ([insert long string of bad words here]), let’s try this again.

    Maybe (hopefully) they’ve just put everything on pause while they come up with a new plan to get a violent reaction from the right to justify their much-desired crackdown. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that they fully expected Trump’s indictment and/or Governor Loonsome’s proposal for a 28th Amendment (deliberately crafted to repeal the 2nd Amendment) and calling for a Convention of The States to ratify it to be the needed sparks to set us off. But we, once again, didn’t react the way they expected us to. So they need to come up with a new plan because they were So Sure we would react the way they need us to.

    Yeah, I’m probably being ridiculously naïve and optimistic here. But I’ve had just about as much doom and gloom (most of it self-generated) over the last few weeks as I can take. So I gotta start looking for the bright side [whistles jaunty Monty Python song off-key and off-tempo].

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        1. The “Officially Poor” will, indeed, scream.
          The Seniors will face one of the following fates:
          – Tap into savings, tighten their belts, and manage to keep body and soul alive.
          – Call upon family and friends for additional help.
          – Quietly die.
          That last won’t bother the Left one teeny bit.
          Ordinary families face the gravest circumstances – they will not be assisted (they aren’t Officially Poor, although many have less disposable cash than those who are). What assets they have will be looted for the benefit of others. And, they will be watched – very closely – lest they fight back against the gouging.
          The one positive about the prolonged Covid changes is that so many not only started shopping more judiciously, they also started buying less. And, making home-cooked meals, preparing for emergencies, and taking advantage of sales, retread goods, and organizing locally for the benefit of their communities and families.
          I knew few families that didn’t reduce their consumer debtload. Frugality is now the norm for most. People are much more cautious about taking on long-term payments (cars, homes, education) than they previously were.
          It’s not the political landscape that has changed – it’s the culture. That’s going to be a long-term event – I expect it will be at least 2 generations before the changes are complete.
          But the cultural change has to precede the political change.
          I want to spur it – Faster, Faster!
          No can do. It has to slowly become the default position.

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        2. If the Food Stamp cards are not reloaded on the 1st of the month, by the 4th, the grocery stores and WalMarts near the poor / black areas will be stripped, and by the 10th, the more remote / suburban ones will be hit.
          See Birmingham 10 years ago as a test run.

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          1. Counter evidence, there’s been multiple issues with cards that did not result in mass looting of any sort, just high tension as folks couldn’t feed their kids… and then folks stepped up.

            Washington, wet side, probably 2010 or so.

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            1. For some reason, this is a myth on the right. And it’s outright crazy. For one, no, it doesn’t spread to the suburbs. Most of these people, if all assistance fails, will just sit and pose and wait for the cameras.

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              1. I shook my head years ago when I saw Asbury Park is within walking distance of upscale Deal. Why on God’s green earth should you riot and burn your own neighborhood (which they did) when you can literally walk over to the rich folks’ neighborhood and loot them? Or if you don’t want to walk, hijack a city bus.

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                  1. It was the 70s riots. Twenty years later the city hadn’t recovered. (It did recover a bit after 9/11, what with refugees from NYC)
                    Don’t know if was locals, but mostly just figured it’s the old bit about the IQ of a mob being g inversely proportional to its size.

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              2. I’m interested in the instance claimed, because nothing is coming up on searches and I do not remember it; it would be useful to know if there was actually an example.

                Well, I do remember at one point Walmart’s system suddenly forgot EBT existed, adn like three people walked out with their carts… full of mostly not EBT stuff.

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                1. The Birmingham story I remember reading doesn’t come up on Google, but a major EBT outage does search, in October of 2013. (Search terms were: Food Stamp system failure)
                  As I recall, the Birmingham incident was on the first of a month, not mid month.
                  But I’ve slept since then.
                  And Sarahs’ observation that the rioters tend to burn their own neighborhoods has been correct, up to now, and certainly as in the St George riots, those happened where they were supported and intended to happen.

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                  1. Except… the only thing even close to “grocery stores and WalMarts near the poor / black areas will be stripped” was that WalMart let people walk out with carts full of groceries because the system wasn’t working, and some jerks went and used that to take advantage of good will.

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                    1. A few people who would “Take advantage of the good will of the stores” who allowed some people to buy goods with non-working EBT cards?
                      Have you missed the “shoppers” in Chicago and other major cities, or the videos of people shoplifting carts full of resellable items and fighting the store employees trying to stop them?
                      There has been a progression in the overt aggression in the attacks on commerce, for now mostly limited to large cities and states where prosecutors and / or police no longer act firmly to suppress crime.
                      My comment was directed towards what I expect to see happen, should a major program like food stamps fail.
                      I do not think that my expectations are unreasonable, if such a major event happens.
                      Thanks, John

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                    2. Thieves exist. News at 11….. that doesn’t change that every time the EBT system has gone down, the actual result was nothing like what you expect to happen.

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                    3. I have hoped that things were not getting worse for a number of years now, and have been consistently dissapointed by the reality I have seen come to pass.
                      I look at the past and try to anticipate the future sufficiently to plan for my needs and those of my family. If the future is not as bad as I expect it to be, wonderful.

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      3. A small sound but the Biggest Sound is from the owner of the checking account when he/she/it discovers that he/she/it is out of money. :twisted:

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      6. Vanguard and Blackrock are financing much of the crazy.
        But with the Boomers having retired, they really should be facing a liquidity crisis.

        1) The two own the stock market between them.
        A) if they start selling instead of buying, the stock market will crash.

        2) the GameStop kerfluffle demonstrated:
        A) the game is rigged in favor of insiders.
        B) the Ponzi scheme has passed the point of being able to self-finance.

        We know that they were speculating into real estate and crypto to cover.
        There’s every reason to believe they took an absolute bath on both.

        Which leaves the Fed and Uncle Sugar shoveling greenbacks into the firebox as fast as they can.
        Stagflation? We should be so lucky.
        The federal government’s policy is to cripple the economy. It’s only been the relentless inflation that’s pushed back the crash.

        McCarthy rolled over on the debt ceiling. There are reasons for that besides his being a Uniparty squish.
        I would bet that they showed him the money supply and money velocity statistics the government has been actively hiding since Obama ordered it. And he was terrified.

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    3. Makes sense: like I said down below, Disney for one seems to be in deep trouble. And not just because they’ve gone Woke. Yeah, their repeated string of flops in theaters and their Disney+ subscription numbers cratering are probably the result of Wokeness in the Writers’ Rooms, but it’s also because they’ve deliberately priced the theme parks – the only division of the company that’s been truly profitable (i.e. they hadn’t needed to “massage” or otherwise spin the numbers) for several years years – out of reach of the average family. IIRC, their target demographic household earns $300k-$400k/year. So they’ve continued to raise prices while removing value. And it’s biting them hard. Park attendance is down and continues to fall, and they’ve just announced that they’re closing their $2000+ per night Star Wars hotel down in September. That particular disaster didn’t even come close to breaking even on it’s 9-figure construction costs.

      Meanwhile, word on the street is that Disney still owes Comcast quite a bit of money from when they acquired Hulu, and there’s another payment coming due soon… and Disney doesn’t have enough cash in the bank to make said payment before the deadline. If true, things are going to get Very Interesting for the House of Mouse pretty soon

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      2. I’ve known they were in deep trouble for a while now… because the parkgoers are reporting maintenance and janitorial problems. As many a survivor of a failing company can tell you, when the money ain’t there, the idiots with MBAs (but I repeat myself) cut the “non-revenue-producing” departments first, and maintenance and janitorial are the easiest targets. (Somehow, HR never comes in for the severe cuts first, despite not fixing problems or cleaning up messes.)

        But it’s not just Disney… How cash-strapped is the CCP? Have you seen the number of bank failures they claim they aren’t having, while citizens can’t withdraw their money… for six months now? The protests that are leaking out? The massive revolt of “we won’t pay our mortgage on the construction you’re not building”?

        Things are getting creaky all over, and I just saw the facade ripple without wind.

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        1. DIsney really peaked in 2018 and has been slowly declining since. They’ve got a fair amount of debt and not a whole lot of cash. Over half their assets are the Mouse and other assorted IP. They took on a bunch of debt in 2020, but so did everyone else it being free money and all. That’s coming due over the next few years.

          Overall, meh. It’s not cheap, not growing, and has no momentum. I don’t own any of it and probably won’t unless something dramatic happens.

          What’s interesting is their “other assets” have increased a lot. Usually that’s nothing, but sometimes it’s a whole lot of something. back in the day when people still did actual securities analysis, growth in intangibles and other assets would be scrutinized closely. I might just pull the ole 10k and read me some footnotes.

          Everything interesting in a company’s report is in the footnotes.

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            1. 😜 it’s quite bizarre. When I type, my old character still shows, but it doesn’t show on posts,

              I’m actually quite fond of pink shirts. I don’t wear them so much anymore now that I’m old and fat, but I used to wear them all the time. One of my best friends from my youth said it drove him crazy because it would be too obvious for him to wear them, he being gay, but I could get away with it with ease.

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                    2. So, looking int the back panel I can’t see your pinkness. Hold a moment.
                      Oh my. You look very pretty as a pink Christmas tree. Completely unsuited, but VERY pretty.

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              3. I miss my acid green avatar. It showed up briefly over the weekend, but now it’s back to the dingy gray/green mess. I am not signing up for a real avatar, dammit.

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                1. Potential avatar issues are part of why I made an account for commenting. It might be a small thing but I like being able to put my collection of gaming artwork and screenshots to work! :)

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        3. Also, banks in China have been massively cutting salaries. And we’re not talking the higher-ups. We’re talking about everyone in the basic bank jobs getting their salaries cut by up to 75%. Bank jobs are high status in China, even if you’re just a teller. That’s changing fast.

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        4. I mentioned it further down, but it probably got buried, but I wonder if they aren’t just running out of people who can do the work?

          I’m seeing a lot of it where I’m at. A lot of people who knew how to get stuff done have gone, and there are fewer and fewer people even able to do the work, even when the money is there. And fewer and fewer people are stepping up to replace the ones who left.

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          1. No no no no. There’s tons of mainland Chinese people who can do the work. That’s why they’ve been able to play games like, “Let’s hire only chicks of the following height and weight and measurements, who also have high finance degrees from Ivy League universities, and whose parents are high in the CCP.”

            But now they’re telling their employees to work 12 hours a week instead of 60 hours a week, and that they have to accept giant paycuts.

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            1. Even according to the official (fudged) figures, the working-age population of China is now in decline. That well is very rapidly going dry.

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      3. Apparently Disney promised Comcast that it would buy out Comcast’s third of Hulu back when the initial purchase was made. And the deadline for that buyout is rapidly approaching.

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      4. “…things are going to get Very Interesting for the House of Mouse pretty soon”

        Yep. All together, Laugh-In fans: “Ver-r-r-y eenteresting. But schtupid.” ;-)

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    4. Which could suggest the known “pay them to stir folks up” groups– Russia and China– are having internal power fights, so resources are being used elsewhere.

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      2. China shouldn’t be having a power struggle right now. Xi has consolidated power and deposed his rivals (including a predecessor) to the point that it’s not clear who could actually oppose him right now within the CCP.

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        1. There is no money, no jobs. And people do not want to be kidnapped off to the countryside with nowhere to live or work.

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        2. Traditionally, that’s what causes failures.

          Because competent people are a threat.

          So, when you remove the threat….everything that keeps you in power stops working.

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          1. Yup Obama did this to the Democrat party when he was in power. He effectively kneecapped all the up and coming young democrats leaving a bunch of septuagenarians, octogenarians, and a few potential Nonagenarians soon enough. Basically anyone potentially more competent than Obumbles got the shiv, thus the current state of the Democrat party.

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            1. In fairness, it’s been going on for a very long time– they just keep getting more incompetent. No weighing of how USEFUL someone is, when casting them out– and no loyalty, either.

              What worries me is the way that some on the right seem to be copying the tactics.

              Like, for example, Youngkin. He was OK until he actually got elected, and then suddenly EVERYTHING was a moral failure– including fulfilling his campaign promises like undoing the illegal stuff that had pissed folks off. Because he didn’t do it, but for “our” side.

