This Is The Year Of the White Rabbit (Reprise)

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I don’t remember chasing no rabbit, or falling down a rabbit hole, and my name for certain sure isn’t Alice. (I changed that!)

So how in the name of that is holy and unholy did I find myself in a world in which the United Arab Emirates — the United Arab Emirates, land of medieval oligarchs in robes — are coming down on the side of free speech against a Western Country: Liberté, égalité, FAFO-ité.

And speaking of France, there is this: We’re now 48 days afterwards and Macron and his government are still running the country, they’ve basically ignored the election results which is unprecedented in the history of the French 5th republic.

And here? Here? I find myself on the same side as RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard? Seriously?

Of course the truth is that the Junta in power has gone so far down their own communist rabbit hole that they can only win a non-crooked election in North Korea.

But of course, they have no intention of winning a non-crooked election, which is why Like I said, Kamala Harris might as well not even exist. This is a campaign run through the media and by press release.

It’s Potemkin elections all the way down. Like this.

And of course they’ve been stuck for a while in “Verdict first, trial afterwards.”

Seriously, people. I don’t know when the tea with the Mad Hatter comes into this, but I’m very afraid getting out of this one while possible and to an extent already baked in the cake, it won’t be as easy as waking up and realizing they’re all a bunch of playing cards.

(Though they are, and in the hands of the stupidest cabal ever, to boot.)

189 thoughts on “This Is The Year Of the White Rabbit (Reprise)”

    3. Back in the stone(d) age, Jefferson Airplane was playing at the U of Redacted. This was when <i>Bark</i> was out, so long after “White Rabbit” was a hit. Somebody kept yelling for it, and Grace Slick made a comment that they wouldn’t; it was like peanut butter every day. (Yum, but I got her point.) So no.

      A couple of weeks later, the Moody Blues were playing. Some smartass started yelling for “White Rabbit”, confusing the hell out of the band and getting a huge laugh from the audience.

      Good times.

      Like

      2. I get it, but, you know, when you are running a restaurant and people keep ordering peanut butter sandwiches, you don’t argue with them, you just sell them peanut butter sandwiches.

        I think, perhaps somewhat typically of the entertainment industry (cough Disney cough), Grace was a bit confused as to who is the customer in that relationship.

        Like

        1. Agreed, though I could take or leave Wabbit.

          This was when they were inflicting featuring Papa John Screech* on the violin, and the cognitive dissonance of him playing along for White Rabbit might have caused the mother of all craters in the county.

          [Muses about a couple of shadow mages and their Familiars at the concert. ‘Tis the wrong blog (for values), but the thought of Lelia, Andre, Tay, and Rodney dealing with post-acid rock amuses me. Would Grace survive the encounter?]

          ((*)) No, I wasn’t a fan. Rather liked other bands with violins, like the unknown-ish(?) Curved Air.

          Like

          1. I could see a group reaching the point where they’re so sick and tired of people asking for *that song*, and burned out from playing it constantly, that it starts to seep into their performance. In that case I think they might be justified in saying, “Sorry, not this time.”

            Like

    4. Free your head!

      I’m not a fan of Jefferson Airplane, but I did notice that “White Rabbit” seemed to suddenly and universally be dropped from the radio playlists.
      I suspect The Who are next.
      (And why, oh why, couldn’t it have been Fleetwood Mac?)

      Like

      2. I was surprised Fleetwood Mac stayed on the “classic rock” playlists after South Park did Stevie Nicks as a goat – once you hear it you can’t unhear it.

        Like

      3. I see your radio playlist and raise you a 20Gb MP3 directory. I get to listen to what I like and if Gordon Lightfoot is followed by Steeleye Span, followed by Tom Lehrer, that’s my problem, not anybody elses. (Listening choi9ces are much more subdued when $SPOUSE is riding along, but 99.9% of my driving is solo.)

        Like

        1. 20? Is that all? :-D Mine just passed 70 GB. 50 days, 14 hours and almost 39 minutes if I was to play the whole collection straight through.

          I use AAC instead of MP3 because it’s a better codec, but the files are about the same size, just under 1 MB per minute.

          Like

          1. Ripped mine and most of $SPOUSE’s CDs, plus one or two odd albums downloaded (Palette Swap Ninja’s <i>Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans<i>, set to a somewhat recognizable set of tunes by those Beatle guys. :) )

            I have 500 or so LPs, but haven’t tried to record them to mp3 yet. The floor is too bouncy in the house, but the shop/barn is solid. Just need the free time (yeah, right) to set it up and more free time to record.

            Still need to bring up the turntable. It’s been sitting boxed since 2003, and I might need a belt or some spindle lube. Linn Sondek–rather better than my ears nowadays, but that’s life.

            I think I have the proper software to reduce the stream to songfiles.

            Like

        2. About 20.5GB here too; about 5100 items (mostly songs, plus comedy acts, suites). More than I need for entertainment.😁

          Like

        3. You mean not everybody has their MP3 players on shuffle go from Vivaldi to Slayer (nothing like seeing someone’s reaction when it goes from one of the parts of The Four Seasons to Chemical Warfare)

          Like

        1. Starship was later, though I think there was some fuzziness about Starship* and Airplane both being in existence at the same time. It got pretty confusing in the early-mid 70s. Kind of like an acid freak’s brain.

          ((*)) Faint memory says Starship started as a project/concept album with David Crosby in the mix. I was getting more interested in ProgRock at the time, and wasn’t paying that much attention to Jefferson [Starship|Airplane]. OTOH, I have the albums into the ’70s. Haven’t played them in decades. LPs used to be cheap.

          Like

          1. I have CDs by Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship (without the Jefferson).

            Lawyers were involved, is all I know. All I care to know, for that matter.

            Like

  6. I think that sadly given the French constitution this is NOT a coup or illegal until October 1st.

    My reasoning flows from a quick look at the French Constitution (English translation here https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/sites/default/files/as/root/bank_mm/anglais/constiution_anglais_oct2009.pdf ). It seems to show little on how or when power should be handed over. Parliament is in session from October to June so at present it is not in session. The ill-defined Government (Title III, it feels like it intentionally codifies the Deep state bureaucrats as part of the system) is actually in control in conjunction with the Prime Minister. The Government as far as I can tell is NOT elected or related to the Parliament. The PM or the Government MAY call Parliament into emergency session but doesn’t have to.

