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The disgrace of America’s putative intellectual class is nearly complete as it shoves the polity further into dysfunction and toward collapse. These are the people Nassim Taleb refers to as “intellectuals-yet-idiots.” Big questions loom over this dynamic: How did the thinking class of America sink into this slough of thoughtlessness? And why – what is motivating them?

One path to understanding it can be found in this sober essay by Neal Devers, The Overton Bubble, published two years ago on TheFuturePrimaeval.net — a friend turned me on to it the other day (dunno how I missed it). The title is a reference to the phenomenon known as the Overton Window. Wikipedia summarizes it:

The Overton Window, also known as the window of discourse, is the range of ideas the public will accept…. The term is derived from its originator, Joseph P. Overton (1960–2003), a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy….

Devers refines the definition:

The Overton Window is a concept in political sociology referring to the range of acceptable opinions that can be held by respectable people. “Respectable” of course means that the subject can be integrated with polite society. Respectability is a strong precondition on the ability to have open influence in the mainstream.

This raises another question: who exactly is in this corps of “respectable people” who set the parameters of acceptable thought? Primarily, the mainstream media — The New York Times, The WashPo, CNN, etc. — plus the bureaucratic functionaries of the permanent government bureaucracy, a.k.a. the Deep State, who make and execute policy, along with the universities which educate the “respectable people” (the thinking class) into the prevailing dogmas and shibboleths of the day, and finally the think tanks and foundations that pay professional “experts” to retail their ideas.

The Overton Window can be viewed as a mechanism of political control, demonizing anyone who departs from the consensus of respectable thought, and especially if they express their heresies in public speech. This has consequences.

Deavers explains:

The trouble with the Overton Window as a mechanism of political control, and with politicization of speech and thought in general, is that it causes significant collateral damage on the ability of your society to think clearly. If some thoughts are unthinkable and unspeakable, and the truth happens in some case to fall outside of polite consensus, then your ruling elite and their society will run into situations they simply can’t handle…. An unwise political elite is one incapable of thinking clearly about their strategic situation, acting in concert, or sticking to a plan…. An insecure political elite is one which has either no sufficient mechanisms of political power short of the politicization of speech and thought, or is faced by such powerful but somehow never decisively powerful enemies that they need to permanently escalate to a state of vigorous politicization of speech and thought. We can compare this state to “intellectual martial law” for its structural similarity to the physical-security equivalent.

We’re now living under that condition of “intellectual martial law.” The consequent degradation of thinking means that the polity can’t construct a coherent consensus about what is happening to it (or devise a plan for what to do about it). This is exactly the point where the Overton Window turns into an Overton Bubble, as described by Devers. The bubble comprises ideas that are assumed to be self-evident (though they actually aren’t) and notions that are potentially destructive of society, even suicidally so. Here is a partial list of the current dogmas and shibboleths inside today’s Overton Bubble:

  • Russia hacked the election of 2016 (no evidence required).
  • Russia (Vladimir Putin in particular) is bent on destroying the USA.
  • All immigrants, legal or illegal, have equal status before the law.
  • National borders are inconvenient, cruel, and obsolete.
  • Western Civilization is a malign force in human history.
  • Islam is “the religion of peace,” no matter how many massacres of “infidels” are carried out in its name.
  • Men are a negative force in society.
  • White men are especially negative.
  • Brownie points given for behaviors under the rubric LBGTQ.
  • All discussion about race problems and conflicts is necessarily racist.
  • The hijab (head covering worn in public by some Muslim women) is a device of liberation for women.
  • There should be a law against using the wrong personal pronoun for people who consider themselves neither men nor women (recently passed by the Canadian parliament).
  • A unifying common culture is unnecessary in national life (anything goes).
  • Colonizing Mars is a great solution to problems on Earth.

That list defines the general preoccupations of the thinking classes today — to the exclusion of other issues. Here is an alternative list of matters they are not generally concerned about or interested in:

  • The energy quandary at the heart of our economic malaise.
  • The enormous debt racked up to run society in the absence of affordable energy inputs.
  • The dangerous interventions and manipulation in markets by unelected officials of the Federal Reserve.
  • The extraordinary dysfunction of manipulated financial markets.
  • The fragility of a banking system based on accounting fraud.
  • The dysfunction and fragility of the American suburban living arrangement.
  • The consequences of a catastrophic breakdown in the economy due to the above.
  • The destruction of planetary ecology, threatening the continuation of the human race, and potentially all life.

Now, the question of motive. Why does the thinking class in America embrace ideas that are not necessarily, and surely not self-evidently, truthful, and even self-destructive? Because this class is dangerously insecure and perversely needs to insist on being right about its guiding dogmas and shibboleths at all costs. That is why so much of the behavior emanating from the thinking class amounts to virtue signaling — we are the good people on the side of what’s right, really we are! Of course, virtue signaling is just the new term for self-righteousness. There is also the issue of careerism. So many individuals are making a living at trafficking in, supporting, or executing policy based on these dogmas and shibboleths that they don’t dare depart from the Overton Bubble of permissible, received thought lest they sacrifice their status and incomes.

The thinking classes are also the leaders and foot-soldiers in American institutions. When they are unable or unwilling to think clearly, then you get a breakdown of authority, which leads to a breakdown of legitimacy. That’s exactly where we’re at today in our national politics — our ability to manage the polity.

Read Neal Devers’ excellent article, The Overton Bubble.


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James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

498 Responses to “We’re Good People, Really We Are!”

  1. venuspluto67 July 10, 2017 at 9:17 am #

    To your first list you forgot to add: “Anybody who disagrees with third-wave feminism, political correctness, or social justice warriors is always automatically a Nazi“.

  2. Zoltar July 10, 2017 at 9:24 am #

    Your two lists would be a good starting point for a meaningful conversation with most of my friends these days.

    I am reminded of a popular album from my college days, the Firesign Theaters’s “Everything You Know is Wrong.”

    • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 11:14 am #

      Fragility seems a bit overwrought. It is a Kunstler staple.

    • islander800 July 10, 2017 at 1:30 pm #

      I think we’re all bozos on this bus…

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 1:34 pm #

        Too much, magic bus!

      • Doc Holliday July 10, 2017 at 3:40 pm #

        I’ve been shooting Reds and Yellows all day… I’m getting sooo sleepy….

      • daveed July 13, 2017 at 8:51 pm #

        My mother was a Bozoette in high school.

  3. PeteAtomic July 10, 2017 at 9:28 am #

    So essentially its a real life version of Newspeak for Ingsoc?

    • JimInFlorida July 10, 2017 at 10:32 am #

      It’s the penumbra that heralds the approach of the outright Orwellian dichotomy of thoughtcrime vs goodthink.

      Newspeak is a work in progress and is gestating in the sordid womb of texting, tweeting, and ghetto gibberish. Newspeak will arise after Americanized English has bloated, under the hot July sun, to the point of exploding intellectual guts everywhere. It will be impossible to formulate or articulate thoughts above a 5th grade level.

      The Feds will then turbocharge “No Child Left Behind” and impose a drastic diet on American English in the schools. The wreckage of English will be purged and children will be taught “core English” and that anything outside of that is “retarded.” Official scorn and peer pressure will do the rest.

      At THAT POINT, we will see Vol. 1 of a Newspeak Dictionary.

      • Beryl of Oyl July 10, 2017 at 1:34 pm #

        I was surprised to learn that right now, in my state anyway, students are being given ‘exemptions’ for spelling in papers they write. In other words, a child who turns in a paper with misspellings galore will receive the same grade as a child who meticulously checked the spelling, as long as the kid has the proper exemption.
        What’s worse? – a child who doesn’t right his paper at all, and merely tells an aide want he wants the paper to say, can get a higher grade than the student who labored over her own paper.
        No, I am not making this up.

        • GreenAlba July 16, 2017 at 1:03 pm #

          I was surprised to learn that right now, in my state anyway, students are being given ‘exemptions’ for spelling in papers they write…What’s worse? – a child who doesn’t right his paper at all…

          Oh, the irony 🙂

  4. MrTibbs July 10, 2017 at 9:30 am #

    The Overton window meets Orwell:
    War is peace, ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom.

    All true, if you are a member of the global elite directing the show.

    -T

    They Call Me Mr. Tibbs.

    • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 10:43 am #

      “The word-of-the-year for 2016 was “post-truth” for a reason.”

      But hyphenation is clunky. How about ‘amtruth’ for American truth. America the land where where bullshit becomes real and hype is the energy that keeps the wheels turning..

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 11:00 am #

        I beg to differ. “Alternative facts” is better.

  5. shotho July 10, 2017 at 9:32 am #

    The prevailing wisdom can turn on a dime. When the economy freezes with dysfunction and bureaucratic elites seem unable to thaw the wheels of trade and commerce, we will see an immediate turn of that proverbial dime. It could get pretty rough for the “intellectual” class.

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    • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 11:42 am #

      Perhaps 180 degree shifts are possible but the prevailing wisdom is quite constrained. Shutters on the Overton window only open to ideas which are consistent with unregulated capitalism, the enrichment of our elite class, and which promote existing arrangements.

      ‘Don’t worry be happy and exuberant optimism in our existing status quo are acid tests of any ideas which can hope to be observed in today’s Overton window. Only anti-intellectual ideas are now acceptable ideas to our thinking class because current conditions viewed through any lens of reason would compel and demand change.

      As the word ‘left’ was traditionally considered to be a force of change it is now disparaged by all who would rather have their own private libertarian delusions frame our current Overton window. No loss there though since the term ‘left’ lost all relevance when it became re-branded as just another hallowed expression that promotes worship of the self; the plague of post-modernity.

      The Overton window describes those ideas which can be ‘trusted’ and accepted as being true with but one confirming example though the example itself need not be true. (Think welfare mothers and Cadillacs) Ideas which are socially acceptable and part of our existing zeitgeist in other words. Ideas outside this range are preemptively demonized and any evidence of their truth ignored (Climate change and peak oil) because social norms define our focus and demand compliance despite idea irrationality in what is seen as acceptable. The Overton window is a consequence of being a social being and expresses our intolerance to that which we do not already know or believe.

      Regarding issues of collapse there is no room for them in the Overton window at all. Collapse issues bring attention to the unjustness, unfairness and ephemeral nature of current arrangements and suggest a need for deep fundamental changes. The Overton window exists precisely to prevent that sort of thinking.

