This time of year, of course, I think back on all the other Christmases in my long and not very productive life. I always remember one, in particular, about which I have written before (here) in which I as an intrepid chargé d'affaires had to deal with objections to holding a Christmas party (vice a Holiday party) and handle the outrage over the grotesque act of wishing a "Merry Christmas" without ritually listing every other religion's holiday in the mix. Anyhow, now that I am officially a retired nobody, I can wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hide behind my screen for protection from the outrage. So, Merry Christmas.
What is the Diplomad tribe doing? Well, we are currently at our house in the woods outside of Durham. My Catholic Diplowife is busy wrapping presents. I, the Grinch, am on my computer paying credit card bills, collecting tax documents, checking our stock portfolio, and doing other Fagin-light activities. Oh, and I am also thinking of heading over to the Dixie Gun Show in Raleigh to see what's on offer; I don't know if I will buy anything, but you never know. There's nothing I really need--except, of course, for world peace, and a Ford GT--but . . .
I am still awaiting delivery of a Texas-made STI Staccato I ordered a few weeks ago. A sure sign of the booming economy is the waitlist for certain high-end firearms. So I wait, but am also checking out offerings from, among others, Zev Technologies, in particular the OZ9. I haven't decided if it's a neat new gun, or just an upgraded Glock--and I am, sorry, not a huge fan of Glock, just a small one. I have a couple of Glocks, but they are rarely my choice for going to the range. We'll see what Santa decides to bring.
For the coming year? What do I really want? I want revenge.
I know that's not very Christmassy and all, but then I am an Old Testament sort of guy who wants to see my enemies smitten by a vengeful God. I wish disaster upon the world's oldest political party, the Democrat party; at a minimum, I want to see the Dem Party suffer the fate of British Labour for what it has done to America and the West. That clown show long ago ceased to be even mildly amusing.
We got very lucky in 2016: Donald Trump provided us a life boat to get away from the Democratic Titanic. We need to take advantage of that to the full.
As for the GOP: Please, no more Romneys or Ryans! No more me-too GOP.
OK. OK. Got that out of my system. I return to my finances and watching gun reviews and reading up on the latest offerings made possible by the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in writing the Second Amendment.
Sorry, another oh by the way. I just read a very interesting book called Chastise by the excellent British historian, Max Hastings--who has written some other great books which I have enjoyed. It's about the RAF's amazing 1943 Dam Buster mission. I have read a lot about that mission before, and, of course, watched the 1950's movie, but this book has some wonderful insights into how the mission was planned, the politics, the technology, and the personalities involved. It reminded me of another great book on WWII, Flames Over Tokyo, by E. Bartlett Kerr, which describes in fascinating detail how the US planned and executed the bombing campaign against Japan. Both books are excellent Xmas gifts for people who want to know how the West used to be able to do some amazing stuff, including smiting our enemies in grand style.
Anyhow, in case I don't write again before Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved and horribly misgoverned Republic, the DiploMad returns to do battle on the world wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no punches.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Thursday, December 19, 2019
"Impeachment"
I was going to avoid adding my little bit of noise to the roar over "impeachment," but . . . couldn't resist.
OK.
Yesterday, the 18th of December, 2019, the Dem-controlled House of Representatives approved two so-called articles of "impeachment" against President Trump. Those articles are the culmination and of a piece with the sham that has comprised the whole enterprise to "get Trump" since that memorable day in November 2016 when the stunned TV networks and punditry class had to recognize that Trump had beaten their Anointed One.
As we have discussed FOREVER, the attack on Trump was among the most loathsome political exercises in the history of our Republic. It was based on lies, hoaxes, forgeries, a Third-World-type use of our First World law enforcement and intelligence capabilities, and a despicable willful blindness by those "guardians" of democracy, the Big Media. No need to go over it again. You know the whole sad story. Sigh . . .
So now they got what they "wanted."
As the old warning goes, "Be careful what you want, you might just get it." The articles of impeachment are absurd. They detail no high crimes or misdemeanors, they rely on dubious sources, and are pure political theater. The process by which these articles were drafted was a procedural abomination, pure Kafka, executed by, to be kind, morons. Now these same morons are hesitating to send the articles to the Senate where they await the fate they so richly deserve. We'll see what our somber, black-clad, prayerful Speaker has in mind, if anything.
It dawned on me that given that the Dems have made up everything in this sorry saga, from "facts" to process, if the Republicans take back the house, they should immediately rescind the impeachment. Can that be done? Can any of this be done? It has. Why not a bit more theater.
Trump 2020.
OK.
Yesterday, the 18th of December, 2019, the Dem-controlled House of Representatives approved two so-called articles of "impeachment" against President Trump. Those articles are the culmination and of a piece with the sham that has comprised the whole enterprise to "get Trump" since that memorable day in November 2016 when the stunned TV networks and punditry class had to recognize that Trump had beaten their Anointed One.
As we have discussed FOREVER, the attack on Trump was among the most loathsome political exercises in the history of our Republic. It was based on lies, hoaxes, forgeries, a Third-World-type use of our First World law enforcement and intelligence capabilities, and a despicable willful blindness by those "guardians" of democracy, the Big Media. No need to go over it again. You know the whole sad story. Sigh . . .
So now they got what they "wanted."
As the old warning goes, "Be careful what you want, you might just get it." The articles of impeachment are absurd. They detail no high crimes or misdemeanors, they rely on dubious sources, and are pure political theater. The process by which these articles were drafted was a procedural abomination, pure Kafka, executed by, to be kind, morons. Now these same morons are hesitating to send the articles to the Senate where they await the fate they so richly deserve. We'll see what our somber, black-clad, prayerful Speaker has in mind, if anything.
It dawned on me that given that the Dems have made up everything in this sorry saga, from "facts" to process, if the Republicans take back the house, they should immediately rescind the impeachment. Can that be done? Can any of this be done? It has. Why not a bit more theater.
Trump 2020.
Friday, December 13, 2019
Brexit Redux: The Dude Punches Back
The New Yorker with the wild yellow hair has done it again.
No, not that New Yorker with the wild yellow hair, the other one, the one with the funny accent, no, not that funny accent, the other funny accent. You know, the accent some folks have in exotic Olde England, you know, not the billionaire one from Celebrity Apprentice, but the one who could be in Downton Abbey as a middle class grocer. Yes, Boris Johnson has done it. He has proven himself a master politician, possessed of nerves of steel, with other key organs to match. As a New Yorker, myself, once with wild yellow hair, I like Boris "The Dude" Johnson. He and Trump renew my faith, severely tested of late, in the electorate's common sense and patriotism.
Britain's December 12 elections proved a stunner. Johnson's Conservatives have won a dominating majority in Parliament and a clear mandate to put paid to all that destructive toing-and-froing over Brexit. The message from voters was clear: Get Britain--especially England--out of the clutches and jaws of that monstrous EU swamp creature! The election also administered a huge rebuke to the Deep State, and to that desiccated and imbecilic anti-semite, the Communist Corbyn.
I am not British, and do not play a Brit on the internet or anywhere else. I have zero British ancestry; I cannot trace my roots in America back to the Mayflower, unless that sturdy vessel made a North African detour. I have visited Britain many times and always enjoyed the history, the book stores, the museums, the conversations, and even--oh blasphemy!--the food, especially the cheeses. In my overseas life and at the UN, I had many British friends and always liked their company even when they were giving me a hard time about something. As I have stated often, Britain is perhaps the most consequential nation to have existed since, well, at least since the fall of the Roman Empire. Britain and its creations, including great places such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA, have transformed the world; they are probably the best places on earth in which to live--certainly as a Jew I wouldn't live anywhere else. Those countries are still the world's repositories of freedom, that despite the ceaseless assault on the British traditions and culture which made them so.
OK, now to election night. I watched much of it unfold on the BBC. I enjoyed very much the obvious pain that the presenters on that once enviable and now execrable institution were suffering when presenting the news of the Torylanche. They tried to spin it this way and that to minimize the victory but, in the end, they couldn't. So they tried as much as possible to ignore it, focusing on the electoral triumph in Scotland of the loopy Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP and on the losses suffered by the DUP in Northern Ireland.
They, however, indirectly did hit on one thing accurately: this was a victory for England. The "Scottish" voters--more on that--decided to go with the establishment and stick with the bromides and false promises of the leftist establishment. The results might just give another fillip to the drive for Scotland's "independence," defined as trading the benevolent "rule" of London for the clammy and suffocating hands of the hideous and failing nanny-state of Brussels. I noticed that Sturgeon's victory speech, delivered in English, spent a great deal of time thanking all those from outside who have made Scotland their home. That made me think that, despite what some official records might claim, we have a significant demographic change underway in Scotland, and the SNP has decided to capitalize on it for opposition to Brexit. This is a so-called "nationalist" party which has decided, it seems, to have given up on a Scottish nationalism based on Scots, in favor of one that is a melange of outside flavors and colors, oops, colours. We'll see how well that goes. Let me know where I am wrong.
Wales went Tory. That was somewhat surprising, but again I suspect demography might have played a role there. I wonder how many Welch Welch there are in Wales. I suspect, again, don't know, that as London and other big cities have joined the growing club of unlivable Western cities, thanks to leftist policies, people from those places have decamped to Wales.
I just don't know enough about the situation in Northern Ireland to be even wrong, must less right and perceptive, so I won't try any deep or long range analysis. Having thrown out that qualifier, I, however, think voters there might have been frightened by hyperbole from the Remainers about what would happen with the Irish border and access to the Republic and, hence, to the EU. As I said, I don't know, so don't hold me to that.
Anyhow, this was a victory for common sense and patriotism. Johnson now has a clear mandate to act. It seems that he is ready to do so. I hope that's true.
Oh, one more thing.
I heard some Conservative "thinkers" dinging Johnson for not being a "true" philosophical conservative, and doing it in terms similar to what we heard here about Trump from the same sort of dilettante conservatives. I have written about this before (here, here) and noted that I just don't care that Trump is not a perfect conservative. While we wait around to find one, the country goes to hell. I will say the same thing about Johnson. Both men have tapped into the unease and discontent of average people who see their culture under assault, their values ridiculed and labelled as racist, their jobs exported, and their children taught rubbish. Both men seem to have some practical solutions that might just work in the real world. Certainly deregulation and tax cuts have done wonders for the US economy and, I suspect, they would do the same for Britain. If Scotland and N. Ireland don't want to participate, fine, that's on them. As I have said before, were I English, I would support Scottish independence--better said, I would support England's independence.
Go Dude, go!
No, not that New Yorker with the wild yellow hair, the other one, the one with the funny accent, no, not that funny accent, the other funny accent. You know, the accent some folks have in exotic Olde England, you know, not the billionaire one from Celebrity Apprentice, but the one who could be in Downton Abbey as a middle class grocer. Yes, Boris Johnson has done it. He has proven himself a master politician, possessed of nerves of steel, with other key organs to match. As a New Yorker, myself, once with wild yellow hair, I like Boris "The Dude" Johnson. He and Trump renew my faith, severely tested of late, in the electorate's common sense and patriotism.
Britain's December 12 elections proved a stunner. Johnson's Conservatives have won a dominating majority in Parliament and a clear mandate to put paid to all that destructive toing-and-froing over Brexit. The message from voters was clear: Get Britain--especially England--out of the clutches and jaws of that monstrous EU swamp creature! The election also administered a huge rebuke to the Deep State, and to that desiccated and imbecilic anti-semite, the Communist Corbyn.
I am not British, and do not play a Brit on the internet or anywhere else. I have zero British ancestry; I cannot trace my roots in America back to the Mayflower, unless that sturdy vessel made a North African detour. I have visited Britain many times and always enjoyed the history, the book stores, the museums, the conversations, and even--oh blasphemy!--the food, especially the cheeses. In my overseas life and at the UN, I had many British friends and always liked their company even when they were giving me a hard time about something. As I have stated often, Britain is perhaps the most consequential nation to have existed since, well, at least since the fall of the Roman Empire. Britain and its creations, including great places such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA, have transformed the world; they are probably the best places on earth in which to live--certainly as a Jew I wouldn't live anywhere else. Those countries are still the world's repositories of freedom, that despite the ceaseless assault on the British traditions and culture which made them so.
OK, now to election night. I watched much of it unfold on the BBC. I enjoyed very much the obvious pain that the presenters on that once enviable and now execrable institution were suffering when presenting the news of the Torylanche. They tried to spin it this way and that to minimize the victory but, in the end, they couldn't. So they tried as much as possible to ignore it, focusing on the electoral triumph in Scotland of the loopy Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP and on the losses suffered by the DUP in Northern Ireland.
They, however, indirectly did hit on one thing accurately: this was a victory for England. The "Scottish" voters--more on that--decided to go with the establishment and stick with the bromides and false promises of the leftist establishment. The results might just give another fillip to the drive for Scotland's "independence," defined as trading the benevolent "rule" of London for the clammy and suffocating hands of the hideous and failing nanny-state of Brussels. I noticed that Sturgeon's victory speech, delivered in English, spent a great deal of time thanking all those from outside who have made Scotland their home. That made me think that, despite what some official records might claim, we have a significant demographic change underway in Scotland, and the SNP has decided to capitalize on it for opposition to Brexit. This is a so-called "nationalist" party which has decided, it seems, to have given up on a Scottish nationalism based on Scots, in favor of one that is a melange of outside flavors and colors, oops, colours. We'll see how well that goes. Let me know where I am wrong.
Wales went Tory. That was somewhat surprising, but again I suspect demography might have played a role there. I wonder how many Welch Welch there are in Wales. I suspect, again, don't know, that as London and other big cities have joined the growing club of unlivable Western cities, thanks to leftist policies, people from those places have decamped to Wales.
I just don't know enough about the situation in Northern Ireland to be even wrong, must less right and perceptive, so I won't try any deep or long range analysis. Having thrown out that qualifier, I, however, think voters there might have been frightened by hyperbole from the Remainers about what would happen with the Irish border and access to the Republic and, hence, to the EU. As I said, I don't know, so don't hold me to that.
Anyhow, this was a victory for common sense and patriotism. Johnson now has a clear mandate to act. It seems that he is ready to do so. I hope that's true.
Oh, one more thing.
I heard some Conservative "thinkers" dinging Johnson for not being a "true" philosophical conservative, and doing it in terms similar to what we heard here about Trump from the same sort of dilettante conservatives. I have written about this before (here, here) and noted that I just don't care that Trump is not a perfect conservative. While we wait around to find one, the country goes to hell. I will say the same thing about Johnson. Both men have tapped into the unease and discontent of average people who see their culture under assault, their values ridiculed and labelled as racist, their jobs exported, and their children taught rubbish. Both men seem to have some practical solutions that might just work in the real world. Certainly deregulation and tax cuts have done wonders for the US economy and, I suspect, they would do the same for Britain. If Scotland and N. Ireland don't want to participate, fine, that's on them. As I have said before, were I English, I would support Scottish independence--better said, I would support England's independence.
Go Dude, go!
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
The DOJ IG Report and Senate Hearing
Well, I read it. The whole thing. Cover to cover. Also watched the Senate Judiciary hearing from gavel to gavel. Whew!
That IG report is a remarkable document. It's well worth reading despite its somewhat turgid, even lugubrious, writing style. Everybody should read it.
I found it disturbing in the extreme. It confirms what many of us had thought (see here, for example) about what has happened to the FBI in the last few years. Read it; you don't need me to tell you what the report states about how the FBI engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy (yes, conspiracy) to take down candidate and later President Trump. Forget all that media spin about the report exonerating Director Comey, and the finding that the investigation into Trump and Russia was legal and proper. Rubbish. The report is a wrecking ball; the Dems and their buddies don't know what to do about it except spin, spin, spin and shout "Impeachment!" The report, and Horowitz at the hearing, clearly stated that the FBI lied to the FISA court in order to obtain warrants on Carter Page and sent contacts, at times wired, to talk to Trump campaign personnel--obviously in hopes of entrapping them. The FBI did all sorts of inept and even criminal actions to nail Trump. It's in the report.
I am more and more impressed by Senator Graham. I had grown quite skeptical of him and his association with the increasingly weird and late John McCain. It seems that once freed of McCain's shadow, Graham has blossomed into a feisty, straight-talking and effective warrior for conservative causes, and, with Senator Cruz, one of Trump's most powerful defenders. His opening address to the Judiciary Committee today was a masterpiece. It was more powerful than anything I could have written. Watch it!
More later . . .
That IG report is a remarkable document. It's well worth reading despite its somewhat turgid, even lugubrious, writing style. Everybody should read it.
I found it disturbing in the extreme. It confirms what many of us had thought (see here, for example) about what has happened to the FBI in the last few years. Read it; you don't need me to tell you what the report states about how the FBI engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy (yes, conspiracy) to take down candidate and later President Trump. Forget all that media spin about the report exonerating Director Comey, and the finding that the investigation into Trump and Russia was legal and proper. Rubbish. The report is a wrecking ball; the Dems and their buddies don't know what to do about it except spin, spin, spin and shout "Impeachment!" The report, and Horowitz at the hearing, clearly stated that the FBI lied to the FISA court in order to obtain warrants on Carter Page and sent contacts, at times wired, to talk to Trump campaign personnel--obviously in hopes of entrapping them. The FBI did all sorts of inept and even criminal actions to nail Trump. It's in the report.