    Looks like this was Macron’s play all along. A July 4 election meant he can legally futz around until October 1 when Parliament must assemble and select a new PM. The “Government” is supposed to be running things anyway and isn’t changing. Tradition may have had it that after the election power was handed over to the new party/coalition. I suspect most previous elections were when the Parliament was in session so the change was effectively instantaneous. The French constitution is ambiguous/silent on this rather important point. Compare and contrast with US Constitution Article II Paragraph one and subsequent changes in Amendments XII, XX and XXV, and the explicit exchange of control there)

    Macron appears to be using a loophole to hold control and perhaps tweak the coalitions. The parties already played games in the runoffs to make sure the Rally party didn’t get a majority I believe this is Macron’s plan B in case Rally still got a majority that he is now exploiting to his own advantage. To put it in language Macron would understand : C’est un connard et un français, quelle surprise! (He’s an *sshole and he’s French, what a surprise)

    Side Note: Honestly I think my cat could eat parchment and puke up a better constitution than France wrote in ’58/’59. It is 44 pages long and SAYS nothing. I have always felt the US Constitution and Bill of Rights were elegant but perhaps underspecified in places. I now take the underspecified part back, any one of the framers of the US Constitution had more brains in his pinky nail than all the idiots that wrote the current French constitution. The whole Government section is supposed to define an executive I think but what it does is enshrine the existing bureaucracy with no obvious check or balance. That is a seriously stupid idea. As far as I can tell in the late ’50s the French essentially wrote 1984 into law. May G*d have mercy on them because reality won’t.

    Liked by 1 person

        2. On an unrelated note, that reminds me of a question I’ve been wondering about for a little while. Back in the 1930’s, the Nazis called Germany “the Third Reich”. What were they considering to be the first and second empires?

          Like

          2. Basically the First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire and the Second Reich was the German Empire (the one that ended with WWI).

            Like

      3. Unconvinced we’re in a position to point fingers. Like all those Brits and Americans who used to sneer at the Italians or sometimes the Indians for their corrupt governments and are now discovering the beams in their own governments’ eyes.

        Like

    3. The way it was explained to me was that the current French constitution was written for De Gaulle’s benefit and at his insistence. It’s a dictator for life constitution that’s outlived the original dictator for life.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Yes. Like some of the suggested revisions to the Articles of Confederation for the US that assumed George Washington would get into office and live forever, and this would be a Good Thing. Or that the revisions should be done based on him and his character, and that every successor would be exactly like that.

        Like

      2. That would be the 4th Republic which had a strong presidency instituted in 1946. The Current 5th republic from 1959 is a far more parliamentary model with the powers of the president of the republic enhanced in some cases. It appears that the President SHOULD appoint a prime minister when the current prime minister presents his resignation (Title II article 8). But I believe we come back to the issue of the parliament not being in session

        AHA Article 12 of Title II covers this

        The President of the Republic may, after consulting the Prime Minister and the
        Presidents of the Houses of Parliament, declare the National Assembly dissolved.
        A general election shall take place no fewer than twenty days and no more than
        forty days after the dissolution.
        The National Assembly shall sit as of right on the second Thursday following its
        election. Should this sitting fall outside the period prescribed for the ordinary
        session, a session shall be convened by right for a fifteen-day period.
        No further dissolution shall take place within a year following said election.

        So it looks like the Parliament (the new one) should have been called into session on July 25th and sat for 15 days to chose said Prime Minister. Sounds like Mssr Macron has been a naughty boy, but calling him on it looks hard (their impeachment is even harder to get than ours). The other detail is that you can’t dissolve the government again for a year from 7/4.

        I was right my cat could puke up a better constitution. And yes Mssr. Macron is an *sshole but it looks like there’s little they can do about that until his term is up.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Ah okay. Hard to keep track of all the Republics.

          I had heard that there was an initial ballot in the July sessions by some speshul group of 100 delegates to decide on a Prime Minister nominee, and 110 votes were cast so….

          Like

          1. Or in a more Frenchified vein “Aristoi a la lanterne”. I wonder wher thos folks with the yellow jackets went to? It appears their country has need of them.

            Like

              1. Thank you that was not a typo that was my memory playing tricks with me. Aristoi is clearly the Greek plural not the French singular. Some days I miss the memory I once had.

                Liked by 1 person

                    1. “Sir! The oil is boiling!”

                      “Excellent work. We’re ready for that far flung fishy. Get the tartar sauce boys, we’re feasting tonight!”

                      Like

  9. Thing is, Jack Smith still isn’t legally a Special Counsel. So, anything he does is legally null and void.

    Also, that federal grand jury was compromised into committing an act of fraud. (Making Jack Smith actually a criminal.)

    I have to agree that arresting the CEO of a communications application because some totalitarian nation doesn’t like the fact that he’s not cracking down on use by suspected criminals to their satisfaction is indeed destruction of freedom of speech. And yes, it’s somewhat ironic that the UAE is protesting this. (I spent months in the UAE providing support during the Gulf War. You do NOT want to piss off the ruling families in any of the Emirates – those nations are not democracies. On the other hand, they don’t have any problem with troublesome illegal immigrants.)

    Like

    1. I thought it was very interesting that every legal analysis of his revised filing skipped right the heck over the part about there being a court ruling that Smith does not have, and never had, any legal authority to do what he’s doing.

      Sort of like Macron, then: Just keep dancing until the bouncers throw you out.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Looking forward to the next administration prosecuting his ass.

      It is a daily struggle not to go over to “Don’t care who wins as long as the correct people go to the wall.” It is increasingly obvious why the French Revolution went so bloody. Not to mention the various upheavals of Rome.

      not -quite-….

      Like

      1. Don’t care who wins as long as the correct people go to the wall.

        At this point, that’s baked in. The bureaucrats have already signaled that Trump will have to hire bucellarii to enforce his policies, and they’re certainly going to conduct a Terror if they win.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Some foolish idiot might try a “terror”. Then they learn what real terror is. The kind that doesn’t make announcements, or demands, or have press releases or banners. You cant take out its leadership because it doesn’t really have one. Like punching a lake. Lots of actions taken, but no real effect.

