Senators Collins (R-ME) and Murray (D-WA) proudly announced they had advanced a “bi-partisan” spending bill through committee today. We already know what’s in it without looking: a Democrat Christmas wish list and some kickbacks to the GOP donor class. It is what “bi-partisan” means. One thing this will lack – as all bills lack – is anything for the GOP base.
Dem base: gets stuff.
Dem donor class: my goodness you won’t believe how much they get!
GOP donor class: more than enough to keep them cutting checks for the GOP.
GOP base: diddly squat.
Why is one fourth of the interested parties screwed? Why is that fourth always screwed?
I understand Collins’ position – she’s a GOPer representing a purple State and so she has to trim her sails to retain electoral viability. Totally dig it. Nothing actually dishonorable in that. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible. But, still: why do we get nothing? Collins could do it. She could easily throw us a bone. Even as a minority-party Senator she swings great weight…can gum up the works for weeks if she wanted to; could also work with GOP House Leaders on a strategy to leverage some GOP wins into the final product. But we know what we’ll get: nothing. There will be money in there for all manner of ridiculous things (the X account @RandoLand_us details it regularly); we’re literally sending money out to pay for lesbian poetry in the Third World. If the Democrats can get that – and they always do – why can’t we, say, get a few million to support artists who write from a Christian perspective? I mean, not that I need the money…but if we’re going to flash the cash at Diversity then, well, part of Diversity is me…I’m a Diversity. My voice needs to be heard!
Only moderately kidding there: I wouldn’t take the money. But, still: why not a little cash our way? Why not, say, get a return for our vote? Without Collins and other GOPers in the Senate lots of bills have a murky future. That is massive political leverage. Use it!
But they don’t and that does tell us something: they despise us. People like Collins know they need our votes, but they hate it. She’ll do bare minimum GOP-ish stuff to retain GOP votes but all her efforts are really directed at helping her friends, the Democrats. The only people on the outside looking in is the GOP base; nobody represents it at the tables of the powerful. This is why, so far, it is mostly sticking with Trump…and if DeSantis really wants to make a contest of it, he’ll have to demonstrate that he’s going to get things for the base even better than Trump could.
And it does need to be done; we on the Right are losing faith in the USA. Not in the idea; not in what the flag represents, but in the system under that flag. That is what the Never Trumpers and Collins-style people don’t get: we’re alienated. After all, we get scorned, we get harassed, we get arrested…but we don’t actually get anything. We’re going to rush more billions to Ukraine but we’ve still got people waiting years for VA benefits…and as we on the Right make up the bulk of veterans, it does sink in that slow VA benefits is intentional. They don’t give a darn about us and hope we die before they have to pay out.
Someone in the Uniparty better start thinking fast of this could all blow up.
The ADL – a mere arm of the DNC propaganda machine – has been using accusations of anti-Semitism at X to crush advertising revenues. Though the ADL is a Democrat front organization, it still has the reputation built up in the last century of being a fighter against bigotry. That it decades ago became a mere DNC mouthpiece simply hasn’t registered in Corporate America…so when they get a memo from the ADL they tend to act on it. Musk now says he’ll sue – claiming the ADL has cost X $22 billion in value. Could be an interesting case.
Tucker Carlson is interviewing a guy who says he had relations with Obama way back when. Such has been rumored since Obama first rose to prominence. I’m kinda “meh” about it – if Obama is gay or bi and hid it then it is yet another in a long line of Obama lies.
Blogs For Victory 
She’ll do bare minimum GOP-ish stuff to retain GOP votes but all her efforts are really directed at helping her friends, the Democrats
My feelings exactly on other establishment republicans like Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and most of the other 2024 candidates. They talk a good game but they don’t have the spine to stand up to the relentless opposition. Anyone who thinks Democrats are our allies, are delusional.
Re: the Ukraine war from the previous thread, I see it differently. In 2014, Russia rolled into Crimea and took over that area without a single shot being fired. Why? 1. The Military Industrial Complex still had a good thing going on in Afghanistan, 2. and most importantly, the people of Crimea welcomed it. Fast forward to 2020; Afghanistan is becoming a liability with no direction or focus and the Pentagon needed a new mission. Also knowing that there had been years of conflicts and skirmishes on the eastern flank of Ukraine and that Russia had long sought to re-annex that area, the Biden regime encouraged Russia to invade by constantly invoking NATO membership, and even claiming that a “small incursion” might be acceptable. I also look at the actions of Germany and Poland to gauge how much of threat Russia is, and there seems to be no concern from them whatsoever. In fact, much of Europe continues to buy Russian oil, and their contributions to Ukraine pale in comparison to ours. That makes no sense. I wonder if anyone has ever asked the citizens of the Donbas region what country they would prefer to be aligned with. I think the answer would surprise you. This is a regional conflict and a war of choice, not necessity.
Excellent analysis. You and I are on the same page.
Let’s do a quick poll of those whose homes are destroyed, family members killed, surrounded by devastation, starving animals, disease and destruction, with their heritage in ruins, and ask if they chose this.
But I accept the ugly fact that so much of the world is quite comfortable with the suffering of others. I guess we’ll just have to leave compassion and assistance to individuals and churches, as we always do.
I think you can be skeptical of something and still maintain compassion for those who are being harmed. And you’re spot on about leaving compassion to individuals and churches. Remember, Biden gives $2,200 to each illegal crossing our southern border while giving the victims of the Maui fires $700 each. Meanwhile organizations like Glenn Beck’s Mercury One and Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse were raising money hand over fist for thos same victims.
My underlying point was that I think the negativity about aid to Ukraine is in large part based on animosity toward Joe Biden and Democrats and not an objective analysis of either the damage done to a nation being ravaged by a bully neighbor intent on conquest or the concept that with great power comes great responsibility and sometimes that means standing by the oppressed. Merely being the Big Dog that is known for being willing to get off the porch heads off a lot of aggression from bullies.