I am more and more impressed by Senator Graham. I had grown quite skeptical of him and his association with the increasingly weird and late John McCain. It seems that once freed of McCain's shadow, Graham has blossomed into a feisty, straight-talking and effective warrior for conservative causes, and, with Senator Cruz, one of Trump's most powerful defenders. His opening address to the Judiciary Committee today was a masterpiece. It was more powerful than anything I could have written. Watch it!
More later . . .
Monday, December 9, 2019
No Politics: Ford v. Ferrari
Been remiss in my blogging duties.
Life keeps getting in the way.
Still dealing with lawyers, brokers, accountants, etc., re my father's estate, and a real estate transaction of my own which I hope to undertake in the next few days. First world problems in the land where the rich are thin and the poor are fat.
OK. I am not going to discuss yet again the horrid impeachment hoax, and I only have begun to read the IG report on the FBI/DOJ actions in the Russia hoax. To be kind, so far, it seems a bit of mixed bag with a little bit for all sides of the debate. Very bureaucratic in its writing style and conclusions. More commentary to follow when I have read the whole thing without having the media tell me what's supposedly in it.
Yesterday, the Diplowife and I took two Diplosons and a Diplo-daughter-in-law to the movies. We went to one of these new-fangled cinemas that have the huge screen, reclining seats, and waiters dashing about, taking overpriced food orders, and serving you while you watch the entertainment. All good fun; I admired the waiters' physical dexterity and night vision. Nothing spilled. Amazing.
What did we see? The one movie I could find with no blatant politics, no social justice nonsense, and no absurd bad-ass lesbian detectives: yes, we went to see, Ford v. Ferrari. The two women in our little band proved a bit reluctant to see "a movie about cars" but, in the spirit of family unity, went along, as long as I kept buying drinks, popcorn, and burgers.
The movie is terrific.
It is about cars, sure, but also about something else.
It is an old fashioned bit of movie-making and story-telling celebrating physical courage, brilliant engineering, wit, commitment, hard-work, family, and all the other components of the ethos that made the West great. It has terrific direction by American James Mangold, a tight, funny, and inspirational script by an Anglo-American writing team, and great racing scenes. The two main actors, neither of whom is my personal cup of tea, Christian Bale and Matt Damon, proved quite good, and managed to put in some very credible performances as the two brilliant, high-testosterone, stubborn auto enthusiasts, British-born racer Ken Miles and iconic American car designer Carroll Shelby, who took on Ferrari and won--with several million dollars in backing from Henry Ford II.
Henry Ford's failed effort to buy Enzo Ferrari's brand led to Ford "going to war in Europe!" Ford became convinced that he had been played by Ferrari, whom he suspected never had any intention of selling his factory to Ford, and vowed revenge! He contracted Shelby, the first American to win at Lemans, to build a car that would beat Ferrari at Lemans, long the preserve of Ferrari. Shelby, in turn, contracted British ex-pat Miles, and they set about doing Henry Ford's bidding. After initially working on a car built by Ford in the UK, Shelby and Miles decided to make their own in California from the ground up--and they built arguably one of the greatest race cars ever, the Ford GT40.
I know that none of this sounds like gripping movie material, but, believe me, it is, thanks largely to the superb direction. It, needless to say, has some wonderful racing scenes and a bitter-sweet--and true--ending to the 1966 Lemans race being driven by Miles.
Go see it on a big screen.
And, by the way, the two women in our group actually enjoyed the movie.
Politics later.
Life keeps getting in the way.
Still dealing with lawyers, brokers, accountants, etc., re my father's estate, and a real estate transaction of my own which I hope to undertake in the next few days. First world problems in the land where the rich are thin and the poor are fat.
OK. I am not going to discuss yet again the horrid impeachment hoax, and I only have begun to read the IG report on the FBI/DOJ actions in the Russia hoax. To be kind, so far, it seems a bit of mixed bag with a little bit for all sides of the debate. Very bureaucratic in its writing style and conclusions. More commentary to follow when I have read the whole thing without having the media tell me what's supposedly in it.
Yesterday, the Diplowife and I took two Diplosons and a Diplo-daughter-in-law to the movies. We went to one of these new-fangled cinemas that have the huge screen, reclining seats, and waiters dashing about, taking overpriced food orders, and serving you while you watch the entertainment. All good fun; I admired the waiters' physical dexterity and night vision. Nothing spilled. Amazing.
What did we see? The one movie I could find with no blatant politics, no social justice nonsense, and no absurd bad-ass lesbian detectives: yes, we went to see, Ford v. Ferrari. The two women in our little band proved a bit reluctant to see "a movie about cars" but, in the spirit of family unity, went along, as long as I kept buying drinks, popcorn, and burgers.
The movie is terrific.
It is about cars, sure, but also about something else.
It is an old fashioned bit of movie-making and story-telling celebrating physical courage, brilliant engineering, wit, commitment, hard-work, family, and all the other components of the ethos that made the West great. It has terrific direction by American James Mangold, a tight, funny, and inspirational script by an Anglo-American writing team, and great racing scenes. The two main actors, neither of whom is my personal cup of tea, Christian Bale and Matt Damon, proved quite good, and managed to put in some very credible performances as the two brilliant, high-testosterone, stubborn auto enthusiasts, British-born racer Ken Miles and iconic American car designer Carroll Shelby, who took on Ferrari and won--with several million dollars in backing from Henry Ford II.
Henry Ford's failed effort to buy Enzo Ferrari's brand led to Ford "going to war in Europe!" Ford became convinced that he had been played by Ferrari, whom he suspected never had any intention of selling his factory to Ford, and vowed revenge! He contracted Shelby, the first American to win at Lemans, to build a car that would beat Ferrari at Lemans, long the preserve of Ferrari. Shelby, in turn, contracted British ex-pat Miles, and they set about doing Henry Ford's bidding. After initially working on a car built by Ford in the UK, Shelby and Miles decided to make their own in California from the ground up--and they built arguably one of the greatest race cars ever, the Ford GT40.
I know that none of this sounds like gripping movie material, but, believe me, it is, thanks largely to the superb direction. It, needless to say, has some wonderful racing scenes and a bitter-sweet--and true--ending to the 1966 Lemans race being driven by Miles.
Go see it on a big screen.
And, by the way, the two women in our group actually enjoyed the movie.
Politics later.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Happy Thanksgiving
Well, another Thanksgiving is about to descend upon us and our Republic survives still. For that I am eternally grateful. Watching the news--a bad habit--one could conclude that we are in the final moments of our existence. The breathless reporting by the mad mainstream media mob (M4) would have you believe that we have placed Hitler--or worse--in the White House but that the "walls are closing in on him" because he is an idiot but extremely smart . . . yeah, right. They have been predicting the imminent demise of the Trump presidency since he took office, and have worked tirelessly to make the prediction come true. Ol' Ironsides Trump, however, has withstood the enemy's broadsides and returned some highly effective fire of his own. May he continue to do so!
I have never before seen such a pitiful collection of candidates for the highest office in the land as the bunch the Dems and their media acolytes seek to push on us. Who are these people? It would be hard to put together a more motley collection of has-beens, never-weres, and never will-bes, especially a collection we are supposed to take seriously as potential leaders of the Republic.
The Dems will lose in 2020: I have no doubt. My concern for the Republic, however, extends to 2024. Not only do the Republicans have nobody who can continue the Trumpian Revolution but the Dems and the Progs in general are quite adept at making their insane ideas of today become the "accepted" wisdom of the day after tomorrow. Look at insanity such as gay marriage, the LGBQT nonsense, the climate hoax, and so on. See what I mean?
If there is a "flaw" to the Trumpian Revolution it is that it has effectively destroyed the Republican party without finding a replacement. At least, not yet. Now, of course, the GOP needed destroying as it had become a sclerotic, "me too," partner of the progs in DC, but what will replace it or recharge it? I don't know.
I worry that, in Simon Bolivar's words, we "have been plowing in the sea". Will it all make a difference in the long run? It certainly won't if we don't completely redo our decrepit system of higher education, which now is neither. We can't keep turning out illiterate morons and expect things to get gooder.
My number two son got married last week in a nice little ceremony in Raleigh. I gave him an AK as a wedding present in the hopes that he would turn his event into an Afghan wedding--you know, wrap a rag around your head, jump onto the bed of a pick-up truck, start babbling some nonsense, and pour a steady stream of hot lead into the heavens above. But, no . . . the kids are wimps nowadays . . . nothing like that happened.
Anyhow, the Diplowife and I are off to Raleigh for Thanksgiving with all the kids and their significant others as we pay tribute to that intrepid band of freedom-seeking Englishmen known as the Pilgrims. I am taking along my new (yes) Wilson EDC X9 (had to replace the one my wife took from me) and a new SIG 1911 Emperor. Hope to get in some range time. All the best to all of you--well, except for that anonymous cowardly idiot and liar who keeps writing libelous crap about me in the comments section (my lawyer is interested)--and will try to keep some embers of optimism glowing.
I have never before seen such a pitiful collection of candidates for the highest office in the land as the bunch the Dems and their media acolytes seek to push on us. Who are these people? It would be hard to put together a more motley collection of has-beens, never-weres, and never will-bes, especially a collection we are supposed to take seriously as potential leaders of the Republic.
The Dems will lose in 2020: I have no doubt. My concern for the Republic, however, extends to 2024. Not only do the Republicans have nobody who can continue the Trumpian Revolution but the Dems and the Progs in general are quite adept at making their insane ideas of today become the "accepted" wisdom of the day after tomorrow. Look at insanity such as gay marriage, the LGBQT nonsense, the climate hoax, and so on. See what I mean?
If there is a "flaw" to the Trumpian Revolution it is that it has effectively destroyed the Republican party without finding a replacement. At least, not yet. Now, of course, the GOP needed destroying as it had become a sclerotic, "me too," partner of the progs in DC, but what will replace it or recharge it? I don't know.
I worry that, in Simon Bolivar's words, we "have been plowing in the sea". Will it all make a difference in the long run? It certainly won't if we don't completely redo our decrepit system of higher education, which now is neither. We can't keep turning out illiterate morons and expect things to get gooder.
My number two son got married last week in a nice little ceremony in Raleigh. I gave him an AK as a wedding present in the hopes that he would turn his event into an Afghan wedding--you know, wrap a rag around your head, jump onto the bed of a pick-up truck, start babbling some nonsense, and pour a steady stream of hot lead into the heavens above. But, no . . . the kids are wimps nowadays . . . nothing like that happened.
Anyhow, the Diplowife and I are off to Raleigh for Thanksgiving with all the kids and their significant others as we pay tribute to that intrepid band of freedom-seeking Englishmen known as the Pilgrims. I am taking along my new (yes) Wilson EDC X9 (had to replace the one my wife took from me) and a new SIG 1911 Emperor. Hope to get in some range time. All the best to all of you--well, except for that anonymous cowardly idiot and liar who keeps writing libelous crap about me in the comments section (my lawyer is interested)--and will try to keep some embers of optimism glowing.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Impeachment Miracle: The Democrats Make the Blind Walk and the Lame See!
It's been a gruesome handful of days watching the public hearings in the so-called "Impeachment Inquiry." The whole thing has been a disgraceful and irrelevant waste of time and taxpayer money and I hope the voters remember that next November.
So what did we see and hear? Well, we saw and heard our intrepid career Foreign Service Officers in full pompous lecturing glory. I am ashamed to have been in their ranks. They really had absolutely nothing to offer in terms of any "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by our President. I heard from them a lot of "I assumed" and "I presumed" and "I thought," etc. It all came across as a bunch of low to mid-rank careerists and sloppy political appointees upset that the President had bypassed or ignored them, and angry that he had the temerity to set and conduct foreign policy without necessarily relying on all the talking points and memos prepared for him by the layers upon layers of bureaucrats that, unfortunately, surround that office.
The President is his own man, and that is an unforgivable sin for the herd of swamp creatures in DC.
We got lots of irrelevant lectures on the "importance" of Ukraine and how only the "experts" understood that and the great difficulties they had in getting President Trump to agree. Poor, poor babies.
I found Fiona Hill insufferable and David Holmes unbearable. Both thought a great deal about themselves.
Mr., er, uh, Lt. Col Vindman was a complete boob of a type I have encountered many times in DC: the mid-level bureaucrat who feels ignored by those above him who are clearly his intellectual inferiors. I find it surprising that nobody at the hearings sprang on him when he admitted briefing at least two people who had NOT been in on the July 25 call with the Ukrainian President. Who gave him the authority to do that? He should have had his security clearance yanked immediately. He obviously was the source for the so-called "whistleblower."
The only ones I thought came off as serious persons were Ambassador Volker who stuck to what he knew and saw, and Undersecretary Hale who proved very restrained and professional. The rest, blah, forget them. Nonsense.
Trump 2020.
So what did we see and hear? Well, we saw and heard our intrepid career Foreign Service Officers in full pompous lecturing glory. I am ashamed to have been in their ranks. They really had absolutely nothing to offer in terms of any "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by our President. I heard from them a lot of "I assumed" and "I presumed" and "I thought," etc. It all came across as a bunch of low to mid-rank careerists and sloppy political appointees upset that the President had bypassed or ignored them, and angry that he had the temerity to set and conduct foreign policy without necessarily relying on all the talking points and memos prepared for him by the layers upon layers of bureaucrats that, unfortunately, surround that office.
The President is his own man, and that is an unforgivable sin for the herd of swamp creatures in DC.
We got lots of irrelevant lectures on the "importance" of Ukraine and how only the "experts" understood that and the great difficulties they had in getting President Trump to agree. Poor, poor babies.
I found Fiona Hill insufferable and David Holmes unbearable. Both thought a great deal about themselves.
Mr., er, uh, Lt. Col Vindman was a complete boob of a type I have encountered many times in DC: the mid-level bureaucrat who feels ignored by those above him who are clearly his intellectual inferiors. I find it surprising that nobody at the hearings sprang on him when he admitted briefing at least two people who had NOT been in on the July 25 call with the Ukrainian President. Who gave him the authority to do that? He should have had his security clearance yanked immediately. He obviously was the source for the so-called "whistleblower."
The only ones I thought came off as serious persons were Ambassador Volker who stuck to what he knew and saw, and Undersecretary Hale who proved very restrained and professional. The rest, blah, forget them. Nonsense.
Trump 2020.
Monday, November 18, 2019
Impeachment Hearings: Ego and the Ambassador, and a Mistake by President Trump
I'll keep this short. I don't want to repeat unnecessarily the themes I laid out in my post of November 13 discussing the testimony of Kent and Taylor.
Many of you likely watched the Congressional impeachment testimony by former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Both the Diplowife and I kept shaking our heads while Yovanovitch spoke; at the end of it all, the Diplowife said to me, "This is why the Foreign Service has such a bad reputation." I agreed with the Diplowife; in sum, I found it an embarrassing spectacle.
Just a few notes.
I hate false bravado. The whole "we are the hostages of Tehran, the martyrs of Tripoli" shtick in defense of the Foreign Service was almost more than I could bear. I have never heard a military man or woman do something similar. Braggadocio is not a trait of the best of our military, and should not be a feature anywhere else in our bureaucracy. It was all rather embarrassing, particularly given that both the hostages in Tehran and the dead in Tripoli were abandoned to their fate by lefty Democrat policies and administrations--something I wish the Republicans had pointed out.
Even worse, however, was the whole "our foreign policy in Ukraine is in disarray" meme. When you hear somebody from State say that, remember what they generally mean is that the President has not done what the "experts" told him to do. It also means, more importantly, that he hasn't filled all the jobs at State that State says it needs to do the wasteful foolishness that State does much if not most of the time.
Yovanovitch, and before her Kent and Taylor, gave totally tone deaf but standard State Department talking point/memo-type speeches laying out the great importance of Ukraine to our national interests. Yawn. You know how many papers of that sort I have written? I am ashamed to tell you. Be it Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Central African Republic, Tuvalu, or San Marino, any career Department sort can turn out a paper in an instant as to why any country, no matter how insignificant in reality, is in the forefront of American interests. We must promote good governance in Togo to defend our vital core interests . . . . yeah, yeah, yeah.
Also please note the unvarnished arrogance of the Ambassador. She was named to the position under Obama about six months before the end of that execrable misadministration. A standard tour, if there is one, for an Ambassador is about two to three years. More important, however, please note that ALL AMBASSADORS, I repeat, ALL AMBASSADORS must submit their resignations when a new President comes in. That includes career Foreign Service Ambassadors, which is why I wrote ALL, a little something that much of the media reporting has "missed." The new President has the right to accept the resignation or not.
In hindsight, it would seem the President made a mistake keeping Yovanovitch at her post. She, for example, was clearly aware of the potential problem of having Hunter Biden on the board of the Ukranian Burisma Holdings company at the same time that Joe Biden served not only as Vice-President but as "point-man"for Obama on Ukraine policy. She said nothing. She was also aware of the involvement of senior Ukrainian officials interfering in our 2016 elections on behalf of Hillary Clinton. She said nothing.
She had the nerve to claim that Trump was undermining HER position as Ambassador, and, thus, of course, he was undermining US foreign policy! She breathlessly informed us that after about two-plus years at her post, Ukrainians were asking her if she was going to be replaced. Horrors! Ukrainians can do math. They knew that her usual tour likely would be coming to an end. The President does not need to undermine her; he can yank her out any time for any reason or even for no reason. Ambassadors, as well as FBI and CIA Directors, etc., serve at the pleasure of the President. Period. She must have thought she was King Louis XIV, you know, 'L'état, c'est moi'. But to be kind, let's just agree that she is just another in a long line of State officials who seem to have forgotten that the President sets and directs foreign policy, not State.