          (grin) Just spitballing ideas for that novel I may someday write….lol…

          Like

            1. No doubt they will, and they’ll claim some victims when they do. But they will also find out why they really, really should not have taken that step. Because it actually is a bluff…but not every bluff is an empty one.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. We say “We don’t want to.” but they hear “We won’t!”

                They believe we are just like them. They have no convictions, no principles, therefore we don’t either. We don’t instantly resort to violence over provocations that would have them rioting in the streets, leading them to believe we never will.

                Like

                1. Because they don’t understand the difference between a bluff, and a feint; until after they wake up from the upper cut that lifted them off their feet, and laid them out for the next 20 minutes.

                  Like

            2. So?

              A pack of those so-called “antifa”, wannabees, strolled through my neighborhood, just showing the flag, in their all black upper midddle class booshie outfits and “walking sticks”.

              Trade craft = shitty

              Was able to ID several of their homes, undetected.

              Only in a permissive environment can fools like that function. They just think they understand “anarchist”. They don’t. They absolutely require a State to restrain their opponents.

              ……

              Scenario, for that urban fantasy/thriller: anarcho-commies versus ubergeek serial killer semi-hermit patriot.

              (grin)

              Axe, bullet, car-wreck, dart, … Local PD was stumped by the “Alphabet Ghost” serial killer. Feds got involved when a stolen dozen “fusors”, upgraded considerably and mounted as broadside weapons in a tractor trailer, neutron-beamed a red-n-black assembly area for forming-up pre-riot.

              (grin)

              Ted Kazinski might still be blowing up various people, if he hadn’t written his screed. Absent someone ratting him out, the Feds never got anywhere finding him.

              So, for that book, Ponder how things might go. Interesting story, eh? Might be sale-able.

              Liked by 1 person

                1. I have no reasonable expectation of avoiding the initial demonstration roundup. Too many people I have pissed off over the years will drop whole rolls of dimes on me at the drop of a Red Banner. But others can certainly profit from helpful suggestions.

                  And I guarantee I have multiple files, the idiots I used to run with before I reformed myself. Oh well.

                  And someone might actually write the book I keep churning over in my mind…..

                  TK certainly had “shut up” down pat. he was the invisible F-ing man.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. Me neither. I’ve been saying all the things I’ve been “blackpilled” for for almost 20 years.

                    Like

                  3. “TK certainly had ‘shut up’ down pat. he was the invisible F-ing man.”

                    Yep. Until, as you noted, he wrote his “screed”. It’s a maxim that two can keep a secret if one of them is dead; he forgot to keep his secret.

                    Like

              2. Ted Kazinski might still be blowing up various people, if he hadn’t written his screed. Absent someone ratting him out, the Feds never got anywhere finding him.

                His own brother, no less. And while there is no proof of anything, the fact that he was a participant in mind-control studies at college that involved harsh interrogations and attacks on beliefs that may well have tipped his psyche over into psychosis isn’t exactly a thing the lettered agencies want to highlight.

                Liked by 1 person

          3. Yeah, but I’m not looking forward to living the next few decades that would result after that purge (sounds better than terror, and less likely to pop the DHS filters) started.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. I would be not in the least shocked if, should the Bag of Hair (that would be Harris, not Trump, mind you) wins, we’ll see “loyalty” tests cropping up in fedgov. As in “Hmmm, you voted Republican…” kind of garbage. I truly hope it would not happen, but…I just have a bad feeling. (Well, ANY scenario in which Cackles wins is bad, but as one of those fedgov employees who would hands down *fail* any kind of loyalty test–because I am loyal to my country, thank you, not a political party, it’s just that there’s only one political party that has well and irrevocably pissed me off)

          Like

          1. They have already purged the FBI of any known Trump supporters. Ditto senior officers.

            The major problem is that their sycophants may be cunning, but run towards dumb. That can rather crimp the victory prospects.

            Like

            1. Yeah, I do believe one of our great hopes is that, since they’ve been selecting for ideological purity for nigh on, what, a century now? they are approaching peak incompetence. Kamala, frankly, makes some of the later Hapsburgs look like bright bulbs, imo. As do many of her dem cronies.

              Liked by 1 person

      2. The election fraud and other corruption is so extensive with the Cabal that a “normal” justice system couldn’t handle it given a million legal monkeys and a billion billing years, let alone a mostly corrupt justice system.

        Things will probably have to go kinetic to deal with the Post-Human Architects and their minions before they totally burn down the world.

        Bummer, since Western Civilization was working for most people.

        Like

          1. There’s always That One Guy (or That One Ideology).

            “Yeah, we used to let people do [thing]. Then one guy really abused [thing], so we can’t let anyone [thing] anymore.”

            Like

        2. E.E. Smith had exactly this kind of problem in First Lensman, in a North American election accompanied by roughly a third of the government facing charges for corruption, including many of the judges . . .

          Like

            2. Dude, I would settle for Moist von Lipwig at this point.

              I would love Vimes, but if he were unfettered by the law…. well…. the French would have nothing on him. Give him Carrot to use as a moral compass, though….

              Liked by 1 person

        3. Keep in mind that Western Civ survived The Black Death.

          We may get culled if the crazies go kinetic. They get -extinct-. They are a noisy minority, who desperately need the majority to stay asleep, yet have this insane desire to noisyboast to appear larger, top-of-lungs noisy.

          (grin)

          Like

    3. Durov left Russia with his family and money and settled in Dubai (complete with citizenship) in hopes of doing business without government interference. The UAE are basically the Swiss bankers of the Middle East with a bit of oil money and Las Vegas “fun” thrown in, so messing with one of their cash cows was going to have them applying what leverage they had.

      Like

    4. UAE relies on guest workers from Kerala (southwest India, opposite site of the Arabian Sea) and maybe elsewhere to do the menial stuff. They make pretty good money by the standards of their homeland (Kerala is fairly rural and kind of commie, although sometimes they sound like Mayor Peppone commies), but their employers control the guest workers’ passports for the duration of their contracts. Although this subset of Indian guest workers was originally predominantly Moslem, enough of their Catholic neighbors (Kerala is also St. Thomas country) have followed them to UAE to where there are small, discreet Mass centers in hotel rooms and such like.