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                1. There is that– there’s also … well, the Hollywood issue, I think is a good way to describe it.

                  When you KNOW you got a part because of the casting couch, COMPETENT PEOPLE ARE A THREAT.

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                    1. And we are SO F-ed….

                      At the ‘top’ — while cream does rise, so does pond scum. And a swamp is swamp, and ain’t no bos taurus for miles and miles of miles and miles.

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                    2. B people hire C people right enough, but C people only try to hire D people. They’re not good enough at identifying those, so they end up with a bullpen full of Fs in spite of their least bad intentions.

                      I still remember the low-level but deeply geeky tech job I had in the mid-80s, from which I was ousted because I made it look easy and the sales manager wanted his wife to have it instead. She couldn’t handle it at all, and the company lost the contract to do that work. Oopsie.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. My last job. Got hired. Within a year the prior “most recent hire” quit. Been there 5 years. Within 6 weeks I was out performing the same job. This included not only the software itself, use of the tools which I was dead cold on (never used), and supporting clients when they called (most questions needed research regardless). The only area this person had over me is I hadn’t been there long enough to make judgement calls between (other than “wrong fix it”) “just do it” or “ask permission” from boss.

                      To be fair. This employee was hired straight out of school (overall higher GPA). I had 20+ years working experience. While my overall GPA would have been lower, looking at that there was nothing about what the computer degree GPA had to be to pull the overall GPA up (unless someone was really looking for it). Granted the experience meant a whole lot more. Correct or not, at that point that wasn’t the metric being compared. Also points to the 5 of 7 people hired after and as I was retiring that quit or were let go. Little experience outside of school. Just couldn’t hack that job with little to no mentoring (no bandwidth). It can be difficult making the transition from school to work environment, no matter how good you are at your chosen career. Sink, Swim, or get out, happens. Me? I thrived on Sink or Swim computer development environments (or did, now don’t bother … Retirement did that.)

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              2. He seems fine to me, but here where I am we have had Bill Weld and Mitt Romney, so my requirements for a republican candidate are won’t do a Benedict Arnold at the drop of a hat (or a sawbuck)… I do like the Lt. Governor though. Ms. Sears would have my vote for anything she wanted to run for from Dog catcher to President. Can we get her Nominated for something? What branch is the ATF under Commerce? No looks like Justice. Can we have her for Secretary of Justice she could ream out ATF AND FBI, or perhaps Secretary of whatever division HUD is under, Yes Health and Human Services. Either of those could be fun.

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                1. I don’t live in his area, but everyone I know who DOES who is not a far-left guy says he’s great.

                  It’s just the internet folk who have been screaming that he’s a horrible traitor… basically because he actually succeeded, I think.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. There are roo many hyperpartisans out there. All busy setting up the circular firing squad for the Republicans.

                    Like

              3. To be fair to Youngkin, he doesn’t have the senate and they fight him tooth and nail on everything

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              1. I’ve seen planaria that would have bested Obumbles in a battle of brains…I think you may have insulted your cat.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. It is both very hard and very easy to insult a cat. For example

                  swear words at feline = Cat looks at you and perhaps tilts its head.

                  Food bowl is only 80% full = This Is An Emergency That You Must Address IMMEDIATELY Hooman.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. He’s got Obumbles beat 3-1, or possibly 3-0 :-) . If it is the latter he is Infinitely more intelligent than the president from 2009- jan 19 2017

                    Liked by 1 person

                  2. He’s definitely related to R and C, though my two have an outsized focus on snuggles! L pities them as a strong, independent bundles of tortitude…when she doesn’t want pets of course!

                    Like

            3. Before Obummer did this, the Clintons did this even harder– to a great many places. They killed the Democrat farm teams and are ultimately why we’re stuck with the likes of Kamalla and Butigeige in the upper eschelons of the party. Obummer just continued the tradition of burning out the ladder he ascended on.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Didn’t know that but unsurprising, Narcissists don’t really like competition. I think to some degree the Democrats did it to themselves shifting further left in response to the 1994 off presidential year wins. That’s when they started to primary the (mostly southern) Blue Dogs, those folks really were their best chance. Also the South starts the swing from classic moderate/conservative Democrat to Conservative Republican as the Democrat Party starts favoring more socialist types. Honestly it feels like Socialism with its hate of absolute truth and rejection of competence really causes the mess they’re (and we’re) in. When everything is done by the feels rather than at least looking at rational standards you get folks that make the nepotism of absolute monarchy look desirable.

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        3. So he’s the only one giving orders. That doesn’t mean the Chinese people, bless their hearts, will take those orders.

          On the list of ‘nationalities that will blindly follow orders against their own self-interest’, the Chinese are somewhere about five miles below the Italians. There is a reason for the now-banned expression ‘Chinese fire drill’, and it has nothing to do with racism. The Han pretend to do ‘top-down’ command structures until there is an actual crisis; then they fend for themselves, and things get, um, interesting.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Well, my point is merely that I doubt there’s a power struggle in China right now. We’re hearing lots of stories of Chinese young adults “laying flat”, so the general population is clearly unhappy. But that’s a different matter from an internal struggle.

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            1. No power struggle in the CCP does not equate to no power struggle in China.

              I think they must be getting very close to the point where a billion Chinese decide that the CCP has lost ‘the Mandate of Heaven’ and it’s time for a new dynasty.

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      3. That’s part of it, like as not. Other money groups that back such things are still flush. Well, reasonably so, considering the economy at current state. And not just the easy targets like Soros, et al.

        We’ve discussed the roll left and die/start to die then roll left pattern before. What I think we are seeing now is more of that down the line, and diminishing returns in addition to foreign money groups concentrating scarce resources within their own borders.

        I remember when HR departments were becoming a thing. Metastasizing like like a cancer. I remember the slow creep of leftism, or my slow growing awareness of it, through the eighties, skip a decade or so in the nineties, and really noticing in the mid-late 2000s. They seemed to be everywhere and in everything at once.

        Only they weren’t. And, after a while, the “movement” seemed to start to die off.

        Leftism is a luxury good that requires loot to sustain itself. By leftism I mean specifically American leftism, which is mixed with Marxism, Socialism, Communism, and Crazy-ism with a goodly pinch of plain old greed, lust, and envy in there. When the supply of loot begins to dry up, it concentrates in the hands of a very few.

        It doesn’t slowly peter out to the little people. Nope. They can get high until they die, so long as it doesn’t affect the elite. The capital, the money, the stuff doesn’t spread out. It concentrates at the top.

        Sound familiar?

        It should. That’s the pattern every tin pot dictator, banana republic revolutionary government, and two bit thug follows. The boss gets the biggest cut. The rest fight for scraps.

        When times get tight, the folks at the top tend to make big grabs for anything not nailed down. Maybe that big grab is happening now.

        Won’t be able to say until the dust settles out, after. What we do doesn’t change, though. Work hard. Set a little aside for emergencies/fire/flood/plague of girl scouts. Keep your eyes and ears open. Keep your circle of friends current, and reach out to make sure they’re okay, too.

        When in doubt, refer to your Heinlein, your Kipling, and your faith. We get through this one step at a time.

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      4. Or they figure we are about to move to a new stage when such attacks on morale will be not needed, or not effective. Either way the effort is being diverted away? I wonder what to.

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    5. No money = no activism.

      Volunteers might come for the donuts, but when those disappear so do those who aren’t passionately committed – and when they have to start shelling out they start thinking about whether or not the game’s worth it.

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  5. I start my day, while the coffee’s brewing, with a quick look at Gab, Twitter, Farcebook, etc. to see which way the hot air’s blowing.

    There the coyotes and weasels are still tower of Babeling, but there’s far more than enough strange we need ask what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards…

    Liked by 1 person

  6. What could make them go silent?

    The same thing that is driving the current news cycle to try and report on aliens, how Trump is BadWrong, and all of the usual “don’t look behind the curtain” things they’re doing. And it’s not just that they can’t paper over the cracks of what’s been going on the last few years.

    A lot of the legacy institutions are stuck between the devil (dropping ad rates, reduced ratings, decreasing reach when their tools like Twitter are made even slightly neutral, etc, etc etc) and the deep blue sea (their paymasters demanding more and greater results for less investment money, and the purity spiral of the Cult of Woke grows even tighter and tighter). Viewership in TV and movies is at an all-time low. Franchise movies that looked like they would be box-office blowouts are showing up like a little wet fart. There’s no “new generation” of stars to replace the current run of actors and actresses in the popular imagination. Just about every streaming service is looking into an ad-supported tier at minimum.

    And fewer people are believing the cable news networks over their lying eyes.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Speaking of getting caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Disney is, from what I’ve heard, in real trouble. They haven’t had anything that could be called a box-office success, and certainly nothing that even came close to a blockbuster, in years. More than a few of their films have been straight-up flops. Disney+ subscription numbers are falling off a cliff.

      Meanwhile, they’re shutting down the Star Wars hotel after just about a year without even coming close to breaking even on its 9-figure construction costs while attendance at the theme parks – the only division of the company that has been truly profitable in many years – is down and continues to fall. That isn’t (entirely) due to The Mouse going woke, but because they’ve deliberately decided to price the parks and the hotels out of reach of the average American family (IIRC their target demographic earned $300k-$400k/year per household). So they’ve jacked up prices while cutting value-add “features.”

      And word in the street is that Disney still owes Comcast quite a lot of money for their acquisition of Hulu and The Mouse doesn’t have enough cash in the bank to make their next payment by the deadline. And said deadline is coming up very fast.

      So things are probably going to get Very Interesting, in the Ancient Chinese Curse sense of the word, for the House of Mouse in the coming months.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. There’s rumors that Disney is trying to find buyers for LucasArts, because of the Hulu issues. That they need to get a lot of handy cash on hand, because of how IJINO (Indiana Jones In Name Only) is going to crash and burn in the theaters (there’s only so much reshooting can do, Harrison Ford is a good actor, but he’s in his ’80s and can only do so much, the Fleabag star is there, etc, etc, etc…). Especially since Bob Iger realizes that any crash is going to destroy any of his other ambitions.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Not just LucasArts (the former name of the video game division), but Lucasfilm as a whole. But given how many rumors about Lucasfilm have circulated and then amounted to nothing (seriously, if I had a dollar for every time Kathleen Kennedy was “definitely for sure about to be fired any day now!” I’d be able to take my family out to eat at a REALLY nice restaurant), I’ll believe it once the actual bill of sale has been signed and not one second before, and even then I probably won’t entirely believe it.

          Besides, who would even want to buy it? Lucasfilm only ever really had two big franchises, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Disney has already utterly destroyed the former, and if the reviews and rumors I’ve heard about the new Indiana Jones are even close to the truth, then that franchise is toast too. There was also Willow, but the Disney+ sequel show was so terrible that Disney actually pulled it off of the platform a month or so ago, less than four months after it premiered. So the studio and its intellectual properties are basically worthless now.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. That ties into my initial thesis as well-the legacy media(s) don’t have anything that has any real value right now, not really. Short of companies with physical assets like Disney and Amazon, many of the entertainment companies are playing desperate cash float games to stay in business. This means that they are extremely vulnerable to games being played by investment companies like…Blackrock. This company and their ilk have their fingers in far too many pies.

            The crash is not going to be fun when it happens, especially since the money people are also the people pushing the agenda(s) that hate most people outside of the deep urban cores of Blue cities.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Yes, but they are still shaking in their $5,000 a pair Italian loafers, make no mistake the Bud Light, Target, Disney, mess is hurting them, one they could probably survive, but all three together is hurting them, hurting them bad. And to top it off, no one is hanging, beating, or otherwise attacking Trannys, gays, or any letter you can think off, most just point, laugh and walk away. They are waking up to the fact that the only hate in the room is them. Pray for them and help each other as you can.

              Liked by 2 people

              1. I have prayers for them.

                I even have prayers for many of the transsexuals. My biggest fear is that the current rush of transsexualism is going to be seen like lobotomies in 10-15 years at best-an extreme procedure to cure an extreme edge case that for some reason became trendy, a’la EST, Oat-Bran everything, cocaine for cough suppression, and far too many other things.