About 80 years later we are still hesitant to admit how we, as a nation, studiously looked the other way and ignored the Holocaust. We ignored the Janajaweed slaughtering millions of people in Sudan. We acted as if sending billions in “aid” to Africa satisfied a moral obligation to help those in need, but shied away from taking the necessary step of protecting that aid and making sure it went to the needy and not to enrich the warlords who stole it. Now we get all pious and lecture-y about the evils of being a war-like nation, but there are different reasons for picking up arms and not all are in the pursuit of profit or power. If we are going to step over the bodies of the dead at least own up to it, admit it, and don’t act as if this is really an exercise of morality.
We have to have a well trained standing army, and military training is by definition dangerous. We kill a lot of young men and women every year at bases around the country. We don’t hear about it, but if you read a local newspaper like the ones in Colorado Springs there are often stories of a fatalities from training exercises. So it is foolish to think that staying out of conflict ensures safety for our men and women. Added to that is what every military leader knows, which is that no amount of training can adequately prepare people for combat. So I believe that to have a truly well trained, truly competent, truly battle-ready force that can act when necessary to defend out nation we have to be realistic about how to achieve that. If that means exposing our military to combat then I think we have to do that, but we have the option of what would basically be Combat Lite, taking on African warlords or Mexican cartels or rattling sabers at nations threatening to invade innocent neighbors.
And then there is the fact that we, as a wealthy nation, will inevitably rear generations of spoiled young people who have absolutely no idea of what life is like for 90% of the world’s people, leading to a “let them eat cake” mentality even among those who are not heartless or callous. When my brother and cousins did a motorcycle tour through Africa it literally changed their lives, as farm kids from Colorado had no frame of reference for that kind of life. I firmly believe that sending our spoiled young people (and that is not an insult, but merely an acknowledgment of the privileged lives even the poor in America lead compared to so much of the world) out to not only experience the character and soul building of helping others but to realize the blessings of being Americans and develop more understanding of the reality of most of the world. I believe this would, in the long run, make us a better and stronger nation.
So I do not agree with the simplistic isolationist attitude of some. Limit armed conflict? Of course. Be rigorous in oversight of both defense spending and how it is applied? Absolutely. Stay out of international wars? Yes, whenever possible. Refuse to put our military at risk to enable corruption? Without question. But refuse to engage in conflict? I think that is shortsighted.
I remember a prominent Christian pastor getting all sorts of grief for saying virtue has no place in government, or something similar to that. His argument, with which I agree, is that the purpose of government is to provide a safe and secure nation and a national identity so we can negotiate with other nations.
However, I can agree with this and still believe that if we are going to have a functional military force which can go to war if necessary to protect our nation, it makes sense to train that military in how to go to war, for the reasons I gave. I see no benefit to this nation in sitting back and watching other countries be savaged and people victimized, while we not only have the means to stop it but would benefit by the experience in exposing our military to the conditions it would face in defending the nation.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
New version:
First they came for the Ukrainians
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Ukrainian
Then they came for the Poles
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Pole
Then they came for the Finns
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Finnish
Then they came for the Turks
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Turkish
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
If we will not be an ally, we can’t expect to have allies
I think people grossly overestimate Putins abilities and intentions.
I have much compassion for the Ukranians, as I do every worldly citizen caught in the middle of senseless cross fire. Ask yourself one question … why aren’t there any on going peace talks? In every war, there has always been an attempt to resolve it diplomatically … except this one. Why? This is a war of choice, and unfortunately the citizens of Ukraine and Russia never got to choose.
Also, Putin could end this war today if he wanted too. He has the arsenal. But he’s only battling in the Donbas region, aka the eastern flank. There’s a reason for that, yet no diplomatic body has even bothered to ask why.
Somehow all of this just reminds me of the image of the women knitting in front of the guillotine watching the horrors of the French Revolution play out.
Understanding that Putin is likely full of **** (the Russians have a rather complex set of rules for lying), he did say before the war started that in his view Ukraine is not a separate nation and that Ukrainians are not a separate nationality. This is very Muscovite – which called Ukraine “little Russia” back in the day. And to be sure, their ethnic make up is the same and their languages are very closely related…as related as, say, two different dialects of Italian are. To be sure, Ukrainians with memories of Stalin have come to hate Russia and the Russians and no matter the cultural affinities, want nothing to do with Russia. But it is important that we understand Putin’s views, even if we disagree with him. His view is that Ukrainians are Russians…and that they have had a separate identity fostered by anti-Russian influences.
That brings up another thing Putin has said – and this recently: Russia was robbed of her victory in World War One. This statement caused quite a lot of scorn and ridicule among the Expert class because everyone knows Russia lost WWI. Only problem with the theory: Czarist Russia had won the First World War. There’s no way around it; by 1917 Germany had proved herself incapable of militarily forcing Russia out of the war any more than she could militarily force the Anglo-French out. They were stuck – absolutely at their wits end. They knew the game was up…given the resources of their enemies, eventually Germany would have to surrender. Unless at least one of their major enemies could be knocked out. And they didn’t choose to land a knock out blow on Russia…they tried to do it on Britain via the U-Boats.
We can all have endless arguments about it but the main thing here is that Putin says he believes it…and it is what he’s telling the Russian people and it does seem to be garnering a response; a willingness on the part of the Russians to grit this out.
But here’s something to consider as we go forward: Russia had agreed to Polish independence in 1915 so the outcome of the war was going to see an independent Poland. Russia never agreed to an independent Finland or Baltic States. If Putin is consistent, these nations are also Russian.
But beyond that: Russia was promised Constantinople.
This could go on for a while.
No doubt Putin considers Ukraine part of Russia, as it was a previous member of the Russian Federation up until 1990. And no doubt Zelenskyy and the West consider it to be a free and sovereign nation. Question is … what do the people want? Specifically, the people in the battle zone? I still find it very strange that in 2014, Russia rolled into Crimea and no one gave a shit, and for the next 7 years, it was peaceful. Do you think Putin was emboldened by this lack of resistance? And the fact that the people of Crimea welcomed them?
And I can not overlook the fact that Ukraine was, and still is, one of the most financially corrupt countries in the world as well as having a very strong Nazi influence. I know politics makes strange bedfellows, but I think we need to more skeptical of who Ukraine really is.