Ambassadors work for and represent the President not the State Department, a little fact that many career FSOs seem to forget.
Off to play with my dogs: they know who sets policy around here . . . I think . . .
Many of you likely watched the Congressional impeachment testimony by former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Both the Diplowife and I kept shaking our heads while Yovanovitch spoke; at the end of it all, the Diplowife said to me, "This is why the Foreign Service has such a bad reputation." I agreed with the Diplowife; in sum, I found it an embarrassing spectacle.
Just a few notes.
I hate false bravado. The whole "we are the hostages of Tehran, the martyrs of Tripoli" shtick in defense of the Foreign Service was almost more than I could bear. I have never heard a military man or woman do something similar. Braggadocio is not a trait of the best of our military, and should not be a feature anywhere else in our bureaucracy. It was all rather embarrassing, particularly given that both the hostages in Tehran and the dead in Tripoli were abandoned to their fate by lefty Democrat policies and administrations--something I wish the Republicans had pointed out.
Even worse, however, was the whole "our foreign policy in Ukraine is in disarray" meme. When you hear somebody from State say that, remember what they generally mean is that the President has not done what the "experts" told him to do. It also means, more importantly, that he hasn't filled all the jobs at State that State says it needs to do the wasteful foolishness that State does much if not most of the time.
Yovanovitch, and before her Kent and Taylor, gave totally tone deaf but standard State Department talking point/memo-type speeches laying out the great importance of Ukraine to our national interests. Yawn. You know how many papers of that sort I have written? I am ashamed to tell you. Be it Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Central African Republic, Tuvalu, or San Marino, any career Department sort can turn out a paper in an instant as to why any country, no matter how insignificant in reality, is in the forefront of American interests. We must promote good governance in Togo to defend our vital core interests . . . . yeah, yeah, yeah.
Also please note the unvarnished arrogance of the Ambassador. She was named to the position under Obama about six months before the end of that execrable misadministration. A standard tour, if there is one, for an Ambassador is about two to three years. More important, however, please note that ALL AMBASSADORS, I repeat, ALL AMBASSADORS must submit their resignations when a new President comes in. That includes career Foreign Service Ambassadors, which is why I wrote ALL, a little something that much of the media reporting has "missed." The new President has the right to accept the resignation or not.
In hindsight, it would seem the President made a mistake keeping Yovanovitch at her post. She, for example, was clearly aware of the potential problem of having Hunter Biden on the board of the Ukranian Burisma Holdings company at the same time that Joe Biden served not only as Vice-President but as "point-man"for Obama on Ukraine policy. She said nothing. She was also aware of the involvement of senior Ukrainian officials interfering in our 2016 elections on behalf of Hillary Clinton. She said nothing.
She had the nerve to claim that Trump was undermining HER position as Ambassador, and, thus, of course, he was undermining US foreign policy! She breathlessly informed us that after about two-plus years at her post, Ukrainians were asking her if she was going to be replaced. Horrors! Ukrainians can do math. They knew that her usual tour likely would be coming to an end. The President does not need to undermine her; he can yank her out any time for any reason or even for no reason. Ambassadors, as well as FBI and CIA Directors, etc., serve at the pleasure of the President. Period. She must have thought she was King Louis XIV, you know, 'L'état, c'est moi'. But to be kind, let's just agree that she is just another in a long line of State officials who seem to have forgotten that the President sets and directs foreign policy, not State.
Ambassadors work for and represent the President not the State Department, a little fact that many career FSOs seem to forget.
Off to play with my dogs: they know who sets policy around here . . . I think . . .
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Impeachment Hearings: New Whine in an Old Battle
Despite having just bought a new Sig P226 Legion and a Sig P365 (both excellent), I spent much of the day listening to the so-called impeachment hearings . . . sigh . . . gotta get a life.
I don't know what was more depressing, the hearings themselves or the comments afterwards by the so-called punditry class. These pundits, left and right, were chattering on and on about "take-aways" from the testimony. Yes, Bill, there was this and there was that, and, of course, that there . . . PLEASE STOP!
Let me give you the one take-away y'all need, and remember this comes from a former denizen of the Foggy Bottom Swamp, one who used to swim and crawl with all them swamp creatures.
What you saw were a couple of career dips--neither of whom I know personally--whining a familiar whine that one can hear echoing in the halls of Foggy Bottom and just about anywhere else where "PROFESSIONAL" civil servants congregate. What is it? Simple: THEY are not paying attention to us!
You saw Ambassador Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent all in a knot because the President had an "irregular" channel he used to conduct foreign policy in Ukraine. Wow! I didn't realize that we had elected Taylor and Kent!
Let me put it in nice simple terms so that the Swamp Beings will understand: The President sets and conducts foreign policy, not State, not the NSC, not the DOD, not any other alphabet agency. He does not have to go through State or NSC to conduct said policy; he does not have to consult with Kent or Taylor or anybody else on Ukraine or any other aspect of foreign policy.
All Presidents have used "irregular" channels going back at least to Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House. All have used messengers and negotiators outside the established bureaucracy for different diplomatic missions. There is nothing unusual or illegal or impeachable for doing this. The bureaucracy doesn't like it, so what?
More of this "impeachment" nonsense to come.
I don't know what was more depressing, the hearings themselves or the comments afterwards by the so-called punditry class. These pundits, left and right, were chattering on and on about "take-aways" from the testimony. Yes, Bill, there was this and there was that, and, of course, that there . . . PLEASE STOP!
Let me give you the one take-away y'all need, and remember this comes from a former denizen of the Foggy Bottom Swamp, one who used to swim and crawl with all them swamp creatures.
What you saw were a couple of career dips--neither of whom I know personally--whining a familiar whine that one can hear echoing in the halls of Foggy Bottom and just about anywhere else where "PROFESSIONAL" civil servants congregate. What is it? Simple: THEY are not paying attention to us!
You saw Ambassador Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent all in a knot because the President had an "irregular" channel he used to conduct foreign policy in Ukraine. Wow! I didn't realize that we had elected Taylor and Kent!
Let me put it in nice simple terms so that the Swamp Beings will understand: The President sets and conducts foreign policy, not State, not the NSC, not the DOD, not any other alphabet agency. He does not have to go through State or NSC to conduct said policy; he does not have to consult with Kent or Taylor or anybody else on Ukraine or any other aspect of foreign policy.
All Presidents have used "irregular" channels going back at least to Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House. All have used messengers and negotiators outside the established bureaucracy for different diplomatic missions. There is nothing unusual or illegal or impeachable for doing this. The bureaucracy doesn't like it, so what?
More of this "impeachment" nonsense to come.
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Developments in Crazy World and Some Fun Stuff
Let me start with the fun stuff, and gradually move into Crazy World.
Sitting at home somewhat bored with the news, I went on a rearmament binge not seen since 1940. Several bright new toys have joined the Diploarmory in past few weeks. I might have mentioned some, but not others. I now have a VERY nice Nighthawk Custom Falcon .45 which shoots much better than I do. It competes with my Wilson Combat .45. I also added another Wilson EDC 9 to my collection as the Diplowife fell in love with the first EDC 9 and declared it HERS! She obviously was inspired by Beto. I also have purchased a Colt Delta Elie in 10mm which shoots extremely well; it had some feeding problems but those have gone away as I have broken in the weapon. Very accurate with a recoil not unlike that of a .45, except when I use some hot self-defense rounds. Wow! Also, as I might have mentioned, got two Ruger single action "cowboy" guns one in .45 and the other in .22 Mag. Both are a lot of fun. They pal around with my new Ruger SP-101 Performance Center 8-shot in .357. I was going to provide photos, but I am terrible at that sort of high-tech stuff. Just for kicks I am looking at buying a Remington RP9, as I want to see what's available for under $400. Anyhow, lots of ammo being blasted and fun being employed to cancel out the fake news noise.
Also on the fun side, I was delighted to see that ISIS despot Al Baghdadi got his reward, as did his number two. Here the fun, unfortunately, begins to merge with Crazy World. I found hilarious how difficult it is for the fake newsers and the DemProgs to acknowledge that this is a good thing, a very good thing. Instead they are focused on whether or not A.B., in fact, "whimpered" and "died like a dog." He's dead. Good. Wonderful. I wish all those other ISIS "austere religious scholars" go the same way.
As I have said before, however, if we are serious about fighting these killers, we have to start by not letting them into our countries. It seems odd that we are concerned about Jewish settlements in so-called "Palestine," but welcome Islamist settlements in the West.
Impeachment. There I said it. I hate the whole boring topic but can't avoid it. This is merely part 358 of the ongoing effort by the inhabitants of Crazy World to undo the 2016 elections. Crazy World has been trying to "impeach" Trump since before he swore the oath of office. Nobody can tell me what laws or Constitutional provisions Trump has violated; where are the high crimes and misdemeanors? Certainly none is in evidence in the transcript of the phone call--the real one, not the fake one that the execrable Adam Schiff "read" into the record. The one good thing about the fake "impeachment" effort is that it cancels out the DemProg candidates. All the oxygen is being sucked out of the room, and nobody is listening to that panel of crazies seeking the highest office in the land.
Maybe that's the plan? The DNC hopes that nobody will focus on or even hear the craziness emanating from those loons? I guess that's a strategy, or what passes for one in Crazy World.
Back to my dogs, at least they are not crazy.
Sitting at home somewhat bored with the news, I went on a rearmament binge not seen since 1940. Several bright new toys have joined the Diploarmory in past few weeks. I might have mentioned some, but not others. I now have a VERY nice Nighthawk Custom Falcon .45 which shoots much better than I do. It competes with my Wilson Combat .45. I also added another Wilson EDC 9 to my collection as the Diplowife fell in love with the first EDC 9 and declared it HERS! She obviously was inspired by Beto. I also have purchased a Colt Delta Elie in 10mm which shoots extremely well; it had some feeding problems but those have gone away as I have broken in the weapon. Very accurate with a recoil not unlike that of a .45, except when I use some hot self-defense rounds. Wow! Also, as I might have mentioned, got two Ruger single action "cowboy" guns one in .45 and the other in .22 Mag. Both are a lot of fun. They pal around with my new Ruger SP-101 Performance Center 8-shot in .357. I was going to provide photos, but I am terrible at that sort of high-tech stuff. Just for kicks I am looking at buying a Remington RP9, as I want to see what's available for under $400. Anyhow, lots of ammo being blasted and fun being employed to cancel out the fake news noise.
Also on the fun side, I was delighted to see that ISIS despot Al Baghdadi got his reward, as did his number two. Here the fun, unfortunately, begins to merge with Crazy World. I found hilarious how difficult it is for the fake newsers and the DemProgs to acknowledge that this is a good thing, a very good thing. Instead they are focused on whether or not A.B., in fact, "whimpered" and "died like a dog." He's dead. Good. Wonderful. I wish all those other ISIS "austere religious scholars" go the same way.
As I have said before, however, if we are serious about fighting these killers, we have to start by not letting them into our countries. It seems odd that we are concerned about Jewish settlements in so-called "Palestine," but welcome Islamist settlements in the West.
Impeachment. There I said it. I hate the whole boring topic but can't avoid it. This is merely part 358 of the ongoing effort by the inhabitants of Crazy World to undo the 2016 elections. Crazy World has been trying to "impeach" Trump since before he swore the oath of office. Nobody can tell me what laws or Constitutional provisions Trump has violated; where are the high crimes and misdemeanors? Certainly none is in evidence in the transcript of the phone call--the real one, not the fake one that the execrable Adam Schiff "read" into the record. The one good thing about the fake "impeachment" effort is that it cancels out the DemProg candidates. All the oxygen is being sucked out of the room, and nobody is listening to that panel of crazies seeking the highest office in the land.
Maybe that's the plan? The DNC hopes that nobody will focus on or even hear the craziness emanating from those loons? I guess that's a strategy, or what passes for one in Crazy World.
Back to my dogs, at least they are not crazy.
Thursday, October 24, 2019
The Party of Lynching Objects to the Word "Lynching"
Wait! What? The Demprogs are in another snit of outrage? Collective mind exploding? All because President Trump used the word "lynch" in describing the secretive and fraudulent "impeachment" process now underway by the Dems? We truly have entered the world of Lewis Carroll.
I assume the Dems are upset over some sort of copyright infringement by the President.
Let us remember that the Democrat Party is and has been the political repository of slavery, racism, secession, Jim Crow, anti-Semitism AND, yes, lynch mobs. The Democrats OWN the word and action. I have written before (here, here, here) about the long, sordid, and continuing history of the Democrats and lynch mobs.
As noted in one of those linked postings,
The incitement to mob violence; the appeal to base instincts; the obliteration of due process and fact-finding; those are the hallmarks of that party, both then and now. Justice Clarence Thomas, commenting on his Senatorial confirmation process to the Court, called it "a high-tech lynching," and, lest we forget, he said that to none other than Senator Joe Biden. Thomas was victimized as Kavanaugh would be later by vague unsubstantiated charges from a liar.
The whole #MeToo and #BelieveAllWomen campaigns are nothing but polished up versions of those lynchings conducted by Democrats in the old South that resulted in hundreds of black men hanged, shot, beaten, or burned to death.
So the Democrats feel, think, insist that they have the copyright on the word "lynching"?
Fine.
It's theirs. They own it. They earned it.
They even had a corrupt Attorney General by the name of Lynch.
I assume the Dems are upset over some sort of copyright infringement by the President.
Let us remember that the Democrat Party is and has been the political repository of slavery, racism, secession, Jim Crow, anti-Semitism AND, yes, lynch mobs. The Democrats OWN the word and action. I have written before (here, here, here) about the long, sordid, and continuing history of the Democrats and lynch mobs.
As noted in one of those linked postings,
In the old days, Democrat-led lynch mobs terrorized the rural South; today, Democrat-led lynch mobs terrorize all of urban America.I should add that they terrorize the political sphere as well. The Antifa thugs are the direct descendants of the old KKK thugs and form the armed wing of today's Democrat Party much as the Knight Riders formed that of the old Democrat Party.
The incitement to mob violence; the appeal to base instincts; the obliteration of due process and fact-finding; those are the hallmarks of that party, both then and now. Justice Clarence Thomas, commenting on his Senatorial confirmation process to the Court, called it "a high-tech lynching," and, lest we forget, he said that to none other than Senator Joe Biden. Thomas was victimized as Kavanaugh would be later by vague unsubstantiated charges from a liar.
The whole #MeToo and #BelieveAllWomen campaigns are nothing but polished up versions of those lynchings conducted by Democrats in the old South that resulted in hundreds of black men hanged, shot, beaten, or burned to death.
So the Democrats feel, think, insist that they have the copyright on the word "lynching"?
Fine.
It's theirs. They own it. They earned it.
They even had a corrupt Attorney General by the name of Lynch.
Saturday, October 19, 2019
BREXIT Runs Afoul of the Deep State
I don't pretend to understand all the parliamentary ins-and-outs of the ongoing battle over whether to execute the people's will in the UK. What I do know is that in June 2016, the British people, to the horror and chagrin of the global elite and their "Deep State" allies throughout the bureaucracies and legislatures of the Western World, voted to have their country returned to the people and taken out of the hands of the Brussels corruptocrats.
I wrote in May of 2016 (here) that the,
Ever since the British people voted to get the UK out of the EU's smothering embrace, the Remainers have launched a campaign, not unlike that of the so-called "Resistance" here in the States following Trump's 2016 victory, of sabotage and obstruction to prevent the people's choice from becoming policy.
I have said it before, the left loves humanity, but hates people.
The left is for the people except for when the people are not for the left. The left in the West has become the party and movement of the bureaucratic diktat; the "elites" who run the public and corporate bureaucracies, the entertainment and "news " industrial complexes, and the "education" machines have become, in the words of the great Thomas Sowell, "the anointed ones" possessed of a "revealed truth" which entitles them to lead the rest of us deplorable hillbillies out of the darkness and into the progressive sunlight--whether we want it or not!
Britain, following the Brexit vote, had the upper hand in dealing with the Brussels mafia. The UK establishment, however, decided that Britain was NOT to be independent, and that the British people still just had too much say in how the country should run. The imbecilic PM May went along with the nonsense put out by the Remainers that the UK needed to have a negotiated exit from the EU. Rubbish. Britain should have announced that it was leaving as of a certain date, stuck to it, and told the EU that any legacy issues could be negotiated after the UK had regained its independence. But, no. A series of complex and foolish "deals" were negotiated with the EU and put to the yahoos in the Parliament. The Parliament geniuses gummed things up badly, even declaring that Britain COULD NOT leave at all without a mutually agreed deal with the EU, thereby putting the power in the hands of Brussels and taking it from London.
I have never seen such resistance to national independence.
Well, it seems, that Boris "The Dude" Johnson, given a lousy hand of cards by his "own" side, still managed to negotiate a deal with the EU. I don't know if it was great deal or not; maybe Farage is right, I don't know. What seems to me, however, was that it was a deal that got the UK out, at least in principle. Any remaining issues, e.g., the Irish border, I assume, could be renegotiated in the future. Just establish the principle that the UK is out! But no. That does not seem to have happened. Further delay and obfuscation comprise the order of the day.
Maybe PM Johnson can pull it off. I, once again, don't pretend to know.
I, however, do know that I am horrified at how one of history's greatest nations has fallen into the hands of those who hate it so much that they trust the Mandarins of Brussels over their own people.