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                1. I pray for the transsexuals every day.
                  The ones that I know are, to a person, struggling with very pernicious mental illnesses and emotional problems. The demons have their claws in deep…

                  Liked by 2 people

                  1. Every transsexual that I’ve met that was doing HRT and SRS, I’m hoping that their current path of treatment was because nothing else worked. The same way you do electro-shock or lobotomies because nothing else worked.

                    My fear (and I’ve seen it happen) is that it started to become a “trendy” diagnosis in the mid-to-late ’90s, people started to make real money off of it, and then it just started to snowball. And the casualties are secondary.

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              2. And when the activists do the usual trick of lying about a situation– NOW there’s folks reporting “Uh, no, the cops didn’t beat up the Trans protest. Here’s the video. Two violent criminals did a crime, then ran to hide with their buddies at the trans activist tent, and got arrested. And some guys who assaulted the cops doing the arrest were ticketed.”

                Liked by 1 person

              3. I’ve got a daily prayer for them:

                For the slanderers let there be no hope,
                and may all wickedness perish in an instant.
                May Your enemies swiftly be cut down.
                May You swiftly uproot, crush, cast down and humble the
                arrogant swiftly and in our days.

                Blessed are You, our G-d, who destroys enemies and humbles the
                arrogant

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          2. The Mandalorian showed that Star Wars would be easy to revive. You just need to get it out of the hands of the idiots, and into the hands of those who know what they’re doing.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. True. Unfortrunately, Kathleen Kennedy and her ink have forced their way into those projects. Witness Book of Boba Fett (IIRC, Favreau and/or Filoni threatened to quit the entire franchise due to her micromanaging, and had to scramble to salvage the mess she and her team had made of the series), Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Mando Season 3.

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              1. I agree. Again, my point is merely that Star Wars still has a lot of value in the right hands. And a revival under the right leadership could happen very quickly.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. It would have to be immediately, because there are a lot of people that have written off the franchise. Any new creations would have to bury the Kennedy Star Wars ideas as deep as possible like the toxic waste that it is.
                  And it would have to be publicly, because nothing else will convince the fans that there isn’t a shell game being played.
                  The problem is that I suspect that KK has all of the secrets-and will have no problem unearthing all of them to protect her “legacy.” Because, at this point, what does she have to lose?

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                  1. Well, step one would probably have to be getting it out of the hands of Disney, who have refused to get rid of Kennedy despite near-universal loathing of her from the fans.

                    That would be pretty public, I think.

                    Given that what started this was a question of whether anyone would even want to buy Lucasfilm due to a perceived lack of value, it’s relevant to the discussion.

                    Liked by 1 person

                    1. It would depend on how they “got it out of Disney’s hands.” It would have to be something that couldn’t be mistaken as a rebuke of Kennedy and her regime…and I don’t think Hollywood politics can allow for that to happen unless they catch a dead boy in her trunk on live TV.

                      Like

                    2. Tom is an excellent writer, and he is on my instant buy list for ever and ever and ever.

                      Alas that I am not rich enough to make him rich also, but he’s a lot less single than a few years ago; and he also has written a lot more books and novels than a few years ago.

                      Liked by 1 person

                  2. The way things stand, right now? Absolutely ripe for new hotness. Something that isn’t tainted. Something Harry Potterish, from out in the wild frontiers of the interwebz, something that ain’t WOKE.

                    Ye bobs and little fishes, it is so ripping ripe for such a thing.

                    All the more reason to write till your fingers fall off and then learn to type with your toes. Bust out the heroes’ journey. Bring out your memes. Drag along the dog eared tvtropes catalogue of villains, BBEGs, dragons, mooks, and bad guys. Put it in an engaging setting, hit the three-act-structure blender and tattoo it onto the page in blood and ink.

                    …Isn’t that how the rest of you write? …Right?

                    Liked by 2 people

                    3. Bah. Hope’s easy. It’s stuck to the bottom of your shoe. It catches on your clothes like thistle and burrs. Hope is absolutely the most common and commonly overlooked thing in the world.

                      Hope is a sunrise where you’re not being actually tortured for wrongthink. Hope’s a paycheck that comes after a long week or two of work. Hope’s the children we’re supposed to teach well, the fingers on the ends of your hands, the voice that’s you and you alone, and the brain that can’t be stopped by crude propaganda, faulty “logic,” lies now matter how loudly shouted, and other foolishness.

                      Hope is the divine right of every mortal man and woman, just as despair is a liar and a thief of your precious time.

                      But hope alone is like supping on good smells. It doesn’t fill you up. You need effortful work, failure, the experience that comes from failure, and stubborn refusal to give up and give in, to make excuses, or to simply avoid it like an unwelcome chore.

                      The only things worth anything in this world take sacrifice to get. The ancients may have been badly wrong on exactly what gets sacrificed, but that bit is at least true.

                      So fake hope if you must. I have. Write bad stuff, if you’re bound to write. I do mean “bound,” because it’s definitely torture sometimes, metaphorically speaking. If you’re not afflicted with plot bunnies (plague of demons more like, but plot bunnies sounds more family friendly), no big.

                      Honestly, that might be the saner way to go through life. Probably. But if you’ve the mental disease that makes you write. for Bog’s sake don’t just stop. That makes you go nuts.

                      Liked by 2 people

                    4. I remain hopeful for three big reasons-
                      1-It pisses the people that I hate off.
                      2-I’ve wasted too much of my life with self-indulgence angst.
                      3-The Lieutenant (and the Great Aunt) wouldn’t like it if I wasn’t hopeful.

                      Once I’ve found two more reasons, I’ve got a royal flush.

                      Liked by 2 people

                    5. Your words are inspirational and well-written – but let me be clear: I had the hope beaten out of me a long time ago, and I don’t even know how to fake it. For some time now I have been facing a horrible truth: There never was any possibility that I would succeed, just as the People in Authority told me when I was a child. For the longest time, writing was a game at which only ‘the right Left people’ were permitted to succeed – ask Mrs. Hoyt about that; now it’s a game at which no one can succeed.

                      I am still going to try to make myself write, if only as a gesture of fatalistic defiance. Last night, as I lay sleepless and trying to find something to help me carry on, this phrase came to me:

                      ‘A candle must burn.’

                      If the candle does not burn, it was made in vain. That does not mean that anyone will see the flame, or that anything will be illuminated by it. Very likely neither will happen. But that doesn’t let the candle off from doing the only thing it can do.

                      I have been butting my head against an intractable writer’s block for nearly eight years now, and this is the only thing I have managed to come up with. And I know all too well that it is not enough. The candle is stuck on a shelf where no one will see it and no one will see anything by it; still it must burn.

                      It is very hard for me to get up mornings.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    6. Tom Simon, check out Raconteur Press. It’s a small up and coming publisher, but about as anti-Woke as it gets. The only “checkbox” they have is “Is the story entertaining? Yes or no?” If “yes,” they’ll publish it. They have a few open calls for anthologies and plenty more in the pipeline.

                      https://thelawdogfiles.com/raconteur-press

                      Liked by 1 person

                    8. Tom: This is not true.
                      You can succeed if you write at least a story (can be short) a month. It’s a numbers game, in face. And you can succeed abundantly. Just write and put it out.
                      Block of course stops that. As does in my case a million other things to do.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    9. I’m trying. Dragging the words limping across the page, and a heck of a lot of it is script and notes ATM, because day job sucketh up time and energy. But still going on something I hope will be good old-fashioned storytelling with some new settings!

                      Liked by 3 people

                    14. Raptor, thanks for the link. Before I’m ready to try using it, I’ll have to fix something that’s broken inside of me.

                      A candle must burn, but I seem to have lost all my matches.

                      Like

                    15. Ma’am:

                      ‘And you CAN self-publish. Won’t hurt. TRULY.’

                      All my past work was self-published (still is). But I have neither the money nor the aptitude for promotion, so the stuff just sits there.

                      ‘You can succeed if you write at least a story (can be short) a month. It’s a numbers game, in face. And you can succeed abundantly. Just write and put it out.

                      ‘Block of course stops that. As does in my case a million other things to do.’

                      Yes; and so does having a long-winded muse. I have, in my life, written six short stories that were not bad enough to be immediately thrown away; I have an idea for a seventh; and that is over a span of decades. Short stories are uncongenial to me in every way; I don’t much like to read them, let alone write them. Coming up with one a month would probably require torture and the extraction of internal organs.

                      I would have to be exceedingly prolific to meet a story-a-month schedule at the length that my stories tend to come out, and I’m just not. There are clever workarounds for that, but I would have to get myself producing first: just as you can’t steer a ship unless it’s making way.

                      But as you say, block stops that; and in the absence of hope, block has been (for me so far) impossible to overcome. The engine just won’t start without some kind of fuel. And since even my nearest and dearest don’t read my stuff and aren’t interested, I can’t even borrow a cup of fumes.

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                    16. Promotion is the biggest thing and issue for independent publishers.

                      I know that Great Aunt does a book promotion every week (theoretically on Sundays, but she’s been inundated with cats lately).
                      What is your book’s idea demographics? (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/ is useful here once you figure that out.) If you got a small amount to try, give their paid marketing setups a quick test. Once I’m employed again, I’m going to give Facebook and Twitter a small amount and a few ads to see if I can get some results? Not a lot, $100 at most and see how that changes sales numbers. (Especially if I can figure out how to track better through KDP, asking questions there.)
                      Are you writing individual books or series? Kindle seems to prefer series from new authors than individual books.
                      And, sadly, Twitter does seem to help if you have enough followers.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    17. It’s been long enough that you can send one a week to our hostess for the Sunday Promo

                      Like

                    18. Dust of the Ocean is in copyedits right now. My Calmer Half, who is not sydlexic, and slays typos left and right, tells me it’s possible, though not probable, it’ll be ready for a LibertyCon release.

                      Because no matter how many people might cringe at the idea of tactically correct SciFi thrillers with romance, I like it, and so do my readers. Who cares what Manhattan thinks? Not me.

                      Except the one who gave me a very angry review, because I’m pro-oil-exploration, make fun of academia, and honest about realpolitik shall always be with us.

                      A rising tide lifts all boats, and the swell of stories that people want to actually read, instead of grey goo forced upon us by people who hate us… has proved that there is a massive audience out there who thinks like us.

                      Liked by 2 people

                    19. Tom, you have a choice. Either continue to be walking dead on the way to flat dead; or screw the hope and just get a mad on, and spit in the eyes of all who said you’re worthless. Hell, you’ve got an entire paperback page of writing just in today’s blog comments; in paragraphs no less. You have the ability. What you may lack, like myself, is the dedication and determination to follow through. Our hostess battles the no-writing distractions daily (maybe even hourly); yet she still continues to write, and put out beer money worthy product.

                      You don’t have to wait until November to challenge yourself to a NaNoWriMo. Hell, throw together a framework of an idea, and just start typing seat-of-the-pants. A mere 1000 words a day until the end of July. Doesn’t matter if it makes sense, or if it sounds like the dumbest thing in the world (I just got through reading a swords and no sorcery fantasy/romance/who-dun-it where the “hero” was constantly blundering from one threat to another while he and his romantic interest took turns hating and admiring each other. (Matrimony is probably in the works one or two books further down the line.) Crazy as it sounds, the author succeeded in entertaining, and I’ll probably order the next book.

                      Like

                    20. I hope this ends up attached to the correct string.

                      @Tom Simon

                      I started at 100 words per day. When I could consistently do that, I went up to 200. Worked my way up to 2000 words per day before it all came crashing down.

                      My sales are nil (I’m no good at marketing and don’t do stuff I don’t care about) but I like to read my own stories and I essentially publish them for me.

                      If you psychologically have to write and you’re not doing it, you will go (more) insane. Doesn’t matter if it’s blog posts, responses, or a journal entry that you’ll burn when you’re done.

                      Write every day.

                      As for the hope being beaten out of you. Two years ago I took the bit in my teeth and spit in the eye of everyone who has ever told me “You can’t.” Doesn’t mean it’s easy, and I still spend an inordinate amount of time crying and wondering if I made a mistake, but I’m almost back to the point where I can write the way I used to. My muse is waking up from her coma.

                      Hope Doesn’t Die. She’s down there in your heart, waiting for you to open the box.