This morning’s Coffee & Covid is one of the best in a while. Covers a lot of pertinent topics.
I recently read about a small country (can’t remember which one), who resisted all the panic around Covid, did not do national vaccine or mask mandates, and yet they had the lowest fatality rate of every other country in the world.
Probably one of the 53 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Back in late 2021 I used the Covid statistics at Worldometers.info to compare the U.S. with sub-Saharan Africa. Even with the abysmal level of public healthcare in Africa, their Covid death numbers were something like 3% of ours. Their vaccination rate was insignificant, and their prophylactic use of Hydroxychloroquine, which was over-the-counter, as a Malaria prevention, was widespread. Take away the numbers from the much more woke South Africa, and the difference was even more striking.
Every time I listen to Nikki Haley, all she talks about is foreign policy and her desire to solve the worlds problems. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear a politician focus on Americas problems first?
Nikki has staked out a lane no one else has, and is hoping it will lead her to the VP slot. She has to know she has no chance of being the nominee, but by posturing as a foreign policy wonk who is also “a female POC” she would be a logical choice to round out a ticket, both by this and by geography.
I think a politician who focuses not on “problems” or “issues” but on the way shifting from Constitutional governance has led to those problems or issues would be a better choice. Bandaids are nice, signaling an effort to solve a problem, but without attention to the underlying disease they are merely window dressing.
Which problems would you like a candidate to focus on, and what solutions would you like to see as policy?
Border, manufacturing jobs, crime, education, decentralizing DC power, drugs, homelessness, etc etc. we have enough problems in our own country to keep us busy for a while rather than protecting other people from imaginary threats.
OK. Good list.
Now, how many of these problems are directly related to the shift away from Constitutional governance to Leftist consolidation of power in the hands of a few?
To put it another way, how many of these problems would still exist, under the surface perhaps like the roots of the weeds we thought we killed, only to surface again once the suppressing influence of a Republican government is removed?
They are all important, but they equal the curtains on a house, the visible artifacts of poor maintenance when it’s the foundation and roof that need the work.
I note two themes in your post. One is that we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. In other words, we can either address serious cultural problems or we can develop a fighting-ready military with enough combat experience to be effective in defending the nation, but we can’t do both. And one is that the genocide, rape, torture and destruction of innocent people are really just “imaginary threats”. I find the former naive at best, and the latter indefensible and, quite honestly, despicable.
Lol well that’s because you believe it’s Americas responsibility to solve all the worlds problems because we’re just so wonderful or something like that, but if you noticed ….. we have been failing spectacularly in that endeavor, and to our own demise. How about if we just start focusing on doing the small things right for our own country before embarking on larger endeavors. Better to start doing a few things right rather than doing most everything wrong.
I will also point out that Trump had us on that exact track and we were doing quite well. That’s the blueprint.
Please do not put words in my mouth—what we call “lying”. Not a word I said can be construed to support such a complete lie.
I understand that when you embark on a path you defend it so ferociously that you will say anything, no matter how false, no matter how bizarre, if you think it will defend your position. Unfortunately that too often results in things like you trying to tell me what I think, or saying that the horrors visited upon innocent people are “imaginary”.
Perhaps it is this penchant for a headlong rush into reckless hyperbole that explains your attachment to Trump. Birds of a feather, etc.
How about you taking a breath, reading what I actually DO say and responding to it? Your style is exactly that of the Leftists, who blurt out something stupid and then when challenged to explain or defend it just skitter off to something else.
BTW, members of Congress don’t usually go to battle, nor do trained warriors legislate. So each group can do its own job without interfering with the other. I’d like to think we can elect someone who can lead the country into resolving the problems you list while at the same time rebuilding and training our military. If we can’t find someone like that we might as well give up.
And you can depend on a military that got some training, then sat around doing busy work until the nation is in crisis because they were not sent out to do something meaningful that would also prepare them for the reality of war. I for one dread the idea of the future of the nation depending on men and women who have never come closer to real combat than a video game. But evidently that’s just me.
I’d like to think we can elect someone who can lead the country into resolving the problems you list while at the same time rebuilding and training our military. If we can’t find someone like that we might as well give up.
We had someone exactly like that … Donald Trump.
And I’m not defending anything, I just think we need to rethink everything in this country because right now, this country is falling apart and is worse off than it’s ever been. I do think we should teach our kids the “systems of Constitutional government” as you advocate, but right now, most of our kids can’t even read at their grade level. I would like to protect people around the world from authoritarian oppression, but right now we are simply printing money to do that which is risking all our children’s futures so simply put, we just can’t afford it. It’s time to recognize our limitations, get back to fundamentals (Faith, family, freedom) and restore this country before we do anything else.
I would like to protect people around the world from authoritarian oppression, – Cluster
Right now, right this very moment, America is teetering on the tippy edge of just that, a authoritarian totalitarian regime. Our constitution is hanging by a tiny thread, the size of a spiderweb silk. Any day now, we could wake up to military up and down our streets. In front of our homes, in front of the stores, in front of the schools, in front of every government building, every municipality,
That is how untrustworthy this government of ours is.
We seem to be headed in that direction, don’t we? Which leads me to ask again … what have we been conserving over the last 30 years?
I have no idea how much, if any of this story is true, but it’s one of the most fascinating tales I’ve ever read.
I believe that to be 100% true. The CIA killed JFK and quite possibly RFK
You might be interested in diving more deeply into the JFK assassination. I admit I don’t know, or even have a strong opinion, on who was responsible, but I have seen accounts similar to the one in this link that are compelling.
One of the most fascinating things about the JFK assassination legends is the effort to smear Oswald. The many accounts of him being extremely smart, extremely loyal to this country and also of being in the CIA have been carefully smothered by the State narratives. And one of the theories is that Oswald, as a member of the CIA, was in Dallas to try to head off the assassination, which is why he made no effort to escape and why he was so confident that his arrest would quickly be found to be a mistake once his handlers stepped in. (The fact that the handlers never did step in, and that Oswald finally realized he was, as a he said, just a “patsy”, and the convenient assassination of Oswald by Ruby, complicates that theory but does not detract from the theory that Oswald believed he was there to protect the president, not to harm him. The CIA was fully capable of weaving complicated webs of deceit.) There is as much pointing to the LBJ/Texas Mafia as to the CIA.