      The role of the intellectual is seen by those in power as that class which makes unacceptable ideas acceptable to the nonthinking masses. Masses far to busy with the business of surviving to investigate subtle aspects of issues which have no impact on their daily existence. It is not the idealized expression of cutting edge thought and the bloom of the age of reason as pie in the sky idealists would have you believe.

      Fortunately since I am only a dog and not an intellectual I can do what I want.

      • lsjogren July 10, 2017 at 12:04 pm #

        Climate change denial is an example of Overton Window?

        (ignore this if I misunderstood your assertion)

        I guess one could say there is an Overton Window among the small clique who claim climate change is a hoax.

        However, among the ruling class, climate change is part of the accepted dogma that is impermissible to question. Which would be OK if it were the basic concept of anthropogenic climate change which has a solid basis in scientific evidence.

        But the establishment mandate as to what is “respectable” opinion regarding climate change runs far beyond recognizing the validity of the phenomenon, it is at the point where one is a heretic unless one embraces the most dire forecasts of its impact as being inevitable and evidence-based, which they are not.

        • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 4:30 pm #

          Simply acknowledging a problem exists but acting as if it did not does not take it out of the Overton window. Logic does not define the window so one can acknowledge a problem exists but do nothing about it.. Belief in climate change can be part of accepted dogma yet at the same time an agreement to do nothing about it is also part of accepted dogma. Extermination of the native Americans was never morally sanctioned but it was part of accepted American dogma and still is.

          The Overton effect is part of man being a social animal so don’t expect it to make sense.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 2:35 pm #

        Thus teenage girls getting married and have babies in Religious Cults is absolutely verboten since she is being manipulated and denied autonomy, but teenage girls having babies outside of marriage is absolutely fine. As long as her autonomy is not impeded and there is no White Religious Father to support her and the baby – it’s all good.

        • GhostOfHam July 11, 2017 at 1:43 pm #

          Then again, marriage is NOT what you might think it is…. but you know….. Overton.

  6. thwack July 10, 2017 at 9:34 am #

    What about the underton window?

    • elysianfield July 10, 2017 at 10:33 am #

      Thwack,
      You, and I, have been defenestrated…as have much of the readership….

    • JimInFlorida July 10, 2017 at 10:44 am #

      What’s the color of the window frame?

    • shotho July 10, 2017 at 1:02 pm #

      Right! Where was the “Overton Window” when the third estate decided it would take over the discussion in 1789? One would have thought the royalist and clerical powers had everything in control.

  7. jivefive99 July 10, 2017 at 9:37 am #

    To me, this is a result of no longer having the government money/credit to buy-off BOTH sides (Rep & Demo). There’s only enough money/credit for one side to win. Naturally, both sides fight like two scorpions in a bottle over the pennies. All the great truths have been determined (murder is bad and should be illegal), so the intensity of the fight over the scraps are what is left (everything non-white/non-establishment or important to them now has the stage to make their case). A massive increase in media platforms necessitates every little thing becoming a topic to talk about — you have to have content that eats time and attracts eyeballs for advertisers. So we argue over things that dont matter to avoid talking about what DOES matter — insisting on a big welfare state that we dont want to pay for.

  8. seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 9:57 am #

    The monolith in “2001 A Space Odyssey” is the screen. Look at our obsession with the screen. Growing up I thought it was impossible for it to get worse, after all an adult born around my time will spend 10 full years of his or her life watching TV. Since I work on a computer all day every day, double that to 20 years. Since I also surf the web and have a cellphone, triple that to 30 years. 30 years of my life staring at a screen. I am waiting for a scene in a movie where someone goes crazy, like maybe in a Best Buy, and just takes a hammer to every screen in the place. Every TV, every monitor, every computer, every phone every last screen shattered. Like the famous scene in “Network.”

    • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 11:48 am #

      Writing on a blog on the web is not the same thing as watching TV. It may indeed be just another form of video masturbation yes, but it is one which requires more than simple passive attention. Regardless, I agree with you, screen time is out of control.

      • shotho July 10, 2017 at 1:05 pm #

        Ditto; way out of control!

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 2:36 pm #

        One’s face changes color. Let’s call it a screen tan.

        • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 2:41 pm #

          Ah Janos come to join the rest of the monkeys.

  9. FincaInTheMountains July 10, 2017 at 10:02 am #

    Regarding the statements by representatives of the Trump administration for any reason

    Trump drew conclusions from the presidency of Barack Obama, who several times defeated Bastinda, but her control over his entourage allowed her to arrange from behind such provocations, which she probably could not afford, even remaining Secretary of State for a second term.

    And she allowed herself such outrageous things in hope of being able to blame everything on Obama, that even such an irresponsible blogger, as I still do not risk writing about.

    And he selected such employees that they could be his opponents on various issues, but they would not pursue their own policy if it contradicted with his orders. In this sense, recently appointed curator of the Ukraine Kurt Volker, without a doubt, was appointed to this position due to the fact that in 2016 he did not sign a letter of 90 Republicans against Trump. For a man who worked for McCain in 97-98, this undoubtedly required great civic and human courage.

    But the example of the US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is even more revealing. In particular, in connection with the meeting between Trump and Putin, I remembered how she had been giving an interview to PBS three months ago, and just before that, in UN she had simply been furious with Russia’s interference in the electoral process in the United States.

    But during the interview, she let slip, when to the question of the anchor about why Trump does not make relevant claims to Putin, she suddenly made something that sheds light on the principles of the formation of the Tramp administration:

    “Why do you need President’s statements, I brand him with shame, I call him to answer, and not just so, namely, as a mother and as a woman! Why do you need Trump’s statement after this? ”

    And the director of the CIA is a Russophobe of a highest probe, but he is the old enemy of Hillary Clinton, and if Trump orders him to stop provocations against Russia, he will at least try to fulfill this order, and his Russophobia will cover Trump from Washington Post’s questions: “Why the operations against Russia, the eternal enemy of the United States, are curtailed?”

  10. gtuner July 10, 2017 at 10:02 am #

    Hey if this guy Overton was so smart why did he die when he was only 43 or 44?

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    • reader44 July 10, 2017 at 10:07 am #

      He died of injuries from an airplane crash

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 10:57 am #

        Or in republican speak, natural causes.

  11. FincaInTheMountains July 10, 2017 at 10:08 am #

    Overton Window: Guide to legalize ANYTHING, from cannibalism to pedophilia

    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-instability-express/#comment-215466

  12. DA July 10, 2017 at 10:31 am #

    From the Overton Bubble site:

    Thus a wise elite uses the politicization of speech very sparingly, only in situations where immediate political security is threatened, and they use it in concert with other destructive but effective mechanisms like martial law, state seizure of assets, and such, to quickly and decisively return to a state of political security.

    Coming soon to a sham democracy near you!

  13. janet July 10, 2017 at 10:37 am #

    I could take apart each of the generalizations with data and evidence. But in the first one you state “(no evidence required)” regarding hacking, indicating your belief that no credible evidence exists. This was made clear under oath by the Republican law enforcement professional, Comey, on June 8:

    “There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts. It was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government. There is no fuzz on that. It is a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence. It’s not a close call. That happened. That’s about as unfake as you can possibly get. It is very, very serious, which is why it’s so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that. This is about America, not about a particular party.”

    Your placing this within a supposed “Overton window” is a shameful refusal to accept reality.

    • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 10:51 am #

      Thank you for pointing that out. It is a disgrace to our country that this is still in dispute when it is indisputable.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 2:38 pm #

        You’re in the bubble. So much so that you are the bubble. Someone’s going to pop you.

    • hmuller July 10, 2017 at 11:06 am #

      Comey is a piece of shit liar. That’s the fact, Janet! Notice he couldn’t even say how the Russians interfered. They simple did somehow, end of story, take Comey’s word for it, or take the word of other Obama political appointees.

      I used to work inside NSA. I know how the game is played. What do you know Janet? What the fake news media feeds you.

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 11:19 am #

        If that’s a fact, then prove it. What lie has he told that has been proven a lie.

        • Beryl of Oyl July 10, 2017 at 2:29 pm #

          Congresswoman Elise Stefanik uncovered some of his lying.

          • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 2:41 pm #

            Which was?

          • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 2:50 pm #

            Oh that is so ripe. He didn’t report the investigation to Congress? That is not a lie. Trump has back dated so many Russian meetings now it doesn’t even raise an eyebrow anymore.

          • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 3:18 pm #

            SEE IT: Hot Young Congresswoman CATCHES Comey Breaking Rules!

        • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 2:42 pm #

          He leaked classified information to the press. Is that something the head of the FBI should be doing? He needs to be prosecuted. If the Elite can get away doing anything and everything, it will continue. They need to know fear again.

          • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 2:51 pm #

            They should be lashed to withinn an inch of their lives. All right Ignatius. Roll on!

          • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:51 pm #

            Nay, a millimeter. The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow but exceedingly fine as Cotton Mather said. Or was it Increase?

      • janet July 10, 2017 at 11:35 am #

        “Notice he couldn’t even say how the Russians interfered… what do you know Janet”

        Notice the committee did see the evidence themselves about how Russia interfered.

        Notice Congress members have seen the evidence.

        Notice the Senate voted 97-2 to expand sanctions against Russia.

        That is the public record and is indisputable.

        That is what I know.

        • hmuller July 10, 2017 at 3:43 pm #

          August 10, 1964 the Senate voted 88 – 2 in favor of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. It must have been a vote based on truth, since Senators are never wrong or deceived or just plain full of shit.

        • Billy Hill July 10, 2017 at 4:30 pm #

          Little Jane — you quote Comey above stating: “…a high confidence judgment of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence.”

          Pardon me, I am a dumb rural denizen, but I thought they had backed off from the “entire intelligence community” resulting in a retraction by the NY Times. It boiled down to Comey Clapper and Brennan.

          And we still don’t know what is meant by “interference.” The obvious answer is of course the Wikileaks dump of Podesta email presumably hacked off the DNC server by Russians working for Putin. There is still a great deal of debate about whether there could have been a hack at all. Latest speculation postulates a lone actor with direct computer access via usb drive (time stamps on the download are way too quick for internet speed). One wishes Assange would make an exception this one time. He may be the last true investigative journalist on earth.

          • hmuller July 10, 2017 at 4:55 pm #

            So true, Billy Hill. Podesta the Molesta is on record (via an email) swearing to make “an example” of the leaker. I would guess he meant Seth Rich not Vladimir Putin.

            If I may say a word about the “intelligence community” from which I retired. I constantly saw the raw, gathered information twisted as it made its way higher until it bore no resemblance to the truth. I have no doubt reports are doctored to reflect what the higher ups want to hear. Anyone remember the 2003 invasion of Iraq and all the bogus intelligence which justified it?