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                    21. Lauren: You enjoy reading your stories. Do you really believe you’re so weird that nobody else would like what you like?

                      You could try posting a couple on FanFiction-dot-net, just to see if anybody reads them. Clicking the purple monster will take you to my FanFiction page, so you can see what it’s like. You might even be interested in my stories.

                      Like

                    30. What I’ve learned from AOOO: If I posted badly written porn (and I mean really badly written, as in right next door to illiterate) I’d get 100 times more hits than I do from normal stories that I work hard to make well-written. Groan.

                      Like

                    31. So…why do you care about those hits?

                      As opposed to, like, sane responses?

                      Things that are actual people, or better, people who like the fandom you write for?

                      Like

                    32. @Imaginosos

                      Sure, I think other people would like my stories. I’m just not interested in the work necessary for marketing. I played that game for years and got almost up to Happy Meal level. I was making between 1 and 3$ per month.

                      So I write for myself, publish so I can have my own copies, and if someone else finds and enjoys my books that’s a bonus.

                      I’ve been told many times to do audiobooks, but again that takes time and resources. I’m working on it.

                      Like

                    1. That’s very kind of you.

                      My nearest and dearest tend to get glassy-eyed and fidgety if I even mention my writing. I really, really needed to know someone was interested.

                      God bless you, and the others who said similar things.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    2. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Most people, seems like they just silently read. On Royal Road, maybe one in a few hundred will even drop a comment. One in a thousand a rating. On Amazon, the ratio is bit different. Depends on the genre, how big your backlog is, and several other more esoteric factors (like marketing, which is nothing more than witchcraft and hoodoo, which is to say maybe there’s something there but I doubt it most days).

                      But it’s still the same. Rare is the reader that comments, reviews, or even just drops a silent rating on you. Rarer still are the ones that point out things you missed. Even just typos. I once had a character spontaneously sprout a third arm (holding an infant, opening a door, and pushing away a zombie with his third arm at the same time). Glad that one got caught.

                      Once you start connecting with readers though, they’re going to expect you to deliver. You have to get back in the practice of writing regularly, to feed the hungry mob. That’s the trade off. Feedback, slow and rare as it may be, comes with proven ability to deliver the drug of choice to your clients, that being story.

                      From personal experience, don’t delete the bad crap you wrote when you were blocked and just had to put words on a page. Sometimes you can mine it later for content. Don’t do what I did and just throw random action scenes in whenever you run out of easy plot pages, unless you’re doing pulp (which makes it okay, I am told).

                      I’ve read you. Not enough time to keep up with much these days, but you do have the talent. Not everyone does. So write on. When you have to, write the most abysmally bad stuff that is. Write parody of the worst sort, low humor, craft villains, heck, even worldbuild if you must.

                      Sometimes the way to break the block is through. Pounding your head against it until one or the other breaks. Luck to you, Tom Simon. And may your sanity and hard headedness prevail in the end.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    1. Hey, no.

                      DISNEY actually gave some kind of space to the “extended universe.”

                      It was Lukas who cast it out.

                      I am a Trekkie. I do NOT go Wars.

                      But I honor my honorable enemies– I remember who cast their heart out.

                      Like

                1. Gosh, the X-wing Files were fun reads. If they could do that again (and a proper movie about Grand Admiral Thrawn), I might be induced to care.

                  Like

              2. Hell, give Dave Filoni complete creative freedom and we’ll have Star Wars that’s just as good or (dare I say it? Yeah, I dare) even better than the Original Trilogy.

                Like

              3. We should ask him. Maybe suggest a Kickstarter for fundraising, goodness knows Critical Roll did well enough on fanbase. Get him and Dave Filoni on the same project? Results might be a RIVER of green.

                Like

                2. Also, practically speaking- “there is not one canon” is not a no sale.

                  Tenchi is FAMOUS for having a gazillion flavors of the franchise and you love the characters, not the universe.

                  Liked by 1 person

        2. “A cargo cult with better legacy hardware”…?

          Now that you mention it, and, seems to about cover it for me.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. “…to hide the reasoning.”

              The reasoning, or the, um… something.

              “The Narrative must live!”, to rather misquote a certain episode of the old, familiar, pre-Discontinuity “Doctor Who.”

              Liked by 1 person

  7. Just a note about the “mostly peaceful” riots as told to me by a friend that was there: The buses stopped in Missoula MT and numerous rent a rioter(tm) personnel disembarked, only to be met by an escort of concerned citizens welcoming them to our state.
    The 911 lines were burning up with frantic calls within minutes. The gist of the calls was, “there’s a man carrying a firearm… right here in the street”
    After being assured that unless they were pointing bad things at people they were perfectly legal, the call volume dropped.
    Our folks interacted with the visitors, peacefully discussed various subjects, even chanted and sang with them a little.
    After a day visiting the local attractions and comradeship, the visitors climbed back on the buses and were bid a fond farewell as they headed out to the next town.
    Unfortunately, I’d been out of the political circle for a while and wasn’t able to attend, but it seems like our side had a Very Good Day.
    I don’t remember any news coverage outside of local footnotes, but then again it wouldn’t have reflected well on so many other events…

    Like

    2. Note: By ‘eastern Montana’, I basically mean the entire state except for the touristy bit west of Glacier National Park. From what I can tell, they might as well wash their hands of that bit and give it to California.

      Like

      1. Just spent three weeks south of Kalispell and it was pretty normal. Aside from the camp manager (from WA state) putting the transgender flag up. I’m not sure that’s going to be very helpful to him.
        I look at local yarn shops, because the owners can be bright electric virtue-signalling blue, but the shop in Whirefish was blessedly free of any hint of political bias, of any type.

        Like

      2. Actually, no. Glacier is north-mid Montana. Then there is the the slice of Yellowstone on in southwest. No, California can’t have either.

        Like

    3. Sounds similar to an event that allegedly happened in Western PA during the Summer of “Love” back in 2020. I say “allegedly” because I’ve only heard about the incident third-hand and can find no definitive proof that it actually happened, but given local polititcs and attitudes towards such things, it is certainly plausible.

      Anyways, I’m told that after successfully “mostly-peacefully protesting” in Pittsburgh, ANTIFA and BLM let it be known that they planned to “mostly-peacefully protest” in a town roughly an hour north of the city. No idea why they chose this town as a target, but whatever. Town and county government likewise let it be known that they lacked the manpower to stop the “mostly-peaceful protest” (and possibly had been ordered to stand down by the state attorney general, I’ve heard it both ways)…. but that also meant that they lacked the manpower to protect the “mostly-peaceful protestors” from the townspeople. Most of whom, they were careful to note, avidly embraced their Second Amendment rights. They were also careful to note that it was, in fact, legal in that town and county to use lethal force to defend one’s life, and dropped several not-so-subtle hints that they’d look the other way if lethal force was used to protect property.

      Either ANTIFA and BLM chickened out and never showed at all, or (and this is the version of the story I hope is true), drove into town, saw several individuals armed with long guns standing on rooftops, and kept on driving.

      There’s a reason why, outside of the cities, my state is referred to as “Northern Alabama” or “Pennsyltucky.” That sort of thing just does not fly here.

      Now if only we could wall off Filthydelphia and/or sell it to New Jersey. That would solve oh-so-many of our problems.

      Like

        1. Delaware has got enough problems already, what with being the source of the Bidens.

          Maybe Philly could be attached to D.C., sort of like connecting two sewer pipes together. Though there’s no telling which way the flow would go.

          Like

            1. The Reader thinks that getting the total flow would be an improvement for Baltimore these days.

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    4. BLM/Antifa showed up in our city that June, and were met by the downtown shop owners and their friends. An amazing amount of AR15s were carried as sidearms, and the protest was entirely peaceful. (Local representation of BLAntifa is miniscule, probably numbered in the low double digits or lower.)

      OTOH, that September, the arsonists hit, and destroyed a bunch of really nice forest nearby. The fish hatchery is finally back in business; I’m not sure about the historic logging museum. Other arson attempts were less successful. Thankfully, the one on $TINY_TOWN was caught before much damage occurred. Protip: it’s not a good idea to torch land associated with not entirely peaceful Native American tribes, especially the ones associated with various sides of the Modoc Indian War.

      Liked by 1 person

    5. The BLM folks decided to march through a business district here, on a Sunday afternoon, without getting a parade permit. This irked the local constabulary, who had to abruptly divert traffic to protect the marchers. Business owners and friends attended the march, observed from the roofs, and compared firearms (long guns in the open, other things as permits permitted). Nothing much happened. That the area held lots of Hispanic-owned small businesses might have played a role in the, ah, studied lack of enthusiasm among the protestors and locals.

      The regional NAACP chapter observed that this was not the most effective way to communicate ideas. They hosted a cookout the next week, with some of the marchers, and discussed civil rights programs. The police asked that a permit be obtained next time, so that no one got run over and no emergency vehicles were accidentally blocked from answering calls.

      BLM has not showed up again, thus far.

      Liked by 2 people

  8. Does anyone here follow Vivabarneslaw on locals or rumble? Barnes did the legal takedown of all time yesterday on the case against Trump and it is must-watch video!

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Okay, I will try to figure out how to attach a link…not as tech savvy as I would prefer to be!

        Sent from my iPhone

        >

        Like

    2. Vivabarneslaw on the Trump indictment:

      Commentary from Neo & her readers: (add the https://www.)
      thenewneo.com/2023/06/12/robert-barnes-on-the-trump-indictment/

      FWIW, several prominent trolls on that board disappeared soon after J6, having failed to incite anyone to join the fedsurrection or to agree that the J6 kangaroo courts were A Good Thing.

      Like

  9. Aslan is on the Move!

    But of course, we should be ready to aid Him or to deal with whatever else is on the Move.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. I … think you might be right. The large numbers of parents protesting the hard-core materials in schools, in the US, Canada and a few other places is a sign. The on-going farmers and Yellow Vest protests all over. Germany’s Green party is in a panic. My place of worship is seeing more new faces, and apparently others are too. The new folks are drawn because of switching to a more responsive [not entirely congregational but more responsive], creedal denomination. People out here are going out of their way to patronize businesses hit by the urban flooding, enough that some of the small shops are saying, “Please don’t spend money you can’t afford. We’ll get through this.”

      I can’t pin it down, but there’s Something on the move.

      Like

      1. “The large numbers of parents protesting the hard core materials in schools….is a sign.”
        THIS THIS THIS
        Parents have been told for years, “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?”
        Many parents have started saying “I believe my lying eyes.”
        The fact that there are videos on Twitter every day of the crazy stuff that teachers and schools are doing is making many parents watch their own schools closely.
        When there is crazy stuff going down at their school, more and more parents are willing to protest. This is night and day from the way it was just a few years ago.
        It gives me hope that things might turn out OK after all.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Folks are also enforcing sanity with scheduling– last year, our local school put out a sports schedule that was very obviously designed to mimic the big cities that set things up so you can’t go on vacation, you can’t have a job, and oh yeah, you WILL be up very, very late on school nights.

          About four days later, the website updated. The practice-starts-at-8-PM was gone. The Christmas Eve practice was gone. And so on.

          Now, our local district is pretty dang good– their reaction to homeschooling is “oh, cool!” and chatting about educational techniques– but I found that really impressive.

          Like

          1. Not HS or college level but we got around the scheduling issues by being the coach, and scout leaders. No conflict between the two, or holidays, if you control it. Surprisingly regarding game schedules if the coach has a conflict, it got changed (or did, we have been out of the system now 15 years, and not that it happened more than once or twice). Yes, we had a LOT of late night dinners.

            Liked by 1 person

  10. Some suggestions:

    It’s possible that the idiots are going to actually attack Russia directly during the current NATO exercises in Eastern Europe before the whole ClownWorld house of cards topples.

    Or they are trying to find enough weapons and kit for the “refugees” that have crossed the southern border.

    Or they could be re-calibrating their response to the ongoing boycotts ignited by the push to legalize child mutilation and pedophilia.

    Or maybe it’s just vacation time and conference time now that school is out for summer.

    It’s never Lupus. Or Aliens (of the ET type).