I wrote in May of 2016 (here) that the,
force driving the pro-Brexit movement is not solely or even mostly about economics, or finance, or currency exchange rates. It is about something much, much more important. It is about reclaiming the soul of Britain; preserving and restoring that which made Britain, notably England, one of the world's greatest countries, a nation of stunning consequence. It is about deciding whether the great British traditions and innovations that have made our modern world are worth saving or should be discarded . . .
For me as an outsider, a person with zero British blood, and no family ties to the UK (although I do like British cheese), what's driving the anti-EU movement in Britain is the need to save the country, or what's left of it. Perhaps without the EU and its courts and mandates, British common sense can prevail, and the UK be saved, or at least England--and if the Scots want to stay in the EU, they should have another referendum and swap London's "rule" for that of Brussels, that'll teach 'em.That little bit of analysis holds true.
Ever since the British people voted to get the UK out of the EU's smothering embrace, the Remainers have launched a campaign, not unlike that of the so-called "Resistance" here in the States following Trump's 2016 victory, of sabotage and obstruction to prevent the people's choice from becoming policy.
I have said it before, the left loves humanity, but hates people.
The left is for the people except for when the people are not for the left. The left in the West has become the party and movement of the bureaucratic diktat; the "elites" who run the public and corporate bureaucracies, the entertainment and "news " industrial complexes, and the "education" machines have become, in the words of the great Thomas Sowell, "the anointed ones" possessed of a "revealed truth" which entitles them to lead the rest of us deplorable hillbillies out of the darkness and into the progressive sunlight--whether we want it or not!
Britain, following the Brexit vote, had the upper hand in dealing with the Brussels mafia. The UK establishment, however, decided that Britain was NOT to be independent, and that the British people still just had too much say in how the country should run. The imbecilic PM May went along with the nonsense put out by the Remainers that the UK needed to have a negotiated exit from the EU. Rubbish. Britain should have announced that it was leaving as of a certain date, stuck to it, and told the EU that any legacy issues could be negotiated after the UK had regained its independence. But, no. A series of complex and foolish "deals" were negotiated with the EU and put to the yahoos in the Parliament. The Parliament geniuses gummed things up badly, even declaring that Britain COULD NOT leave at all without a mutually agreed deal with the EU, thereby putting the power in the hands of Brussels and taking it from London.
I have never seen such resistance to national independence.
Well, it seems, that Boris "The Dude" Johnson, given a lousy hand of cards by his "own" side, still managed to negotiate a deal with the EU. I don't know if it was great deal or not; maybe Farage is right, I don't know. What seems to me, however, was that it was a deal that got the UK out, at least in principle. Any remaining issues, e.g., the Irish border, I assume, could be renegotiated in the future. Just establish the principle that the UK is out! But no. That does not seem to have happened. Further delay and obfuscation comprise the order of the day.
Maybe PM Johnson can pull it off. I, once again, don't pretend to know.
I, however, do know that I am horrified at how one of history's greatest nations has fallen into the hands of those who hate it so much that they trust the Mandarins of Brussels over their own people.
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Hoax Marks the Spot & the Rush to Fudge
Can today's Democratic Party--the world's oldest political party--survive without employing hoax after hoax?
The election of Donald Trump severed whatever mooring to reality still existed in that old organization known as the Democrat Party. You all know the sorry story, but the highlights: The 2016 election just wasn't supposed to go that way. Hillary Clinton, one of the most venal politicians of our age, had to and was supposed to win! The polls said so; the right thinking pundits said so; Hollywood "geniuses" such as George Clooney said so; the universities said so; President Obama--the Nobel Prize winner--said so!
Yes, Dear Readers, Hillary Clinton would get her long-denied due, become president, and usher in an age of progressivist domination which had been only hinted at under the horridly corrupt Obama-Biden misadministration. The Demoprog machine pulled out all the stops: voter fraud on a massive scale involving not just the usual voting dead Democrats, or just ballot tampering and harvesting on a huge scale, but also getting perhaps millions of non-US citizens to vote Dem. The Dems relied on their vast domestic and international network for help, as well. They employed street thugs, foreign intel agents, and creepy international professors; even the government of Mexico called on its citizens in the US to vote for Hillary. The Dems used the power of Silicon Valley and of the US intel community as well as a motley mix of Brits, Aussies, Maltese, and, of course, Russians and Ukrainians to help cook up one of the greatest political frauds of all time, i.e., the Russian-Trump collusion hoax in order to discredit Trump. Didn't work. The "Deplorables" and the "Irredeemables" insisted on voting for Trump, and he won. NO!
Then the prog cry went forward for recounts in certain states that Trump definitely just wasn't supposed to win. When those recounts began to show his lead growing, they dropped that demand in favor of calling on electoral college electors not to vote for Trump. They had to drop that when electors began defecting from Hillary's camp. Then, even before he took office, Trump was subject to calls to be impeached; he was labelled a traitor, a Moscow lackey . . . and on and on. Nothing worked. The Demprogs colluded with the corrupt leaders of America's powerful intel and law enforcement organizations and the media echo chamber to get Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the "obvious" collusion between Trump and Putin--after all, nothing else could explain Hillary's loss. After some 2 plus years of "investigation," Mueller drilled a dry well. No proof of collusion by Trump! It was, of course, all a grand hoax. A hoax almost as big as Climate Change--uh, almost that is, nothing quite matches that one.
The progs could not give up.
Trump had to be destroyed and his followers and supporters humbled, shamed, destroyed. For a while, they toyed with the debris of the Mueller investigation, trying to find this or that in the rubble to justify coming after Trump. Nah. Garbage. Then! Oh sweet Manna from Heaven! The Ukraine phone call and the WHISTLEBLOWER!!! They jumped on the report from the fake whistleblower--actually, as has become clear, they helped draft the fake report--in which it was breathlessly reported that Trump had--Horrors!--asked a foreign leader, President Zelensky, for a favor. The favor? To investigate Joe Biden, and in exchange we would provide Ukraine some sort of aid or another. Trump as gangland boss! Too good to be true? Yes . . . yes, too good to be true.
The administration, with the OK of the Ukrainians, released the transcript of the call; it was a fairly innocuous call with no "quid pro quo" and no request for Ukrainian interference in our 2020 elections. Nope. Trump, it turns out, asked for Ukrainian help in investigating foreign interference in our 2016 elections. Wasn't that something that the Demprogs were all for? What was the whole rationale behind the drawn out Mueller investigation if not that? But, but, you say, why ask the Ukrainians about "Russian" interference? Because, as it is also becoming increasingly clear, much of the so-called Russian interference in our elections seems to have come from operators in Ukraine.
It was panic time at Demprog HQS! Trump was asking for help in uncovering the origins of the fake Steele Dossier which, as we know, the Dems commissioned and which seems to have had a lot of sourcing from Ukraine, not Russia, but Ukraine. Trump's request of Zelensky combined with the impending reports by Durham and Horowitz on the origins of the Russia collusion story and the abuse of the FISA process could prove a disaster for the Demprogs.
No time for another drawn out Mueller-type probe!
Impeachment by any and all means, except by the ones prescribed in the Constitution and by law, but besides that, anything goes. The rush to fudge was on! Clarity must be avoided. They borrowed from the old Kavanaugh playbook: produce fake "witnesses" and keep'em coming. They borrowed from the Spanish inquisition and every other instance of Star Chambers since time immemorial: don't give the accused the right to a defense; don't give him the right to face his accuser; don't give his supporters in Congress the ability to speak and question the process. Above all they borrowed from the ol' Soviet "As is well known" leitmotif. I have written before how at the UN when we would hear a Soviet-bloc delegate state "As is well known," we knew that a lie was coming. This tactic has been and continues to be used, for example, in the Climate Change hoax wherein something is repeated and repeated until the listener assumes it must be true. Now on "impeachment," we hear "lawless," "violation of oath of office," "cover up," "treason," etc., without any underlying evidence produced to demonstrate that the charges have any credibility. Even "impeachment" is a hoax as there is no "impeachment" process underway as prescribed by the Constitution and law, as noted above. No time for that!
It is all a hoax.
The election of Donald Trump severed whatever mooring to reality still existed in that old organization known as the Democrat Party. You all know the sorry story, but the highlights: The 2016 election just wasn't supposed to go that way. Hillary Clinton, one of the most venal politicians of our age, had to and was supposed to win! The polls said so; the right thinking pundits said so; Hollywood "geniuses" such as George Clooney said so; the universities said so; President Obama--the Nobel Prize winner--said so!
Yes, Dear Readers, Hillary Clinton would get her long-denied due, become president, and usher in an age of progressivist domination which had been only hinted at under the horridly corrupt Obama-Biden misadministration. The Demoprog machine pulled out all the stops: voter fraud on a massive scale involving not just the usual voting dead Democrats, or just ballot tampering and harvesting on a huge scale, but also getting perhaps millions of non-US citizens to vote Dem. The Dems relied on their vast domestic and international network for help, as well. They employed street thugs, foreign intel agents, and creepy international professors; even the government of Mexico called on its citizens in the US to vote for Hillary. The Dems used the power of Silicon Valley and of the US intel community as well as a motley mix of Brits, Aussies, Maltese, and, of course, Russians and Ukrainians to help cook up one of the greatest political frauds of all time, i.e., the Russian-Trump collusion hoax in order to discredit Trump. Didn't work. The "Deplorables" and the "Irredeemables" insisted on voting for Trump, and he won. NO!
Then the prog cry went forward for recounts in certain states that Trump definitely just wasn't supposed to win. When those recounts began to show his lead growing, they dropped that demand in favor of calling on electoral college electors not to vote for Trump. They had to drop that when electors began defecting from Hillary's camp. Then, even before he took office, Trump was subject to calls to be impeached; he was labelled a traitor, a Moscow lackey . . . and on and on. Nothing worked. The Demprogs colluded with the corrupt leaders of America's powerful intel and law enforcement organizations and the media echo chamber to get Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the "obvious" collusion between Trump and Putin--after all, nothing else could explain Hillary's loss. After some 2 plus years of "investigation," Mueller drilled a dry well. No proof of collusion by Trump! It was, of course, all a grand hoax. A hoax almost as big as Climate Change--uh, almost that is, nothing quite matches that one.
The progs could not give up.
Trump had to be destroyed and his followers and supporters humbled, shamed, destroyed. For a while, they toyed with the debris of the Mueller investigation, trying to find this or that in the rubble to justify coming after Trump. Nah. Garbage. Then! Oh sweet Manna from Heaven! The Ukraine phone call and the WHISTLEBLOWER!!! They jumped on the report from the fake whistleblower--actually, as has become clear, they helped draft the fake report--in which it was breathlessly reported that Trump had--Horrors!--asked a foreign leader, President Zelensky, for a favor. The favor? To investigate Joe Biden, and in exchange we would provide Ukraine some sort of aid or another. Trump as gangland boss! Too good to be true? Yes . . . yes, too good to be true.
The administration, with the OK of the Ukrainians, released the transcript of the call; it was a fairly innocuous call with no "quid pro quo" and no request for Ukrainian interference in our 2020 elections. Nope. Trump, it turns out, asked for Ukrainian help in investigating foreign interference in our 2016 elections. Wasn't that something that the Demprogs were all for? What was the whole rationale behind the drawn out Mueller investigation if not that? But, but, you say, why ask the Ukrainians about "Russian" interference? Because, as it is also becoming increasingly clear, much of the so-called Russian interference in our elections seems to have come from operators in Ukraine.
It was panic time at Demprog HQS! Trump was asking for help in uncovering the origins of the fake Steele Dossier which, as we know, the Dems commissioned and which seems to have had a lot of sourcing from Ukraine, not Russia, but Ukraine. Trump's request of Zelensky combined with the impending reports by Durham and Horowitz on the origins of the Russia collusion story and the abuse of the FISA process could prove a disaster for the Demprogs.
No time for another drawn out Mueller-type probe!
Impeachment by any and all means, except by the ones prescribed in the Constitution and by law, but besides that, anything goes. The rush to fudge was on! Clarity must be avoided. They borrowed from the old Kavanaugh playbook: produce fake "witnesses" and keep'em coming. They borrowed from the Spanish inquisition and every other instance of Star Chambers since time immemorial: don't give the accused the right to a defense; don't give him the right to face his accuser; don't give his supporters in Congress the ability to speak and question the process. Above all they borrowed from the ol' Soviet "As is well known" leitmotif. I have written before how at the UN when we would hear a Soviet-bloc delegate state "As is well known," we knew that a lie was coming. This tactic has been and continues to be used, for example, in the Climate Change hoax wherein something is repeated and repeated until the listener assumes it must be true. Now on "impeachment," we hear "lawless," "violation of oath of office," "cover up," "treason," etc., without any underlying evidence produced to demonstrate that the charges have any credibility. Even "impeachment" is a hoax as there is no "impeachment" process underway as prescribed by the Constitution and law, as noted above. No time for that!
It is all a hoax.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Politics of, by, and for the Seriously Disturbed
Science. Settled. Progressivism equals mental disturbance. Being a progressive should qualify for one of those Red Flags (appropriate, eh?) that denies one ownership of firearms. Finally, a gun control scheme I can accept: no guns for Democrats!
These last few days have shown that mental disturbance in its full glory. First, of course, whenever one discusses mental disturbances, we perforce turn to Joe Biden. I have written before of this hoary politico (here and here, among other postings) and unveiled my view that he is, uh, not too bright--please, dear readers, I am trying to be kind. Over the years he has gone from a kinda goofy standard Dem corruptocrat to outright unwell, shall we say? He needs to leave the stage ASAP, go off and enjoy his millions.
He is the prime example of a Chauncey Gardner among the current crop of lunatic Marxists now running for president on the Dem slate. He is just there. No real reason. Just happenstance. He's there. Stands for nothing . . . well, except for getting very rich by being there. Got nothing to say. When the poor hair-plugged Sphinx does dare say something, almost anything, it is a lie, a convoluted fantasy, or just a plain old incoherent ramble that you expect to hear conclude with the phrase, "Mmmmm, pudding!"
The Dem machine, and I include the media, of course, has tried to protect ol' Joe from himself in the belief--perhaps not wrong--that as inane, corrupt, and disconnected as he is, he remains the best candidate the Dems have, the only "electable" one. Yeah, sure. But even that game is over. He is toast. Not even the huge media machine can protect him any longer. He, ironically, has been finished off by his friends trying to do him one last favor.
As you all know, the media ran lurid accounts of a mysterious and anonymous (of course) "whistleblower" who had revealed incredible evil doings by the Bad Orange Man in the White House, you know, the one who denied Hillary Clinton her rightful inheritance. President Trump mentioned the Bidens in a phone call! Oh the horror! It seems that this so-called President Trump had a conversation with the new President of Ukraine--how dare he!!!--in which the subject of corruption came up. This would not prove surprising, since the new Ukrainian president ran and won on a platform of ending the rampant political corruption in Ukraine. It seems that in discussing corruption in Ukraine the topic of the Bidens came up. No way around that.
You all know the back story. Joe served as Obama's "point man" on Ukraine and China. Not clear why (except perhaps as a way to make Joe rich), but he was "point man" on two countries of which he has no particular knowledge. Well, you see, ol' Joe has a ne'er do well son, by the macho name of Hunter. He got bounced from the Naval Reserve for drug use, has DUI arrests, and a bizarro personal life. He's ostensibly a lawyer but is in reality a kid living off his father's fame and position. Purely by accident, of course, Hunter got placed on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian energy company--along with John Kerry's step-son--and paid somewhere between $50,000-$83,000 per month for his "advice." Mind you the kid has no expertise in energy or Ukrainian affairs. Nice job. He also has a billionaire contract from the Chinese government for his firm. All of these things happened right after Daddy visited Ukraine and China. You can read up on all the sorry details. Joe Biden has bragged openly about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was investigating the firm that hired Hunter. It's all very embarrassing.
Now thanks to the mad prog insistence on going after Trump for allegedly "pressuring" President Zelensky to sabotage Biden, that torpedo aimed at Trump is--as with all the other ones put in the water by the lefties--circling back. Biden is in trouble. Suddenly his corruption is an issue. This might help explain why Obama tried to talk him out of running; that torpedo might just make contact with SS Barack. It now seems clear, especially after the Russia hoax, that Obama-Biden ran the most corrupt and dangerous administration in our history. I cheer for that torpedo.
I am also concerned with yet another sign of progressive mental disturbance. Some 16-year-old Scandinavian girl, Greta Something Swedish, is being hailed as a great beacon of clarity and moral purpose in pursuit of another ongoing hoax, Climate Change. I heard her speak at some fake panel, and while full of admiration for her English, I must conclude that we are witnessing either an ardent student of the Meryl Streep School of Acting or a seriously abused child. If she's not acting, I worry that she poses a danger to herself and others. Put her on suicide watch, at least. We have here a perfect example of a youngster programmed by some adults and sent forth much like we see Islamic child suicide bombers, or Mao's Red Guard, or the Hitler Youth.
The left is so mentally disturbed that they want to kill as many children as possible, in the womb preferably, and turn those who live into robots spouting nonsense and preaching death and destruction which can only be avoided by giving the Progs more power over all of our lives.
Give us your children! Your guns! Your cars! Your hamburgers! Your air conditioning! We will control all and ensure we all live good lives. All praise to Gaia!
These last few days have shown that mental disturbance in its full glory. First, of course, whenever one discusses mental disturbances, we perforce turn to Joe Biden. I have written before of this hoary politico (here and here, among other postings) and unveiled my view that he is, uh, not too bright--please, dear readers, I am trying to be kind. Over the years he has gone from a kinda goofy standard Dem corruptocrat to outright unwell, shall we say? He needs to leave the stage ASAP, go off and enjoy his millions.