            So I am not impressed by what a handful of Obama appointees claim “the intelligence community” discovered. It could easily all be a load of crap they invented. I’ve seen it done.

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 11:51 am #

        Trump lies.
        https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html

    • Anon1970 July 10, 2017 at 11:42 am #

      Were you as concerned about the US role in overthrowing the prior government in Ukraine in 2014? Did you think there would be no consequences from Russia? The Ukrainian people have been victims of corrupt administrations since the old Soviet Union broke up. The big difference that I have been able to detect is that the current government has more links to neo-Nazi elements in the country. Read here: http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/18/yes-there-are-bad-guys-in-the-ukrainian-government/

    • benr July 13, 2017 at 11:12 am #

      Did anyone actually put the thought process together that Putin was simply getting back at Hillary for her attempts at tampering with Russian elections?
      Good for the goose good for the gander the American government messes with other countries elections it’s rather stupid to get mad when another government does it back to us.
      Obama and Israel anyone?
      I don’t like my government tampering with other countries elections and it really pisses me off when other countries do it to us but lets face facts Hillary is as corrupt as any politician can be we are better off with her not being in the Whitehouse.

  14. PostPeakRancher July 10, 2017 at 10:38 am #

    I would add to your first list:

    – GMOs are completely safe, work 100% as advertised, and have no downsides. Any one criticizing GMOs is automatically an anti-science nut job in league with anti-vaxxers, chemtrailers, and flat earthers.

    – Economic growth is always good and always benevolent. It has never created inequality, only prosperity. Anyone who says otherwise is an America hating commie.

    – Technological advancements are always good, always better than what they replace, and never cause harm to individuals or society.

    – Automation is fate, it will happen no matter what, there are no government polices in place that encourage it. There is nothing we can do about it other than ‘adapt’ the labor force to it.

    What else are we missing….

    PPR

    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 2:49 pm #

      Heard a great one: robots in the workplace don’t take jobs, they create new jobs that require more education but pay better. So if all the people being replaced get these new jobs that pay better, the robots would not be economically viable since they would be costing the owners money, not saving it.

      But of course this a false premise released as propaganda. Robots are going to take an enormous number of jobs. The few human overseers will just take the place of the current foremen and production managers.

      Of course this all is great way to cut down on Affirmative Action law suits and to get rid of the vermin known as Human Resources.

    • HurricaneJane July 10, 2017 at 5:34 pm #

      Very nice list.

      I think the only thing you (half)-missed is the myth of continual economic growth itself?

      In other words, there must always be economic growth. A stable economy is not good enough.

      • beantownbill. July 10, 2017 at 7:30 pm #

        I think there must be economic growth if the population keeps increasing, otherwise the economic pie has to be cut into smaller and smaller pieces.

  15. seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 10:41 am #

    We are dumbed down by a constant bombardment of images. The only way to fight back is to turn off the TV, computer, phone and realize the world is far more interesting than anything on the screen.

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    • JimInFlorida July 10, 2017 at 10:48 am #

      Kim Jong Un may be our salvation IF he really has an ICBM that can launch a few EMP warheads into orbit and detonate above key communication nodes in the U.S.

    • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 11:57 am #

      Blasphemy!

      Try telling anyone under the age of 40 that virtual reality is not better than the real thing and you will be considered crazy.

      In virtual reality you can be whatever you want and fuck whomever you want. There are no negative consequences. In real reality you have to work for it and life is not fair.

      Perhaps they have a point?

      I don’t think so. I’ll go with “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

      But that is just me.

  16. brucef July 10, 2017 at 10:42 am #

    A lot of respectable people don’t think its remarkable that the US Defense Dept. is the world’s largest employer.

    • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 10:55 am #

      I think the three main goals of the World Wars was the confiscation of the world’s gold, the petroleumfication of the world, and the creation of the military and medical industrial complexes. They are the levers of world power and domination.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 2:54 pm #

        You are a Gas Giant. Watch out for kids playing with matches.

        • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 2:59 pm #

          Hey you’re the one with the ailing pyloric valve.

          • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:47 pm #

            If I am Ignon, you are Ichabod – or the glory is departed. Careful or someone going to throw a pumpkin at you.

        • seawolf77 July 11, 2017 at 10:16 am #

          “The Dr. Nuts seemed only as an acid gurgling down into his intestine. He filled with gas, the sealed valve trapping it just as one pinches the mouth of a balloon. Great eructations rose from his throat and bounced upward toward the refuse-laden bowl of the milk glass chandelier. Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen.”

  17. hmuller July 10, 2017 at 10:48 am #

    JHK, every week you sound more and more like one of us tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists. The idea that there are elitists putting out false information and socially damaging narratives was long derided as delusional thinking.

    Consider Janet and her crowd as they promote identity politics. Most of these SJW’s probably believe they are doing something good.

    In fact, they are useful idiots for the Oligarchs. The few can rule the many by keeping them divided and fighting among themselves over race, sexual preferences, religion, etc.

    If people ever woke up to who their real enemies are and united, it would be the dawn of a new age.

    • janet July 10, 2017 at 11:05 am #

      Please tell us who the “real enemies” are.

      • hmuller July 10, 2017 at 11:08 am #

        Oh dearie, you have to some of the work yourself.

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 11:11 am #

        The priests, bankers and politicians are the people’s enemies. They are the ultimate triumverate.

      • benr July 13, 2017 at 11:22 am #

        Top of the list.
        George Soros
        ROTHCHILD FAMILY

        Start by reading some god books.
        Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Paperback – December 27, 2005

        Enemies: A History of the FBI

        Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

        The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

    • Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter July 10, 2017 at 1:34 pm #

      “Janets” come in about three main varieties. I categorize them, thusly:

      1. Common Whores. Not too smart, but amoral people who will do or say anything for money, power, and/or attention.

      2. Bubba, the Wife Beaters. People who like their minorities barefoot and pregnant, so they control them.

      3. Munchausen’s by Proxy Sickos. Who will do everything in their power to harm and marginalize various minorities, and other identity groups, so that they can play Might White Savior or Cosmopolitan Tolerant Individual to that group.

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

      • JimInFlorida July 10, 2017 at 2:31 pm #

        Squeeky, I have to disagree with you on what is a “janet.” I’ll give you credit for trying, though.

        “janet” is not a transcendental expression of dysfunction that is manifested in many forms. “janet” is a highly specialized incarnation of New Leftist erudition – parading around in the psychedelic robes of Cultural Marxism and speaking in the barbarian tongue of the Ivory Tower Tribe.

        • Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter July 10, 2017 at 2:33 pm #

          Hmmm. Maybe I need to add a fourth variety???

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

          • benr July 13, 2017 at 11:23 am #

            Janet = sOCKPUPPET

        • hmuller July 10, 2017 at 2:44 pm #

          Then again “Janet” could be three guys in the NSA basement trying to decide how to impersonate an aging, chunky, man-hating instructor at a third tier college. LOL

          • daveed July 13, 2017 at 9:03 pm #

            Ah, c’mon, Gramps……tell us the Real Enemies story again!

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:00 pm #

        You can’t have Muslim terror without Muslims. And you can’t have Black crime without Blacks. The Elite have fostered diversity in order to weaken the Nations. The Soviet Union did the same thing to Eastern Europe and some of the Asian peoples. Tyrants are always moving people around, sowing diversity and discord.

        Homogeneity is strength and can lead to Unity. Diversity is weakness and leads to chaos, rioting, Civil War and the hoped for takeover by the United Nations – run by NGO’s or Corporate fronts.

        • daveed July 13, 2017 at 9:09 pm #

          But, isn’t that the goal? That’d be the ultimate! A New World Order run by the strong, but fair, Koch Bros.

  18. pequiste July 10, 2017 at 10:54 am #

    Once the process of the corralling of the mind is commenced there is no telling to where the boundaries can be contracted. Thinking the Soviet UNion , Hitlerite Germany, or Khmer Cambodian style. How about the contemporary atmosphere of Best Korea.

    A noose around the neck of the thinking class – cutting off the air supply – killing the brain. Or perhaps the outright murder of any “intellectuals” who should happen to need glasses as the Pol Pot people used to do.

    As for the lumpenmass, they are quite happy with the careful addition of State sanctioned alimentation and medications, to have the space-between-the ears filled by the vacuum of the “acceptable” and games, plenty of games.

    Serious discourse is for ‘tards.

  19. seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 10:57 am #

    There was a band in Jackson, MS that called themselves The Windows. They stunk pretty bad.

  20. seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 11:09 am #

    Political control is exercised through that little screen. It was sold to us as entertainment. Just like the Apollo program was sold as an exploration of space, when it really was a weaponization of space. LBJ created NASA, ran NASA, put Houston on the map with NASA. They even renamed their baseball team, which incidentally is kicking ass. But the point is it’s always about order and control.

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    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:02 pm #

      No serious person believes the N.Y Times by the way. You do though.

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 3:10 pm #

        Which one of the listed lies is inaccurate is a legitimate strategy. Stating that no one does this is a simpleton strategy, much like stating that’s a fact without offering any.

  21. Anon1970 July 10, 2017 at 11:28 am #

    Before NPR’s website discontinued all reader comments, comments related to black crime in the nation’s cities were routinely removed. It didn’t matter if they were true; they were deemed politically incorrect and expunged. Crime stories refused to identify the race of the perps.

    Of course, the crime didn’t stop because NPR refused to acknowledge it. In 2016, murders in Chicago increased by almost 300 over the prior year (to a recent high of about 800) and so far this year, they are running slightly ahead of the same period in 2016. On a per capita basis, the homicide statistics are even worse in St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit, all three of which appeared on a list of the 50 deadliest world cities for 2016. Chicago didn’t even appear on it.

    The mainstream media don’t have to lie to be held in contempt by much of the public. All they have to do is cover certain stories and not others and omit politically incorrect facts. Why do they have this obsession to link Trump with possible Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections? The CIA has been interfering in foreign elections and destabilizing foreign governments for decades.

    You may have read about the swarms of teens who terrorized a rapid transit train in Oakland, CA back in April. I doubt that any of them were in the employ of Russia’s spy agency.

    • lsjogren July 10, 2017 at 12:09 pm #

      The internet makes it tough on the so-called journalism community.

      Instead of still reading the garbage in sources like the New York Times, I learn what the New York Times is saying from media junkies who follow the media like hawks and point out the specific incidents of idiocy as they occur. (I primarily find these on Twitter).