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It occurs to the Reader that maybe the reason Finland and Sweden joined NATO is to prevent NATO from attacking Russia. Both those countries are pretty clear eyed when it comes their neighbor and neither wanted to join NATO during the Cold War. Maybe they wanted to counterbalance the enthusiasm the Poles might bring to the idea.

      Like

      1. Reminds me of a joke from Poland during the days of Solidarity:

        Comrade the Warsaw Pact is invading to supress Solidarity! Russians from the East and Czechs from the South! Who do we fight first?

        Easy! The Czechs!

        But why?

        Ahhh Comrade. One must always place duty before pleasure!

        Like

      2. Poland isn’t ready for war yet. No matter how much enthusiasm the Poles may or may not have, their rearmament has only barely started. They’ve got to get all of their localized K2 tanks built first.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The Reader agrees. He has been following the pace of Poland’s rearmament with some interest (as well as the implication that South Korea is becoming a major supplier of arms to the world). He thinks that Sweden and Finland would not want to see that conflict on their borders.

          Like

          1. South Korea appears to have arms factories up and running, cranking out tanks in strategically useful numbers.

            No one else does. Which really is amazing, when you think of it.

            I recently saw an article wherein the arsenal which builds ALL of the USA’s artillery tubes is -upgrading- to use currently available CNC machinery and processes. As in, much of what they do is based on WWII or in some cases WWI-era production techniques. There are several major forging operations being done on 1940s era machines.

            Their total output is a few hundred pieces a year. Tankers and artillerymen help me out here, what’s the service life of a gun tube? 10,000 rounds?

            Could someone else, other than the arsenal, produce proper rifled cannon? Yes, but no one else is just now.

            I don’t think the Canadian government could get a tank built in this country right now if their lives depended on it. They make armored cars in London Ont. but that’s a very different type of thing.

            And that’s why Poland is buying their stuff in South Korea.

            Like

            1. The Republic of Korea is recently wealthy and has a solid high-tech manufacturing base, so it makes sense that it would be developing its own new weapons systems. Japan would probably also be a potential big exporter, but it had an arms export ban in place until 2014, and it’s got that cultural mindset about being peaceful. It is exporting some things (for instance, apparently half a dozen patrol boats to Vietnam), but apparently not much as of yet.

              As for Canada… iirc, the last tank Canada built was the Ram, back in World War 2. Which is kind of surprising, actually, when you consider that every other even moderately large NATO nation except for Spain had its own MBT. Yes, that includes Italy (which makes the Ariete). So who knows.

              Gun barrel life depends on a number of different factors. Materials used, speed of the shot, and of course the type of ammunition.

              Liked by 1 person

        2. Poland could eat the remainder of the Red army. Or the bundeswher, for that matter. Putin barely has enough power left to deter China. Germany is in dire straights militarily.

          Soon, poland will be at “And”

          Only Russian nukes could stop Poland. Or, a lack of Polish trucks. If Poland starts buying up trucks en mass, it’s game on.

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          1. Poland could eat the remainder of the Red army

            At this point a few troops of boy scouts could probably do that. Ukraine currently has the problem that their heavy armored divisions they prepared for this offensive have nothing to it.

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  11. Why didn’t the dog bark in the night? When the USSR fell the most shocked people in the world were the CIA and the State Department. They spent billions stealing official Soviet reports and didn’t realize the whole place was lies from top to bottom. So why the silence? Maybe they are running out of money… or running out of useful idiots… or it is just incompetence. I think they must be running scared too…

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Bet on incompetence. The people at the top have been selected for incompetence for decades. They are very, very good at being bad at their jobs, and have perfected the skill of playing office politics while completely ignoring the outside world that they are supposed to be dealing with.

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      1. They haven’t EXACTLY been selected for incompetence. They’ve been selected for political conformity and fervency. The problem is that believing in the leftist cant became very hard for smart people around the fall of the USSR (if not before. Some parted company before.) So, selecting for ideological conformity was either selecting for dumb as rocks OR duplicitous as heck.
        And yes, okay, that’s an actchually. What you said is perfectly correct in effect. However that’s not what they THOUGHT they were selecting for. (They’d have to be suicidal to.)

        Like

        1. That’s it, precisely. It’s like the company that found out they were going broke because all their accountants told them so. So they fired the accountants and replaced them with people who could not count. Problem solved!

          To paraphrase the ending of one of my few short stories:

          ‘Our work is far too important to be left to those who can actually do it.’

          Liked by 1 person

          1. My beloved worked for a company where the boss was eating a lot of steak and had a high-end leased car, while the company needed money. He told the president he needed to cut expenses…so the president did. He fired my beloved.
            We bought into a small tax firm a bit later and never looked back. So in a way, the president did us a favor.

            Liked by 1 person

      2. Which is, of course, malice. Pride for priorities, Fraud for taking the paycheck without doing the job.

        Like

    3. I read a memoir by a former CIA agent who had been stationed in Tehran. He said they’d heard nothing about revolutionary, and their first clue about the overthrow of the Shah was Iranian TV coverage, which was their only source of information about what was happening.

      Some years later, I read a memoir by a former KGB agent, stationed in Tehran at the same time. He said the same thing.

      Liked by 1 person

  13. The plan is not working and they’re confused. I think they expected Trump to do their work for them calling out the knuckledraggers so our betters can declare that “the republic in danger” and needs a dictator. Hasn’t worked that way. So far it’s all just a big yawn.

    They’ll regroup and be back. Alas, the supply of sh-t people is inexhaustible.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Might be looking for something in Miami tomorrow. I gather that’s when Trump is expected to arrive in court, and protesters are gathering.

      Like

      1. Ah. So all the provocateurs are down there. hey Mr G. man. Smile at the camera while you throw your rock, Your glow is very fetching.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. They had protesters show up across from WHO Radio when he did an interview the other day, I thought Simon (radio host) was going to hurt himself laughing.

          Liked by 1 person

  14. I wonder if they are running out of competent and capable people?

    There have been a lot of retirements, and folks who were keeping their heads down until they could leave fully vested. And the bureaucracies have been aggressively purging anyone who wasn’t down on the message.

    At some point it doesn’t matter whether the account has money or not, if no-one can figure out how to write the check in the first place.

    Like

    1. Entirely possible. The baby boomers are almost completely retired at this point – they’re roughly 69-77 years old, and there’s no generation large enough to replace their retirements in the last 10 years.

      Beyond that, the number of families that have discovered during the lockdown that, after the cost of daycare and wardrobe, and eating out because mom’s too busy to cook, are added up? She’s making almost nothing in a pink collar job… and they didn’t come back…

      We’ve got a labor crunch.

      As well, indoctrination is, by it’s very nature, death on critical thinking skills. If you can’t think critically, you can’t gain competence. Given how many generations of indoctrination, the dearth of competent people is even worse than the labor pool suggests…

      Have you noticed the number of leftist think-tanks and “foundations” that are having extreme trouble managing to exist, much less enact their goals? I mean, how hard would it be, if you were thinking critically, to realize you were the target of a Project Veritas sting?

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I’ll be honest, I had not noticed that the leftist think tanks were having trouble, but to me they all seem like one amorphous soup.

        But it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that they are going through more churn than usual as they go full ouroboros on themselves.

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      2. number of families that have discovered during the lockdown that, after the cost of daycare and wardrobe, and eating out because mom’s too busy to cook, are added up? She’s making almost nothing in a pink collar job… and they didn’t come back…
        ……………..

        One parent anyway. Sometimes it is dad staying home with the kids.

        Like

        1. Sometimes it’s not pink-collar or Mr. Mom types or even “we’d make more,” either. Last fall, the company I work for lost two highly competent professional women — a VP and the head of my dept., each of whom not only made a hell of a lot more $ than I do, but whose husbands made even more — to the desire to care for their own children. A few weeks ago, another high-performing professional in a leadership position cut back to half-time to spend time raising her kids.

          That it’s a trend where I work doesn’t mean it’s a trend among well-paid professionals everywhere, but I do find it interesting. Personally inconvenient too, because they were all very good at their jobs and things got harder when they left…but it’s very encouraging to see smart, professionally successful people stepping off the career treadmill to do something more important.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Yep; the true “glass ceiling” is when women win the competition, and realize that winning the game of work status isn’t nearly as satisfying as they thought it’d be. When they weigh that dissatisfaction against everything they’ve given up to achieve it, it is found… wanting.

            Liked by 1 person

      3. “We’ve got a labor crunch.”

        You’d think that would make it possible for all those “dropped out of the labor market” people to get back in…

        … if they even want to.

        Liked by 1 person

                  1. If it’s flat enough… and if you have a cruiser bicycle that’s meant for flat… twenty miles is not terribly much to pedal.

                    However, it’s a lot more fun on a fair day at 5 AM in the summertime, than in the rain or in the winter or during high winds or when it’s hot.

                    Like

        2. That’s when you take a look at who dropped out, and who’s hiring.

          When I lived in Alaska, there were plenty of openings if you were just starting out and couldn’t afford to live there… and if you had 10-15 years experience. But inbetween? The jobs weren’t there. You could scrape by and starve on entry level, you could work your fingers to the bone barely not starving but always precarious on multiple entry level positions, or you could leave state.

          I left state.

          Mass retirements of people with 10-20 years experience does not mean mass openings for guys with “some college” and a 2-year gap in their work history. Nor do the pink collar jobs … they like “customer service” and “a good fit with our work culture” and a college degree for low pay. All jobs are not created equal, da, tovarich?

          Liked by 1 person

          2. The “training” guys.

            Yes, this is a thing– a lot of companies just dumped the whole “train up what you want to hire” thing.

            Like

        3. I’m one of those people who can’t get work in their field.

          I want to. My application rate has also plummeted since I got a temp job at walmart. I’m also hoping to network at LibertyCon.

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        4. Based on the housemate, I’d guess a lot don’t want to.

          He just lost his last job, due to calling out at least once a week (which he claims isn’t much?!?), and he’s refusing to work retail. Given how many retail outlets are begging these days, he’s not an outlier.

          However, he’ll be refusing to eat or have a roof over his head soon if this keeps up.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. On the one hand, if he thinks calling out at least once a week isn’t a lot, calling him a moron would be doing him a favor.

            On the other hand, after spending 5 years of my life working behind a counter (and being constantly shit on by my customers and every level of corporate management), I don’t blame him in the slightest for not wanting to work retail. I’d have to be well and truly desperate before I took another customer service job, and I’d rather starve to death living in a cardboard box under a highway overpass than go back to one particular company. Doesn’t matter how much I’m being paid, it isn’t worth the cost to body, my psyche, or my soul.

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            1. During my 17 months of looking for work I entertained looking at retail. I physically threw up at the thought (and at my jobs I’ve always done some customer service, it just that customer service was job adjacent). Also looked at going back to logscaling except the company wasn’t hiring in our area (this was about the time hubby got transferred out of our area). Made me quadruple down on getting resumes out the door. Frustrating thing was I was getting the interviews, just was never the “right fit” or second choice, until I was (finally) first choice.

              Liked by 1 person

            1. BIL’s wife is working retail at age 70 (something to do). OTOH she’s a bit of a “chatty Cathy”. May frustrate the retailer, but she does her work cheerfully. Abusive customers? She ignores. The customer can be as verbally abusive as they want. SIL pulls the “elderly abuse” clause, stops it cold (so I’m told). Besides what are the employer going to do? Fire her? SIL doesn’t care.

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      4. Also, there are a lot of people who are sick. Not colds. Really sick. Cancer/diverculitus/heart/gall bladder/doctor can’t figure it out. They’re missing work or retiring early or quitting because they’re just too sick to work.

        Liked by 1 person

        2. Hospitals were emptied out and all ‘elective’ procedures put on hold to accommodate the 100 million folks dying of The Dread COVID, and then they…didn’t. COVID turned out to be the common f*ing cold. Know the definition of an ‘elective procedure’? Means you won’t die today if it’s postponed. Meanwhile, 700,000 cancer patients weren’t getting their treatments and all manner of other serious but not immediately fatal conditions went untreated while the hospitals stood empty, losing money.

          Then thousands of doctors and nurses were fired for refusing to take unapproved, experimental inoculations mandated by politicians and bureaucrats that knew little to nothing about medicine. When the medical professionals would rather be fired than get the shots, might that not be a clue that there’s something rotten going on?