      Like

            1. Bangladeshis must be low on the totem pole; this was several years post GW1, and Tracey ran across 1000 of them clearing some of the leftover minefields… by probing ahead of a line of them with those litter pickup sticks with a nail on the end.

              Apparently, we offered the Kuwaitis clearance equipment and they turned it down.

              Like

        2. Yep, if you run across an Indian movie called “Airlift” from around 2016 on the streaming services, it’s a fairly good, highly fictionalized account of richer Indians in Kuwait helping the less rich ones get out at the time of Saddam’s invasion.

          Like

  10. I kinda do wonder about the UAE–they gave the LDS Church the enthusiastic go ahead to build one of our temples there. And they know perfectly well that we’re not only Christians, but *proselyting* ones.

    I suspect the real religion there might be…gasp…full on capitalism? Possibly. Or at least a severe fondness for the free market. SOMETHING odd there, at any rate, that makes me wonder if they aren’t cosplaying medieval-oligarchs-in-robes…

    Liked by 1 person

    1. They’re very afraid the Islamonazi freaks currently eating the rest of the Middle East will eat them. They made deals with everybody. The Israelis, the Americans, the Europeans, the Chicoms, even stupid Canaduh. I’m no expert for sure, but they act like guys looking over their shoulders.

      Feudal lords are under no illusion that the serfs serve willingly.

      The Middle East used to be a holiday spot. Lebanon, Syria, places for the rich to go in the winter. UAE lords remember what changed it. That’s what all the deals are about, they have no more attachment to free speech than they do to the LDS church. Less, if anything.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Yes. Apparently they spent quite a lot of money buying up US fighters because Iran “borrowed” one of their islands a while back and have not given it back.

        They are painfully aware that they are surrounded by hungry lunatics.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I saw that part of the FAFO from the Emirates was a suspension/cancellation of a $19 billion dollar deal for Rafale fighter jets and helicopters.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. The Reader notes that Lockheed labeling the Block 60 an F16 was a subterfuge to get the Pentagon bureaucracy to sign off on exporting it. It bares a vague mold line commonality with earlier block F16s but that’s were the resemblance ends. The combined avionics package on the airplane is more capable than any other 4th gen fighter in existence at the time and probably only exceeded today by the F35 and the latest F15s the Air Force is buying. Those planes are now 20 years old and more capable than the Block 70s Lockheed is exporting now. The UAE drove a hard bargain and got their money’s worth.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. The archetype of that one clever trick was the F/A-18E/F, which only looked like the older Hornets if they were not parked together, as it’s scaled about 115%. Congress was fooled that it was just another letter version and the money was appropriated.

                The new Eagles, the F-15EX, appear to be along the same conceptual lines as the block 60 Vipers, shaped the same but with all brand spanking new electronics bits. I still think the USAF should have gone ahead and bit on the canted-tail stealth-ish Eagle proposal just to upset the “true stealth” contractors a bit, but that was apparently a bridge too far towards threatening the NGAD program, or whatever it’s called this week.

                Like

                1. And yes, I realize “true-stealth contractors”, as with anything else manned and US made these days, is a short list indeed, with just Woeing and LockMart doing fighters, and Northrop-Grumman doing bombers, so perhaps “…just to upset the existing ‘true stealth’ ricebowls…” is a better phrasing.

                  Like

                  1. Woeing has never made a stealth fighter. The F22 competition was between Lockheed and a Northrop / McDonald Douglas team. Even their entry in the JSF competition was a bit of a joke from a stealth perspective. Don’t ask the Reader how he knows.

                    Liked by 1 person

                2. Woeing’s ‘Silent Eagle’ was all marketing and no stealth. The incremental improvement in signature over the standard F15 wasn’t significant in a combat sense. And the USAF knew it. The F15EX does serve a purpose – it can carry 16 air to air missiles that can be guided by stealthy platforms out in front of them. Refitting older F15s to do that would have cost more than new platforms.

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. Well, that and the forward fuselage longeron cracking problem in the older Air superiority F-15s where the bits holding the front of the cockpit onto the airplane were starting to want to break, which could let the expensive radar nose and control panel depart, to say nothing of the issues that would introduce for the expensive pilots now dangling their feet in the jetstream. I believe the Strike Eagles have cracky bits as well.

                    The first F-15A Eagles were rolled out in the 1970s, even the ones still in service are old, and the Strike Eagles have been dropping lots of bombs on lots of bad guys in lots of places, so absent enough F-22s (Peace Dividend My Backside) or F-35s (I don’t know why you would want stealth surface maintenance loads instead of speed, or stealth at all for homeland air defense), newer airframes are needed.

                    I’m just surprised they actually did a somewhat smart thing by buying the new stuff that the House of Saud and the Qataris already paid to develop, though it looks like they are cutting back to stupid numbers the past few years.

                    Like

                    2. I’d note that, unless they’re building new combat airframes, the only ones in current service less than…what, 40 years old? are the F-35, F-22 and some of the B1 and B2 fleet. The B-52s are almost 70 years old! And still flying. It’s as if we sent Sopwith Camels to fight the MiGs over Hanoi. Worse, actually.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    4. True, but an airframe has only so many hours before it beging to have “issues”. If they were built today they’d be fine; it’s the age of the airframe, not the age of the design, that matters here.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    7. Good to know; that’s a damn good aircraft. I haven’t been keeping track of all the upgrades since I retired; my recollection of the last new airframe derived from an existing model was the Super Hornet (F/A18-E/F).

                      Like

      2. The big fear in that neighborhood is across the gulf.

        Ever since the Shah was betrayed and abandoned by Second Worst President In History Jimmeh and his government fell, those Persian Shia cleric maniacs have been the object lesson in what to avoid at any cost. Even the House of Saud has come to the conclusion that their local Sunni religious nuts are not “safe”, needing to be reigned in and separated from the levers of power a bit.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. I don’t think Carter is a plausible second worst president. Woodrow Wilson in still the worst, and surely Joe Biden is worse than Carter.

          Liked by 3 people

            1. A fair point. So Carter can’t be lower than fourth worst. I’m not sure about the badness of the nineteenth century presidents; I don’t think much of Jackson, but I’d rate him above Carter.