    • Ishabaka July 10, 2017 at 3:19 pm #

      “Teens’, “youths”, “kids” – these are all media code words for Black domestic terrorists, of unverified age. You are FAR more likely to lose your life to one of them than to an Islamic terrorist.

      • Anon1970 July 10, 2017 at 8:59 pm #

        I agree.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 10:15 pm #

        And they will become even more dangerous and organized if Islam gets well established here.

    • benr July 13, 2017 at 11:26 am #

      msn just discontinued comments on their “news” stories.
      To many people were pointing out glaring problems.

  22. Yuri Sowryteski July 10, 2017 at 11:28 am #

    JHK- We used to have a popular phrase, “mental constipation and … oral diarrhea” used to describe someone with a closed mind and open mouth, the opposite being an open mind. Then too, those most susceptible to pressures and rewards of conformity tend toward the Overton bubble syndrome.

    Since society is an emergent phenomena, it is unstable by it’s nature.

    Nature has a mind of it’s own.

    When we live in our own minds, without reference to nature, we go awry.

    By the time we get to this stage, we have gone so far awry, only a few will ever endure the changes I at least, cannot foresee in much detail.

    I expect random chance to play a role in events, with luck and pluck, and open minds having the best chance of enduring.

    While enduring is of course good in it’s self, it is not the point.

    The point is to not grovel; to be faithful; to stand and deliver; to be wise; to be true.

    Platitudes? Says who?

    Good Luck : D

    • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 12:00 pm #

      “mental constipation and … oral diarrhea”

      Otherwise known as 3 AM tweets.

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 12:18 pm #

        How about anal speculation?

    • Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter July 10, 2017 at 1:39 pm #

      Dang! I did a poem on Mental Constipation once! I even used the old Xtranormal site to make a youtube video!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ylMWBzAEzc

      Here is the written form if anybody is interested:

      Die Scheisskopfen
      A Poem Of Healing!
      (Universal Version)
      by Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter

      How oft I wish when I have heard
      Some cretin wax moronic,
      That for the cranium they made
      A cleansing High Colonic.

      Perhaps some sort of nasal spray,
      With laxative included?
      To roto-rooter out their brains
      And leave them less deluded.

      Or maybe take a Neti Pot
      With crevice tool extending?
      And they could name it “Nutty Pot”
      And seek a “Patent Pending.”

      There surely has to be a way
      To sanitize gray matter.
      And flush out idiotic thoughts,
      Awash with foolish patter.

      The Bi-polars and Borderlines
      We treat throughout the Nation.
      But did we under-rate the risks
      From Mental Constipation?

      And so to those with Poop for Brains,
      Hold on, a cure’s a-borning!
      Or better yet, just let it go!
      But first, give us a warning!

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

      • cbeard July 10, 2017 at 4:11 pm #

        I love it! Might get out a guitar and work up a melody.

        • Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter July 10, 2017 at 4:35 pm #

          Great! I just grabbed my Sheraton II, and figured out a catchy chord progression over two stanzas at a time, in case that helps:

          (C)How oft I wish when I have heard

          Some cretin wax mo(G)ronic.

          That for the cranium they made

          A cleansing high co(C) lonic

          (C)Perhaps some sort of nasal spray,

          With laxative in (F) cluded?

          To roto-rooter (C) out their (G) brains

          And leave them less de(C) luded.

          Hope that helps!

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

          • ZrCrypDiK July 11, 2017 at 7:39 am #

            Joseph P. Overton (1960–2003)

            Good thing he’s *GONE*. (or is he) Aren’t they all just psychopaths? I mean, rapists who stalk their victims for a few weeks after teh *crime*.

            Don’t wanna mention the deep state – that just rubs the psycho’s the *RIGHT* way…

            Consequences? We’re 2-3 years from the 2’C Accord… 1.5’C already. This sh! over, d00d. Scared? Sure!

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 4:27 pm #

            why do you play such a heavy guitar?

            are you fat?

    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:07 pm #

      When the Black Swans of Anomaly outnumber the White Swans of Civilization, Civilization will fall, pecked to death by too much catastrophe. Likewise on the racial level, when minorities outnumber the Bearers of Civilization, the Civilization falls. Simply logic.

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 3:15 pm #

        From a simpleton. Perfect symmetry.

        • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:45 pm #

          Yes, I’m the Fool on the Hill. So simple I often don’t even have to think: I can just See.

          • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 3:58 pm #

            That is so Bruce Lee.

          • S M Tenneshaw July 10, 2017 at 7:41 pm #

            Hey 77, ease off on our Resident Race Theo Wrist. He’s dooooin’ duh best he kin.

          • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 8:26 pm #

            You’re not even a clown, Tenny, but just a chimp. Here ya go, Space Monkey:

            https://www.amren.com/news/2017/07/combined-analysis-genetically-correlated-traits-identifies-107-loci-associated-intelligence/

          • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 10:30 pm #

            You have to understand the title. When a true genius appears in this world you will know him by this sign “A Confederacy of Dunces will Arise to Oppose Him.”

          • S M Tenneshaw July 10, 2017 at 11:43 pm #

            Sorry Janny, but I don’t need the mock PHD ramblings of a KKK nerd site to tell me what’s what. I spent about eight years as a white student at integrated grade, junior, and senior high schools in Milwaukee.

            So I know first-hand (or at least first-eye) that integration doesn’t have to be a horror show (although it was an Amos and Andy show sometimes).

            A little less theorization and a little more observation, please.

          • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 2:19 pm #

            So you know how important race is – and how dumb and violent they are. If you don’t know that, then you had your eyes closed or you conveniently “forgot” what you knew in order to fit into the Liberal Establishment. After all Blacks need you, and that means money and power.

            They’re “consumers” of what you have to offer – customers in the Capitalist sense. You folks are no better than your opponents, just a different set of customers.

          • S M Tenneshaw July 12, 2017 at 6:16 pm #

            Sorry Janos, but you over–generalize as usual. The dumb flunked out and the violent were expelled, leaving the capable behind.

            One day our stupid (white) counselor left a list of the three highest-IQ students on her desk where I could view it. One of the three was a young black lady.

            In the IT field where it helps to have some thinking ability, a fair number of my coworkers were black. Some were bozos but most were not – same as for whites.

            So I’ll take my experience and direct observation over your theoretical nonsense, thank you very much..

          • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 12:49 pm #

            So any psychometrician, psychologist, or geneticist (like Nobel price winner James Watson) who writes anything you don’t like about race and IQ is a “KKK Nerd”? That’s a lot of people Tenney, a lot of people smarter than you. If you care to look into it, the results have been the same for over a hundred years, ever since the creation of the IQ test. But of course if you looked into, then you would have to become what you hate (a KKK Nerd) so you prefer your ignorance.

            A Clown has an essential tragic dignity because of his humanity. You have abdicated this. And you aren’t a good chimp either: they can’t help being what they are and didn’t choose it. In and of themselves, despite how they seem to us or what we make them, they have an animal dignity. You are neither wolf nor dog. And no, don’t try putting a clown suit over chimp hide – that will just make it worse. You could change your name as a firs step: Tenney sounds so gay.

          • S M Tenneshaw July 13, 2017 at 6:39 pm #

            Ahh yess…the same James Watson who has to sell his Nobel Prize ’cause no one can stand his Nazi filthstinky breath. Maybe he can get a job as butt boy for the Daily Dorker.

      • Squeeky Fromm Girl Reporter July 10, 2017 at 4:03 pm #

        Do you ever listen/watch a guy named Tommy Sotomayor on youtube??? If not, I think you would like him. He’s a black guy who gets on black women something fierce. What with the hair weave, and the illegitimacy, and the brawling, etc.etc.etc.

        Here is one of his latest short ones:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYEQroUMkpE

        FWIW, the BT1100 is the Black Terminatrix 1100, or one about 30 years old. The BT1200s are the newer models, and the BT1000s are the older ones.

        The ED209s are the males, Ebony Destroyers 209.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

  23. wholy1 July 10, 2017 at 11:38 am #

    Yo JHK, one of your most thoughtfully objective and incisive. KUDOS!

  24. Walter B July 10, 2017 at 12:10 pm #

    A great find James, thank you for sharing. I have bookmarked it and will be checking it out in detail. Being a rather simple man myself, I like to sum it all up in the idea that today, in our ruling system, just as in every cesspool, the scum rises to the top. In times gone by, the qualities required to rise to leadership were more often than not accompanied by enough decency and saving graces to afford this nation a relatively decent body of leadership. In its current form, our system that installs leaders with absolutely NO minimum job requirements, strictly on the results of a popularity contest with votes tallied from a distracted, uncaring, self-centered population can only lead to bad things. Far too many of the people in this country are no longer capable of being involved in governing themselves, either inside the arena or outside of it, simply voting. A nation that is addicted to happy, happy, happy can never choose any course of action that will lead to discomfort and discomfort will certainly result sooner or later. It is the Discomfort Bubble and its arrival is already way, way overdue.

  25. volodya July 10, 2017 at 12:13 pm #

    The people in this “intellectual class” have got a very high opinion of themselves. It’s high school all over again. They just love to pull rank on inferiors. The superior sneer is their social tool, the put-down their stock-in-trade, the frissons of delight they get from inflicting anger is what makes their day.

    As servants of the fantastically wealthy oligarchy that runs things, they see their position as guaranteed.

    As Matt Taibbi sez, the idea of a Left to Right political spectrum is a load of bollocks. What we have is a billionaire “donor class” and their employees in politics, whether of the Democrat or Republican stripe makes not a stitch of difference.

    What Taibbi sez – and I fully agree – is that the real divide is “have” vs “have not”, that being the 15% of the populace that have something vs the 85% that have bugger all.

    The sneers and insults just make for a lot of fun. The real job of the intellectual class is the maintenance of this social and economic hierarchy. One way is to shill for plutocratic interests like advocating for open borders. The other way is to create smokescreens of irrelevancies like the prolonged idiocy over washroom facilities.

    The intellectual class and their oligarch masters fly at way too high an altitude. They look down on the sweating, anxious masses with disdain and see no danger from that level. Energy? Debt? Corrupt financial markets? None of this applies to them. Solutions? What for? Why bother?

    Of course history, especially 20th Century history, serves up cautionary lessons. But the Oligarchs are men-of-action with no use for dusty textbooks and the Intellectual Class see themselves and their masters as a new breed of ubermensch. To them, history is bunk and history is irrelevant.