          All of this, on top of the decimation of the American medical establishment under 0bamacare. After 8 years of that nonsense there were fewer doctors and nurses, and hordes more bureaucrats, wondering why health care was deteriorating and costs were going up.
          ———————————
          The government can mandate stupidity, but they can’t make it not be stupid.

          Like

        3. I’m cynical enough my first thought reading that was to wonder how many got the “vaccines”.

          I wonder if this massive loss of people to the work world will have any effect upon those claiming we need to get rid of most of humanity to save the planet. Since they seem to assume that they will survive the purge, you’d think they notice that their world won’t keep working the way they want it to without all those nasty, brutish peons to keep the wheels greased and turning.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. I agree completely! I recently retired from a long career developing technology for a big big manufacturing & consumer products company. I retired early because I didn’t want to waste any more of my time – the management has become primarily feelings based word salad makers. Woke is believing your feelings are more important than the reality. That’s all fine when there are reality based people working to keep things going. But when the competent people give up, the wheels turn for a while but eventually momentum runs out and things just grind to a halt.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. This reminds me of an avalanche. Everything is still and unmoving, and then the side of the mountain cracks slowly, and the slide begins, and becomes unstoppable. You don’t want to be in the path of an avalanche. Perhaps neither do the parasites who thought they could steal an election and rule forever.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Sarah, your post crystallizes many of the thoughts that I’ve had lately. Yes, they are intellectually bankrupt, yes, they are lashing out, yes, their depravity is bottomless, and, yes, they are loosing it! I have a sense that they are now similarly positioned as Erich Honecker, the last party chief of the Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (DDR). The East German communists could only live off their lie for so long, then the gig was up! No one believed them any longer!

    President Biden Admin has reduced itself to the roll of provocateur, an agent now only able to sling shit on everyone and everything. Clearly, President Biden Admin is hoping to illicit an angry responses but it has no street currency in the real world and its relevancy is gone! Dumbfuckery is as dumbfuckery does, people are no longer responding to their idiocy!

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  17. Their current message has failed, the Bud Light and Target boycotts have got them shaking in their $5,000 a pair Italian leather loafers, not to mention the Disaster that is Disney. The Trump Bear isn’t playing how he is supposed to, and the curtain of main stream media is on fire. It’s not just the news media, their entertainment shows and celebritard shows are failing. Disney, Target or Bud Light, anyone of them by itself they could survive, but all together their own portfolio’s are starting to suffer. They sent untold Millions to BLM, that was then illegally shifted to the Democrat Party and into their own pockets. (BLM now stands for Buying Large Mansions) So BLM can’t raise a dime anymore. No funds for hi-jinx. All these large corporations won’t donate like they did before, their own recession they created to punish people for voting for Trump has destroyed their own monetary base.

    They need to find a new message. Make no mistake, this does not make them less dangerous, when the INSANE Liberals start losing they become even crazier and twice as dangerous. So yes, another false flag is coming, they may even try confiscating weapons, who knows they are looking for a spark. So, yes keep your powder dry and your eyes on a swivel. Pray for tomorrow and try and help each other today.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. There is a small but highly vocal effort at shit-stirring conservatives. The Left desperately needs “far right” protests that can be declared violent and suppressed. They need gunfire, casualties, bombings, etc. (Don’t take the bait)

    Part of the Lefts problem is that there was no massacre of the anti-free fools. It was a baited ambush, and good folks said “pass”. There was some amazingly gentile brush-back in some red zones, but folks were more than willing to let blue on Loon play out in blue cities.

    The best they could come up with to disenfranchise the Americans was 6 January, and that fizzled. They weep for the lost opportunity to 14th amendment any opposition.

    What I suspect might happen in a really good movie about a parallel world, is folks who have had enough will make dramatic lone-wolf -Left- wing fratricidal events. Imagine a nutcase who claims to be of the “shining people’s path democratic front for the collectivist way of Soviet freedom” throwing cream pies at “class traitors” on the hard left.

    Or such.

    “Butbutbut he voted Republican for 2o years!”

    “Sleeper! It’s how the commies roll”

    Back in Reality….

    None of their left-shit makes sense. And their fedsurrections and buzzcut boys are kinda obvious. Ever notice how much those blac bloc bozos hide their haircuts and build? Some small number of them move like pros. Especially the “waterboys”, “press”, and “first aid” folks. (Aka their cadre)

    Oops. Didn’t notice it? Once you know where to look you can see the puppet strings.

    Stay frosty folks. And always point out the betrayer on the left to each cannabilistic other.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. So just as a side note, a thought or two.

    Putin is not well. I mean, I hear things about cancer or other issues, but even just his heightened paranoia is a thing. What happens when he dies (whenever that occurs)?

    I’m honestly wondering if Russia is going to fracture into pieces. And that might be the best thing for it at this point. It has never had a modern culture or government. (Yeltsin was moving in the right direction, but once he was gone it reverted.)

    We all know that China is teetering. We don’t know if something will push it over, whether that’s a financial default, a population cratering as the One Child policy effects echo down, or the Three Gorges Dam collapses. If something does, we don’t know what happens next.

    Things are getting weird.

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    1. Both countries have well developed and well practiced ways for follow on dictators to continue with fratricide limited to the top players. China sometimes needs a peasant massacre to seal the deal….

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      1. Russia had the Romanov dynasty, and then it had the CPSU. Now it has neither.

        Look up ‘the Time of Troubles’ if you want to see what Russians do when a vacuum develops at the top. It can happen again.

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      2. I’m going to disagree on China. It falls apart a lot. The latest version of “unified” China didn’t even exist until World War 2 (Taiwan aside), and even then there’s a possibility that the fractures would have reemerged if not for the civil war.

        I don’t know how precarious things may or may not be in China. I doubt anyone knows. But it wouldn’t completely surprise me if a Beijing mistep caused the break up of the country again.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. China does fall apart regularly, There’s so much narrative BS about it being a whole under an emperor under the Mandate of Heaven, all BS.

          I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen again soon with warlords in the interior and the coastal cities going their own way, just like the last time and all the times before that.

          Things are really bad there and nothing seems to be working. Local Government’s defaulting is the current thing.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. The thing I wonder is, if China falls apart, would it be reported? Or would the state continue to hobble along as a legal entity on the global scale, that is effectively toothless on a regional scale?

            Liked by 1 person

            1. It would certainly be reported, but it wouldn’t show up on the maps. I base this on the last time China fell apart, after the 1911 revolution.

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            2. Well, you’ll find nothing but praise for the dear leader in the press now so maybe they wouldn’t notice. the press doesn’t notice much. on the other hand, too much money would be lost to hide it entirely.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. That’s true, but as long as mega corp A vs get their widgets shipped out of Port B from the factory from wherever, are they going to care whether they are dealing with the big government, or if all the official passing paperwork is stamped by the local warlord?

                As I understand it, the whole country is one legal compliance black hole already. Would it really be that different?

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                1. Yes. It would be unstable, as local, regional, and national warlords duked it out for control. And MegaCorp A, operating out of Port B, may not give a damn who the warlord is… but they care very much about INSTABILITY.

                  A lot of companies had started offshoring from China because of the supply and QC instability – it’s one thing to have cheap labour, but it’s another to have cheap dog food that intermittently poisons your customers. With the lockdown yoyo up-down-up-down-down-down-no word on when it’s coming up… That impacts their ability to forecast how many widget X’s will actually be made, and when they can actually ship them out.

                  And that’s got a ton of companies offshoring from China.

                  Similarly, constant “can we get to the port, or is it blocked in the power struggle? Can we put this infrastructure in with Warlord Monday, or will Warlord Tuesday bomb it?” is severe instability that makes companies flee.

                  See: the number of international megacorps willing to invest in Lebanon or Yemen.

                  Liked by 2 people

                2. That’s the rub, would the widgets shipmand at what cost? Think of Congo, there you end up having to bribe at every step rather than paying protection once and then taking delivery.

                  Authoritarian states work for foreign business because the bribes are centralized. Anarchy means you have to bribe everywhere at all levels, Very inefficient and expensive.

                  Anyway, China is no longer a low cost producer and they don’t have the ability to do high end manufacturing. Also, they’re stupid crooked, It’s like the government of Baltimore running a country. back in the day, the Tammany boys talked of honest graft and not sh-ting where you eat. China does not seem to have this concept and it’s starting to look more like Congo every day.

                  Liked by 2 people

            3. The map might still all be one color. But there would be chatter. China”s just too big to effectively hide something like that. And you’ve got The Great Translation Project which specifically looks for newsworthy tid-bits from China and translates them into English to get the word out about what’s really going on over there.

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        2. It regularly reshuffle and reconstituted, sometimes with an eight-figure blood sacrifice. But it’s been China, more or less, for a few thousand years.

          Their ability to project outwards is another matter entirely.

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          1. That’s like saying that Europe has been Europe, which it has with the coming and going of states, dynasties, governments, plagues, civil wars, union, disunion, the whole lot. Exactly the same thing happens in Chinese history with, perhaps, longer periods of political union. China also seems to have more of the “then everyone does” thing than anyone else though maybe the Russian could give them a race.

            Nope., the eternal, centralized, united China narrative is political and speaks to a state. Its entirely the invention of intellectuals ignoring the facts on the ground then misinterpreted by westerners who want very much to believe in it. It’s BS. intellectuals like simple narratives, especially ones that place them at the center.

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            1. Er, no. Europe has never been united politically (and isn’t now, despite the best posturings of the EUroweenies). Nor has it ever been 90% of a single ethnicity, as China is 90% Han. Comparing China to Europe is going several steps too far.

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              1. A quick note that what’s “Han” now wasn’t always “Han”. Over the millenia, the Han have absorbed neighboring ethnic groups much like how what is now “white” was once a variety of different European ethnicities.

                That still doesn’t make Europe like China in that respect. China in this instance would probably be more like the US, taking disparate ethnic groups and reclassifying them as “American” (albeit, the US does it in a much shorter time frame).

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                1. That’s the thing exactly.

                  In Europe, it is still a variety of different European ethnicities, and ‘white’ has comparatively little to do with it.

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                  1. Heck, Germany doesn’t get along with itself. The central government just papers over the cracks pretty well most of the time. But the paper’s starting to tear. (I was over there during some serious flooding, and Bavaria was asked to help Saxony deal with the expense. The Bavarians told Berlin to get lost. “We have yet to survey our own damage. We’re not paying for others’ problems until we know our own,” was one of the more diplomatic statements.)

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                    1. And don’t ask people from the Rhineland-Palatinate what they think about reunification unless you want to learn some colorful regional colloquialisms. The different states of Germany don’t get along as well a Berlin wants them to.

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              2. Obviously, I disagree. China has only been intermittently united and isn’t nearly as ethnically, politically or culturally homogenous as assumed. Further, Europe is much more ethnically politically and culturally homogenous than assumed. Rome is a good universal state too and lasted longer than the Chinese analogues.

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                1. Rome ruled less than half of Europe; less than a quarter if you include European Russia. That state of affairs ended permanently over 1,500 years ago.

                  China has been united more often than not for the last 2,200 years. In particular, from the Yuan conquest to the abdication of the Qing dynasty marked a period of over 600 years in which the country was almost continuously united, being divided only during the periods when one dynasty was driving out another. That’s longer than the Roman Empire existed as a single dominant polity.

                  By contrast, one of the things that Europeans have in common, that makes them ‘politically homogeneous’, is a stubborn insistence on remaining divided into small nations. The rulers who came closest to uniting Europe – not merely in post-Roman times, but in all of history – were Charles V, Napoleon, and Hitler, and each one’s attempt failed within his own lifetime.

                  It’s an extraordinarily weak comparison.

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                2. There used to be over 200 different regional styles of Chinese opera. That probably means that every ten or twenty traveling troupes had a radically different style that played well with their specific circuit of customers (ie, ancestral temple halls and the living clanmembers who hired them).

                  And that’s in “heartland” areas that were standard enough Han to want Chinese operas performed to appease their ancestors.

                  Let’s not even get into how many languages there are in China outside those heartland areas.