One of the reviews of “The Men On the Sixth Floor”, one of the more interesting books about the JFK assassination. It’s a short and easy read and provides some interesting information, mostly the identification of LBJ’s hit man Mac Wallace as the previously unidentified man in the book depository room the day of the assassination.
The discovery of Lawrence Loy Proctor and the investigation into his part of the Texas School Book Depository shooters unravels the mystery of Lee Oswald’s part in being at the depository working that day. Fortunately he was innocently eating his lunch and having a CocaCola in the seconds after the shooting. Again, a duplicate Oswald was used to set him up and Proctor gives eyewitness evidence to support that there was three shooters on the sixth floor and Mac Wallace orchestrated the whole depository action. Would like to know who “Ruth Ann” was and how she was involved in the shooting planning. The book reveals many details that make it obvious that powerful Texans were integral in the assassination conspiracy. The book reads well and I could hardly put it down, I just had to keep on reading to the end.
There are too many stories of duplicate Oswalds to dismiss them all, from witnesses to the Tippit shooting to witnesses of movie theater arrest to witnesses to the fact that the real Oswald wasn’t even on the 6th floor when the shooting took place to the bizarre actions of “Oswald” in Mexico City as someone claiming to be Oswald engaged in several loud displays obviously intended to attract attention to him as he repeatedly identified himself as Oswald.
Very interesting
Keep believing in that “insurrection” Forty. That narrative matches your intellect.
See: Antifa
See: Black Lives Matter
See: Eco Activists
Note: Inner City No Bail Policies
You voted for all the above
Is anyone surprised by this??
Burning Man census reveals majority of revelers are rich, white, male Democrats – and the average age is 37 … as officials slam ravers for abandoning cars, blankets and their own waste at desert site
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman said she would support an amendment that reduces Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ salary to $1 per year.
That’s great, but why don’t we also charge him with seditious conspiracy? Isn’t he responsible for “preventing, hindering, or delaying the execution of any law of the United States” ?
“Today, I ask my fellow Republicans this: In the days to come, will we be the party of conservatism or will our party follow the siren song of populism unmoored to conservative principles?” he added, suggesting the divide between the two is “unbridgeable.”
Some reporter needs to ask Mike Pence just exactly what he has been conserving the last 20 years. Has he been conserving good paying jobs for Americans? How about conserving the future of American children through education and secure borders? Your brand of conservatism Mike, has failed. And the polls should tell you that Mike. Maybe pay attention to what your voters want, rather than your elite agenda.
What is the big deal about the word “populism”?
The basic definition of “populism” is this: a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups: Going through the various online dictionaries, there are variations on this theme, but this is the basic definition.
One article states:
There’s academic debate on how to categorise the concept: is it an ideology, a style, a discourse, or a strategy? But across these debates, researchers tend to agree populism has two core principles:
1. it must claim to speak on behalf of ordinary people
2. these ordinary people must stand in opposition to an elite establishment which stops them from fulfilling their political preferences.
So the logical question is why is this supposed to be a problem? We see how when we look at some of the extrapolations of the word as various authors “explain” it as it has emerged from through their own political filters.
One example is the typical misstatement of the “far right” being associated with “authoritarianism” though right-wing philosophy is the antithesis of Central Authority governance. Once the Left was successful in linking Nazis and fascism with the invented “far right” this became a common theme. It contradicts the actual technical definition of ”right” in American politics but it resonates with the Left and Left-leaning non-thinkers.
While political and social scientists have developed several different definitions of populism, they increasingly explain populist forces in terms of their ideas or discourse. This growingly common “ideational” approach presents populism as a cosmic struggle between the morally good “people” and a corrupt and self-serving group of conspiring “elites.”
Note how the struggle to thwart the control of the small but powerful ruling elite power structure is shifted to a sneering cosmic struggle between the morally good “people” and a corrupt and self-serving group of conspiring “elites.” This condescending attitude and negative spin on the effort is typical of the attack on populism.
Then the author veers off even farther into the weeds of blatant bias, as s/he blathers: Populists typically define “the people” based on their socioeconomic class, ethnicity, or nationality. This spin conveniently allows the concept of popularism to be tainted by implications of racism, paving the way for further smearing. The author freely mixes fact with personal perception, leading to some very strange assumptions and conclusions.
Appearing in 2009, the Tea Party was a conservative populist movement motivated largely in opposition to the social and economic policies of President Barack Obama. Focusing on a raft of myths and conspiracy theories about Obama, the Tea Party pushed the Republican Party further to the right toward Libertarianism.
Here we can see how the simple concept of appealing to the people by promising to represent them in their opposition to ruling elites starts to be miscast as some kind of hyper-emotional adoption of “ a raft of myths and conspiracy theories about Obama” and focused specifically on him, as the narrative shifts from the premise of the people organizing to object to high taxes (Taxed Enough Already was shortened to TEA as the name of the movement) to a reaction to a single person. And considering Libertarianism as being to the right of the Republican Party is an odd and unsupportable interpretation of both.
But this kind of wild theorizing and infiltration of anti-Right bias into the definition of a simple political choice is the foundation for the ongoing demonization of “populism” as something inherently dangerous to the Republic. And this is mild compared to some of the wild-eyed efforts to make the concept of appealing to people who want to have a say in their government appear sinister which should be opposed and shut down.
I’ve seen a lot of the purely emotional dislike of Trump used to tie him to the misstating of the simple concept of appealing to people who feel disenfranchised by a growing power structure of elites, presented as a negative, threatening and somehow sinister movement.
When Pence claims that the principle of objecting to consolidating power in the hands of a few is a violation of “conservative principles” he stakes out his position in one of two territories: As one who truly does not understand “conservative (Constitutional) principles, or as a lying demagogue.
Populism is just short hand for what the people want. And that is exactly what all governments should be focusing on.