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    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:24 pm #

      Thus we owe Trump an eternal debt of gratitude for moving the Window to the Right. The Bubble must be popped – by pitchforks if necessary.

      • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 3:32 pm #

        The guy just proposed building a solar energy facility so that we can save money for Mexico. That is to the right?

  26. marcus1 July 10, 2017 at 12:31 pm #

    Let’s let the investigation into Russian meddling run its course. God help us if other countries start treating US like we’ve treated them. But we’re exceptional, snark, snark.

    Your second list I mostly dispute. No evidence of an energy squeeze on the horizon. The banks are doing great! Accounting fraud helps the fraudsters, yes? There is stability in the financial markets. Japan has been running larger deficits for 2 decades longer than we have, with no catastrophic consequence.

    This is just a continuation of the largest transfer of wealth in history. If there is a speculation bubble and the speculators need bailing out guess who will backstop their bad bets? If there’s a recession, the Oligarchs will just buy more of the assets at fire sale prices. If there’s inflation the middle class will divert more of their cash to food and maintaining shelter, leaving the 0.1% more of the assets to purchase. They win financially either way.

    This is life in the new feudal order. Shut up and pay your peonage.

    I do agree about the crime of environment destruction. Trump is an unmitigated idiot and Pruitt in a shameless hack.

    • Walter B July 10, 2017 at 12:55 pm #

      As long as no shortages of stuff that the masses want and as long as the central banks of the world keep printing, distributing and accepting each others worthless fiat currencies the mindless minions shall remain under relative control and the excess at the top can go unmolested. If any of that changes, and for the life of me I cannot understand how it has gone on for so long already, then it is all up for grabs. The one constant that will remain in place until then is the slow degradation of societies both morally and mentally.

      • marcus1 July 10, 2017 at 2:32 pm #

        Well that’s it, isn’t it? As long as cheap TVs, popcorn and “adequate” vinyl-clad housing holds up, why revolt?

        Its those “other” people that have the problem. The ill, the dark skinned people, the suspected drug dealers, Muslims. Let them die on the street, have their property confiscated, or be tortured and locked away. They’re the only ones being neglected and abused.

        But the “privileged” class doesn’t see that this is unfettered greed, in-bedded in our politics, and will go for all of the assets. Pension funds, SS, and Medicare will be next because you see, you can’t afford those amenities any more, we need that money to protect you from the above mentioned “enemies of the state.”

        • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:27 pm #

          The more diversity, the less social capital. There can be no peaceful transformation with Muslims around. Don’t let one set of facts blind you to the value of other sets. Muslims have no place here and can have none – that’s by definition. It’s almost as basic as a triangle having three sides.

          • marcus1 July 10, 2017 at 4:53 pm #

            You like to ignore the Constitution when it suits your convenience or bigoted view of the world. I’d rather keep the Constitution and put up with the inconvenience.

            The despot that comes may not be to your liking. What do you do then?

          • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 7:44 pm #

            The Constitution doesn’t apply to people in other countries. And it’s not infinite, some kind of cosmic get out jail free card. It’s the Charter for a form of Government based on Natural Law. You want to use it to overturn Natural Law by putting incompatible peoples together in the same nation.

            John Adams himself said it is meant for people descended from European Christians and no others.

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 9:59 am #

            Do the Ten Commandments apply to people in other countries?

          • seawolf77 July 11, 2017 at 10:28 am #

            The 11th Commandment : Thou shalt not buggar little children. Booyah!

          • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 12:13 am #

            “Do the Ten Commandments apply to people in other countries?”

            Thwack,
            Other Countries? Hell, they don’t seem to apply in Detroit….

  27. 100th Avatar July 10, 2017 at 12:40 pm #

    Spot on. Another great entry by the host, really on a roll here.

  28. FincaInTheMountains July 10, 2017 at 1:00 pm #

    Please tell us who the “real enemies” are — Janet

    My pleasure: The Sacred Roman Empire of the German Nation and their agents of influence in the United States (and Russia as well).

    Or, plainly speaking, the god damned Nazis whom we haven’t finished off during the WWII and let escape with all the loot of NSDAP.

    https://regnum.ru/uploads/pictures/news/2017/07/10/regnum_picture_1499692898897207_big.jpg

    • JimInFlorida July 10, 2017 at 2:41 pm #

      The “Nazis” eh??? Typical cheap shot.

      I seriously doubt that the “Nazis” would have endorsed the mass miscegenation, cultural Marxism, infatuation with the dysfunctional freaks of society (LGBTQxyz), and gynocentric propaganda, that is killing the West.

      There IS a clearly identifiable demographic that HAS endorsed, and orchestrated, the diseases bringing down Western civilization. THEY BOAST of their evil works in Israeli publications YET, it is the height of THOUGHTCRIME to name them.

      Our enemies are in the Universities.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:58 pm #

        Yes, the real reason they hate hansoloasshole: his CNN rogues gallery meme.

      • FincaInTheMountains July 10, 2017 at 4:07 pm #

        The Nazis that managed to merge with their seeming opposite and mimicry it. You don’t expect modern day real Nazi to shout Heil Hitler!, do you?

        Janos, in my opinion, is a confused fascist who thinks of himself as a Nazi.

        For instance, I always maintained that Socialism of Bernie Sanders + Foreign policy of Hillary Clinton = National Socialism in its chemically pure form.

        Finca, July 12, 2016 at 1:03 pm:

        CONGRATULATIONS!!!

        The National-Socialist Party of the United States has been created!

        As I said before, the combination of internal Social program of Bernie Sanders with the foreign policy of Hillary Clinton is a National Socialism in its chemically pure form.

        http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/lit-and-sputtering/#comment-271929

        • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 7:46 pm #

          No, he’s a Marxist who flirts with Nationalism but then backs off when people get mad at him.

      • FincaInTheMountains July 10, 2017 at 4:15 pm #

        The biggest mistake of the historians as they mixed together the Fascism with Nazism and the difference is as the difference between Hitler who killed Jews and Mussolini, who saved them.

        The Black Project after World War II turned the US and Saudi Arabia into its carriers, but the defeat of the US in Korea and Vietnam allowed the US to some extent to free itself from the power of the Black Project.

        And the election campaign in the United States that we are witnessing today is undoubtedly global in nature, being the point of application of truly geopolitical forces.

        And if the Black Project loses this election, the basis of Black Project will be the axis of Riyadh – Berlin, in which Saudi Arabia will play a dominant role.

        http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/pretend-to-the-bitter-end/#comment-257678

      • FincaInTheMountains July 10, 2017 at 4:38 pm #

        Differences between National Socialism and Fascism

        Many do not understand the difference between Fascism and Nazism, and think that this is the same thing, or are considering one ideology as a special case of the other.

        Nazism is regarded as a special case of fascism, reading the Wiki, it is easy to see. There is practically no difference.

        However the ideological confrontation between Fascism and Nazism, appears to be the main engine of the historical process in the 21st century, and has become the engine of the Cold Civil War in the United States. So far cold.

        See the rest at:
        http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/revenge-comet-pizza/#comment-295120

        • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 7:49 pm #

          Fascism agrees with National Socialism on most things but falls down on the most important thing of all: Who is it all for? What does mean to be a Frenchman, an Italian, etc. For them perhaps, a Black Frenchman is real or at least possible. Not so us. We demand that Race and Nature have their say. Thus we go beyond mere human calculation and set sail into the Cosmos.

          • thwack July 10, 2017 at 9:58 pm #

            Ape shall not kill Ape

  29. Beryl of Oyl July 10, 2017 at 1:08 pm #

    What did you think Brucella on the cover of Vanity Fair was all about?
    A relative of mine got into a fight with an acquaintance over the weekend, when my relative made a politically incorrect remark about a woman they saw on a program featuring a women’s athletic match, which was on the television at one of those trendy new brewpubs.
    Not a physical fight, the other man angrily challenged my relative, my relative stood his ground, and the man was so beside himself that he got up and left.
    It’s odd, because I’ve known this man for a number of years, and he only became interested in LBQRSTUV issues after Obama told people to think that.
    He’s not liberal in other ways, in fact he beats his wife, but women’s rights don’t seem to be where they were in the liberal hierarchy anymore, and women seem to be fine with their diminished status.
    Once a society accepts that men can become women just by claiming to be, and therefore can follow little girls into bathrooms, it’s pretty much over for that society.
    Fortunately for the rest of us, the Coastal Elites aren’t the force that they think they are, in fact they are a warped minority.

    I can never keep the New York Times and Washington Post straight – I think it’s the Times which is the mouthpiece for the FBI, and the Post for the CIA, but it could be vice versa.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:33 pm #

      Yeah the hardcore Feminists hated this from day one and they were right. The triumph of this mentality means the end of Title 9 (since utterly meaningless) and the beginning of the end for high level feminine athletics since the trannies will take over.

      But of course to fight this means Feminists must be humble enough to admit that women have their own athletics to begin with because they are weaker and slower than men. This simple reality is beyond most people now. Even the hardcore hated this mostly because they hate men and not for rational reasons.

  30. amb July 10, 2017 at 2:39 pm #

    Overton Window is the path to destruction. The truth will always prevail, the laws of nature and life will always prevail… and it either ends up with an evolution or a collapse and destruction. The political elites are a collective group of morons who are clueless about the future… the consequences of their actions and in-actions.

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    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:35 pm #

      I don’t think you got the concept down very well. It’s neutral, neither good nor evil in and of itself. There’s a good wiki on it if Mr Kunstler’s definitions aren’t enough.

      • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 5:00 pm #

        Socially sanctioned ignorance and acceptance of alternative facts as basic laws of nature is not neutral. It is suicidal and symptomatic of an empire in decay.

        • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 7:51 pm #

          The Overton Window can go left or right. The bubble is something different, a pathology. The poster says Window not bubble.

  31. goat1001 July 10, 2017 at 2:45 pm #

    Well, it looks like the Saudi’s have “x’ed out of their Overton Window” and are putting their thinking caps on… Peak oil is a clear and present danger and sleepwalking into the future isn’t going to solve the problem…

    “RIYADH (BLOOMBERG) – Saudi Aramco, which plans what could be the world’s biggest initial public offering, will invest more than US$300 billion (S$414.4 billion) over the next decade to maintain its spare oil-production capacity and explore for more natural gas, President and chief executive officer Amin Nasser said.”

    “The outlook for oil supplies is “increasingly worrying,” with about $1 trillion in investments lost during the current industry downturn and fewer new deposits being discovered, Nasser said at a conference in Istanbul. Some estimates suggest that at least 20 million barrels a day of new output is needed over the next five years to offset rising oil demand and the natural decline of developed fields, he said Monday (July 10).”