                  China does okay-ish as one country, but it also has a history of doing okay-ish as separate countries.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. Eh… In fairness, there are a lot of rural towns in England where you could be forgiven for thinking that you were listening to foreign immigrants after hearing some of the locals talk…

                    China uses a purely hieroglyphic writing system where each character represents a word. I don’t know of any other modern writing system does the same (Japan uses both Chinese whole word characters and syllable characters). It has a great advantage in that you can cram a lot of text into a very small amount of page space. But at the same time, it also means that you can’t “sound out” words like you can with a syllable or alphabet system. So you end up with something like Cantonese and Mandarin which use the same writing system, and presumably identical grammar systems (because otherwise the writing system would get out of whack). But the actual spoken words are completely different.

                    Imagine that taking place across the entirety of China, and you’ve got a rough idea of what was going on.

                    I would hazard a guess that the local government offices knew Mandarin, and the schools for budding bureaucrats taught Mandarin. But the locals spoke their own dialect, which was essentially a completely different spoken language.

                    I’ve think I’ve heard Mao wanted to introduce an alphabet system for Chinese writing. And as much as I despise the man, I think this would have been a good idea. But for whatever reason, it never happened.

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                    1. True, Wade-Giles has severe shortcomings. But is Pinyin enough of an improvement to justify the enormous effort of conversion? I think not, and it appears the Taiwanese, and most of the Chinese diaspora, agree.

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                    3. Chinese schoolchildren are required to learn 3500 characters, though most apparently know roughly a couple thousand more. The HSK exams, which test Chinese language knowledge for foreigners, require knowing 2663. The Taiwan Ministry of Education published a dictionary in 2004 that had over 106,000 unique characters in it, though the majority of them are out of use.

                      I don’t know whether that includes Traditional vs Simplified, though I suspect that there aren’t that many Simplified when compared to the overall numbers

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                  2. Europe has never been one country, and has a history of doing a great deal better than okay-ish as separate countries. I still maintain that it’s silly to say Europe and China are similar in that way.

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  20. I went out for Chinese yesterday, and found I was seated facing one of the few tv’s outside of an airport still showing CNN. The programming was the propaganda you’d expect – a push for gun control, and more scare stuff, and Trump bad. But the ads were interesting… all the ad slots were either prescription drug ads, or fake-PSA’s from “council for a gun-free america” or “council for kid’s safety” or whatever dark-money shielding name they use to push their propaganda now. Three out of every 4 were about keeping your guns in safes in case your kids found them.

    The propaganda aside, I note that there were no beer ads, no auto ads, no vacation ads, no local programming ads… They’re running on drug money and dark money alone. The market has deserted them.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Quack quack….

      Rent seeking is next. “Media market preservation act” or such to subsidize papers, news outlets, etc, that support the regime. (Thus the recent apostasy of Fox News. They want the “free” gravy) “until the market stabilizes”/” emergency passes”/”squirrel”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The Canadian mass media are already subsidized by their government.

        You can bet the pols in DC are slavering for something similar.

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    2. The same is true for the 1730 national news. One or two local ads, maaaayabe, and those are for roofers and water-damage repairs. Everything else is drug-of-the-month and bathroom remodeling for senior citizens.

      Liked by 1 person

  21. …a semblance of reasonableness…

    Just the other day I saw someone somewhere (probably on Minds) lament that there was a side when both sides were reasonable, unlike today. And I should have commented “Try telling that to the ghost of Barry Goldwater,” but didn’t.

    As for the silence of the weasels, the only conjecture I have is that those at the levers of power are going to bring the hammer down everywhere they possibly can. The indictment of Trump is so flagrantly unconstitutional that, if they don’t start instilling fear in the rest of the population, they know they cannot avoid backlash. So the weasels are making sure they cannot possibly be connected with Those People who are about to be subject to very sincere and heartfelt political persecution.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Good luck to the “levers of power.” We wish them the best. Because they have no idea what will happen when they pull that cr*p.
      To be fair, I don’t either, I just know if it will be interesting.
      If this site goes dark…. well, I’m sure each of you has an idea. I don’t know nor want to know what that idea is. But I’m sure you have it. And so on, for every site on the internet. Mine is one of the smallest and calmer sites, at that.
      Just one of you who knows my address, please come collect the cats, and remember Havey needs kidney meds.

      Liked by 1 person

  22. My guess is that the divisions in the Left are coming to a head. Some of their factions want to provoke a general uprising, confident that the government can easily crush any resistance (because the government has fighter jets and nuclear weapons). They’re willing and even eager to do so by crossing the one well-known red line and implementing national gun confiscation with door-to-door searches.

    Other factions on the Left secretly are terrified of a general armed uprising, and are still determined to finesse things and somehow gradually and sneakily disarm us without setting us off.

    One of the Left’s powers is to project an image of lockstep unity and solidarity. But that’s an illusion.

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  23. So… my guess is that, much like what has been said in different ways by those above, the current process supported by TPTB is fragmenting and parts of it are in danger of falling off. All of the “tricks” to inflame something or to make the administration look like it is doing the “Right Thing” have not panned out. Many of the elements “they” have counted on are also falling apart and not going along with the message – example:
    https://www.foxnews.com/us/liberal-mainline-united-methodists-5000-congregations-leave-amid-arguments-over-sex-gender Add things like that in with the market failure of the mentioned companies and you’ve got a trend.

    It may be that the huge silent majority are getting up off the couch. They may have not actually said anything much but there is movement against all the crazy. Companies are likely to be brought to heel by investors concerned about making investments work financially and don’t give a crap about social issues – they are in it to make a buck not to “save” any social issues.

    I’ve also noticed that the comments fishing for crazy are down and it seems to be all over. There are some of the conservatives that blog who have been de-platformed only to show up a bit later on another web site which is protected from left social influence and is happy to make a dollar or two with their new clients. It seems those oh-so-very-smart types that think they are in charge are beginning to find they are not and it has them scared and in some cases in denial so the push is on to glorious victory which will be (for them) a pile of ash. Eh, I’ve been wrong a lot but this one has the feel of something starting and it could move very quickly.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’m seeing a lot of “I’ve been banned from [Twitter/U-tube/Instagram/und so weiter] and I’ve switched to Gab. It’s great to be able to speak freely!” Not sure about other right-leaning sites. I don’t do much social media.

      Andrew Torba has posted that the lefties are doing what they can to disrupt conversations on the site, but at least for the few people I follow, there’s a pretty active BS filter among the commenters. (I lurk. Deal.)

      It looks like expectations are that any “right wing outrage” will have been a false flag to try to get incitement/cancellations. I am a bit suspicious about that curiously located tanker truck fire that disabled part of I-95. That’s a different strategy, unless pigs grew wings and it really was an accident.

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      1. The crash out here that took out an I-40 bridge was an accident. The driver of the truck had a fatal heart attack and the truck went off the bridge, into the abuttment, and caught fire. It carried a load of tires. I saw the smoke as I left Day Job (is out in country). Totaled that half of the interstate for three-four months until they got a replacement put in place.

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  24. It was being neighborly that built this country, not Coke, or any other multi-national. Maybe Sears Roebuck, they certainly supplied the goods used to build it. And it wasn’t built by slaves or for white people. It was built by neighbors helping each other no matter their color. Neighbors from all over the world. The melting pot works, if you keep the assholes from stirring the pot. A little stirring is fine, keeps the pot from boiling over. Be good neighbors, that’s how we beat them.

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  25. Offered for your consideration, on why the jackals are hiding:

    https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/06/12/facta-non-verba/

    “The Department of National Defence (DND) is claiming that a senior Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) officer “wasn’t participating” in an Ottawa pro-gender ideology protest alongside far-left Antifa extremists despite videos suggesting otherwise.

    Livestream footage shows Engineering Officer Pete Davidson, who is also a Joint Task Force 2 operator, standing in a crowd of masked pro-gender ideology protestors at Friday’s demonstration.”

    For those who don’t know, Joint Task Force 2, aka JTF2, is the Canadian Forces super secret ninja squad.

    The jackals are hiding because wolves are out.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “What would make them fall silent?”

      Either wolves, or if my above post turns out to be one idiot in the chain of command (as it easily could, random idiots in the officer corps is a feature of the Canadian military), their paymasters stopped paying. That could really be more likely.

      I’d watch to see if the pro-China posts slow down at vile hive of scum and villainy. If they do, could be the money is running out.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. I suppose I might take one for the team, as a special request, seeing as Chris Chupik has abandoned that post.

          I’ll go get my hip waders and radiation-proof suit on….

          Liked by 1 person

            1. I report back, Fearless Leader.

              Surprisingly little action over there. They don’t seem to have burned a witch in weeks, they’re not even trying to pretend Disney isn’t a garbage fire.

              And now I must burn my hazmat suit.

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      1. Nah. Disco. Its MegoFarce!

        (Grin)

        (Does anyone even remember those cheesy “theme from” versions….)

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      1. From what I’ve seen and heard, the arsonists came out once the fires were already going. They thought it was a perfect opportunity to burn out people that they did not like and get away with it.

        Some of my in-laws live on a reserve in northern Alberta, right where the first wave of fires was worst. They caught one of the local arseholes red-handed setting fire to the place, because he wanted the Indians to burn and wasn’t leaving it to chance. The reserve wound up losing its water treatment plant, and though the residents have been sent back home, they are now in a very bad way.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. You can see the fires in Quebec have a clustering pattern, and for the most part are near roads. Lightning doesn’t do that. Plus the cops have arrested people already.

          The Ontario fires don’t look the same on the map, and there are far fewer of them. Same forest, same weather, same fire fighting.

          In years past I know of cases where locals started fires so they’d have a summer job, this seems larger scale and more determined.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. years past I know of cases where locals started fires so they’d have a summer job
            ……………..

            Has in the past. Won’t say it won’t happen now, but one feature in the US that put a stop to that, wildfire at any rate, is that locals aren’t called on to fight wildfire anymore (might be called on as volunteers, and generally not on fire lines, but volunteering does not equate to money). It is specialized companies now.

            Liked by 2 people

          2. I’m told that happened several years ago near here, and the local fire suppression companies (ie, for-profit ones) got polygraphed.

            One caveat on locations. Fires can be located by roads because that’s where somedood was passing by and seeing smoke. Not always somedood with an improvised ignition device. (I was told about one sure-fire (excuse me) method. Ain’t saying any more.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. That is indeed a difficulty. When there’s heavy smoke for hundreds of miles around, you can’t necessarily spot every fire from the air; and to spot them from the ground, you pretty much have to be in clear terrain or on a road. I would not trust the fire maps to be complete.

              Liked by 1 person

          3. I was told by someone who ought to know that the ‘89 fire season in Alaska was slow because the locals were making more money washing rocks and seabirds in Prince William Sound than they would have fighting fires. Thus no incentive to get ‘frisky’.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Y’know, if we’d make arson a capital crime again, it would go a long way to discouraging “firefighters” from drumming up business that way.

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              1. Rumor has it that the local tribes have an effective way of dealing with caught arsonists. Disable said creature (whether or not the disabling would eventually prove to be fatal is moot) and leave him at the head of the fire. Works really well with the super hot fires.

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            2. Beyond the profit motive, the Alaskan example would also apply if a large number of the idiots who accidentally negligently start fires in the forest were gainfully employed away from the forest.

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  27. I take this statement for prophecy:

    “The great pit which hath been digged for the destruction of men shall be filled by those who digged it”. (1 Ne 14:3)

    And who are these diggers? In my opinion and no particular order, they are those who preach their own wisdom and their own learning and call for the censorship of those who disagree with them. They are those who apply one standard of justice for themselves and another for for their political enemies. They are the Epstein client list. They are those who manipulate, massage, and fortify elections. They are the professional liars of talk shows and political interest groups. They are those who foment and then profit from panic over pandemics. They are those who would shut down electric power, transportation, and agriculture in the name of climate change. They are the bigots who preach favoritism and privilege in the name of equality. They are the libertines and the groomers.

    I believe God has arranged for them to eventually do each other in. Mostly what I need to do is be sure I’m not one of them.

    Liked by 2 people

  28. Hmm. Now I know for certain things are weird.

    Special K wanted a belly rub. It didn’t turn into the usual instant death match. She actually wanted pets, not Venus Cat Trap mayhem.