He is the prime example of a Chauncey Gardner among the current crop of lunatic Marxists now running for president on the Dem slate. He is just there. No real reason. Just happenstance. He's there. Stands for nothing . . . well, except for getting very rich by being there. Got nothing to say. When the poor hair-plugged Sphinx does dare say something, almost anything, it is a lie, a convoluted fantasy, or just a plain old incoherent ramble that you expect to hear conclude with the phrase, "Mmmmm, pudding!"
The Dem machine, and I include the media, of course, has tried to protect ol' Joe from himself in the belief--perhaps not wrong--that as inane, corrupt, and disconnected as he is, he remains the best candidate the Dems have, the only "electable" one. Yeah, sure. But even that game is over. He is toast. Not even the huge media machine can protect him any longer. He, ironically, has been finished off by his friends trying to do him one last favor.
As you all know, the media ran lurid accounts of a mysterious and anonymous (of course) "whistleblower" who had revealed incredible evil doings by the Bad Orange Man in the White House, you know, the one who denied Hillary Clinton her rightful inheritance. President Trump mentioned the Bidens in a phone call! Oh the horror! It seems that this so-called President Trump had a conversation with the new President of Ukraine--how dare he!!!--in which the subject of corruption came up. This would not prove surprising, since the new Ukrainian president ran and won on a platform of ending the rampant political corruption in Ukraine. It seems that in discussing corruption in Ukraine the topic of the Bidens came up. No way around that.
You all know the back story. Joe served as Obama's "point man" on Ukraine and China. Not clear why (except perhaps as a way to make Joe rich), but he was "point man" on two countries of which he has no particular knowledge. Well, you see, ol' Joe has a ne'er do well son, by the macho name of Hunter. He got bounced from the Naval Reserve for drug use, has DUI arrests, and a bizarro personal life. He's ostensibly a lawyer but is in reality a kid living off his father's fame and position. Purely by accident, of course, Hunter got placed on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian energy company--along with John Kerry's step-son--and paid somewhere between $50,000-$83,000 per month for his "advice." Mind you the kid has no expertise in energy or Ukrainian affairs. Nice job. He also has a billionaire contract from the Chinese government for his firm. All of these things happened right after Daddy visited Ukraine and China. You can read up on all the sorry details. Joe Biden has bragged openly about getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was investigating the firm that hired Hunter. It's all very embarrassing.
Now thanks to the mad prog insistence on going after Trump for allegedly "pressuring" President Zelensky to sabotage Biden, that torpedo aimed at Trump is--as with all the other ones put in the water by the lefties--circling back. Biden is in trouble. Suddenly his corruption is an issue. This might help explain why Obama tried to talk him out of running; that torpedo might just make contact with SS Barack. It now seems clear, especially after the Russia hoax, that Obama-Biden ran the most corrupt and dangerous administration in our history. I cheer for that torpedo.
I am also concerned with yet another sign of progressive mental disturbance. Some 16-year-old Scandinavian girl, Greta Something Swedish, is being hailed as a great beacon of clarity and moral purpose in pursuit of another ongoing hoax, Climate Change. I heard her speak at some fake panel, and while full of admiration for her English, I must conclude that we are witnessing either an ardent student of the Meryl Streep School of Acting or a seriously abused child. If she's not acting, I worry that she poses a danger to herself and others. Put her on suicide watch, at least. We have here a perfect example of a youngster programmed by some adults and sent forth much like we see Islamic child suicide bombers, or Mao's Red Guard, or the Hitler Youth.
The left is so mentally disturbed that they want to kill as many children as possible, in the womb preferably, and turn those who live into robots spouting nonsense and preaching death and destruction which can only be avoided by giving the Progs more power over all of our lives.
Give us your children! Your guns! Your cars! Your hamburgers! Your air conditioning! We will control all and ensure we all live good lives. All praise to Gaia!
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Fun with Wilson (Not the President)
I had begun to write a little "thought piece" on Trumpian foreign policy, when a phone call from my favorite gun store, Backwater Guns, interrupted my line of so-called thinking. The Diplowife is on one of her jaunts to Spain with our two oldest sons, so I have been left to my own devices--not good. Two days ago I walked into Backwater, and ordered a Wilson Combat CQB1911 chambered in the greatest caliber of them all, the venerable .45. I had heard that it would take 3-6 months to get my hands on this gun given the great demand for them . . . but I got the call! Backwater told me it had arrived! Yes, in two days from the factory in Arkansas! They happened to have a cancelled sale of a gun with my exact specs. Off I went, no Jeep has ever driven faster (it's in the Guinness Book, honest) laid my money down, and came home with this magnificent piece of American design and engineering.
Today I went over to a little gun range here in Wilmington. I conducted another of my highly scientific comparison tests. I took my new Wilson, my Dan Wesson 1911, and my S&W 1911, and a large load of different types of .45 cal rounds.
Three high-priced irons; which would receive the coveted Diplomad Award? The suspense is a killer.
In short, at ten yards, I ranked them in terms of accuracy (3) the S&W (shorter barrel); (2) the Wesson, and Numero Uno the Wilson. The differences were very slight and how much was due to my hand and eye getting tired, or just happenstance, I don't know. My testing "machines" are not calibrated for such fine distinctions. At seven yards, I could find no appreciable difference. All three shot very accurately and very tight groupings. I put about 150 rounds though each gun and had only one failure, a stovepipe in the S&W on the very last round fired. To be fair to the S&W, the round made an odd, muted noise, so it might have been a bit underpowered.
My conclusion? I don't know. Is the Wilson worth about three times the money of the S&W or the Wesson? It, without doubt, is a superbly made weapon, with very tight tolerances, and--best of all--it gives you the bragging rights of saying you have a relatively rare gun. The other two are also superbly well-made, with the Wesson being slightly better than the S&W but the S&W having a neater retro look, and is a bit more concealable than the other two.
OK, I will write something a bit more serious. Not allowed to have fun in our brutal dystopian world where everything is politics and wokeness.
Today I went over to a little gun range here in Wilmington. I conducted another of my highly scientific comparison tests. I took my new Wilson, my Dan Wesson 1911, and my S&W 1911, and a large load of different types of .45 cal rounds.
Three high-priced irons; which would receive the coveted Diplomad Award? The suspense is a killer.
In short, at ten yards, I ranked them in terms of accuracy (3) the S&W (shorter barrel); (2) the Wesson, and Numero Uno the Wilson. The differences were very slight and how much was due to my hand and eye getting tired, or just happenstance, I don't know. My testing "machines" are not calibrated for such fine distinctions. At seven yards, I could find no appreciable difference. All three shot very accurately and very tight groupings. I put about 150 rounds though each gun and had only one failure, a stovepipe in the S&W on the very last round fired. To be fair to the S&W, the round made an odd, muted noise, so it might have been a bit underpowered.
My conclusion? I don't know. Is the Wilson worth about three times the money of the S&W or the Wesson? It, without doubt, is a superbly made weapon, with very tight tolerances, and--best of all--it gives you the bragging rights of saying you have a relatively rare gun. The other two are also superbly well-made, with the Wesson being slightly better than the S&W but the S&W having a neater retro look, and is a bit more concealable than the other two.
OK, I will write something a bit more serious. Not allowed to have fun in our brutal dystopian world where everything is politics and wokeness.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
A Repost on 9/11
I get very sad on this day and just don't feel like writing anything new about it. I will repost what I wrote back on September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of that horrid event.
I am working on something new.
I am working on something new.
September 11 Revisited
The tenth anniversary of that horrid day has generated a flood of memories. I hope not to bore my readers with yet another account of "where I was" on that day, but I can't help it.
I was the Charge of a medium-sized American embassy in Asia. The Ambassador was back in the US, and barely missed getting on one of the hijacked flights. It was early evening local time. My wife and I were at the gym at a five-star international chain hotel; I was on the treadmill watching, with no particular interest, the nauseous BBC world news show that was on the gym's sole TV set. The news reader, a pompous and vaguely east Asian woman whom I recall as looking much like a Vulcan from the old Star Trek series, suddenly grabbed her earpiece, and said there was a report of a small commuter plane hitting a World Trade Center tower in New York. She prattled on about something else, then suddenly the image cut to the smoking tower just as the second plane hit. Along with millions of other people, I watched on live TV as hundreds of people were brutally murdered. A lot of confused reporting began; much cross talk, some silly BBC criticism of US air traffic control and of the NY fire department for responding too slowly.
The gym trainer, an Aussie expat, came up to me and said, "How can two planes hit the same place?" I remember telling him, almost without thinking about what I was saying, "It has to be deliberate." It suddenly dawned on me, after I said it, that, in fact, it must have been deliberate.
I got off the treadmill and went to look for my wife; I pulled her out of her aerobics class, and said "Something is up. We have to go." I had the bodyguards take us home, and I called our head of security. He was frantically trying to get some logical story out of Washington, but either could not get through, or got contradictory accounts of what was going on: some sort of attack on the Pentagon; a car bomb outside the Congress; another one outside the State Department; and on and on. I told him to get the country team together (heads of section) and to heighten our own security at the Embassy as we could be facing a worldwide attack on US facilities. We all met and talked, and talked, and talked, and could get nothing useful out of Washington.
Adding to the confusion was that the Assistant Secretary of our regional bureau, a political appointee close to a prominent Senator, had run, and I quite literally mean run, with her aide, screaming, yes, screaming, out of her office, into the garage, gotten into her car, and had headed home. She had abandoned her post at a time of great crisis. The amazing thing was that weeks later, she laughingly told the story herself with no sense of shame or of how that imagery could affect those around her. But then this was the same one who, just a few days earlier, had fired an extraordinarily talented Foreign Service Officer, one of the most knowledgable people I had ever met when it came to South Asia, because he did not seem to take her seriously. Ah, yes, leadership in action.
The Embassy went on high alert; the next morning I had to tell the Embassy employees what I knew, which was very little other than what was on the news, and to reassure the local-hire staff that, whatever happened, we would not cut and run out on them. They would be looked after. Afterwards, I remember telling my security chief, "Don't make me a liar on that promise." He nodded.
Endless requests for press interviews; briefings of other embassies and the local government; lots of confusion; condolence calls and visits from all over the host country; all sorts of false rumors and threats. In subsequent weeks, we got hit with a barrage of fake anthrax powder letters; telephoned bomb threats, and so on.
Finally, the word came. Revenge was in the offing. I got instructions to contact the President of a neighboring Muslim country to which our Embassy was also accredited. I was to get permission for US warplanes to overfly his country on the way to bomb Afghanistan. We needed his OK right away, so there was no time to travel and meet him face-to-face. I called him on the phone, and had one of those one-minute conversations that make years of Foreign Service life worthwhile. I remember the conversation vividly.
"Mr. President, we need your permission for our bombers to fly through your national airspace on the way to targets in Afghanistan. We need it right away."
"Would we know when your bombers are flying through our airspace?"
"Your air traffic controllers in [the capital] might pick them up."
"I see. Would my public know that your bombers are there?"
"Not likely unless there is some sort of accident or emergency landing."
"I see. If I say 'no' what happens?"
"Mr. President, we are going to get justice for 9/11. You are our friend. Please help us in this small way."
"So if I say 'no' you are going to go anyhow, right? Please, no diplomacy. Tell me the truth in plain words."
"Yes. We are going to go anyhow."
"Ok [laughing] then I will say 'yes' to your planes. Please tell President Bush that I approve."
"President Bush will be very grateful."
I was the Charge of a medium-sized American embassy in Asia. The Ambassador was back in the US, and barely missed getting on one of the hijacked flights. It was early evening local time. My wife and I were at the gym at a five-star international chain hotel; I was on the treadmill watching, with no particular interest, the nauseous BBC world news show that was on the gym's sole TV set. The news reader, a pompous and vaguely east Asian woman whom I recall as looking much like a Vulcan from the old Star Trek series, suddenly grabbed her earpiece, and said there was a report of a small commuter plane hitting a World Trade Center tower in New York. She prattled on about something else, then suddenly the image cut to the smoking tower just as the second plane hit. Along with millions of other people, I watched on live TV as hundreds of people were brutally murdered. A lot of confused reporting began; much cross talk, some silly BBC criticism of US air traffic control and of the NY fire department for responding too slowly.
The gym trainer, an Aussie expat, came up to me and said, "How can two planes hit the same place?" I remember telling him, almost without thinking about what I was saying, "It has to be deliberate." It suddenly dawned on me, after I said it, that, in fact, it must have been deliberate.
I got off the treadmill and went to look for my wife; I pulled her out of her aerobics class, and said "Something is up. We have to go." I had the bodyguards take us home, and I called our head of security. He was frantically trying to get some logical story out of Washington, but either could not get through, or got contradictory accounts of what was going on: some sort of attack on the Pentagon; a car bomb outside the Congress; another one outside the State Department; and on and on. I told him to get the country team together (heads of section) and to heighten our own security at the Embassy as we could be facing a worldwide attack on US facilities. We all met and talked, and talked, and talked, and could get nothing useful out of Washington.
Adding to the confusion was that the Assistant Secretary of our regional bureau, a political appointee close to a prominent Senator, had run, and I quite literally mean run, with her aide, screaming, yes, screaming, out of her office, into the garage, gotten into her car, and had headed home. She had abandoned her post at a time of great crisis. The amazing thing was that weeks later, she laughingly told the story herself with no sense of shame or of how that imagery could affect those around her. But then this was the same one who, just a few days earlier, had fired an extraordinarily talented Foreign Service Officer, one of the most knowledgable people I had ever met when it came to South Asia, because he did not seem to take her seriously. Ah, yes, leadership in action.
The Embassy went on high alert; the next morning I had to tell the Embassy employees what I knew, which was very little other than what was on the news, and to reassure the local-hire staff that, whatever happened, we would not cut and run out on them. They would be looked after. Afterwards, I remember telling my security chief, "Don't make me a liar on that promise." He nodded.
Endless requests for press interviews; briefings of other embassies and the local government; lots of confusion; condolence calls and visits from all over the host country; all sorts of false rumors and threats. In subsequent weeks, we got hit with a barrage of fake anthrax powder letters; telephoned bomb threats, and so on.
Finally, the word came. Revenge was in the offing. I got instructions to contact the President of a neighboring Muslim country to which our Embassy was also accredited. I was to get permission for US warplanes to overfly his country on the way to bomb Afghanistan. We needed his OK right away, so there was no time to travel and meet him face-to-face. I called him on the phone, and had one of those one-minute conversations that make years of Foreign Service life worthwhile. I remember the conversation vividly.
"Mr. President, we need your permission for our bombers to fly through your national airspace on the way to targets in Afghanistan. We need it right away."
"Would we know when your bombers are flying through our airspace?"
"Your air traffic controllers in [the capital] might pick them up."
"I see. Would my public know that your bombers are there?"
"Not likely unless there is some sort of accident or emergency landing."
"I see. If I say 'no' what happens?"
"Mr. President, we are going to get justice for 9/11. You are our friend. Please help us in this small way."
"So if I say 'no' you are going to go anyhow, right? Please, no diplomacy. Tell me the truth in plain words."
"Yes. We are going to go anyhow."
"Ok [laughing] then I will say 'yes' to your planes. Please tell President Bush that I approve."
"President Bush will be very grateful."
Friday, September 6, 2019
The Lost Minds of the West
Sounds like a title for an H. Rider Haggard novel, eh? If only, alas, it were just a novel of fanciful adventure. It's not. It's a description of a great chunk of the West's political "leadership" and "elite."
If anybody doubts we are in crisis, I refer you to the CNN Climate Change Extravaganza.
For SEVEN HOURS (!) the Dem candidates came forward to prove that they have lost their minds, or, at least, that they assume the voters have. I, of course, did not watch this idiocy for seven hours but would pop in and out. My disgust quota was quickly filled. Let me sum up the doings: the CNN show revealed the left as comprised of totalitarian morons. One after another, these politicos came forward trying to outbid each other in the Stalinist lunacy auction. In the end, we got a Democratic Party leadership doing their best Ayesha ("She who must be obeyed!") impression, committed to abolishing the internal combustion engine, ending fracking, ending offshore drilling, forcing Americans to give up meat, banning plastic straws, condemning "industrial farming," and, the best for last, killing babies of color in foreign lands. You read that last one right. Bernie "Honeymoon in the USSR" Sanders wants the USA to fund a huge abortion scheme to kill unborn babies in South America in the name of fighting "climate change." The brown children must be sacrificed to the Goddess Gaia! I guess he's going for the Margaret Sanger White Supremacist vote, or he's just trying to burnish his credentials as a Socialist, you know, a National Socialist . . .. Don't build a border wall or put babies in cages! No, kill them before they're born! Bumper sticker, anybody?
CNN is clearly working for the re-election of Donald Trump.
Not so long ago, this idiocy about climate change would have been laughed off as fringe stupidity of the maximum kind. Comedians would have had a field day. Not any longer. One of those loons on the CNN stage will become the candidate of the world's oldest political party, uh, candidate for President of the USA, that is, not for city council in San Francisco.
Oh, and by the way, the so-called "science" on this climate change nonsense just ain't there. We have the world's most sophisticated meteorologists can't predict a hurricane's track from one day to the next, but "scientists" can tell us what the world's climate will be in 100 years? Right. I guess that's why both Al Gore and Barack Obama have expensive beachfront properties . . . they KNOW that the predictions of the oceans' impending rise are garbage peddled to the little folk.