    “There seems to be a growing belief that the world can prematurely disengage from proven and reliable energy sources like oil and gas, on the mistaken assumption that alternatives will be rapidly deployed,” Mr Nasser said in a speech. The petroleum industry will be at the heart of global energy for years, and the transition to use of alternatives will be “long and complex”, he said.”

  32. wm5135 July 10, 2017 at 3:05 pm #

    Mr. Devers’ essay, another comfortable dichotomy. Seems he mentioned the last half of the twentieth century.
    ……..”we are the good people on the side of what’s right, really we are!”

    Where the hell was everybody from the early sixties to the early seventies? Doesn’t anyone remember parents afraid to speak out lest they be branded as sympathizers or fellow travelers?

    Just a few of Mr. Kunstler’s posts ago someone here was selling the soap that the liberals lost the Vietnam Police Action. Never mind the U.S. had no damn business in Vietnam. Perhaps we will hear again about the Sino communist threat. Maybe someone will care to explain about the fact that troops had orders not to return fire without gaining permission from the command at the rear echelon.

    Let’s forget about missiles in Turkey and have a roaring cheer about missiles in Cuba.

    Firesign Theaters’s “Everything You Know is Wrong.” was actually history not entertainment.

    SOB Gimme a Drink

    Overton Bubble, ain’t the first one.

  33. Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:42 pm #

    Poland is one of the most peaceful and safest places on Earth. Why? Because it’s White. Ethnically homogenous: not only White, but almost all one brand of White. And it’s Conservative, with almost everyone either a Catholic is still imbued with those values – and thus religiously homogenous as well.

    No Muslims means no Muslim terrorism. No Blacks means no Black terrorism. Same religion means no Yugoslavian disaster. Same ethne means no Belgian or Quebec type conflicts. Do you see, brothers and sisters? This is the Way.

    And yes, we navigated some of these shoals successfully in America, though it took a long time. We were only able to do it because of our size and wealth. Then we got full of ourselves and thought we could do it with even more alien people, of different races and religion – even though we no longer have the open spaces nor a booming economy. Pure hubris on the part of the Chattering Class. The Elite knew what they were doing though – they did it for their own benefit, not the Nation’s. Thus divided, we can never post a threat to them. And with America as the Template, they go forth to make the whole World equally weak and divided so they can rule over ALL.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 3:56 pm #

      In other words, the Chattering Teeth or Mandarins take their cue from the Master Class. So much for their “intellectual integrity”. They are simply dancing for their dinner or should I say dinar.

    • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 3:56 pm #

      Is your favorite book “The Consolation of Philosophy” by Boethius?

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 8:32 pm #

        Yes, Ignatius O’Reilly, despite his countless foibles, is a better man than you in so many ways. He’s Ortho-Dox or right believing. Thus he knows his place in Cosmos and has some idea, however dim, about the meaning of Life and not merely “life”. You in contrast, are a pauper.

        • seawolf77 July 10, 2017 at 9:50 pm #

          Oh Fortuna you wretched slut!

          • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 11:41 pm #

            Orf you fool.

        • seawolf77 July 11, 2017 at 10:14 am #

          “I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

    • thwack July 10, 2017 at 10:01 pm #

      Poland is one of the most peaceful and safest places on Earth. Why? Because it’s White. Ethnically homogenous: not only White, but almost all one brand of White

      ***********

      So why don’t you move there?

      Or better yet, why are so many Polocks trying to come here?

  34. janet July 10, 2017 at 3:48 pm #

    “Common whores” — squeeky

    “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute.”

    –Rebecca West. 1913.

  35. My Point of View July 10, 2017 at 4:15 pm #

    amb wrote: “political elites are a collective group of morons who are clueless about the future… the consequences of their actions and in-actions.”

    Look no further than how congress, for generations, had its head up its ass on transportation, putting all our eggs, AND funding, into highways at the expense of urban mass transit and railroad infrastructures. JK speaks eloquently of auto-dependent suburbs (not to mention cities!). Congress has never had a long term outlook at what the nation needs, their focus tends to be on who bribes them the most with campaign donations. The Chinese will clean our clocks long term and Trump is speeding that up by pulling out of trade and environmental pacts.
    ——————–

    goat 101 wrote: “Peak oil is a clear and present danger and sleepwalking into the future isn’t going to solve the problem….Mr Nasser said …. The petroleum industry will be at the heart of global energy for years, and the transition to use of alternatives will be “long and complex”

    The Saudi guy is spot on, and OF COURSE we’re making it harder to transition as most major electric utilities now are pursuing regulatory changes to kill “net metering” where homeowners are compensated for the power their rooftop solar puts into the grid. Bend over.
    ———————

    marcus 1 wrote: “Trump is an unmitigated idiot and Pruitt in a shameless hack.”

    So true and I add that Rick Perry as Energy Secretary is worse than letting coyotes into the hen house. He will side with the electric utilities to put the brakes on rooftop solar to keep the coal, gas and oil rackets going as long as possible. We are in a perfect storm of having the most venal bunch of thieves and idiots imaginable now running our nation.

    Al Queda won’t have to fire a shot, we’re doing ourselves in.

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  36. Cavepainter July 10, 2017 at 4:57 pm #

    Jim, thanks, very provocative and thought stirring piece. I wan to add my remarks indicating that the crux is right at the threshold of social organization — now being scrambled as never before.

    Through history the character of societies, all and any, has been product of attempt to balance the innate tension between the two specific agenda of male and female. The ‘agenda’, in both cases, is ironed in, testament to the survival adjustment honed by the rigors of survival through evolutionary time. Enforcement of behavioral comportment, one sex to the other, has always been more by general consensus (decorum) rather than by edicts of prelates or officialdom otherwise (think ‘gentlemanliness’ and ‘lady like’ in common parlance before incivility became fashionable). A ‘consensus’ not polarized by political abstractions such as patriarchy vs matriarchy, but drawn more from collective grasp of tangible reality.

    Belief about manliness or womanliness has varied greatly among societies but in all cases it is testament to global wide intuitive understanding that gender difference is distinct, but must be harmonized for societal survival. Marriage ceremonies globally ritualize merger of the two agendas according to a heritage of beliefs about sexual roles as pertain to societal survival.

    Probably the most ostensible evidence of inherent tension between the genders is the ‘in group’ humorous stereotypes applied one to the other. Doubtlessly, sympathetic exchange among peers addressing the tension inherent in cross gender relationships channels attendant frustration into outlet of humor as opposed to hostility. Functioning similarly is gender exclusive membership orders, among which often there are ceremonies kept secret from the opposite sex.

    Survival circumstance through history determined whether one agenda — consensually — took practical preeminence over the other, the nature of circumstances before modern times being less obtuse as are political abstractions (patriarchy vs matriarchy) now wedging the two genders apart, leaving both tangled in a crisis of obscured sexual role identity.

    And here is where we see the “Overton Window as a mechanism of political control, and with politicization of speech and thought in general, is that it causes significant collateral damage on the ability of your society to think clearly”.

    Physical attribute and emotional pre-disposition within each gender is measurably different – scientific rather than anecdote of ‘identity politics’ (a construct to obfuscate innate gender distinction). Consequently, a void has been created where prior existed a modeled co-existence between the genders.

    Filling the void is neurotic angst questing for political raison d’etre in partisanships ever diffusing. Unhinged, that is – completely unbounded by external reality. Hoisting the banner of “victimhood” each argues for compensational dispensation from government. Farther aside is pushed notion of commonality upon which a shared sense of purpose can be based (as in “nation”).

  37. K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 5:04 pm #

    The Overton window shows that there is a difference between intellectuals and smart people. Something most of us already know.

    • 100th Avatar July 10, 2017 at 7:20 pm #

      So many schools pumping out PhDs in the humanities. So many aspiring bourgeois wanting to leave that milieu, working for a living and all that. They want to get paid to read and speak their opinions, and write the occasional unread 250 page essay, preferably in a city. Remove the hard sciences and languages and universities are nothing but rest homes for leftist pedagogues.

      • malthuss July 11, 2017 at 11:35 am #

        ‘Studies’ majors. And hiphop.

  38. Sean Coleman July 10, 2017 at 5:32 pm #

    It certainly describes the situation well although it doesn’t seem to explain *why* this has come about. The list of dogmas and shibboleths is dead on, as is the alternative list of matters they are not concerned with. I don’t think the last one, though (destruction of the ecology and the threat to all life), is correct, rather it is the other way round as AGW for example is both an obsession and quite wrong, as is ‘extreme environmentalism’.

    Virtue signalling is indeed just another term for self-righteousness and I don’t like fashionable neologisms (black swans, known unknowns, alt-right) because they are just distracting rhetorical devices and by the time you have figured out the exact nuance of one (say no-brainer) it has been dropped in favour of a new one and you have to start all over again.

    JHK is again right at the end of the article that if the thinking classes don’t think then society breaks down. Peter Hitchens has long made a similar argument about Britain and one of the big problems he had with the ‘Brexit’ vote was that those who have to implement it are the very same people who don’t accept it.

    As for *why* this has come about it is true that careerism is an important factor. By analogy I understand that Al Gore has made millions out of AGW but I don’t think this would be the most important reason for him to believe in it. I will just restate my belief that there is no rational explanation for this madness because it is not driven by reason but rather by fantasy. Pc is the umbrella fantasy (or ‘metafantasy’ if you want a fancy word) for a range of lesser ones. In a fantasy you are not able to think clearly and you react strongly to any criticism that challenges your belief. You will disregard evidence.

    I’d add that extraversion (affecting one half of the population – introverts have our own problems) is also an important ingredient. Personal relations and the recognition and approval of others are very important for them. Extravert Irish journalist Sarah Carey is very much in favour of immigration (‘refugees’) and wrote recently that having dozens of different nationalities in a single classroom is a wonderful thing. She said at one point that she had expressed some modest reservations about how ‘tolerant’ and ‘accepting’ we should be and got some sharp criticism from friends on the social media which reduced her to tears. This is not normal behaviour.