              Like

              1. Jackson might have been a racist asshole, but he was a patriot and a war hero. He led the defense of New Orleans, which kept the British fleet out of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. We could have easily lost the war if they’d gotten past New Orleans.

                FDR was also much worse than Carter, on a par with Wilson.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. If we’re going to list FDR, let’s also list Hoover. He initiated some of the central planning measures that FDR later ran with, and his whole approach to government was one of central planning. There is also his role in creating the fixed rate thirty-year mortgage, which helped inflate housing prices (by letting people borrow much more from banks to bid on houses) and helped get the federal government inside the tent for housing. (I assume he was going on the idea that homeowners would be conservative and vote Republican—but that only works to the degree that homeowners have to have the character traits that let them become homeowners by their own efforts.)

                  And I’ve read that he also lost the black vote for the Republican Party by failing to carry through on promises to black leaders made during his campaign. The realignment was a tactical blunder of the first order, but not keeping his word was a greater failing.

                  I’d also rate LBJ low, though at least he has the good sense to withdraw from the 1968 race on his own hook, which puts him above FJB.

                  Like

                2. Jackson also told SCOTUS to F right off and went ahead and deported a whole bunch of my Kin. I respect him greatly for leading the 7th at New Orleans. But for the other? not

                  Like

                  1. IIRC the “Trail Of Tears” was a different incident than him talking about “the Supreme Court made a decision, now they have to enforce it” thing.

                    Long before the “Trail Of Tears”, there was a dispute between the State of Georgia and the Cherokee Nation. That dispute went to the Supreme Court which decided that Georgia had “overstepped” its authority as the Cherokee Nation was a Foreign Nation and only the Federal Government had the authority to deal with Foreign Nations. While there’s no real evidence that Jackson ever said the above, Georgia accepted that decision.

                    If you have evidence that the US Supreme Court said anything against the “Trail Of Tears”, I’d like to see a cite.

                    Like

                    1. Americans managed to find gold, and the Cherokees didn’t see any reason to let them dig it out. (They didn’t value it, I gather).

                      Like

                    2. The Cherokee won their case. They got deported anyway by the US Army. That certainly meets my standard for “F right off”.

                      I am all for removing him from the Twenty and replacing him with Harriett Tubman. I like the drawing of her beckoning folks to Freedom while holding her revolver. Her personal journeys back to slave territory to free others is inspirational. Republican, too, just to twist the fork more.

                      (grin)

                      Liked by 2 people

                    3. They won a different cause that one that involved the Trail Of Tears.

                      Hate Jackson all you want to do, but the Supreme Court Did Not Try To Block Their Deportation.

                      Hell, if Jackson had never been President, the Deportation or Worse would IMO still happened.

                      Like

              3. Jackson killed the 2nd National Bank, which by that time was actively sponsoring “acceptable” candidates and had de facto control of the legislature. (Not to mention prior administrations.)
                Whatever else I think about the man or his policies, that alone easily gets him Top Ten standing. Maybe even Top Five.

                Taking on an established Central Bank in a battle to the death, and winning? That is hardcore awesome.

                Like

                  2. Ending the “spoils system” was a major goal of the Progressive movement, and they succeeded in replacing it with the unaccountable “experts” were currently suffer under.

                    Like

                1. I’m not a big fan of Van Buren, myself, since he thought it was totally cool to let a religious group get persecuted extremely violently. (I can’t–quite–put the blame for the Mormon extermination order on him, as that was at state level, not national, but he certainly was contributing to the encouragement of the mobs.)

                  Like

                  1. “Your cause is just but I can do nothing for you”. Sadly, from a constitutional stand point, without the 14th amendment he was constitutionally correct as far as enforcing what a state could or couldn’t do to its residents. I note that murder is not a federal but a state offense.

                    But, there is the bully pulpit (I know Roosevelt was who I learned coined that phrase). As a descendant of the persecuted group, I wish he had been more creative rather than just brushing the issue off as a state issue. But I can also legally see where he was coming from.

                    Like

                    1. Legally, yes, I fully agree. But he was like so many spineless politicians: he wouldn’t speak out against it, lest it endanger his political career.

                      I should note that I loathe Mittens (ie, Romney) for the very same reasons, for all that we ostensibly share a religion. Had he been in politics back then, I very much doubt he’d have stood up for his faith. (I haven’t noticed him doing so in modern times, though the stakes are–for now–somewhat lower) I voted for him, yes, but only because there was no way in hell I was going to vote for Obama.

                      Liked by 1 person

          2. Thanks to #LetsGoBrandon, #LightBringer is second worst. The #PeanutFarmer is third.

            But for most structural damage to the USA, I think #Bubba still wears the crown. That guy broke sh1t we didn’t even know was important until it stopped working. Nobody keeps inventory anymore because of #Bubba taxing it.

            In Canada, #ShinyPony has taken the crown from his sire, who took it from Lester B. Pearson, who took it from #Diefenbaker.

            Once you understand that this is actual malice and not mere stupidity, things become quite alarming.

            Liked by 1 person

              1. Or as I termed it at the time, the Voter Fraud Facilitation Act of 1993.

                [short, sharp sigh]

                So many candidates for worst U.S. President ever … including one I hesitate to put on the list for his sheer illegitimacy. James Buchanan may still hold the crown for his assiduous work in teeing up the Civil War, but there are lots of contenders coming after that King of the Hill.

                Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

                Liked by 1 person

            2. I thought #ShinyPony was pretty widely thought to have, well, fine cigar aroma about his conception, so his claimed pops would only be his patronymic-donator.

              Liked by 1 person

                1. But it’s wrong to blame him for his sire; he had no control over his mother’s inability to keep her bloomers on. Instead, blame him for being an arrogant, lying authoritarian commie asshole; that’s all his doing.

                  Liked by 1 person

    2. It says in the name – United Arab Emirates. Those in the families of those Emirs are who that country is for.

      One has a feeling they think the big mistake their neighbors in the House of Saud made was allowing way too much actual power to be held by people outside of the House of Saud, such as the various clerics. Much better to keep all the power within the families.

      Like

        1. In Europe when family power was equivalentish they just insured the Pope was a Medici, keeping that power in the family as well.

          Seems like a failure of imagination on the House of Saud.