Sorry to state that the destructive idiocy is not limited to these shores. I watch with amazement as the British Deep State strikes back at Boris Johnson to prevent him from doing what he was elected to do, i.e., get the UK out of the EU's lethal embrace. The lefties in Britain are completely devoid of any patriotism, of any belief in their amazing country's historically proven ability to triumph. They will do anything to preserve that loathsome elite club known as the EU, even at the expense of their own people. They detest democracy, unless it produces the results they want. Much like their deranged brethren in America, they will do whatever necessary to destroy a political opponent, including destroying the nation's traditions and institutions.
Repulsive beyond words.
If anybody doubts we are in crisis, I refer you to the CNN Climate Change Extravaganza.
For SEVEN HOURS (!) the Dem candidates came forward to prove that they have lost their minds, or, at least, that they assume the voters have. I, of course, did not watch this idiocy for seven hours but would pop in and out. My disgust quota was quickly filled. Let me sum up the doings: the CNN show revealed the left as comprised of totalitarian morons. One after another, these politicos came forward trying to outbid each other in the Stalinist lunacy auction. In the end, we got a Democratic Party leadership doing their best Ayesha ("She who must be obeyed!") impression, committed to abolishing the internal combustion engine, ending fracking, ending offshore drilling, forcing Americans to give up meat, banning plastic straws, condemning "industrial farming," and, the best for last, killing babies of color in foreign lands. You read that last one right. Bernie "Honeymoon in the USSR" Sanders wants the USA to fund a huge abortion scheme to kill unborn babies in South America in the name of fighting "climate change." The brown children must be sacrificed to the Goddess Gaia! I guess he's going for the Margaret Sanger White Supremacist vote, or he's just trying to burnish his credentials as a Socialist, you know, a National Socialist . . .. Don't build a border wall or put babies in cages! No, kill them before they're born! Bumper sticker, anybody?
CNN is clearly working for the re-election of Donald Trump.
Not so long ago, this idiocy about climate change would have been laughed off as fringe stupidity of the maximum kind. Comedians would have had a field day. Not any longer. One of those loons on the CNN stage will become the candidate of the world's oldest political party, uh, candidate for President of the USA, that is, not for city council in San Francisco.
Oh, and by the way, the so-called "science" on this climate change nonsense just ain't there. We have the world's most sophisticated meteorologists can't predict a hurricane's track from one day to the next, but "scientists" can tell us what the world's climate will be in 100 years? Right. I guess that's why both Al Gore and Barack Obama have expensive beachfront properties . . . they KNOW that the predictions of the oceans' impending rise are garbage peddled to the little folk.
Sorry to state that the destructive idiocy is not limited to these shores. I watch with amazement as the British Deep State strikes back at Boris Johnson to prevent him from doing what he was elected to do, i.e., get the UK out of the EU's lethal embrace. The lefties in Britain are completely devoid of any patriotism, of any belief in their amazing country's historically proven ability to triumph. They will do anything to preserve that loathsome elite club known as the EU, even at the expense of their own people. They detest democracy, unless it produces the results they want. Much like their deranged brethren in America, they will do whatever necessary to destroy a political opponent, including destroying the nation's traditions and institutions.
Repulsive beyond words.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
China
Back to the keyboard.
I have been preoccupied with an onslaught of doctors, lawyers, accountants, brokers, realtors, and dogs, plus taking the Diplowife to the gun range several times as she has gotten the urge to re-learn how to shoot. On that last and most important topic, she's doing very well. I bought her a very nice eight-round S&W Model 63 revolver chambered in .22 LR, and she's been tearing up the target. Tomorrow we graduate to 9mm, and then the sky's the limit after that . . . . Dirty Harry, you're on notice! I also have lost 45 lbs which means I am now just a regular fat guy.
But, enough of that. I have been watching the toing-and-froing with China on "trade." I put those scare quotes around trade because the issue at stake is really much more than just trade. President Trump is attempting the first major challenge to what had seemed the inexorable and unresisted rise of the PRC. I have written before about China (here and here, for example) and have often expressed my concern over China's ambitions. We shall return to all that.
A major hallmark of American diplomacy since the founding of our Republic over 243 years ago has been the search for independence. Whether overtly stated or just understood, the USA has had as its primary goal maintaining its freedom of action and avoiding dependence on foreign powers. In the beginning, we had that goal but did not always have the capability to achieve it. The Monroe Doctrine, of course, an early and overt expression of our wish to be free of outside powers in "our" hemisphere, relied more on the isolating effect of two oceans, strife in Europe, and the fact that the British ruled the ocean waves and had no desire to allow Spain or France to move back into "our" hemisphere.
Our economic policies for most of our history involved high tariffs and nurturing our own industries--and it worked spectacularly. We were not big on "free" trade, although we did welcome foreign investment--e.g., British investing in our railroads and agriculture, German investing in our chemical industry. What has happened in the past few decades is a revolution in our traditional global stance. We became "free traders" in theory and patsies in practice. We allowed our industrial supply chain to become centered on Chinese factories. American CEOs worked out, in the name of free trade, comfortable and highly profitable arrangements with the Chinese which left our factories hollowed out, our technology getting stolen, our workers out of jobs, and our country dependent on China and the whims of that dictatorial regime. Just as we finally achieved the apparently impossible dream of re-establishing our energy independence, we became dependent on Chinese factories and Chinese willingness to buy our debt with the billions of dollars we send them for goods once made here. All this, of course, as China makes clear its long-standing ambition to replace the USA as the pre-eminent economic and military power in the world.
Trump has proven the only President willing to take on the Chinese and call into question the "comfortable" arrangement known as Chimerica. He, as you would expect, has been pilloried by left and right for his guts, his willingness to upset the apple cart. This Chimerica arrangement has made many people on both sides of the political divide quite wealthy, and done perhaps irreparable damage to our industrial base and national security. The opposition to Trump on this will be and is fierce. For the sake of America and the West, Trump must win.
Give me a little time and I will get around to some other unpleasant topics such as James Comey, Joe Biden and the current crop of Democratic candidates, and the continued hysteria over Brexit. Right now I need to tend to the dogs; they are barking up a storm.
I have been preoccupied with an onslaught of doctors, lawyers, accountants, brokers, realtors, and dogs, plus taking the Diplowife to the gun range several times as she has gotten the urge to re-learn how to shoot. On that last and most important topic, she's doing very well. I bought her a very nice eight-round S&W Model 63 revolver chambered in .22 LR, and she's been tearing up the target. Tomorrow we graduate to 9mm, and then the sky's the limit after that . . . . Dirty Harry, you're on notice! I also have lost 45 lbs which means I am now just a regular fat guy.
But, enough of that. I have been watching the toing-and-froing with China on "trade." I put those scare quotes around trade because the issue at stake is really much more than just trade. President Trump is attempting the first major challenge to what had seemed the inexorable and unresisted rise of the PRC. I have written before about China (here and here, for example) and have often expressed my concern over China's ambitions. We shall return to all that.
A major hallmark of American diplomacy since the founding of our Republic over 243 years ago has been the search for independence. Whether overtly stated or just understood, the USA has had as its primary goal maintaining its freedom of action and avoiding dependence on foreign powers. In the beginning, we had that goal but did not always have the capability to achieve it. The Monroe Doctrine, of course, an early and overt expression of our wish to be free of outside powers in "our" hemisphere, relied more on the isolating effect of two oceans, strife in Europe, and the fact that the British ruled the ocean waves and had no desire to allow Spain or France to move back into "our" hemisphere.
Our economic policies for most of our history involved high tariffs and nurturing our own industries--and it worked spectacularly. We were not big on "free" trade, although we did welcome foreign investment--e.g., British investing in our railroads and agriculture, German investing in our chemical industry. What has happened in the past few decades is a revolution in our traditional global stance. We became "free traders" in theory and patsies in practice. We allowed our industrial supply chain to become centered on Chinese factories. American CEOs worked out, in the name of free trade, comfortable and highly profitable arrangements with the Chinese which left our factories hollowed out, our technology getting stolen, our workers out of jobs, and our country dependent on China and the whims of that dictatorial regime. Just as we finally achieved the apparently impossible dream of re-establishing our energy independence, we became dependent on Chinese factories and Chinese willingness to buy our debt with the billions of dollars we send them for goods once made here. All this, of course, as China makes clear its long-standing ambition to replace the USA as the pre-eminent economic and military power in the world.
Trump has proven the only President willing to take on the Chinese and call into question the "comfortable" arrangement known as Chimerica. He, as you would expect, has been pilloried by left and right for his guts, his willingness to upset the apple cart. This Chimerica arrangement has made many people on both sides of the political divide quite wealthy, and done perhaps irreparable damage to our industrial base and national security. The opposition to Trump on this will be and is fierce. For the sake of America and the West, Trump must win.
Give me a little time and I will get around to some other unpleasant topics such as James Comey, Joe Biden and the current crop of Democratic candidates, and the continued hysteria over Brexit. Right now I need to tend to the dogs; they are barking up a storm.
Friday, August 9, 2019
Something a Little Light-hearted from Czechia
Trying to overcome my increasingly pessimistic view of the future of Western Civilization, I did what I normally do: engaged in potential "red flag" behavior.
That means, of course, I went to my favorite gun store (Backwater Guns in Wilmington, NC) and bought a new addition to my collection. The folks there are extremely nice and always patiently answer all of my stoopid questions without making me think I am stoopid for asking them. I told them, "I am bored. Sell me a gun." We went over about a dozen possibilities, and then I settled on an unlikely purchase for me: a CZ 75B/D made in the Czech Republic (aka, Czechia). You know me: big promoter of "Made in USA"--nearly all of my guns are American--but I had read that CZ makes some exceptionally good guns for the price. The Czechs have long been known for doing good work, including the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and, of course, making a long line of reliable cars.
CZ owns the company that makes one of my favorite guns, the Dan Wesson, .45, but never had I bought one made by CZ itself in the Czech Republic. I got the CZ 75 chambered in 9mm with the decocker mechanism as I consider that a better feature than a standard safety (I know there's debate about that, here for example). The price was good--under $600--and it came with two 16-round mags, a simple cleaning kit, and a very nice hard plastic box. The fit and finish on the piece are excellent, and there is a very high standard of manufacturing and design that seems to have gone into the production. Disassembly and cleaning proved very easy.
The ergonomics on the gun are excellent, and it shoots very smoothly even in double-action mode. It could use some better and bigger sights, and I will probably have those switched out, but overall I was impressed with the accuracy and the reliability: 200 rounds straight out of the box and not a single failure of any sort. It seems a relatively heavy gun and, perhaps because of that heft, the recoil was negligible. I could have sworn I was shooting a .22. I can see why this gun is popular with lots of police forces.
There, my "red flag" for the day . . . .
That means, of course, I went to my favorite gun store (Backwater Guns in Wilmington, NC) and bought a new addition to my collection. The folks there are extremely nice and always patiently answer all of my stoopid questions without making me think I am stoopid for asking them. I told them, "I am bored. Sell me a gun." We went over about a dozen possibilities, and then I settled on an unlikely purchase for me: a CZ 75B/D made in the Czech Republic (aka, Czechia). You know me: big promoter of "Made in USA"--nearly all of my guns are American--but I had read that CZ makes some exceptionally good guns for the price. The Czechs have long been known for doing good work, including the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and, of course, making a long line of reliable cars.
CZ owns the company that makes one of my favorite guns, the Dan Wesson, .45, but never had I bought one made by CZ itself in the Czech Republic. I got the CZ 75 chambered in 9mm with the decocker mechanism as I consider that a better feature than a standard safety (I know there's debate about that, here for example). The price was good--under $600--and it came with two 16-round mags, a simple cleaning kit, and a very nice hard plastic box. The fit and finish on the piece are excellent, and there is a very high standard of manufacturing and design that seems to have gone into the production. Disassembly and cleaning proved very easy.
The ergonomics on the gun are excellent, and it shoots very smoothly even in double-action mode. It could use some better and bigger sights, and I will probably have those switched out, but overall I was impressed with the accuracy and the reliability: 200 rounds straight out of the box and not a single failure of any sort. It seems a relatively heavy gun and, perhaps because of that heft, the recoil was negligible. I could have sworn I was shooting a .22. I can see why this gun is popular with lots of police forces.
There, my "red flag" for the day . . . .
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Toxic Culture and Red Flags
The latest murderous outrages in El Paso and Dayton didn't take long to produce a "blame on" torrent from the usual and even some unusual suspects. We had the usual suspects blaming President Trump for his "divisive" rhetoric and supposed adherence to "white supremacy." Not a sparrow falls but that President Trump doesn't get blamed. A deranged Aussie environmentalist, who hates Trump, goes off the rails and murders 51 people in a couple of mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and it's Trump's fault. A lunatic environmentalist supporter of Senators Warren and Sanders goes nuts in Dayton, Ohio, kills nine people, and it's Trump's fault. A bizarre and cowardly (he wore ear protectors; not the sign of an intending kamikaze) environmentalist racist who hates Trump goes ape in El Paso, murders 21 people, and, of course, it's Trump's fault. As I write this, I hear the mayor of Dayton essentially blaming the killings in her city on Trump; she's the mayor, she runs the police in Dayton, she has the power to control the streets, but it's the President's fault that there are killings on those streets of Dayton. Right. OK. Gotcha.
I also hear some weird stuff from people who should know better.
Lots of talk from otherwise sane people about "red flags." Even the President's speechwriters had him support that stupid idea du jour. Oh, yes, we will design a process to "red flag" certain people for certain non-violent behavior, aka speech, and then use it in some as yet unspecified way to prevent them from exercising their second amendment rights. We see floating about various ideas and even pieces of proposed legislation to create some sort of list drawing data from somewhere or other to use to "intervene" in some way (dispatch of Sheriff's Deputies is my guess) to prevent guns from falling into the "wrong hands." Sure thing, buddy. Sing it out John, Paul, George, and Ringo, "Back in the USSR, boys . . . "
I have written before about progressive infatuation with "gun control" lists and "mental health" (December 9, 2015). What do you think will happen with such a process? Whom do you think will control it? How long before conservatives, and others out of political favor get a "red flag"? Shall we have the same kind of people who run Google, YouTube, and Twitter control it? How about the sort who run progressive-controlled city councils? What possibly could go wrong? How long before we have the sort of fraud we see in the MeToo movement and the racial hate hoax plague spread to "gun control"? Due process, anybody? Who, by the way, are these "mental health experts" who will determine whether somebody deserves his second amendment rights? Should we have them for our other rights? Are these the same experts, for example, who for centuries told us that homosexuality is a "personality disorder" or the ones who now insist we must not only accept it but praise it, embrace it, promote it? Mental health, of course, is settled science of the highest and most reliable order . . . right up there with the Piltdown Man and man-made global cooling, warming, change, or whatever.
Oh, yes, folks, but lest you think otherwise, there is something out there worthy of a "red flag"--but it's not being discussed at all.
All over the West, not just in the USA, we have created in the past three or four decades a vile, toxic culture that leads to the sorts of murderous sprees we have seen, for example, in Norway, New Zealand, and, of course, the USA. Radicalization via Internet? Sure, but it goes much deeper than that. It goes deeper than porno and vile video games.
There is a pervasive rot spread by Hollywood, the universities, and the media, both new and legacy. It tells us we must welcome endless waves of dirt-poor aliens, who enter our country illegally, and ply them with free health care, voting rights, housing, and free schooling. We must sing the praises of single mothers; promote abortion up to the moment of birth and even beyond. Judeo-Christian values, institutions, and traditions are ripe for ridicule and destruction, and, of course, deservedly so! Western history, after all, is just an endless catalog of racism, imperialism, genocide, patriarchy, and assault on the very earth. Gaia weeps because of the white man!
Man. Men. Male. These are now foul words and concepts. There is an ongoing war, yes, war, against men and what it means to be male, in our decrepit universities, in the decaying industry known as Hollywood (notice that white men have virtually disappeared from TV commercials?) and in the media. Instead, for example, of celebrating the amazing accomplishment of American men landing on the moon, the WaPo harangues us with nonsense that the Soviet moon program was much more diverse and, of course, it sent the first woman into space and the first non-white into space. Don't you dare think, much less say, "Yes, but the object was to get to the moon first."
We see, as I have written before, young men alienated from their culture, told by their intellectual betters than they are all rapists and murderers and racists and just plain "TOXIC!" University orientation programs seek to deprogram the male out of young men students. Hollywood tells them they are murderers and clowns, that the future is female, and, besides, women can kick your ass, buddy! These men find the universities, the entertainment industry, the media, and the work environment hostile. Many retreat into delusional and dangerous corners of the Internet, and link up with others like them. They have no historical context for what is happening as the schools are garbage and no longer teach history, or Western philosophy, or the great accomplishments of the West; they pick up scattered and often insane ideas from weird web sites that promote dark conspiracy theories. Yes, they are radicalized by the Internet but the roots go deeper.
We are destroying Western Civilization and the result is bloody massacre.
That's your "red flag."
I also hear some weird stuff from people who should know better.