In a discussion with my son-in-law a couple of years ago he asked me how I perceived the role of government. Here was my response:
He’s probably still wondering how equity plays into that lol
My wish is that Americans would start looking at the world and this country with clear eyes rather than with paranoid delusions or false ideals. I think it’s beyond all debate that the path we have taken the last 30 years IS NOT WORKING. No, we can not “save democracy” around the world, nor should we even try. America has no right to tell other people how to live or what type of government they should embrace, particularly when our own government has spent the last two decades at methodically chipping away at personal freedoms. Mike Pence took the typical establishment line the other day saying “there is nothing America can’t do”, well you know what, that line of thinking has gotten us into $30 trillion dollar debt and thousand of lives needlessly lost. We need to stop with this idealism, become adults, and start being realists. And this goes for the paranoid delusional people … no, Jan 6 was not even close to an insurrection, Covid is the flu, Climate change is a scam, illegal immigration is harmful, gender transitions are evil, and indicting political opponents is communism.
FFS let’s be rational adults.
Well, for one thing I never said a word about “saving democracy around the world.” It would certainly be easier to have a conversation with you if you could manage to address what I say instead of what makes it through your filters.
“America has no right to tell other people how to live or what type of government they should embrace…” Agreed, which is what that concept never entered anything I said.
Evidently my ideas are too complex for you to grasp, so you just invent something else you feel comfortable slapping away at.
One example I gave: Ensuring that aid sent to Africa actually goes where it was intended. That would require an armed force ready and willing to engage in warlords if necessary. Not to have town hall meetings with tea and cookies to lecture on the glories of a democratic republic. That Mixmaster in your brain sure does stir up a lot of stuff that was never even implied in any post I have ever written.
And then a foray into unconnected, unrelated, general meanderings about J6, Covid, transgenderism, etc. along with the very strange comment that indicting political opponents “is communism”.
But I give up because no one as entrenched as you are in your own twisted interpretation of anything I say can be reached.
Ensuring that aid sent to Africa actually goes where it was intended.
We should not be sending aid to Africa. We can’t afford it.
And the “saving democracy around the world” comment was a shot at the establishment. No one else.
So typical of leftist (and RINO’s) and the reason they should never be trusted run anything that impacts the general public.
“After years berating school choice proponents as fascists and smearing private schools as “segregation academies,” the president of one the country’s largest teachers unions was exposed as a hypocrite who sends her son to a posh private school.
‘She got her own child out of the dumpster fire that is Chicago Public Schools. Less fortunate families should be able to escape those failure factories, too… ‘ “
If they didn’t have double standards, they would have no standards at all. Another example was NY Mayor Adams blaming TX Gov. Abbott for his illegal immigration problem.
We are starting to hear a lot of complaining from the establishment class that they need more money. Well we all know what happens when they have their money, so I want to see what happens when they don’t have their money. I say shut it all down, trim 10% off of every federal agency, and start to claw back all the money given to special interests that has yet to be spent, ie; Covid money as a start. A government shut down only effects the DEI consultants and government employees who really contribute nothing.
This would also be a good time to consider moving many agencies out of DC and into the heartland. Why do the people of Virginia have exclusive rights to good paying government jobs? Move the the Dept. Of Interior to Nebraska and decentralize power and the money.
Like I said, in my opinion, it’s time to rethink everything in this country.
THIS IS MY PRESIDENT. This is man who genuinely loves this country and what it stands for, and is willing to personally sacrifice himself and his businesses to do what he thinks is right. Also, having been a huge donor to all the corrupt politicians over the last 30 years, he knows who they are and what they have done to this country for personal profit and gain. He deserves our full support considering the unlawful and unConstitutional persecution of him by inferior and incompetent people. Also, I like the idea of a Trump/Kristi Noem ticket. She would help put him over the top.
He deserves our full support considering the unlawful and unConstitutional persecution of him by inferior and incompetent people.
I agree, as long as “full support” stops short of owing him our votes to express our outrage at the State persecution of a political opponent. Voting is too important to be influenced by emotion.
I’ve long liked the idea of a DeSantis/Noem ticket. Two young, dynamic, effective governors representing the future of the party seem like a good image as well as an effective path forward toward addressing the problems we are facing.
When we consider how many of those problems originate in the White House, through Executive Orders and dictatorial edicts, it is obvious that the arc of the entire nation can be altered within a week by electing the right president. I agree that Trump could do this, if he could overcome the cumulative effect of State persecution and self-inflicted wounds, but his path to the Oval Office is a rough one with many speed bumps and pitfalls. And he’s not the only one who could do what needs to be done.
This is just a trial run …
On Friday, New Mexico’s tyrannical Democrat Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham declared gun violence a public health emergency in response to the shooting deaths of a thirteen-year-old girl on July 28, a five-year-old girl on August 14, and an eleven-year-old boy on September 6.
The American government is using healthcare and climate change as the vehicle to tyranny. It’s clear as day
Here’s a Governor of a border state who has illegal immigrants and drugs flowing in at record rates .. and her answer to the problem??? Take away guns from law abiding citizens. How do you counter this level of stupidity?
Are you not sensing some kind of black swan event between now and the election? There are so many possibilities I’m reluctant to even speculate.
Oh I am. You know me lol. Something is coming down the pike.
The question is whether it will be another constructed event, like Covid, or a naturally occurring even that can be utilized.
I’m expecting the former, a more blatant and dramatic October Surprise that affects the entire nation, like another plandemic. Offhand I can’t think of anything else that could shut down the nation and be used to justify more election fraud. I guess even massive rioting in every major city, supporting the imposition of martial law, would help them. (Or, as I have seen it written, “marshall law”. Oh, those pesky homonyms!)
It reminds me of the story of the neighbor standing next to the owner of a business that is burning down. He asks why it caught on fire and the owner says “because I don’t know how to start a flood”.
The Left can’t count on a figurative flood to help them, but they are sure good at starting fires.
New Mexico is an interesting state. It tends to vote Democrat because it is such a poor state, with such a low income level for natives, that it is very dependent on federal handouts and therefore votes to keep the spigots open. But on the other hand, these impoverished people are also mainly rural, and I don’t see them happily giving up their guns.