          Like

    3. Probably in hopes that any potential invader might strongly consider who would come to the aid of the local presence.

      Like

      1. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that being a good citizen of your home nation is a almost tenet of the religion; not gospel or dogma (maybe dogma? when I was a kid it was in the Articles of Faith that we memorized), but deeply enculturated. Muslims can’t be trusted. Mormons mostly can.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I’m not sure dogma is quite the right word for it (to me, anyway, dogma implies utter blind following, which is NOT something the LDS church leadership believes in, and it is in fact discouraged, since “ask God and find out for yourself” is one of the major tenets of the faith), but yes, one of the Articles of Faith is we believe in following the laws of the land we live in.

          I would say there’s caveats to that, of course, which I wish I had been able to better articulate to a twit of a Sunday School teacher back when I was a teen who was trying to argue that that article of faith meant we had to follow even evil laws (he used Nazi Germany as an example.) I do recall pointing out to him that murder is still murder and wrong, even if the laws of the land say it is legal, and what the heck was wrong with him. But just because something is permitted by the government does not mean it is permitted by God–so if the UAE ever, for example, made it a law that said we had to allow outsiders into the temple whenever they wanted, that would not be a law we could follow. The church would shut down the temple first (or convert it into something other than a temple). They would seek to circumvent it via legal means, if at all possible, but they would in no case obey that law. Or here, the fact that abortion is legal in many places in no way means that a member of the Church could make use of it without consequences (the Church does agree that incest, rape, or endangering the mother’s life are circumstances in which it might be allowed, but you’d still better being doing a lot of consultation, fasting, and praying with your priesthood leaders before making the decision)

          Like

      2. Yes…for now, anyway. I think as things continue on, we will see more and more (and not just with the LDS faith) having to choose between useful worldly connections and staying true to our faith. But certainly at the moment–*especially* with business connections–it is advantageous. (Mormons do love the free market :D)

        Like

      1. Honestly, I think it stunned people even more than the first temple(s) announced to be built in the former Soviet Union, back in the late 90s. The collective gasp when it was announced was certainly memorable (and I don’t specifically recall the announcements back in the 90s, if only because i was a self absorbed teen and not paying attention, lol)

        (Though I can’t believe that the open house for the SECOND temple in Wyoming, of all places, begins this week. I never thought we’d see ONE here–though having it be located in Star Valley was no great shock, old Mormon colony that it is–but two, holy cow. Heh. It’s still no closer to where I live than the Fort Collins, CO temple (new temple is in Casper, and its’ a tossup which is slightly closer–it works out to 3-4 hours either way), but. Pretty cool.)

        Like

  11. We may have passed the point where people are angered by what is done to them and others, but rather are bludgeoned insensate by the sheer madness of it all. This is a problem. Angry people can make a change. People stunned into boneless passivity cannot.

    It would have taken something as sharp and immediately enraging as the bullet going one inch right on July 13th to produce an anger that couldn’t be smothered. I’m not sure anything else will suffice at this advanced stage.

    Why can they win? Because it is so much easier to destroy than to create. (And summoning a Communist utopia on the ashes of civilization doesn’t count as creation, because they think it’s going to spring up organically, in accordance with the natural laws discovered by Karl Marx.) Maybe the hope we have is that they need to destroy everything to win, while we only have to destroy the destroyers.

    Well, that got dark and rambling. Uh, sorry.

    Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Maybe the hope we have is that they need to destroy everything to win, while we only have to destroy the destroyers.

      Maybe the White Horse?

      “But you and all the kind of Christ

      Are ignorant and brave,

      And you have wars you hardly win

      And souls you hardly save.

      “I tell you naught for your comfort,

      Yea, naught for your desire,

      Save that the sky grows darker yet

      And the sea rises higher.”

      “Night shall be thrice night over you,

      And heaven an iron cope.

      Do you have joy without a cause,

      Yea, faith without a hope?”

      https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm#link2H_4_0002

      Liked by 1 person

    3. Well, that got dark and rambling. Uh, sorry.

      —

      Reality needs no apology.

      The situation is such that correction is going to be messy. Demons don’t respond to shame and strongly worded editorials.

      Like

    5. Once upon a time, July 13th was the date of the assassination of center right politician Jose Calvo Sotelo, the fallout of which is generally held to have been the start of the Spanish Civil War.

      Do *not* wish for Jose Calvo Sotelo Day. There’s no guarantee that any of us will like what comes after it, even if we somehow end up with a least-worst-case-scenario outcome. In Spain, Franco, for all his ruthlessness and apparent belief that the classical liberals of his country were a bunch of pussies standing between commie nun-rapists and their rightful retribution, was probably the least bad person capable of holding power in his faction, and certainly better than whatever Soviet tool would have landed on top if the Loyalists had won.

      Like

  13. If it makes you feel better, the UAE thing is (probably) less “a principled defense of free speech”, and – if the Internet is to be believed – more “protecting one of their own”.

    The Telegram guy allegedly hold citizenship or residency or something in the UAE.

    But I’m not going to complain about someone else’s motivations for doing the right thing.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. President Trump is being persecuted for raising legal issues about the the 2020 election, following procedures laid out in the Constitution, federal and state law for challenging the results of a questionable election. And 2020 was all sorts of questionable. Their screeches of “FAKE ELECTORS!!!” are lies; selecting alternate electors is a perfectly legal response to…irregularities, let us say, in the election process and results.

    Trump has been indicted for following the law. Filing cases in court. The abuse couldn’t be more blatant. Stalin would be disappointed.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. And he’s still being persecuted in GA.

      https://www.emerald.tv/p/68-days-to-go-democrats-are-nervous?r=6em1o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

      Earlier this month, Georgia’s State Election Board admitted that the 2020 election results should not have been certified — and it turned over a case called SEB2023-025 (which highlighted systemic fraud with 17,852 votes counted with no ballot images and 20,713 tabulator “ghost” votes) to the Attorney General with instructions to investigate in the next 30 days.

      That’s why Democrats got nervous and called for Governor Kemp (who’s supposedly a Republican!) to hold the State Elections Board accountable.

      Like

  15. I think, as a Canadian, that Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. have stones like Gibraltar. They -ditched- the DNC and came out for Trump. You don’t ditch the DNC, they have a long friggin’ arm, and a lot of nutcase soldiers.