Lots of talk from otherwise sane people about "red flags." Even the President's speechwriters had him support that stupid idea du jour. Oh, yes, we will design a process to "red flag" certain people for certain non-violent behavior, aka speech, and then use it in some as yet unspecified way to prevent them from exercising their second amendment rights. We see floating about various ideas and even pieces of proposed legislation to create some sort of list drawing data from somewhere or other to use to "intervene" in some way (dispatch of Sheriff's Deputies is my guess) to prevent guns from falling into the "wrong hands." Sure thing, buddy. Sing it out John, Paul, George, and Ringo, "Back in the USSR, boys . . . "
I have written before about progressive infatuation with "gun control" lists and "mental health" (December 9, 2015). What do you think will happen with such a process? Whom do you think will control it? How long before conservatives, and others out of political favor get a "red flag"? Shall we have the same kind of people who run Google, YouTube, and Twitter control it? How about the sort who run progressive-controlled city councils? What possibly could go wrong? How long before we have the sort of fraud we see in the MeToo movement and the racial hate hoax plague spread to "gun control"? Due process, anybody? Who, by the way, are these "mental health experts" who will determine whether somebody deserves his second amendment rights? Should we have them for our other rights? Are these the same experts, for example, who for centuries told us that homosexuality is a "personality disorder" or the ones who now insist we must not only accept it but praise it, embrace it, promote it? Mental health, of course, is settled science of the highest and most reliable order . . . right up there with the Piltdown Man and man-made global cooling, warming, change, or whatever.
Oh, yes, folks, but lest you think otherwise, there is something out there worthy of a "red flag"--but it's not being discussed at all.
All over the West, not just in the USA, we have created in the past three or four decades a vile, toxic culture that leads to the sorts of murderous sprees we have seen, for example, in Norway, New Zealand, and, of course, the USA. Radicalization via Internet? Sure, but it goes much deeper than that. It goes deeper than porno and vile video games.
There is a pervasive rot spread by Hollywood, the universities, and the media, both new and legacy. It tells us we must welcome endless waves of dirt-poor aliens, who enter our country illegally, and ply them with free health care, voting rights, housing, and free schooling. We must sing the praises of single mothers; promote abortion up to the moment of birth and even beyond. Judeo-Christian values, institutions, and traditions are ripe for ridicule and destruction, and, of course, deservedly so! Western history, after all, is just an endless catalog of racism, imperialism, genocide, patriarchy, and assault on the very earth. Gaia weeps because of the white man!
Man. Men. Male. These are now foul words and concepts. There is an ongoing war, yes, war, against men and what it means to be male, in our decrepit universities, in the decaying industry known as Hollywood (notice that white men have virtually disappeared from TV commercials?) and in the media. Instead, for example, of celebrating the amazing accomplishment of American men landing on the moon, the WaPo harangues us with nonsense that the Soviet moon program was much more diverse and, of course, it sent the first woman into space and the first non-white into space. Don't you dare think, much less say, "Yes, but the object was to get to the moon first."
We see, as I have written before, young men alienated from their culture, told by their intellectual betters than they are all rapists and murderers and racists and just plain "TOXIC!" University orientation programs seek to deprogram the male out of young men students. Hollywood tells them they are murderers and clowns, that the future is female, and, besides, women can kick your ass, buddy! These men find the universities, the entertainment industry, the media, and the work environment hostile. Many retreat into delusional and dangerous corners of the Internet, and link up with others like them. They have no historical context for what is happening as the schools are garbage and no longer teach history, or Western philosophy, or the great accomplishments of the West; they pick up scattered and often insane ideas from weird web sites that promote dark conspiracy theories. Yes, they are radicalized by the Internet but the roots go deeper.
We are destroying Western Civilization and the result is bloody massacre.
That's your "red flag."
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Baltiless and Other Reflections
Baltimore has come to much, much less than it once was.
I have been in that city numerous times; each visit finds the city worse and worse. Baltimore, the home of our national anthem, Edgar Allan Poe, Babe Ruth, H.L. Mencken, Harriet Tubman, Nancy Pelosi, Frederick Douglas, Tom Clancy, the USS Constellation, and so many more; yes, that very Baltimore is a national disgrace: an embarrassment of epic proportions.
It has the nation's highest homicide rate (equal or superior to that in much of Central America), a poverty rate through the roof, consistently in the top ten ranking of rat-infested US cities, disastrous public schools, a collapsing police force, all, of course, as befits a beneficiary of decades of crooked Democratic Party rule--including by Nancy Pelosi's dad. The people of Baltimore have more claim to political asylum than do those from Guatemala.
So our politically incorrect President has the temerity to speak truth to power, and . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . "RACIST!" is the reply. No vow to check the facts; to do something about the politicians who have caused this calamity. No, attack the messenger. Protect the corruptocrats and the other con men who have produced this wreck. The message from the Socialists who now run the world's oldest political party, "Nothing to see here. Move along! Move along! Just an old racist ranting . . . pay no attention!" The Socialists don't give a damn about the people caught in that hell-hole any more than they do about the people in other Progressive sinking ships: Flint, STL, Chicago, LA, SF, and on and on. They want to do what they have done in those places to the whole country. We can't let them.
Evil bastards. There is no other label I can put on them.
I won't be watching the Dem Circus, aka "Debate." I have zero interest in their delusions and fantasies. They hate America; they hate Western Civilization; they are merchants of poverty, misery and death.
I am with Trump and that's that.
I have been in that city numerous times; each visit finds the city worse and worse. Baltimore, the home of our national anthem, Edgar Allan Poe, Babe Ruth, H.L. Mencken, Harriet Tubman, Nancy Pelosi, Frederick Douglas, Tom Clancy, the USS Constellation, and so many more; yes, that very Baltimore is a national disgrace: an embarrassment of epic proportions.
It has the nation's highest homicide rate (equal or superior to that in much of Central America), a poverty rate through the roof, consistently in the top ten ranking of rat-infested US cities, disastrous public schools, a collapsing police force, all, of course, as befits a beneficiary of decades of crooked Democratic Party rule--including by Nancy Pelosi's dad. The people of Baltimore have more claim to political asylum than do those from Guatemala.
So our politically incorrect President has the temerity to speak truth to power, and . . . wait for it, wait for it . . . "RACIST!" is the reply. No vow to check the facts; to do something about the politicians who have caused this calamity. No, attack the messenger. Protect the corruptocrats and the other con men who have produced this wreck. The message from the Socialists who now run the world's oldest political party, "Nothing to see here. Move along! Move along! Just an old racist ranting . . . pay no attention!" The Socialists don't give a damn about the people caught in that hell-hole any more than they do about the people in other Progressive sinking ships: Flint, STL, Chicago, LA, SF, and on and on. They want to do what they have done in those places to the whole country. We can't let them.
Evil bastards. There is no other label I can put on them.
I won't be watching the Dem Circus, aka "Debate." I have zero interest in their delusions and fantasies. They hate America; they hate Western Civilization; they are merchants of poverty, misery and death.
I am with Trump and that's that.
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Mueller Mutters
I wasn't going to comment on the Mueller Show. It was just too embarrassing. You can like him or not (I don't) but Mueller has served our country in war and peace. He served bravely as a Marine in Vietnam and won the Bronze Star and the Purple heart, as well as other commendations. He went on to have a distinguished career in private law and government service, including as Director of the FBI. That said, as is now apparent, his sell-by date had long expired by the time he was named Special Counsel to investigate possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
As SC, he was clearly in over his head. As became apparent at the Congressional hearings yesterday, he had only a limited familiarity with "his" famous report or the process that produced it. I finally read the thing, and Mueller also should have before he testified.
Mueller reminded me of Mel Brooks' Governor Leptomane in Blazing Saddles, all we needed was for his aide to bring out the box of paddleballs.
The whole multi-hour testimony proved a calamity for the anti-Trump forces.
The report itself, despite being drafted by ardent haters of Trump, was bad enough for the cause of impeachment and getting rid of Trump--it found no collusion; no obstruction--and the Dems should have left bad enough alone. Their anti-Trump fever, however, pushed them into making another colossal mistake: Haling the now retired SC before their committees and forcing him to perform.
President Trump couldn't have asked for a better day.
The GOP reps, for once, were on top of their game. Clearly, they had coordinated among themselves and divided up the cross-examination into tight five-minute segments. They did a superb job of shredding the "Mueller" report and, unfortunately, shredding an "old" man's dignity in the process. Mueller seemed confused, disoriented, befuddled, and at any moment I expected him to scream out, "Nurse! What is going on?!?" In contrast to the Republicans, the Dems seemed unprepared and gave bombastic anti-Trump speeches devoid of facts.
The Mueller Show was, I repeat, a disaster for the Dems and another gift to Trump 2020. Will it derail impeachment? I don't know. Depends on how crazy the Dems insist on remaining; it will, however, make it even easier for the Senate to rule for Trump.
Trump 2020.
As SC, he was clearly in over his head. As became apparent at the Congressional hearings yesterday, he had only a limited familiarity with "his" famous report or the process that produced it. I finally read the thing, and Mueller also should have before he testified.
Mueller reminded me of Mel Brooks' Governor Leptomane in Blazing Saddles, all we needed was for his aide to bring out the box of paddleballs.
The whole multi-hour testimony proved a calamity for the anti-Trump forces.
The report itself, despite being drafted by ardent haters of Trump, was bad enough for the cause of impeachment and getting rid of Trump--it found no collusion; no obstruction--and the Dems should have left bad enough alone. Their anti-Trump fever, however, pushed them into making another colossal mistake: Haling the now retired SC before their committees and forcing him to perform.
President Trump couldn't have asked for a better day.
The GOP reps, for once, were on top of their game. Clearly, they had coordinated among themselves and divided up the cross-examination into tight five-minute segments. They did a superb job of shredding the "Mueller" report and, unfortunately, shredding an "old" man's dignity in the process. Mueller seemed confused, disoriented, befuddled, and at any moment I expected him to scream out, "Nurse! What is going on?!?" In contrast to the Republicans, the Dems seemed unprepared and gave bombastic anti-Trump speeches devoid of facts.
The Mueller Show was, I repeat, a disaster for the Dems and another gift to Trump 2020. Will it derail impeachment? I don't know. Depends on how crazy the Dems insist on remaining; it will, however, make it even easier for the Senate to rule for Trump.
Trump 2020.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
The Dude Takes 10
It's happened.
We have yet another New Yorker with a wild hair-do on the world scene to continue upsetting the comfortable elitist apple cart.
In case you haven't heard, Boris "The Dude" Johnson takes over as British PM from the hapless and hopeless Theresa May.
Those of us who wish well to the UK, and to the US-UK relationship, cannot help but be delighted by this turn of events. Boris Johnson has promised quite vociferously to get the UK out of the EU and to honor the results of the Brexit vote, with or without a "deal." That alone means he deserves our respect and support. He seems to realize what PM May either refused to or just wasn't bright enough to, that Britain holds the upper hand in its dealings with the EU. The bureaucrats in Brussels need London much more than vice-versa. I hope he plays that hand well.
The new PM comes in facing a formidable Deep State. Those British Deep Staters will do all in their power to sabotage PM Johnson and his effort to Make Britain Great Again. The media, including the execrable BBC, will be passionately anti-Johnson, especially when he and Trump begin to pal around on the world stage.
He has his work cut out for him.
Welcome aboard PM Johnson! The Donald's barber is very happy!
We have yet another New Yorker with a wild hair-do on the world scene to continue upsetting the comfortable elitist apple cart.
In case you haven't heard, Boris "The Dude" Johnson takes over as British PM from the hapless and hopeless Theresa May.
Those of us who wish well to the UK, and to the US-UK relationship, cannot help but be delighted by this turn of events. Boris Johnson has promised quite vociferously to get the UK out of the EU and to honor the results of the Brexit vote, with or without a "deal." That alone means he deserves our respect and support. He seems to realize what PM May either refused to or just wasn't bright enough to, that Britain holds the upper hand in its dealings with the EU. The bureaucrats in Brussels need London much more than vice-versa. I hope he plays that hand well.
The new PM comes in facing a formidable Deep State. Those British Deep Staters will do all in their power to sabotage PM Johnson and his effort to Make Britain Great Again. The media, including the execrable BBC, will be passionately anti-Johnson, especially when he and Trump begin to pal around on the world stage.
He has his work cut out for him.
Welcome aboard PM Johnson! The Donald's barber is very happy!
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
To the Moon
I can't believe it's fifty years since Apollo 11 blasted off for the moon. I was a total NASA-junkie back in those days. I would watch every astronaut launch, even getting up early on a school day to watch the doings at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy. Great era.
I had spent sleepless nights worrying about the impending July 16, 1969, launch of Apollo 11. Would the weather cooperate? Would technology fail? Would the Soviets launch something to the moon a day or two before? I sat by the phone waiting for NASA to call if they needed any advice. I was living, at the time, in Downey, California, home to North American Aviation (later Rockwell) where much of the Apollo and Gemini spacecraft were built. The whole city was space crazy. I loved the space program. I still do, well, sort of. Let me explain.
But first, the moon landing. I recall that July 20; it must have been around noon in California. I was drifting on a rubber mattress in our pool. My father had wheeled-out the black-and-white TV set to the backyard so we could watch the landing. I remember vividly, a few hours after the landing, watching the grainy pictures of Neil Armstrong stepping out of the lunar lander and onto the moon's surface and later planting the US flag. I also remember my father, not generally a very emotional or expressive man, with tears streaming down his face, standing up and applauding, yelling in his immigrant accent, "America! America! America can do anything!" I also remember cheers going up from the neighbors' houses on either side. It seemed every house on the street suddenly sprouted an American flag. A great day.
The space program was one of those (few) things that the government did well. Sort of. That landing on the moon, and the subsequent ones, as well, I found immensely inspirational. To watch American astronauts driving a car on the moon was insane! Nobody else could have done it. NASA really was using the most extreme form of technology available; a lot of it was untried, experimental to the nth degree. Yet, overall, it worked, and there were some amazingly brave men who willingly staked their lives on that equipment, and had faith in the hundreds-of-thousands of fellow Americans who had worked to develop it.
After the thrill of the moon landings, it became sadly clear there was no second act. Not really.
We had beat the Russians to the moon. And that was it. There was no exciting second chapter. In later years, we messed around with the Space Shuttle with no clear idea of what it was we intended to do in space, well, at least, not with man in space. The Shuttle program gradually petered out, it having no third chapter, and . . . the great void followed. The government and the public seemed to lose interest in manned space exploration.
I hope we get back into space in a bigly way. To Mars! It's needs an American flag . . . maybe a Betsy Ross flag?
I had spent sleepless nights worrying about the impending July 16, 1969, launch of Apollo 11. Would the weather cooperate? Would technology fail? Would the Soviets launch something to the moon a day or two before? I sat by the phone waiting for NASA to call if they needed any advice. I was living, at the time, in Downey, California, home to North American Aviation (later Rockwell) where much of the Apollo and Gemini spacecraft were built. The whole city was space crazy. I loved the space program. I still do, well, sort of. Let me explain.
But first, the moon landing. I recall that July 20; it must have been around noon in California. I was drifting on a rubber mattress in our pool. My father had wheeled-out the black-and-white TV set to the backyard so we could watch the landing. I remember vividly, a few hours after the landing, watching the grainy pictures of Neil Armstrong stepping out of the lunar lander and onto the moon's surface and later planting the US flag. I also remember my father, not generally a very emotional or expressive man, with tears streaming down his face, standing up and applauding, yelling in his immigrant accent, "America! America! America can do anything!" I also remember cheers going up from the neighbors' houses on either side. It seemed every house on the street suddenly sprouted an American flag. A great day.
The space program was one of those (few) things that the government did well. Sort of. That landing on the moon, and the subsequent ones, as well, I found immensely inspirational. To watch American astronauts driving a car on the moon was insane! Nobody else could have done it. NASA really was using the most extreme form of technology available; a lot of it was untried, experimental to the nth degree. Yet, overall, it worked, and there were some amazingly brave men who willingly staked their lives on that equipment, and had faith in the hundreds-of-thousands of fellow Americans who had worked to develop it.
After the thrill of the moon landings, it became sadly clear there was no second act. Not really.
We had beat the Russians to the moon. And that was it. There was no exciting second chapter. In later years, we messed around with the Space Shuttle with no clear idea of what it was we intended to do in space, well, at least, not with man in space. The Shuttle program gradually petered out, it having no third chapter, and . . . the great void followed. The government and the public seemed to lose interest in manned space exploration.
I hope we get back into space in a bigly way. To Mars! It's needs an American flag . . . maybe a Betsy Ross flag?
Friday, July 12, 2019
Summer Craziness
The heat is on.
At least, that is, where I am currently residing in the wonderful town of Wilmington, North Carolina. It is hot! Humid! Mosquitos out in force! But, the gun range is air conditioned so I have nothing to complain about much, unless I follow national and international news.
It's official: the Democrat Party is completely psychotic, consumed with a deep raging hatred of all things Trump, and even more troubling, all things USA. We, for example, are the only country on earth not allowed to ask whether people living in our country are citizens. The reasoning for this prohibition is utterly nuts. We have Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, no less, telling us that to ask that question on the census would disadvantage minorities, and forms part of an effort to "make America white again." This statement is absurd on so many levels it is breath-taking.
To follow, for a moment, the twisted reasoning of Ms. Pelosi and the "mainstream" media, only white people are citizens of the United States. Yep. All those black Americans will be terrified by being asked if they are citizens. Millions of hispanics will be triggered into a rug-biting frenzy if asked. Yes, per the Democrats, only white people are citizens, and only "people of color" are illegal aliens, or at least non-citizens--sorry Puerto Rico, the Dems have cut you loose. This is a continuation of the Prog argument that a voter id requirement disadvantages black voters . . . never explained why.