The Leftists are mostly concentrated in and around Santa Fe, the state capitol and playground of the rich
For starters, I’d round up all the people like you and put you in a re-education camp WITHOUT Internet access.
Lol
You’re not a serious person Forty. Hence the derision.
What a great illustration of the fact that Lefties have no sense of humor.
It’s not a gotcha question. Up to you whether you can muster a serious response.
I can’t recall you ever offering a solution to any perceived problem, so how about you go first and tell us. BTW, I didn’t say the greatest “distribution” of security, individual freedom and prosperity, I said the greatest “amount” of security, individual freedom and prosperity. This country has a great amount of all of those, and none of them is distributed equally, thanks in large part to government (both Democrat and Republican) policies which seek to make them unequal. Ironically, those who are least free are generally the ones who challenge the status quo, those who are least safe are the ones who live in large metro areas run almost exclusively by Democrats, and those who are least prosperous are generally the ones who either don’t work or who didn’t get the education required to succeed in life. I don’t view it as a responsibility of government to provide equal distribution of anything except security.
It appears from your comments that you’ve read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. If you haven’t read Animal Farm, I suggest you read it, and then come back and give us a book report.
because putting people in re-education camps is actually what you would like to do.
That’s not just a lie, it’s an egregious lie. The only people who have suggested putting other Americans in re-education camp are all Democrats, and all were referring to doing it to Trump supporters.
Oh, and you need to get your joke-o-meter tuned.
Who said anything about conservatives wanting re-education camps? That is the stupidest thing I have heard for a long time. But it goes to support my observation that the Left, in particular, is simply abysmally ignorant of basic political definitions. (It’s kind of like Libs whining that Trump would be a dictator, and then sloping off into some other insanity when challenged to come up with a single example him acting like that when he was president. It’s just one of those brain farts the Left feeds its mindless foot soldiers, to blurt out when the pressure builds to say something, ANYTHING.)
The core structure of the Right is based on individual liberty and restricted federal government. State and local governments can enact pretty much anything the locals vote for, as long as it’s not Constitutionally prohibited, because there is always the freedom to go to a state or town that is more to your liking. But the Right supports the right to be wrong, the right to be stupid and the right to be a jackass, as long at the expression of these rights does not impinge on our own.
it’s the Left that demands submission to the official narrative and dogma. Only Leftist nations have had concentration camps and “re-education” camps. To this day, a majority of Millennials, according to a recent poll, support jail for spreading “misinformation” it’s a pretty good guess they all vote Democrat.
That utterly stupid statement shows an ignorance not only of actual political philosophy but of history. It also shows a lack of self-respect, as no one with an interest in personal dignity would willingly reveal such a toxic stew of ignorance, stupidity and malice. Of course, internet anonymity allows this kind of posturing without the natural influence of shunning.
When was the last time YOUR government properly addressed real world problems? Or for that matter, real domestic problems. The reason why you’re asking Spook is because you and your party have no real answers, and are failing at everything
I don’t think you understand what a tax credit is. It’s not confiscation and redistribution of wealth. A tax credit is simply the government allowing someone to keep more of their own money rather than pay taxes.
I say we abolish the income tax, which will be a huge wage increase for middle class families and enact a national sales tax. This way the 1% can’t escape paying their fair share. It’s not the fault of the 1% that they don’t pay their fair share. It’s the government’s fault. They actually subsidize the rich.
So you know about Prager U but not rules for radicals. LMAO. Keep those blinders on
I say we abolish the income tax, which will be a huge wage increase for middle class families and enact a national sales tax. This way the 1% can’t escape paying their fair share. It’s not the fault of the 1% that they don’t pay their fair share. It’s the government’s fault. They actually subsidize the rich.
Spot on! I’ve been a proponent of The Fair Tax since it was first proposed. I’ve been to several seminars in which is was explained in great detail. The establishment of both parties wants nothing to do with it – mainly because it WOULD level the playing field between the haves and the have nots. It’s the same reason the establishment of both parties will never vote in a wealth tax, because it would hit their biggest donors the most, so, of course, they would have to create loopholes for those folks.
Spot on
If you have numbers or analyses that demonstrates that it would, I’d like to see it.
Knock yourself out.
I’ve been an advocate for the Fair Tax for years. At first the idea of a 20%, plus or minus, sales tax was not acceptable. But then I realized that if this firmly REPLACED an income tax, which could never be revived to make it merely an additional tax, it has a lot of benefits.
The stripping of the Gestapo-like powers of the IRS can’t be discounted. Slashing the size and scope of this agency, reducing it to basically enforcing sales tax reporting, would eliminate the ability of a power-mad State to weaponize it to use as a bludgeon on political opposition. That alone is a powerful argument for the Fair Tax, not to mention the savings to the country in having a much smaller and restricted tax agency. The dramatic streamlining of our entire tax system would have a huge impact on our economy.
I am strongly drawn to the benefit of giving control of our earnings back to us. That is, if I choose to limit my purchases to used goods and only essentials, that puts control of my money back in my hands, where it belongs. Given that most essentials are not taxed—things like food or medicine—that means I could control my own financial destiny. So I could save up to buy a house, or the car I want, or fund my retirement, but it would all be based on my personal decisions as an individual. It could also make me more productive. If I hesitate to start a small business, or accept a promotion, because my analysis of the after-tax benefits just don’t make the extra work or responsibility worth the effort, ending the taxing of my personal revenue would free me up to expand my efforts.
(It would also increase the value of my assets, as there would be no tax on used goods. So my used car would be more valuable than it is now, being non-taxable to the buyer. Ditto for household goods, appliances, even clothing. Basically, everything I own, and everything I eventually buy, would have more value than it does now.)
And, of course, the Fair Tax brings millions of non-taxpayers into the fold. Criminals don’t pay taxes, but they buy a lot of stuff. Gamblers, drug dealers, prostitutes, all sorts of people in the underground economy, pay no income taxes but are purchasers, often of high-end goods. This tax makes them taxpayers. It taxes non-citizens and visitors, too.
