Open Thread

Secret Service is saying that $100 billion in Covid relief has be stolen. Rely on it: it is orders of magnitude higher than that. We do have to fault Trump a bit here as well – as this thing came in, the money spigot was turned on full blast. Pudding Brain has put that into overdrive, but we have to admit where it started.

Of course the money was going to be stolen. The primary purpose, for those in the know, was to steal. We didn’t really need to spend much on this – we did, after all, have a perfectly functioning economy and health care system when this started. At most we just needed a slight boost in what we were already spending. But the bonanza of cash simply thrown out the Treasury windows was and is the opportunity of a life time. Couple years from now and we will see a few indictments – people who stole beyond their station or who didn’t divvy up the way the bosses wanted. But my bet is that half, at least, of what has and will be spent was nothing but graft.

The dirty little secret of our government is that it spends so much money that nobody really knows what is going on. How can anyone keep an eye on trillions of dollars being spent? Do you realize how easy it is to divert hundreds of billions when you’ve got a flood of money that large?

Some rumors that Team Hillary is in Durham’s crosshairs. Hope so, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Cocaine Mitch, talking with Hugh Hewitt, basically said he’s asking Manchin to switch to the GOP – adding that he’s discussing whether Manchin would keep his chairmanship of Energy. I’m a bit surprised – not that it might be happening, but that it would happen now. I’d have thought Mitch would wait until well into 2022. OTOH, the Democrats are already a toxic brand and McConnell back in the Majority Leader spot shuts down all Democrat legislative programs. We’ll see how it comes out.

Donald Trump says he’ll hold a press conference on January 6th. A lot of people are downright frightened of this – I’m not. What better way to take the entire spotlight away from whatever the DNC/MSM will be doing that day? If he calls for the release of the 1/6 detainees, then I’ll figure its for sure that he’s running in 2024.

Since Covid hit, 5 million Americans obtained firearms. The people are arming in a replay of the Great Fear of 1789 in France. America is a tinder box right now – keeping in mind that our side is mostly made up of people who just want to be left alone. The problem – for the Left – is that if such people ever decide it is time to fight or die, then they tend to be quite brutal in settling accounts.

China bought Hollywood and then helped Hollywood destroy itself. It is the Chinese business model. China merely wanted to get itself going – so that it can provide pop-culture product on the global market…not so American pop-culture could come to dominate China. Now that China has got what it wanted, the Hollywood dreams of releasing American movies in the Chinese market have faded away. Hopefully this will force American studios to start making product designed for specifically for the American market. No more Superman who refuses to fight for the American way, as it were.

Open Thread

Getting that time of year where I like to have pea soup – and what I like to have with my pea soup is muenster cheese. Sure, not the most popular sort of cheese in the world, but also not some rare commodity. No muenster cheese in the grocery store. No beef bologna, either.

Our Ruling Class and the corporate class are deliberately making America a land of shortages so that prices will go higher and we’ll get used to being poor. They hate American prosperity. Makes us independent and willing to fight…they want us all barely scraping by so that our only concern is daily survival.

Pudding Brain is having great difficulty getting his agenda passed – mostly because the Left is acting like they won a 1932-style victory last year and have been given carte blanche to do whatever they want. They have run up against the reality that when you only have 50 Senators and some of yours are extremely vulnerable, you can’t do anything unless you get the other side on board. They’ve done nothing to get the GOP on board (and it wouldn’t be hard: just throw us a bone or two) and so Cocaine Mitch has said, “work it out amongst yourselves”. We’ll see how they do.

Sinema and Manchin are ever more the Bad Guys in this morality play of the Left: they are furious the pair won’t go along. But as I noted before, SineManchin is just the front for a larger body of Senate Dems who want nothing to do with this. But, even if they were, the reality is that Manchin represents a State that went 40 points for Trump last year and even putting the most rosy Dem picture on AZ, it is a swing State. Anyone who goes too far Left is going to lose. Manchin has point blank said he’s not a liberal, never has been. Sinema is more of the Left than Manchin, but she’s also not entirely easy to categorize and, worse for Dems, she doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of her. Most pols who go to DC become desperate for the approval of other pols and power players. Sinema doesn’t seem to have this psychosis. Don’t, of course, trust her on policy – but our job is to work with her where we can.

New Zealand has had some of the tightest restrictions in the world since Covid began. Now, cases are spreading…and their reaction is to impose even tighter restrictions. Its almost like the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing hoping for a different result.

Over in Australia they are essentially under a military dictatorship – and Big Tech has taken to censoring on the sly any videos of Australian cops beating the sh** out of people to keep them healthy. Make no mistake about it: the Global Ruling Class is, indeed, Global. They are all alike everywhere. The only reason every government (outside a few run by people who are sane – such as Brazil) isn’t treating us like the CCP treats the Chinese is that they don’t think they can. Yet. Their goal is to do to us exactly what has happened in China. They don’t want any of us peons pestering them further.

Trans weightlifter named female sportswomen of the year. This is really on you ladies: just how long will you put up with this?

Playboy’s October cover features a man. We’re supposed to be all shocked about this. Mostly, we’re bored. But, also, talk about losing the plot! Hugh Hefner’s program – a rather vile program – was to make it socially acceptable for middle aged men to seduce young women. The path to this was a magazine which featured boobs and interesting articles (and, yes ladies, we did read the articles…only after the boobs, of course: but back in the day, they did feature a variety of interesting articles). Nobody – not a single person – is interested in a man dressed in a bunny suit. I’m gonna bet that even gay men and women – if they had to choose – would rather see a good looking man on the cover rather than a skinny dude in a bunny costume.