They are liars with a malevolent agenda, one which I have discussed at length before, to wit, to destroy the very concept of citizenship and of nation in a cynical bid to keep and gain more power. They, furthermore, are advising illegal aliens on how to foul up ICE attempts to deport those whom HAVE ALREADY BEEN ORDERED DEPORTED BY THE COURTS!!! Somebody will get hurt or killed, and the blood is on the hands of the Dems and their Prog friends.
When will the demand arise for there to be no passport requirement when landing at an airport in the US? That requirement surely disadvantages the poor of the world and prevents them from exercising their right to live in the US.
Mental illness is rampant.
On the UK Ambassador and his leaked cables. I read the material printed in the media: Not very sophisticated stuff. I would have made any junior officer writing something like that to go back to the drawing board and try again. The UK Embassy seemed to be just repeating garbage from the leftoid US media and the views of the oh-so sophisticated elite bubble in which the Embassy lives. Not very useful material to guide HMG in their relations with the USA. Go! Away! Now!
Stupidity is rampant.
Off to the dog park.
At least, that is, where I am currently residing in the wonderful town of Wilmington, North Carolina. It is hot! Humid! Mosquitos out in force! But, the gun range is air conditioned so I have nothing to complain about much, unless I follow national and international news.
It's official: the Democrat Party is completely psychotic, consumed with a deep raging hatred of all things Trump, and even more troubling, all things USA. We, for example, are the only country on earth not allowed to ask whether people living in our country are citizens. The reasoning for this prohibition is utterly nuts. We have Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, no less, telling us that to ask that question on the census would disadvantage minorities, and forms part of an effort to "make America white again." This statement is absurd on so many levels it is breath-taking.
To follow, for a moment, the twisted reasoning of Ms. Pelosi and the "mainstream" media, only white people are citizens of the United States. Yep. All those black Americans will be terrified by being asked if they are citizens. Millions of hispanics will be triggered into a rug-biting frenzy if asked. Yes, per the Democrats, only white people are citizens, and only "people of color" are illegal aliens, or at least non-citizens--sorry Puerto Rico, the Dems have cut you loose. This is a continuation of the Prog argument that a voter id requirement disadvantages black voters . . . never explained why.
They are liars with a malevolent agenda, one which I have discussed at length before, to wit, to destroy the very concept of citizenship and of nation in a cynical bid to keep and gain more power. They, furthermore, are advising illegal aliens on how to foul up ICE attempts to deport those whom HAVE ALREADY BEEN ORDERED DEPORTED BY THE COURTS!!! Somebody will get hurt or killed, and the blood is on the hands of the Dems and their Prog friends.
When will the demand arise for there to be no passport requirement when landing at an airport in the US? That requirement surely disadvantages the poor of the world and prevents them from exercising their right to live in the US.
Mental illness is rampant.
On the UK Ambassador and his leaked cables. I read the material printed in the media: Not very sophisticated stuff. I would have made any junior officer writing something like that to go back to the drawing board and try again. The UK Embassy seemed to be just repeating garbage from the leftoid US media and the views of the oh-so sophisticated elite bubble in which the Embassy lives. Not very useful material to guide HMG in their relations with the USA. Go! Away! Now!
Stupidity is rampant.
Off to the dog park.
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Making Weird be OK
I love the 4th of July. It's my favorite holiday. I loved it when I was overseas, and we had our 4th reception. In all the countries where I served, the US Embassy reception for the 4th was the hottest and most prestigious ticket in town. Those invited showed up. And, I must say, we had excellent receptions, ones which put to shame the national day parties of other embassies. In Indonesia, for example, we got all the US corporations in the country to contribute either money or products: we had stands from McDonalds, Starbucks, Jack Daniels, KFC, etc. It was quite something.
Not even the lefties can ruin completely the 4th for me. They've tried. The latest? The controversy over the Betsy Ross flag. What utter rubbish! I did what I always do in such cases: I went out and bought two Betsy Ross flags, one in a frame for inside the house, and another to hang out front--I also bought another handgun.
The Dem candidates and their media enablers, of course, formed a major portion of the effort to destroy the 4th. I loved how Trump trolled them! He orchestrated a great 4th of July party on the DC Mall. He summoned: Tanks! Fighters! Bombers! The lefties went nuts! One unhinged commentator even compared the presence of a couple of tanks near the Lincoln Memorial as akin to Tianaman Square! The tanks would crush the resistance! It was a coup! Trump was making the 4th about himself! He would glorify the military! He would give a campaign speech! He would call for a return to slavery! Oh the humanity! Oh, the horror!
He, instead, gave a very nice, patriotic, and uplifting address (text here). Glorifying the military? How did we get and keep our Independence if not for the military and those willing--mostly men--to take up arms? Seems to me that this holiday is very much about the military and guns and the people willing to bear them in defense of the nation. The bazillion accomplishments of America would not have been possible without them.
My complaint right now is not with our odious women's soccer team (yawn), or Antifa, or Hollywood's elimination of straight white men from the screen, or CNN and its fake news. No. It's how all of the "progressive" forces come together to normalize the weird, to make it so that the aberrant must be accepted and even heartily endorsed.
I doubt that the lunatic Dems will win 2020. All that open borders, open wallet to the world, y'all come over crap is not going to fly. Not this time. This time, no . . . but, the progs play the long con. As I noted a long time ago, they change the meanings of words, so that the most basic units of thought and expression no longer mean what we once thought they did. We can't even use good old-fashion pronouns. As per Orwell, they rewrite the dictionary, they make us hesitate when we think and speak, we must not give "offense" or reveal ourselves as "racist, homophobic, misogynistic" throw backs to a dark era. They use fake bought and paid for "science" to convince us to give up our standard of living, to question whether labels such as "male" and "female" have any meaning. They tear down flags, statues, and monuments; they want place names changed to erase our history. They deliberately blur the distinction between citizen and non-citizen, between legal and illegal residents in our country. They want open borders; they, in sum, want a destruction of this country, and of Western civilization.
As noted above, they will lose this time, but the lunatic left knows how to introduce the weirdest ideas and schemes, and gradually work them into the realm of acceptance. Look back just a few years and you will see what I mean. Just to take one issue, the progs will insist that soon, very soon we, for example, will all be forced not only to tolerate illegal aliens in our midsts, but to see them as a blessing, as something to be desired and happily funded. Much as we all now must accept and endorse the bizarre pseudoscience claims of fluid gender identity, we will accept and endorse the claims of "fluid" citizenship.
Not a cheery thought as we celebrate our independence.
Not even the lefties can ruin completely the 4th for me. They've tried. The latest? The controversy over the Betsy Ross flag. What utter rubbish! I did what I always do in such cases: I went out and bought two Betsy Ross flags, one in a frame for inside the house, and another to hang out front--I also bought another handgun.
The Dem candidates and their media enablers, of course, formed a major portion of the effort to destroy the 4th. I loved how Trump trolled them! He orchestrated a great 4th of July party on the DC Mall. He summoned: Tanks! Fighters! Bombers! The lefties went nuts! One unhinged commentator even compared the presence of a couple of tanks near the Lincoln Memorial as akin to Tianaman Square! The tanks would crush the resistance! It was a coup! Trump was making the 4th about himself! He would glorify the military! He would give a campaign speech! He would call for a return to slavery! Oh the humanity! Oh, the horror!
He, instead, gave a very nice, patriotic, and uplifting address (text here). Glorifying the military? How did we get and keep our Independence if not for the military and those willing--mostly men--to take up arms? Seems to me that this holiday is very much about the military and guns and the people willing to bear them in defense of the nation. The bazillion accomplishments of America would not have been possible without them.
My complaint right now is not with our odious women's soccer team (yawn), or Antifa, or Hollywood's elimination of straight white men from the screen, or CNN and its fake news. No. It's how all of the "progressive" forces come together to normalize the weird, to make it so that the aberrant must be accepted and even heartily endorsed.
I doubt that the lunatic Dems will win 2020. All that open borders, open wallet to the world, y'all come over crap is not going to fly. Not this time. This time, no . . . but, the progs play the long con. As I noted a long time ago, they change the meanings of words, so that the most basic units of thought and expression no longer mean what we once thought they did. We can't even use good old-fashion pronouns. As per Orwell, they rewrite the dictionary, they make us hesitate when we think and speak, we must not give "offense" or reveal ourselves as "racist, homophobic, misogynistic" throw backs to a dark era. They use fake bought and paid for "science" to convince us to give up our standard of living, to question whether labels such as "male" and "female" have any meaning. They tear down flags, statues, and monuments; they want place names changed to erase our history. They deliberately blur the distinction between citizen and non-citizen, between legal and illegal residents in our country. They want open borders; they, in sum, want a destruction of this country, and of Western civilization.
As noted above, they will lose this time, but the lunatic left knows how to introduce the weirdest ideas and schemes, and gradually work them into the realm of acceptance. Look back just a few years and you will see what I mean. Just to take one issue, the progs will insist that soon, very soon we, for example, will all be forced not only to tolerate illegal aliens in our midsts, but to see them as a blessing, as something to be desired and happily funded. Much as we all now must accept and endorse the bizarre pseudoscience claims of fluid gender identity, we will accept and endorse the claims of "fluid" citizenship.
Not a cheery thought as we celebrate our independence.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
The Pander Bears: The Dem Candidates
I wasn't going to write about the horrid Dem debate, but . . . taking a small break from dog tending and identity theft resolution, I couldn't resist adding my two cents of commentary.
The two-day extravaganza of these 20 clowns was, well, a clown extravaganza. Who won the debate? Who lost it? Your guess is as good as mine, although in this case I tend to go with the conventional wisdom, with a bit of a tweak.
The biggest loser wasn't even on the stage. He was Obama. This crowd, except for Biden, seems to want nothing to do with Obama and his "accomplishments." He is totally forgotten.
Of those on stage, Biden was the loser. He proved, again, a hopeless doddering fool. As I noted back in April, "if Biden ever had a 'best-if-used-by' date he appears to have passed it".
He seemed incapable of finishing a coherent sentence, appeared caught off guard by the highly predictable attacks on him, and just looked tired, very tired, and confused, very confused. He, so far, stands for nothing except for name recognition. Biden has a long record of almost no accomplishment, and what there is of it, is woefully out of line with the high-energy, far-left lemmings who now dominate the world's oldest political party. He doesn't realize that the ground has shifted on him, and doesn't know how to gain a footing, at least, not yet. Biden's blather about being "blue-collar Joe" and the labor unions is all very old-fashioned. None of the other Dems is blue collar, has ever worked a blue-collar job, probably doesn't know any blue-collar folk, and is positively bored with real economics. They want to pander to illegal aliens--Beto breaking into execrable Spanish for no reason--pay homage to the LGBTQXYZKD, whatever, crowd--Julian Castro proclaiming that biological men have the right to public-funded abortion--and, above all, to utter fatuous Marxist slogans about WALL STREET! Biden can't keep up, as revealed by the tentative way in which he raised his hand in accord with the others that we should provide "free" medical care for illegal aliens. At times, Biden reminded me of Ted Kennedy when asked why he wanted to become President and couldn't say.
I say all that about Biden while acknowledging that he's the best of the Dem bunch--kinda like when I declare American universities junk but the world's best . . . junk. The others range from absolute delusional morons to crazy Communists. Any one of them would make Carter and Obama look like great and patriotic presidents. Biden, at least, doesn't seem to hate the country: A low bar, but one that the other candidates can't seem to clear--they seem auditioning for the CPUSA Chairmanship.
The winner?
Don't ask me that, but now that "you" have, I would have to say it was Kamala Harris. Her demagogic assault on Biden, essentially calling him a racist, and her expert telling of a semi-true story about her childhood, catapulted her into the top ranks of this score of lunatic candidates. She is a liar, but a good one, and can probably count on the media burying the many unsavory aspects of her career as a public official in California, and her quite comfortable, even privileged, upper-middle class background.
Meanwhile, Trump? He's out saving the world from nuclear war and negotiating a trade deal with the PRC.
I am voting Trump. Need I say more? No, but I will . . .
The two-day extravaganza of these 20 clowns was, well, a clown extravaganza. Who won the debate? Who lost it? Your guess is as good as mine, although in this case I tend to go with the conventional wisdom, with a bit of a tweak.
The biggest loser wasn't even on the stage. He was Obama. This crowd, except for Biden, seems to want nothing to do with Obama and his "accomplishments." He is totally forgotten.
Of those on stage, Biden was the loser. He proved, again, a hopeless doddering fool. As I noted back in April, "if Biden ever had a 'best-if-used-by' date he appears to have passed it".
He seemed incapable of finishing a coherent sentence, appeared caught off guard by the highly predictable attacks on him, and just looked tired, very tired, and confused, very confused. He, so far, stands for nothing except for name recognition. Biden has a long record of almost no accomplishment, and what there is of it, is woefully out of line with the high-energy, far-left lemmings who now dominate the world's oldest political party. He doesn't realize that the ground has shifted on him, and doesn't know how to gain a footing, at least, not yet. Biden's blather about being "blue-collar Joe" and the labor unions is all very old-fashioned. None of the other Dems is blue collar, has ever worked a blue-collar job, probably doesn't know any blue-collar folk, and is positively bored with real economics. They want to pander to illegal aliens--Beto breaking into execrable Spanish for no reason--pay homage to the LGBTQXYZKD, whatever, crowd--Julian Castro proclaiming that biological men have the right to public-funded abortion--and, above all, to utter fatuous Marxist slogans about WALL STREET! Biden can't keep up, as revealed by the tentative way in which he raised his hand in accord with the others that we should provide "free" medical care for illegal aliens. At times, Biden reminded me of Ted Kennedy when asked why he wanted to become President and couldn't say.
I say all that about Biden while acknowledging that he's the best of the Dem bunch--kinda like when I declare American universities junk but the world's best . . . junk. The others range from absolute delusional morons to crazy Communists. Any one of them would make Carter and Obama look like great and patriotic presidents. Biden, at least, doesn't seem to hate the country: A low bar, but one that the other candidates can't seem to clear--they seem auditioning for the CPUSA Chairmanship.
The winner?
Don't ask me that, but now that "you" have, I would have to say it was Kamala Harris. Her demagogic assault on Biden, essentially calling him a racist, and her expert telling of a semi-true story about her childhood, catapulted her into the top ranks of this score of lunatic candidates. She is a liar, but a good one, and can probably count on the media burying the many unsavory aspects of her career as a public official in California, and her quite comfortable, even privileged, upper-middle class background.
Meanwhile, Trump? He's out saving the world from nuclear war and negotiating a trade deal with the PRC.
I am voting Trump. Need I say more? No, but I will . . .
Friday, June 21, 2019
Iran and Things
Had a nearly complete digital meltdown. I had an identity theft issue whereby some clowns were out trying to get credit cards and phone service using my name and data. USAA and Experian were big helps in getting that under control--at least for now. In addition, or part of the same, all my emails disappeared, along with my ability to send any new ones; that crisis is slowly being resolved. So, as you can see, I was cut off from the WORLD! FROM THE WORLD!
In my digital absence, of course, the Iranians took advantage of the power vacuum, and pulled one of their classic stunts: shooting down an unarmed US drone flying over international waters in international airspace. Outrageous crap from the Delusional Ayatollahs and their Iran Revolutionary Guard clowns. I see they and their protectors are already putting out the usual nonsense that maybe the missile that downed the drone was fired by some "rogue" element not under Teheran's control. Yes, yes. We've seen this before: remember the "students" who seized the Embassy? The Houthis who bombed an airfield? Mysterious others who fired missiles into Israel or put limpet mines on tankers? The Iranian regime is composed of cowards who want their cake, and have it enriched, too. They must sorely miss Obama.
I don't advocate for a war with Iran because we don't need one to keep these SOBs under control. In addition, of course, as we become ever more energy independent--All Praise to the Frackers!--we need the Middle East less and less. A sharp, painful response, however, is required just to let the Ayatollahs know we aren't buying their nonsense, and we aren't going to let them imperil our people at no risk: Sink their fleet in their harbor; knock out some important economic target; hit their missile batteries, are among the many possibilities. The President should take his time and come up with something appropriate. The Dems would be wise to knock off their impeach nonsense for just a bit, and give the White House room to maneuver.
Now we can go back to worrying about the impending doom from globalwarming cooling change whatever, that means we will have less more snow, fewer more hurricanes wetter drier winters, whatever, etc.
In my digital absence, of course, the Iranians took advantage of the power vacuum, and pulled one of their classic stunts: shooting down an unarmed US drone flying over international waters in international airspace. Outrageous crap from the Delusional Ayatollahs and their Iran Revolutionary Guard clowns. I see they and their protectors are already putting out the usual nonsense that maybe the missile that downed the drone was fired by some "rogue" element not under Teheran's control. Yes, yes. We've seen this before: remember the "students" who seized the Embassy? The Houthis who bombed an airfield? Mysterious others who fired missiles into Israel or put limpet mines on tankers? The Iranian regime is composed of cowards who want their cake, and have it enriched, too. They must sorely miss Obama.
I don't advocate for a war with Iran because we don't need one to keep these SOBs under control. In addition, of course, as we become ever more energy independent--All Praise to the Frackers!--we need the Middle East less and less. A sharp, painful response, however, is required just to let the Ayatollahs know we aren't buying their nonsense, and we aren't going to let them imperil our people at no risk: Sink their fleet in their harbor; knock out some important economic target; hit their missile batteries, are among the many possibilities. The President should take his time and come up with something appropriate. The Dems would be wise to knock off their impeach nonsense for just a bit, and give the White House room to maneuver.
Now we can go back to worrying about the impending doom from global