    (Looks around for Rod Serling…)

    Liked by 2 people

    2. Leftroids shilling for Socialized Medicine: “Death Panels are a Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory! There will never be Death Panels!”

      Leftroids after imposing Socialized Medicine: “Death Panels are a Good Thing! Get in line, you Right-Wing Insurrectionists!”

      Liked by 1 person

  30. Let’s say your job is to monitor the Intertubes for “insurrection” (define as you like). Leaving aside the wheat/chaff issue, how can you not know how these things work?
    If there is going to be something insurrection-y, it will be spontaneous and triggered by something completely unexpected. Data will not help because there are no previous events with data to form an expected pattern. For example, there were no blogs posts leading up to the Whiskey Rebellion.
    Fred the Fed is just collecting his paycheck, not doing anything useful.

    As for the current silence, they’re all busy doing something Pride Month related, while wearing rainbow ribbons, no doubt.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. It’s hard For Fred the Fed, to jump around and be noisy in costume after he’s been sodomized at a Pride Parade. Sarcasm… maybe.

      Liked by 2 people

  31. Your mileage may vary; but I don’t think we’re as much of an underdog as our so-called “leaders” believe. I just think they haven’t really got our attention yet… And they should really quit while they’re still breathing. Because they may be able to get away if they start running now.

    Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

    David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

    As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

    So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

    David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword.

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      1. “…there would be a rifleman behind every blade of grass…”

        Probably apocryphal, but absolutely x-ring accurate.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. “‘Twas only by favour of mine,” quoth he,” ye rode so long alive:
          “There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree,
          “But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.
          “If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low,
          “The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row.
          “If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high,
          “The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly.”

          — J. Rudyard Kipling, “The Ballad of East and West”
          (as quoted, IIRC, by Niven & Pournelle in “Lucifer’s Hammer”)

          Liked by 1 person

          1. And I’m fairly sure that our brownshirts aren’t up to the reply as the Colonel’s son did:

            “Lightly answered the Colonel’s son: “Do good to bird and beast,
            But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast.
            If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away,
            Belike the price of a jackal’s meal were more than a thief could pay.
            They will feed their horse on the standing crop,
            their men on the garnered grain,
            The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are slain.
            But if thou thinkest the price be fair, — thy brethren wait to sup,
            The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn, — howl, dog, and call them up!
            And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack,
            Give me my father’s mare again, and I’ll fight my own way back!” “

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Oh, I won’t survive—and I won’t be carrying sword. spear, pike, or gun—but it might be short and sharp with a bitter aftertaste if/when America is won in a fight. If may just be that, unlike Lincoln, the leader at that time does not seek reconciliation but retribution, and what we want takes a long time to return…

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  32. Most, if not all, (though probably just most) of the agents-provocateurs were paid for by Media Matters or one of their sister companies. Used to be easy to identify them when they first started, but those companies literally had a room with dozens, if not hundreds, of people paid to go troll right wing (and other) websites.

    My guess is that a LOT of those people are now happy to sit at home and collect a pay check for doing nothing. Because all of them were pretty worthless shits to start with.

    So that means whatever people they have left, have to be carefully aimed where they’ll do the most damage. Mostly middle of the road (and easily swayed) places like PowerLine and a lot of the PJ media sites. All of the never Trumper sites. And a lot of the newer bigger, fancier places. Like say twitter which is now allowing Tucker Carlson to speak his mind (THE HORROR!).

    As for what I think is coming? No idea. This country is running strictly on inertia now. Has been for probably twenty years. The only question is, how big of a fly-wheel does our economy and society have? Things ARE starting to fall apart, hence why you see a LOT of middle of the road government types starting to push back against things like gun control, because they want to be able to shoot back too. Guns are coming back into vogue because EVERYONE knows that soon we are going to NEED THEM.

    We have too many governors now who ignore the rule of law and just do whatever they feel like. They are kings now. Look at the Mayor of NYC. He believes he’s a king now too. They are acting like kings, ruling by decree, forcing through ridiculously unconstitutional laws and we’re seeing people get 10 year jail sentences for exercising their 1st amendment rights.

    When I talk to some eternal optimists I know and their current line is now ‘Just as long as it holds together for two more years, I’ll be okay.’
    Not ‘oh, it isn’t going to happen’.
    Nope.
    They’re putting a number on it.
    Says a lot right there.

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      1. Mine didn’t raise no fools either, she gave my brother to the next door neighbors…lol

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      2. Of course, all the Leftards are saying See!!! The rally was tiny so Trump has no support!! REEEEEE!!!!!!

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  34. If Trump gets convicted on those mishandling of classified information charges, I predict that someone is going to start enforcing that law out of court against Herr Biden and the other ne’er-do-wells of the Democrat party.

    Never mind that the FBI committed a felony crime leaving alleged classified information unsecured. Yes, if Trump did have classified information, the FBI deliberately committed a felony crime allowing him to retain it until they got around to issuing a warrant. By law, they were required to immediately secure the information.

    Of course, this isn’t even a double standard. If Trump unlawfully had classified information, even though he had the authority, and de facto mass unclassified it; Senator and VP Biden did not. You can not legally ignore the Fauxident’s crimes to prosecute the former President for imaginary crimes.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yep pull the clearances of every last agent and manager who agreed to that tactic NOW. That is a clear security violation and violation of their duties as clearance holders. Of course Bidens Corvette, Hilary’s Server and the files found being stored for later transfer to Obama’s presidential library have the same issue, we may be able to clear the force in one fell swoop.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Supposedly there’s an audio recording of Trump talking about some of the documents that he kept (including the “Milley Invasion of Iran” plans), and mentioning that he didn’t declassify them while he was in office.

      But IIRC the news media has only heard about this audio recording, and hasn’t actually listened to it. So the rule about salt and rumors applies.

      Like

        1. There’s a younger conservative guy who was doing deep fakes of Biden – as in, Biden announcing he was resuming the draft. I think it’s a mistake: now the Left can say, “You did it first!”
          But the more I see of the guy on Twitter, the more I wonder if he is, in fact, a provocateur masquerading as a populist.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. No idea where I saw this, but somebody noted that the President talking about Classified X actually means that X was just declassified. Others have noted that the bureaucracy does not legally have the power to override the President’s actions on declassification, citing the Presidential Records Act and IIRC, that widely disregarded document, the Constitution.

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      3. There is a Bill Clinton SCOTUS ruling (keywords sock drawer) that established the POTUS has absolutely authority on records. He can put the nuke codes or whatever in his sock drawer. No one, absolutely no one, can question POTUS on it.

        He can say whatever he wants post hoc. Doesn’t change he could take/show/boast.

        Settled law.

        That boob prosecutor in Miami is raising on a busted flush.

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        2. You are making an assumption: that the law and the Constitution mean anything to the Biden* Regime. Based on recent evidence, that assumption is unwarranted.
          ———————————
          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?”

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          1. A Trump conviction and orange suit for the orange man would be national level evidence sufficient to begin a revolution. Technically, the Jan 6 detainees fit that bill, but there’s enough FUD that the media have an easy task to paint them all as violent terrorists, even though it was only about a half dozen people who were the violent ones (plus the two dozen or more embedded government operatives inciting them.)

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            1. Ain’t it funny how none of the actual violent rioters shown on video attacking the Capitol Police or smashing in the Capitol Building doors and windows are being held in solitary confinement without trial 2 1/2 years later? The ones dressed for a riot before they ever got there, handing out improvised weapons from backpacks? How none of them were ever arrested? How the Fibbies somehow never bothered even looking for them?

              Lots of funny stuff going on these days…
              ———————————
              The U.S. Capitol is OUR house. Congresscritters are just the help.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Ain’t it funny how none of the actual violent rioters shown on video attacking the Capitol Police or smashing in the Capitol Building doors and windows are being held in solitary confinement without trial 2 1/2 years later?

                The Iowa guy on video was sentenced like a year ago, and the florida guy with a fire extinguisher (although that one screams PLANT)….

                https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/owa-man-sentenced-prison-assaulting-law-enforcement-officer-during-jan-6-capitol-breach

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    3. ” You can not legally ignore the Fauxident’s crimes to prosecute the former President for imaginary crimes.”

      Sure you can. A law is only as good as its enforcement, and selective enforcement has been used for years.

      Like

  35. OH and as an utter aside there are rumors of the existence of a discord. If I want to apply where do I send my info?

    Like

      1. Will the bookpimping at outlook dot com address suffice? I don’t think I remember seeing your hotmail address go by.

        Like

  36. The most optimistic take is that maybe they finally realized you aren’t an easy mark and left for greener pastures.

    Like

  39. hmmm, another option for the lack of provocateurs:

    We know that Russia likes to stir the American pot in service of their delusions, right?

    We also know that Russia has absolutely catastrophic personnel shortage problems.

    What are the odds that many of their trolls are sitting in ditches either crying into their vodka, or scattered in multiple pieces from the last artillery strike?

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Or they have had to get a real job because their former wages are now going to buy ammunition for the front?

      You may well be on to something.

      Like

  41. Another thought about the lack of provocateurs. Big crypto companies are in trouble: https://www.thestreet.com/cryptocurrency/coinbase-and-binance-are-in-big-trouble-one-of-them-could-collapse

    I’d imagine the best way to pay for international critters would be crypto.

    There are likely office buildings filled with employees making snarky comments. A certain number are likely enslaved. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62792875

    I would say it’s like a dystopian novel, but it exists. But consider that some of the annoying ones may be acting under severe duress.

    Like

  42. (my earlier comment is in moderation. This is an attempt to remove the words the filter doesn’t like.) Another thought about the lack of provocateurs. Big (electronic token) companies are in trouble.

    I’d imagine the best way to pay for international critters would be (online funny money).

    There are likely office buildings filled with employees making snarky comments. A certain number are likely enslaved. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62792875

    I would say it’s like a dystopian novel, but it exists. But consider that some of the annoying ones may be acting under severe duress.

    Liked by 1 person

  43. Honestly, I’m coming to the unwelcome conclusion that the radical left, the true wokie fringe, simply are not going to back down and back off until they fear us more than we fear the consequences of standing up against them. Now what that fear means? Physical fear, fear of cancellation, fear of…who knows? I don’t. But they clearly will not respond to the traditional conservative way of white papers and position briefings and PragerU five-minute videos (can’t stand those). I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I fear it will be kinetic, and sudden, and most probably uncontrollable when it happens. And both us AND the wokies will rue the day they stepped over the line. None of us want it to happen, but I think it will, someday.

    “Oderint dum metuant.”

    “Let them hate, as long as they fear.”

    Liked by 1 person

  44. Unexpected quiet from the left? Makes me wonder about Biden’s health. How’d you like a President Harris with enough time till the election to really demonstrate incompetence? If I were a dem operative, I’d be looking for the door out.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. In that case, they’ll want to get an, “unambitious technocrat,” nominated to the Vice Presidency as soon as possible. A straight shooter, competent but without ambition, purely a caretaker until the election. You know, someone like James Comey.
      I can’t imagine them liking the thought of President McCarthy.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The Reader notes that that individual has to get a majority in both houses of Congress. Pretty sure the Reader’s popcorn supply isn’t adequate to watch that.

        Like

  45. Something wicked this way comes indeed.
    Sort of troublesome really. But honestly nothing short of Aliens landing on the whitehouse lawn would really surprise me at this point.

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    1. honestly nothing short of Aliens landing on the whitehouse lawn would really surprise me at this point.
      ……………….

      Actually. I might go “Wow? Really!” pause “They could have picked somewhere better.” Shrug. “Whatever.”

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      1. If the landing doesn’t go perfectly, they might squash the White House by accident.

        Very considerate of the aliens, I say, to choose a spot where little errors like that won’t damage anything valuable.

        Liked by 1 person

        2. What was the meme?

          Aliens: “We have come to destroy your leadership.”
          US Citizen: “Okay. Here is my list. And. Thank you.”
          Aliens: “?????????????” Backs slowly away and departs for universe parts unknown. Earth’s solar system is now marked the “No go zone.”

          Liked by 1 person

  46. I made a reply on this days ago and word press apparently disappeared it.
    Oh how I hate wordpress.

    Like

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