Open Thread

I did a bit on the Barrett Brief this morning, talking politics and Shadow Army and as we discussed things, I went on a little mini-rant about what needs to be done with popular culture. What I said, boiled down, is that we can’t win unless we win the culture. Win all the elections you want, but if the culture is far left, far left will be the country. What I urged in response to that was this: if you’ve got an idea for a book, a movie, a song or a piece of art – DO IT. Don’t be afraid. I was terrified of putting out Mirrors. Afraid that people wouldn’t like it. Forget that. Just put it out there: give people what you have. Maybe you aren’t the great artist…but if you’ve got something to say, in whatever medium, say it. We need to flood the zone.

As those who have read so far know, what I’ve written is a story about normal, good people thrust into strange circumstances – but the key to it all is that they are normal, good people. Not perfect people, but not tortured super heroes with shameful pasts they are unable to come to terms with. Even when I set a character on a path to sin (Jerome, most especially – for a bit of a spoiler to those who have read only to, say, Battles at this time, he keeps on living; he’s in Book 7), the prospect of redemption is always there. The good guys are believers in God and in doing what is right even when it is hard. The books are family friendly (I’d say 12 and up); there is a tiny bit of salty language, but not much. No gross sexual scenes and even in the battle scenes, I don’t try to gross people out with gore. There is no woke SJW preaching. This is the sort of thing which we need to produce and keep producing until it starts to make its way into the general public. Maybe my books will mostly stay on shelves. No problem. But that its out there might inspire the next guy and maybe that will be the blockbuster which opens up the dam and allows a flood of socially conservative popular culture to flow.

Related: they are making a 5th Indiana Jones movie. With 78 year old Harrison Ford as the star. It is ridiculous. And this is really our opportunity. Not only is the Left out of ideas, but even when the recycle their old ideas, they are now injecting them with whatever is fashionable. I’ve finally binge-watched The Walking Dead and I’m on the last season…where we’ve now got a deaf character. I mean, seriously: how could a deaf person survive a Zombie apocalypse? The only way you can survive, at minimum, is hearing them coming so you can kill them or move away before they bite you. But you gotta have it, along with the gay and lesbian couples because, sure as heck, as the world ends what people will care about is making sure the last fads of the dead world keep going. I’m expecting the upcoming final season to add a few more SJW box-check characters. All we need at the start is something that is merely fun.

Joe Biden went to meet Putin for Lord only knows what reason – the whole world knows that Biden is senile and feeble and thus there is no hard center to American government. We’re getting bad policy, but that is more by accident…Biden’s aides are running the country, turning the crank at different times and at different speeds and what flows out was a mish-mash of liberal twaddle but even in that, there is no direction.

Inflation is rising fast and the Fed is saying they’ll jack up rate in 2023. It’ll be sooner than that, I bet, though 2023 would be best for us as it would create a 2024 recession just about assuring a GOP landslide. They get to pick their poison – jack up rates and send us into a tailspin, or hold off and watch inflation spike to 10% or more per year. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of useless clowns.

Cocaine Mitch promises to block Biden’s judicial appointments if he becomes Majority Leader. Never get too mad at Mitch. Sure, he’s Deep State and Establishment…but he knows how to play hardball on the things which matter to us.

Hungary bans LGBT content for minors. This is fighting the Culture War.

Open Thread

Now that McConnell has come out against Majorie Taylor Greene all the liberals who hate us will…keep hating us.

We must stop playing this game with them.

Bernie Sanders is a White Supremacist. Eventually, every non-insane person will realize that you can’t be woke enough. That’s when we win.

Portland has discovered that allowing Antifa to run riot for a year kinda sucks.

The guys at the Lincoln Project are pretty much what you expected them to be. We must keep in mind that for decades, these people were the real leaders of the GOP. Now we know that some of the accusations against “us” were true because these garbage people were our face to the world. I am so glad they unmasked themselves and are no longer part of us.

The MSM is now reporting what a lousy job Cuomo has been doing in NY regarding ‘Rona. This, I suspect, is Team Harris making sure Cuomo doesn’t run for the Democrat nomination in 2024.

We’re supposed to get hair-on-fire about the coup in Myanmar. Democracy is under attack! Well, it is a Democracy which brutally forced into exile about 740,000 Rohingya Muslims. I’m not sure I want us propping up a “Democracy” which does that sort of thing. I’m also just sick and tired of Imperial America. Its none of our business. The people of Myanmar have my prayers for peace, freedom and prosperity and I hope they are able to work out their problems. Without us.

Florida never went into the massive lockdowns and they are doing very well – and their economy isn’t crushed. The lunatic Democrat attacks on Governor DeSantis are because they fear this man running against Kamala. You know – the lady installed as VP. Who couldn’t even make it out of the Iowa Caucuses.

Open Thread

Rep. Omar is being investigated for misuse of campaign funds. I’m thinking this isn’t GOPers digging up dirt, but Democrats who want to at least curb her, and maybe get rid of her. Its not that any Democrat actually disagrees with her, but they don’t want people like her to be the face of the House Democrats in 2020, when a lot of purple-district Democrats will be up for re-election.

Report that Team Biden thinks Team Sanders is responsible for the sudden concern people have about Biden being grabby with the ladies. Could be, but it could also be Harris. It is definitely some Democrat(s) who want to put a veto on Biden’s effort.

Bernie can still rake in the bucks, in the manner of all Socialist Leaders of the People: $18 million in his first report.

Portland, OR liberals have been cooking up a bogus story about anti-LGBT activity in the city. As soon as you heard it, you knew it was a lie – but RSM lays it out.

Cocaine Mitch is shutting down the Democrats agenda. Democrats and the MSM (BIRM) are upset.

Israel’s Jews in Space effort is doing very well.

Law Prof says defending free speech is unconstitutional. (((shrug))); what ya gonna do? They’re liberals. You know: morons.