    Extraverts dominate Facebook and Twitter and I am sure it is they who work tirelessly and in great numbers to ‘correct the record’ on Wikipedia and elsewhere. It is they who enforce conventional wisdom. Because their outer reality is stronger than their inner sense of self they find it hard to challenge it and usually, I suppose, would wonder why anyone would want to do such a self-evidently strange thing. This is, of course, not to say that introverts don’t get swept along and defend the indefensible themselves. I am more and more struck by the number of introverted women who take extreme feminist and other positions. Hillary Clinton is a prime example. Angela Merkel is another who, while she is said not to have voted for gay marriage, was swept along by the Facebook *hysteria* following the publication of the drowned Kurdish child to make an uncharacteristically emotional and irrational decision.

    The dynamics are clearer in small countries like Ireland where institutions are weaker and whose media elites are totally dominated by progressive ideology. (I think the western seaboard of Europe from Portugal up to Iceland is a lunatic fringe.) In Ireland, under the influence of an extraordinary and completely insane anticlerical witch hunt, a sustained attempt is being made to completely rewrite the history of the independent state over the last century. This enterprise is made possible as the older generation dies off, the people who experienced life at first hand and who, of course, saw none of the alleged horrors.

    As another example Spain has introduced a ‘historical memory law’ which has formally condemned Franco’s regime. (The word ‘regime’ is always used here for governments which are not approved of.) Former Communist terrorist Pio Moa Rodriguez has examined the myths surrounding the Civil War and Franco and has convincingly exploded them. He says that his views are misrepresented and that attempts are made to censor him. His books have not been translated into English so I have to read them in Spanish. On one YT video he says that when he started down his revisionist path he thought he was going to be taken to pieces by his opponents in the left. Instead he was amazed at the utter uselessness of their criticism. The academic battle over these issues has already been won, he argues, but the press is dominated by the Left and refuses to accept it.

    Another almost random example is the thousand Christian Syrian ‘refugees’ which Poland took in. Every single one of them, I understand, escaped into Germany where benefits are much higher. There is one female Polish journalist who argued with the pressure from Germany for Poland to accept her fair share: “Are we supposed to build a wall around our refugees to stop them from escaping/”

    Just where this fantasy came from is perhaps the big question of our age. It seems clear that it started in the 60s.

    • Sean Coleman July 10, 2017 at 5:34 pm #

      I missed one point. Introverts tend to accept the evidence of the senses relayed to them by their extravert partners and friends. If the extraverts aren’t seeing clearly then the introverts are clueless, or even more clueless than usual.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 7:56 pm #

        The Church in its healthy stages was a vast reservoir of introversion, but the Protestant fanatic “onward Christian soldiers” type has conquered all. And since the missionaries got so much acclaim, lesser men and their wives want to imitate them – but without the trouble and danger. The solution? Bring the savages here into their own countries. Christ said “Go out and preach the Gospel to all men.” The modernist says “Bring them IN and preach warmed over humanism.”

  39. janet July 10, 2017 at 5:43 pm #

    “Every single one of them, I understand, escaped into Germany where benefits are much higher. ” –sean coleman

    Rick Perry explained this: “create supply and demand will follow” (Rick Perry’s Econ 100)

    • janet July 10, 2017 at 5:45 pm #

      But your original statement is false, sean. All the refugees did not go to Germany.

      • Sean Coleman July 11, 2017 at 11:08 am #

        Janet, this is a kind of a test case. How do you know my statement is false? As I said, “I understand” this is what happened. I heard it first from a Polish contributor to the small Irish economics blog I have been reading for years. He is very well educated and is well informed, but I know his views on immigration (which I generally agree with) and his tendency to get excited about intelligence services and so I discounted it. I then saw a video clip featuring Polish journalist Aleksandra Rybinska who also made the claim.

        “All the refugees did not go to Germany.”

        I take this as confirming the story as substantially true. How many remained? One hundred? How do you know this? I am interested as a couple of weeks ago I was wondering where you got your information and I compared some of your phrasing with text from first of all Wiki and then from a couple of US newspapers to see if you had lifted it directly.

    • JimInFlorida July 11, 2017 at 11:09 am #

      Rick Perry is a Texas neocon imbecile. He’ll change his tune when his home gets culturally enriched (robbed) and the robber paraphrases his own quote:

      “Yo muh-fugger. You gots all dis supply and Ima demandin’ it!”

      That’s why lockable doors, red-lining, and heavily-protected borders are equally necessary. It’s just a matter of scale.

      • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 11:20 am #

        ““Yo muh-fugger. You gots all dis supply and Ima demandin’ it!””

        Made me laugh….

        • daveed July 13, 2017 at 9:20 pm #

          Who’s Ima?

  40. capt spaulding July 10, 2017 at 5:44 pm #

    I have a hard time believing that Russia is a benign country, and that Putin is a swell guy misunderstood by everyone else. I can only base this on what I read and see in the media. If our mainstream news media is subverted or corrupted, then my question is: Where do you go to find out the truth? How do you know that what you finally find out is the truth or not? Charges of “fake news” are flying off the shelves everywhere. There must be some way of pinning down the truth in this flood of information that we are inundated with on a daily basis. I have some sources I feel I can trust, but I confess to a certain amount of indecisiveness when it comes to some sources of information. I know for example that the news I read in the Guardian online is gonna be slanted to the left. I also know that the broadcasts by Rush Limbaugh are gonna slant to the right. Does that mean that the news itself depends on who interprets it, while the basic facts are true? Someone enlighten me.

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    • janet July 10, 2017 at 6:17 pm #

      Corroborate from more than one source. Suspect single source info.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 8:01 pm #

      Go to the book table at a gun show and get the book, “History’s Most Dangerous Men.” Included among these fighters was King David, the poet, the lover of women, the man who danced before his Lord. But he was also a terrifying warrior and deceiver.

      Another (not in the book) was Quanah Parker, the founder of the Native American Church. A huge man, half Indian and half White, he was well educated and at home in the drawing room of polite society. But he was also a great fighter with kills to his name.

      Putin is one of these type of men. Not bad, but dangerous. Do you aspire to be harmless and nice? Look up the etymology of “nice” – it used to mean fool. A man should be formidable, even dangerous if needs be.

      • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 10:46 am #

        “Putin is one of these type of men. Not bad, but dangerous. Do you aspire to be harmless and nice? Look up the etymology of “nice” – it used to mean fool. A man should be formidable, even dangerous if needs be.”

        Oh man…that statement is so…”Old Republic”….

    • Sean Coleman July 11, 2017 at 10:33 am #

      Good question. What is ‘fake news’, that is what is the origin of the expression? I get the impression that it was coined by Trump, or by conservatives, who were sick of deceitful leftish journalism of the main media outlets. I also have the impression that these have retaliated by turning it back on Trump or the conservatives by making a big deal of stories like the numbers at his inauguration and similar things (Obama’s birth cert, I suppose). Fact-checking bodies seem to be springing up around the world and directed against misinformation on the social media. (Anyone relying on Facebook for his information needs a psychiatrist.)

      The abuse witch hunts are particularly instructive because here the gap between fantasy and reality is most glaring. When I go abroad I like to do a little bit of exploring. Not much, I hate travel and prefer a package holiday which looks after travel, accommodation and entertainment, but say travelling a couple of stops on the underground or walking down a few side streets. So when I finally took a quick dip in the sewer that is the Jimmy Savile legend it wasn’t for long but it was enough to show a whole new, unsuspected world where accusations are not backed up with evidence but with ‘what everyone now knows’ and inmates of high security mental hospitals are the most trusted witnesses.

      Trying to get to the truth in the news is hard work and very time consuming so I prefer to leave it to those who are good at it. I rely on trusted commentators like Peter Hitchens and JHK. They can make mistakes too but they are scrupulously honest and choosy about the sources they themselves rely on.

  41. daviddouthit July 10, 2017 at 6:10 pm #

    When I tried to link Kuntsler.com on a Facebook post the link goes to ww9.kunstler.com and states the domain name is for sale! Is your domain name for sale???

    • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 6:35 pm #

      Probably the deep state yanking our chain again.

      • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 6:36 pm #

        Or not. It

        • K-Dog July 10, 2017 at 6:37 pm #

          Just ‘or not’ google added the it.

          • K-Dog July 11, 2017 at 4:08 pm #

            Like it matters if I correct a typo. After a few hours all who are here are trolls and they have already done their part to make America great again by chasing everyone else away.

            It is all part of the whore on terror and you pay for it.

          • K-Dog July 11, 2017 at 4:09 pm #

            Faux racism and all!

  42. Pucker July 10, 2017 at 7:04 pm #

    “The end of the Civil War solved the problem of slavery and started the problem of the blacks, which is with America still. Everyone, from Jefferson and Washington onwards, and including Lincoln himself, had argued that the real problem of slavery was not ending it but what to do with the freed blacks afterwards. All these men, and the overwhelming majority of ordinary American whites, felt that it was almost impossible for whites and blacks to live easily together. Lincoln did not regard blacks as equals. Or rather, they might be morally equal but in other respects they were fundamentally different and unacceptable as fellow-citizens without qualification. He said bluntly that it was impossible just to free the slaves and make them ‘politically and socially our equals.’ He freely admitted an attitude to blacks which would now be classified as racism: ‘My own feelings feelings will not admit [of equality].’ The same was true, he added, of the majority of whites, North as well as South. ‘Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question. A universal feeling, whether well-or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded.’ 134 He told a delegation of blacks who came to see him at the White House and asked his opinion about emigration to Africa or elsewhere, that he welcomed the idea: ‘There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us.’ He even founded an experimental colony on the shores of San Domingo, but the dishonesty of the agents involved forced the authorities to ship the blacks back to Washington. All schemes to get the blacks back to Africa had been qualified or total failures, for the simple reason that only a tiny proportion of them ever had the smallest desire to return to a continent for which, instinctively, they felt an ancestral aversion. Like everyone else, they wanted to remain in the United States, even if life there had its drawbacks. That being so, what to do? And what to do with the rebellious South?”

    “A History of the American People”, Paul Johnson

    • thwack July 10, 2017 at 10:06 pm #

      You have some of that bullshit you were spewing on your chin.

      Good thing you have a PHD to wipe it off.

      • Pucker July 10, 2017 at 11:21 pm #

        “The Negro Problem”, Booker T. Washington

        • thwack July 11, 2017 at 9:28 am #

          The thwack is our misfortune.

          • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 10:53 am #

            Thwack,
            The learned of that time were all fools, right? The educated were never enlightened by direct experience, nor understood that the collective wisdom of history was nothing but metaphor…correct? They were all a product of their times…Yes?

            Yes, in the 21st Century, we are able to dismiss the observations of great men, men of wisdom and erudition…for we are now enlightened.

            Baltimore
            Detroit
            Oakland
            Camden
            Atlanta
            And soon coming to a town or village near you….