I’ve seen whining about a possible “black market” of tax evaders, but I don’t see that as a big problem. Sure, my plumber can trade his services for mine as a mechanic, both of us avoiding the tax on our services, but this is the kind of thing that is going to be small-scale. Any effort to establish a clearing house or brokerage for this kind of trading of services would immediately be caught and shut down by the enforcement arm of the newly restricted IRS (and would probably eliminate its current claim of needing armed agents).
The government has a role in regulating interstate commerce and that’s where they can best level the playing field. However capitalism will always favor those with capital, ie; money. There will always be upper, middle, and lower income people. No escape from that.
Stop picking winners and losers, stop bailing out failed companies, deregulate many businesses, offer tax incentives for entrepreneurs who want to revitalize distressed cities, close the border and stop the in flow of cheap labor, lower taxes and stop spending money on divisive social issues, trim the federal bureaucracy by 10%. In other words, leave the money in the private sector and then get the hell out of the way.
BTW (and I think Mark would concur with this), if you want to see how government can provide the greatest amount of security, individual liberty and prosperity for the greatest number of citizens, read about Calvin Coolidge and the Roaring Twenties, where those who were willing to take risks got tremendously wealthy, but ordinary citizens whose only goal in life was to provide a decent life for their family did really well, and a really wealthy guy named Henry Ford saw to it that most of those families could afford to buy their first car. The secret? Government got out of the way.
Now you’re just showing your ignorance.
Cluster’s right – you just aren’t a serious person.
The stock market crash of 1929 had nothing to do with entrepreneurship or high union wages like those at Ford mentioned by Spook. The crash was caused by greed by speculators (because of good times), which inflated the market. Also many of those speculators used debt for stock purchases which compounded the problem. Then when the economy slowed, panic set in, and millions of people lost everything in a matter of days. Greed was the problem. And greed is the problem today
Students of macroeconomics will learn about the Great Depression of the 1930s. They will learn that many of the policies routinely used to fight downturns now—fiscal stimulus and expansive monetary policy—were forged in those years. You can earn a degree in economics without ever encountering the Depression of 1920-1921. Yet, initially, it was as bad as that which began in 1929 but ended more quickly and was followed by a rapid recovery.
Whereas the policymakers of the 1930s—led by the defeated vice-presidential candidate of 1920, Franklin D. Roosevelt—diagnosed the economic problem facing them as unemployment and deflation, those of 1920 diagnosed it as the preceding inflation. Where policymakers of the 1930s used cheap money and government spending to boost demand, those of the 1920s saw this as simply repeating the errors which had created the initial problem. To them, there could be no true cure that didn’t deal with the disease, rather than the symptoms.
It is for history to judge who was correct, but it’s undeniable that the recovery of the Depression of 1920–1921 was immensely stronger and faster than that of the Great Depression. Ironically, this may be the very reason it is often overlooked in history and economic courses.
An additional lesson of eternal relevance can also be drawn: successful solutions will be those which are based on a correct diagnosis of the problem.
We are looking at the same thing now, but instead of understanding the role of inflation in an eventual depression, the government is “simply repeating the errors which had created the initial problem.” The Depression of 1920 was deeper than that of 1929 after a stock market crash that was more severe than that of 1929, but it corrected itself as the market made the necessary corrections.
How did the 1929 crash narrative achieve such strength? Ideas about morality may have played a role. The 1920s had been a time not only of economic superabundance but also of chicanery, selfishness, and sexual liberation. Some critics viewed these aspects of the culture negatively, but they were unable to make a case against this putative immorality until the stock market crashed.
Sermons preached on the Sunday after the crash, November 3, 1929, talked about the crash, attributing it to moral and spiritual transgressions. The sermons helped frame day-of-judgment narratives about the Roaring Twenties. Google Ngrams shows that the term Roaring Twenties was rarely used in the 1920s. Use of the term, which sounds a bit judgmental, did not become common until the 1930s, when the broad moral story line in the Great Depression gradually morphed into a national revulsion against the excesses and pathological confidence of the 1920s.
Murray Kempton describes a narrative that began on the day of the 1929 crash, referring to the “myth” of the 1920s and the “myth” of the 1930s:
The myth of the twenties had involved the search for individual expression, whether in beauty, laughter, or defiance of convention; all this was judged by the myth of the thirties as selfish and footling and egocentric. It did not seem proper at the time to say that the twenties were not quite so simple, and their values were mixed, some good and some bad.
Thus the stock market crash was viewed as a dividing line between the self-centered, self-deceiving 1920s and the intellectually and morally superior, albeit depressed, 1930s. Even today, the narrative notion that a stock market crash is a kind of divine punishment remains with us.
And Forty allow me to point out that you know who doesn’t want to pay high union wages? Your Democrat buddies at Starbucks and Amazon to name just two.
I think I found a picture of Forty.
No you didn’t. It was a very civil conversation. I just can’t relate to your pathology of constantly looking for the negative in everything without offering any viable solutions in return. Instead of identifying a problem and offering a solution you wait until someone else offers a solution and then nitpick it to death. If that’s all you’ve got, then I think we’d all appreciate it if you’d take your game somewhere else.
We had a guy a while back who wrote and thought a great deal like you. In terms of writing style and thought process, you could be twins. He went by the screen name of Rusty Brown (don’t ask me how or why I remember that). He disappeared for a while, and when he returned he had had an epiphany. He hadn’t turned into a Tea Party Conservative, but he had begun the process of examining the error in much of what he believed, much like Amazona did back in the 90s. I hope he’s still monitoring this blog and can maybe chime in on where he’s at today.
Holy smokes I had forgotten about ol Rusty Brown. And you’re absolutely right. Same arguments
Lol. Not negative. Just realistic. This whole political charade has been historically played out time and time again. And it rarely ends well
I’ve had people ask me about my transition for Unexamined Liberal to hard-core conservative. It was not some dramatic Road To Damascus ideological revelation or conversion. Actually, my Liberalism (carefully removed from actual liberalism by its capital L, as it never had anything to do with being liberal) was more social than ideological. I was reactive, passive until I saw or heard something that twanged a strand in the spider web that passed for my political beliefs, and then I would react with something from the script I and my equally unexamined peers “believed”.