    Somewhere, somebody watched the events at the recent Trump rally and muttered “I told that kid center of mass, dammit.” This is becoming evident at the hearings. We know, for example, that you can’t talk about “chemistry” or do web searches on same without drawing the Eye of Sauron. That guy was all over that stuff. A punk kid is smarter than the FBI and the NSA? Sure, uh huh.

    Or he was smarter, and just think of the fun involved there.

    Either way, bigtime backfield in motion.

    Meanwhile in England, guys are literally getting arrested and hauled off for posting the Union Jack on their farcebook page and talking sh1t about terrorists. There’s video of them doing it. Terrorists are allowed to beat the f- out of people while the cops watch, anybody beating up an armed terrorist is in jail and sentenced the next day.

    Australia, same thing. France, well, it’s France. They’re retards. Same as Quebec, must be something in the cheese.

    Also, not unrelated, China is disintegrating. Both economically and physically, their infrastructure is being revealed as fake and purely cosmetic. The whole fricking country is a maskirovka, shiny on the outside and hollow on the inside. Apartment blocks with no water mains and no sewer pipes.

    Meanwhile in Canada: I don’t put my name on my blog, I don’t post much anymore, I don’t donate to worthy causes, and I don’t have a bumper sticker on my vehicle. Because I’m a -lot- more concerned about what Big Brother might do than I am about the ongoing farce and misdirection campaign in the nation’s capital. If I don’t give them any traction, at least I made it harder for their legal eagles. And everybody I talk to is -pissed- about it. That could be a local thing, but I doubt it.

    Taken together, it seems that a large number of very rich people want something that they’re having a great deal of trouble getting. To the point where they are now burning all the credibility of the legal systems of the West, all the credibility of Western elections, all the credibility of Western medicine and the pharmaceutical industry world-wide, and the credibility of the Ivory Tower. All at once, right now, just to win an election in the USA.

    They literally created a plague to win the last one. A fake plague, as it turns out. But not all fake, I hasten to add, because some (not many, but some) people do get -extremely- sick from it. I know of three that did in my little personal circle.

    That’s bio-warfare, kidz. Against us. By our own institutions, bought and paid for by Somebody who doesn’t like us. My guess is the Chicoms, but only because they have a lot of money.

    Given all of the above, I do not think it is too tinfoil-hat to say that we are in a non-shooting war on the West, being conducted through proxies and traitors in our own governments. Is it an accident that Canada, the USA, Europe and Australia are being swarmed by hordes of illegal immigrants? No, it is an arrangement.

    Funny they’d let so many illegals in during a plague, eh? I’m just sayin’ that seems odd.

    And now, wonder of wonders and probably sign of things to come, the #ShinyPony announced this week that A) the foreign worker program (illegal immigration) will be curtailed and B) there will be a 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars. Because, I hypothesize, the Chicom’s cheque bounced. If you’re paying off officials, and you stop paying them off, they will immediately act to save themselves from the angry Canadians whose houses and cars they have been trying to tax away.

    Pretty much the reason we all feel like we fell down the rabbit hole is that most of us didn’t realize that the whole welfare/healthcare/Big Brother structure is a scam. It never worked, we just thought it did. But what it did do, for several generations, is concentrate wealth.

    But now all that wealth is concentrated. And having been collected like that, it isn’t really doing its owners much good. The Lords of Arabia are making deals with the Jews and the Christians, people they obviously despise, because their money isn’t helping them anymore. Sure, you can buy your own 747 and put a golden toilet in the bathroom, but you still have to land somewhere.

    After 30 years of sending Western industry to China, the Chicoms have fallen apart because they are basically lying thieves, and now all that industry will be coming home. Somebody doesn’t like that, so they’re f-ing with us to make it go their way.

    Surprise.

    I take heart from how lame they are. They’re panicking and doing things in the open that used to only happen in basements. Rachael MadCow absolutely knows she is shilling for vested interests, it couldn’t be more obvious.

    2024 Hunger Games!

    Like

    1. “Terrorists are allowed to beat the f- out of people while the cops watch, anybody beating up an armed terrorist is in jail and sentenced the next day.”

      For those who aren’t aware how bad things are right now in the UK –

      Security camera footage at a restaurant (i.e. this is on video) in England shows a Muslim man – who was sitting in a booth with his family – stand up and hit his waitress in the face before leaving. Two cops were in the restaurant at the time. They spoke briefly to the man. But when the man claimed a farcical rationale (I don’t remember what it was off the top of my head) for the assault on the waitress, the cops let him go without even taking the man’s name.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. No different than 2020 BLM marching into restaurants and making people give the black power fist. No different than the Trump Inauguration riots in 2017 getting a pass and J6 getting thrown in jail.

          It’s been here.

          Like

      1. If it feels like you’re beating your head on a rock right now, you are surrounded by either morons or people lying to you. Some are signaling their virtue extra hard because they can FEEL the massive anger people have.

        This existential dread we are all feeling is the certain knowledge that something broke somewhere. In a country the size of Canada, nobody can buy a house? That’s insane. That’s a scam. Somebody tied up the available land in government tape and they are sitting on it to drive up prices on the assets they own.

        Canadians aren’t voting to support the scam? Flood the nation with migrants who WILL vote to support it. And then later on, just stop voting. They’ll keep letting murderers go free and keep jailing people for defending themselves until there’s a general uprising, which they will put down the same as they put down the Freedom Convoy, stop elections for the duration of the emergency, and then they own it all. No problem.

        That’s what you’re feeling. Can they really do it? Well, it has been done before, so I’d have to say yes. They might be able to do it.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. So one hypothesis for some societies is ‘two revitalization movements’.

        A revitalization movement happens in a culture under stress, when people in that culture repeat the rituals that previously ‘worked’ again, but extra hard because they are a little scared.

        The great plains indian ghost dances are one example. Great plains indians recruited their warriors, and organized them in war bands. Some of the ritual magics that ’empowered’ those war bands were dances, therefore, dance extra hard.

        Another example, is the hearsay of the pacific islanders, and the cargo cults. Saw ‘rituals’ that caused a great explosion of local wealth, and when the war ended, the mental association was so strong that, allegedly, the rituals were repeated.

        Traditional explanation of ‘two revitalization movements’ is that the communists and everyone else have distinct magical ideas, and a distinct list of rituals, and that both groups will practice those things extra hard now.

        Now, clearly, we are not dealing with a situation of ‘everyone in America, or Canada is entirely a communist’. Missing murders problem. Communists believe strongly in word magic, and in blood magic, and we simply do not have enough killings to supply the blood magic for everyone to be practicising the most extreme communist rituals. Some combination of ‘not everyone is a communist’, and ‘some communists still fear the preventive magics of the reactionaries’.

        Christian pattern magics are obvious, conservative pattern magics are obvious, and Jewish pattern magics likewise. Though I would caveat both that I do not really know what magics the Orthodox and Conservative Jews practice, but the Jews must surely see them as powerful, else those behaviors would not have endured. (Though, from the outside, the Jews seem to strongly beleive in a rational knowable world, and in truth flavored word magic. (1))

        Anyhow, a confounding factor is that communist ritual, ideas and practices have spread many places, and are all over. Nominal ‘conservatives’ may still believe very strongly in the word magic (lie) rituals. Either that you can shake reality by knowingly speaking a lie, or just that if you refrain from being caught saying something ‘wrong’, then you are safe.

        If the left is having a revitalization movement, because their grand gamble is failing in ways that they cannot deny on the inside, then they would probably try to lie harder.

        but, there are probably other revitalization movements, because the stress and insanity is not something that everyone can avoid.

        Some of those revitalization movement rituals are gonna screw over the left, at least partly because founded in magical ideas that the left does not grasp, and which have results that surprise the left.

        Others may serve to give the left false confidence. IE, all the people going extra hard “I can avoid the Party lynch mobs if I extra hard avoid saying that the emperor has no clothes”.

        Nobody is being entirely rationally calculating about how they process this shit. They are using mostly similar practices to what they used in previous years, because you don’t often rebuild a behavior from scratch, and convince yourself is really effective, in just a few years. But, generally, people are not happy, and are a bit afraid. How you respond in the inside to emotions is not somethign that you do with a checklist or form, and is not something you just change by changing the form.

        Measureable indicators are external. We are estimating based on measureable indicators. External info is potentially useful. However, it has been aggressively manipulated and manipulated for years.

        What happens next is partly a state space of a bunch of internal situations. Not really knowable.

        But, there is some evidence of Canadians having some fundamental internal traits that might surprise people. Reticent and polite, versus American “I feel confident that I can loudly warn you, and also feel that I must do so.” So the Japanese took some Canadian prisoners, and were using them for slave labour. There were willing to torture folks to death to prevent sabotage. One Canadian wanted to sabotage the ship yard anyway. So, he held his tongue, was outwardly a compliant prisoner, and carefully recruited the one confederate he needed. They set fire to a key bit of the shipyard, rendering it inoperable. And they pulled it off, in secrecy so complete that the Japanese thought it was a natural fire. The Japanese did not kill any of the prisoners, but instead moved them all to a different site for slave labor.

        I dunno. We shall see.

        (1) Communist word magic is lie flavored, basically.

        Like

        1. Also a traditional Canadian perspective: “We never commit war crimes, but it’s not a war crime the *first* time we do it…”

          Like

  18. I see the comments on X from “MAHA” (RFK jr fans – Make America Healthy Again) people, with their surprise and gratefulness about how accepting and non-judgemental the MAGA crowd has been, and it makes me happy.

    And though I haven’t said it yet to any of them, it also makes me hope that in eight years, we can be arguing vigorously with each other, because the far-far-left has been rendered powerless, and the Overton Window has shifted back to a much more reasonable location.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. RFKjr and some of his followers are batguano crazy. But we can all get along to toss out the redbatguanocrazies. We can then argue reasonably, or not, about polio vaccines and similar. And even Barking Moonbats can make coherent points about “we are not designed for high sugar diets”.

      (grin)

      Y’all bark away. I have my own oddities to express.

      Liked by 1 person

  19. For me, our current era is both evil and stupid. Not just evil, not just stupid but an unholy combination of both. Clown world indeed.

    Like

    1. In the 20th century, the Democrats were the Evil Party and the Republicans were the Stupid Party. When the 21st century began, the Republicans decided to become the Party of Stupid and Evil, and the Democrats responded by becoming the Party of Stupid, Evil, and Crazy.

      Liked by 1 person

  20. c4c

    A day late. Took mom, and a friend of hers, to a function neither of them should be driving to. Mom doesn’t have the stamina for long drives and participation. Her friend, who has been the driver once mom quit long distance driving, has on going dementia issues. We, my sisters and our significant others, have seen encroaching dementia in friends (us), and relatives (sisters inlaws). Friend shouldn’t be driving long drives either. Can’t stop her from doing her own driving, but can stop (plead) mom. So I got to go to something I had not been planning on doing (yes, I had a month to have a “sudden” change of mind). Sigh. Thus, a drive up the coast (again) to Astoria, 12 hour marathon of “having fun” (I am peopled out, and my right knee hated me, oh heck, both knees by the end of the day were going “nope, my turn to limp”. Though I didn’t have to do any driving around Astoria, two other victims, (3rd driver wasn’t a victim) got to do that (11 of us, coming from Vancouver WA to Grants Pass, so shouldn’t complain about driving from Eugene, but I am). Then the drive home today. Yes, Labor Day weekend has started for people on Thursday. Although the drive wasn’t as bad coming back. Yes, traffic, but at least it was moving. Going north (Eugene to Newport/Lincoln City via Corvallis, and up the coast to Astoria) was as bad as a month ago. Just a long, long, drive at traffic speeds of 35 – 45 MPH. Oh, we did avoid the mess at Woodburn WA, and skipped an accident or two on Hwy 26. Did not go back hwy 20. Took cutoff from 101 to hwy 22, then to hwy 99, and south (we *avoided I-5, a Medford headed car picked up I-5 in Corvallis, better than dealing with Portland or Salem).

    (*) Doesn’t make sense. Extra 10 miles for us. Five to I-5, and another five miles back to almost hwy 99, anyway. Just easier to drive down hwy 99.

    Like

Comments are closed.