(I once described this as a kind of bicycle race. There are the participants, who are dedicated, who train, who sacrifice, who work very hard to be in the race and try to win. There are the supporters, who are equally dedicated but who are on the sidelines, cheering the racers, offering bottles of water and encouraging comments. And then there are the fringe, who are not committed to anything in the race but who lurk on the sidelines looking for a chance to dart in and shove a stick through the spokes of a bike ridden by someone who is actually invested in the race. These are the Liberals among us, who just lurk on the sidelines until someone with ideas comes along and then dart out to try to derail the ideas, but without offering anything to replace them. They delude themselves with the fantasy that by attacking they contribute, but they are really just parasites on the process, happy to be mere speed bumps or saboteurs.)
Anyway, I was pretty passionate in my superficial reactions to the thoughts and ideas and deeds of an imagined Right. I had to do a lot of driving at the time so I listened to my radio a lot. I’ve never much liked listening to music in the car, and I stumbled across a talk show run by a conservative named Mike Rosen. He had an approach I haven’t seen anywhere else. He was, for one thing, articulate and organized, so he could and did present his positions analytically, coherently and precisely. For another, he welcomed opposition phone calls, but he demanded that callers follow his rule. It was simple: It demanded discourse. That is, a Liberal could call in and present an opinion, but only one at a time, and then it would be discussed before going on. So Lib Caller would passionately explain why Mike was wrong about something and then try to go on to another example and be reined in by Mike, who would want to discuss this, or ask a question about it.
Inevitably, Lib Caller would just try to barge ahead to the next item on his list, and Mike would say “no, that’s not how it works here. Here, you say something, I ask a question, you answer the question, we might have a discussion about it, and then you can go to your next item for discussion. But you don’t get to dodge a question by just going on to another topic, or by just asking another question.”
I often wanted to hear the answers to the questions Mike asked, because Lib Caller had usually espoused something in my personal belief system, and I wanted him to explain it to me because I felt that way but didn’t have any real information to back it up. So I would be disappointed when Lib Caller could not or would not support what he said.
I kept listening, thinking Mike Rosen was just mean because he was so relentless in his demand that callers be able and willing to at least try to support what they said, and hoping that some day someone would do that and support my feelings with actual facts and information.
But it never happened, and I gradually realized I wanted to be on the side that had answers, that had a foundation of knowledge and information instead of just guesses and feelings. And that was when my path shifted.
And then along came the man who really pushed me to the Right: Bill Clinton. As a true feminist—that is as a woman who didn’t think my gender should cut me off from doing things I wanted to do, coming from a farm background where women drove tractors and handled livestock but who were also enthusiastically female and feminine— I found the urban feminism that was really just hatred of men irrelevant and petty (burning bras ??) (a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle ??) and, basically, superficial and silly. But these women seemed quite passionate, so when Clinton’s sexual predation became known I sat back to see how these “feminists” would handle the fall of their idol. And I got my first personal- first-hand, insight into Leftism in American politics, as these “feminists” savagely turned on the victims. They not only increased their support for Clinton, they participated in the attacks on his victims, and the entire Democrat Party did a one-eighty from “feminism” into “too ugly to rape” and “what do you get when you drag a hundred dollars through a trailer park”.
I think that was the crucial nudge from a slightly abstract appreciation of Constitutional governance vs that of the Left into application of this to our own political system.
Then I discovered B4B, way back in the old days, and started posting here. I kept seeing clones of Lib Caller, and, inspired by Mike Rosen and his strategy for dealing with them, tried to engage them the way he did. And I ran into exactly the same pattern of evasiveness, topic-shifting, responding to questions with other questions, and refusal back up allegations with evidence or sources. This pushed me to start doing my own investigations, so I could back up what I said, which greatly expanded my base of knowledge and also forced me to become a better writer. This is when and why, for example, I started to really study the Constitution and its history and contemporaneous writings of the Founders, and understanding their theories and goals and why they did what they did.
Early in this process I was also indirectly influenced by my husband, who was apolitical, refused to discuss politics in any way, but was also an amateur war historian. So I started to pay attention to the things he WOULD talk about, and spending time with people who shared his interests. And I came to realize that when they were all talking, basically, about things that went boom I wondered WHY they went boom. And that led me, gradually, into studying the history and tactics of Leftism and its effects on societies where it had been implemented or imposed. That eventually tied in with my growing conversion to political conservatism—-not a legacy conservative but one who got here through a lot of hard work and study and above all intense thought and evaluation of what I learned as I went along.
My personal path has taught me, and confirmed, a couple of observations. One is that the main allure of the Left is its promise that it offers a shortcut to the Higher Moral Ground. I still remember the power of the conviction that, merely by being “of” the Left, I was a Better Person. I still remember the power of the indoctrination into the perception that The Other was, by definition, motivated solely by malice and greed and was inherently morally corrupt and must be either fought or avoided. I still remember the sense that ridiculing this Invented Other conveyed morality and dignity, even though it was really quite superficial and snotty.
And one, never yet contradicted by experience, is that many if not all of the kind of Leftist who calls into radio stations or, now, haunts comment sections and blogs like this, are politically unserious but living the lie that superficial sniping at an Invented Other is the same thing as true political discourse.
Spook, you very accurately say “Instead of identifying a problem and offering a solution you wait until someone else offers a solution and then nitpick it to death. If that’s all you’ve got, then I think we’d all appreciate it if you’d take your game somewhere else.”
I just referred to this mentality in the final paragraph of my admittedly long explanation of my journey out of the Dark Side.
And one (observation) never yet contradicted by experience, is that many if not all of the kind of Leftist who calls into radio stations or, now, haunts comment sections and blogs like this, are politically unserious but living the lie that superficial sniping at an Invented Other is the same thing as true political discourse. after describing them as people who, figuratively, just lurk to ram sticks through the spokes of figurative bicycles ridden by people who do the thinking and then pretend that this indicates political involvement instead of mere vandalism.
There’s such a smirky smug aura of self-satisfaction in the snark that conveys the conviction of having actually participated in the process and scored some kinds of points or something. The superficiality reeks.
The bicycle spokes analogy is spot on.