    • robert magill July 11, 2017 at 7:01 pm #

      Liberia was founded by American free blacks who went to Africa;started a new country and promptly enslaved the local population. It’s an American thing.

  43. Pucker July 10, 2017 at 7:08 pm #

    Two threads running through American history gleaned from Paul Johnson’s book “A History of the American People”: (1) explosive economic growth and (2) massive endemic political corruption. One wonders what happens when America loses the former while retaining the latter?

    • Walter B July 10, 2017 at 10:14 pm #

      Explosive economic growth creates the Corrupt Beast but as the growth fails the Beast begins to starve and turns on it populace to feed on instead. The destruction of the populace ensues and the Beast eventually starves and dies. That is the destruction from within scenario. The destruction from without is also possible once enough of the Beast’s foreign enemies get together and attack. However, the destruction from within seems to be working very well so far as it did in the Soviet Union collapse, so my money is one the internal destruction rather than the external option.

  44. Pucker July 10, 2017 at 7:14 pm #

    The Overton Window—When I think inside the box eventually I ejaculate.

    • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 10:55 am #

      Puck,
      Think of baseball scores….

  45. Pucker July 10, 2017 at 7:18 pm #

    The US system of government was originally essentially a system of divided, decentralized power, an association of sovereign states rather than a “Nation”. This country was basically destroyed in 1865, and replaced by “The United States”, a “Nation”, which eventually evolved into the Out-of-Control, global US Empire today with Lincoln as its Poster Boy.

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    • JimInFlorida July 11, 2017 at 11:28 am #

      We haven’t been the organic United States since 1861. Furthermore, the organic Constitution ceased to have any legal power after the last signer died. John Adams saw the fatal flaw in the Constitution and it came to pass in 1861.

      After Civil War, the United States was collectively bankrupt and were unable to service its debts. We were reorganized under a foreign corporation, based in the new sovereign city-state of Washington DC, and the U.S. Constitution redefined as by-laws of the Corporation, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, INC.” This was done by the Organic Act of 1871 and fully implemented in 1874.

      Formerly sovereign territories were forced into Statehood until 1912 when the last U.S. territory (Arizona) was put onto the Corporation’s balance sheet.

      THE VERY NEXT YEAR was when the Corporation and its foreign holders privatized the currency and began leveraging it to create an all-new usury-debt currency, the Federal Reserve Note. State’s Rights also ceased to exist with the 17th Amendment. Slaves are not entitled to representation.

      Without belaboring the subject, from that vector sprang all manner of evil which has plagued the U.S since then. Dare we name the most prominent guilty party and with the most to gain?

      • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 2:25 pm #

        So the Federal Reserve Act wasn’t the main play at all? Some people say what you say but say it was right from the beginning. Those are the folks who say England really controls the world. Very unlikely.

        • JimInFlorida July 11, 2017 at 7:32 pm #

          The Federal Reserve was Act II in the play.

          All of the developments in Act I (destruction of the organic Republic) had to be set up to enable the creation of the Federal Reserve. By the way, it also means the original United States of popular myth and lore hasn’t existed since 1860!

          I would say, Act III, came about during the Truman Administration when he signed the National Security Act of 1947 into law.

          Many Acts have been played out since then but, for now, I’d say the Fed Reserve is Act II.

  46. Pucker July 10, 2017 at 7:37 pm #

    I recall that political scientists used to refer to The Overton Window as “The Liberal-Conservative Continuum”?

    For example, if you were a Marxist, then you were simply not part of the discussion since your ideas did not fall within the acceptable purview of thought.

  47. 100th Avatar July 10, 2017 at 7:40 pm #

    “Now, the question of motive. Why does the thinking class in America embrace ideas that are not necessarily, and surely not self-evidently, truthful, and even self-destructive? Because this class is dangerously insecure and perversely needs to insist on being right about its guiding dogmas and shibboleths at all costs.”

    I find that an inordinate amount of left leaning pseudo-intellectuals hold many things in common. They come from middle class or working class backgrounds, they sought refuge in education, they harbor many insecurities over their lower class breeding and compensate for it through intellectually forced empathy. They place an inordinate amount of respect in middle class intellectual status totems’ degrees, pursuits, school rankings and less in professional accomplishment or success. Their is so much insecurity in their low breeding that they need educational accomplishments to mask it. Now, the well bred liberals, they are most often not bright. So strange.

  48. Pucker July 10, 2017 at 7:47 pm #

    My primary source of news and information is the “Gleaner” from Kingston, Jamaica. I read it while smoking a “Spliff” and drinking a “Red Stripe” beer.

  49. michael July 10, 2017 at 7:59 pm #

    The main problem is that the biosphere cannot sustain current consumption patterns. But economic growth requires these to spread even further. If growth stalls for too long debt can no longer be increased leading to a severe economic crisis.

    This crisis and attendant contraction and lowering of living standards
    is actually the only solution. Can you expect the citizens in a democracy
    to voluntarily give up some of their comforts? Try getting them to take cold showers for example, no matter the health benefits.

    The system is now riddled with contradictions without possibility of resolution (more growth desired but less CO2, more people but less water usage, fewer workers but more consumers etc).

    This points to a downward trajectory in a system predicated on the exact opposite. Thus one would expect the process of unravelling to be self reinforcing. But it is very hard to time it right so as to take advantage of it.

    On this blog we are promised that it is imminent. Unfortunately the situation is not that simple.

    • K-Dog July 11, 2017 at 12:53 am #

      “This crisis and attendant contraction and lowering of living standards is actually the only solution.”

      There is another solution. It is called die-off.

      • 100th Avatar July 13, 2017 at 6:05 pm #

        Exactly. Less people. Population management. What, people can’t live with having 2 kids, replacement birth rate?

    • thwack July 11, 2017 at 10:50 am #

      But we can always go back to the moon?

      Just think about all the untapped oil and gas, gold and diamonds… just sitting there useless like a nigger in front of a liquor store?

      Methinks thou doometh too much.

      • JimInFlorida July 11, 2017 at 11:49 am #

        The industrial superpower America that allegedly took us to the Moon has long since disappeared.

        We can’t even build an AM/FM radio in house! A nation of bread, circuses, dead factories, LGBTQxyz freaks, fast food, meth heads, and Common-Core zombies will NEVER get us to the Moon. When Elon Musk’s con game finally runs its course, it will be Russia or nothing to get stuff into orbit.

        Go to the Moon??? People (especially Millennials) have a hard time believing that private aircraft ownership was fairly common in the 1960’s and 1970’s. If you could afford a Cadillac, a brand new four-seater Cessna or Piper was within reach. A century from now, nobody will ever believe that we had airplanes and only TPTB can fly wherever they want.

  50. BackRowHeckler July 10, 2017 at 8:27 pm #

    Good essay Jim.

    What you are talking about has been going on for a long time, however. A few years ago a book appeared called ‘Dupes’, about the thousands of American writers, editors, actors, intellectuals, movie directors, professors, play writes, newspaper columnists, authors, poets and so on, in the 1920s and 40s who were actual communists, communist sympathizers or fellow travelers. Almost all of them thought they were pioneers, harbingers of the future, and they looked to the Soviet union for intellectual sustenance and support. Many of them — John Dos Passos, Granville Hicks, outgrew it, but others, like Dash Hammett, Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman remained true believers until their last days. So you can imagine Hollywood glitterati in opulent mansions in 1937 toasting Comrade Stalin with upturned champaign glasses, on the same night Comrade Stalin was in Moscow signing 30,000 death warrants. These people in their own minds were smarter, more politically attuned, more progressive then anyone else; in reality, they were dupes

    brh

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    • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 8:36 pm #

      Bogart and Bacall went to the trial of the Hollywood Ten to offer moral support. They were stunned at the absolute contempt the defendants (almost all Jews) had for the United States. Shaken they returned home, admitting they were way out of their depth.

      • BackRowHeckler July 10, 2017 at 8:52 pm #

        Turns out the vaunted ‘Hollywood Ten’ were actually taking orders from the Comintern, and everything they said at those hearings was scripted by their NKVD handlers inside the Kremlin.

        Marxist influence in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s is interesting. They weren’t able to get many movies produced supporting the Soviet Union or the Bolsheviks. What they were able to do, however, is prevent movies being made critical of the Soviet Union, the Gulag, repression, mass murder, forced labor, and engineered famine in the Ukraine (5 million dead)

        brh

        • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 9:42 pm #

          Did you get your Russian Gaz Mask yet? Don’t worry: if no attack comes it might still prove useful. You can use it to protect yourself from the smell of cow farts while working in the fields or disciplining your slaves. Or if you possess Yankee Ingenuity, you can adapt it to become a snorkel mask. Or go out with the kids for Halloween with it and get some candy.

          http://superstore.wnd.com/New-Russian-Gas-Masks-New-NBC-Filters-New-Carry-Storage-Totes_2

          • BackRowHeckler July 10, 2017 at 9:45 pm #

            I’m not a prepper.

          • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 10:17 pm #

            Why the hell not? What RIGHT do you have not to be?

        • malthuss July 11, 2017 at 11:32 am #

          or was the killing 25 million?
          I see Hollywood did a film a few years back,

          TRUMBO

          All Regions
          Safe Search: Strict
          Any Time
          Trumbo (2015 film) – Wikipedia
          In 1950, Trumbo serves 11 months in … A certain degree of wit is appropriate in a writer’s … While the film portrays Trumbo as “a New Deal liberal hero …
          [Search domain en.wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumbo_(2015_film)
          Why the lies of ‘Trumbo’ matter – San Francisco Chronicle
          The movie portrays Trumbo and the fellow writers as gentle … Why the lies of ‘Trumbo … Moscow’s ties with Americans during the 1940s and 1950s.

      • janet July 10, 2017 at 9:08 pm #

        Just wait till you see what your saviour Trump has planned.

  51. MrTibbs July 10, 2017 at 9:16 pm #

    WILDFIRE.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RssXNnbdmaw&index=28&list=PLl55Zh3U2VW7YD-JKHT0vYIk1ZCrK7c4-

    -T

    They Call Me Mr. Tibbs.

  52. Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 9:32 pm #

    Why They Hate Us
    by Joseph Sobran

    Western man towers over the rest of the world in ways so
    large as to be almost inexpressible. It’s Western
    exploration, science, and conquest that have revealed the
    world to itself. Other races feel like subjects of Western
    power long after colonialism, imperialism, and slavery have
    disappeared. The charge of racism puzzles whites who feel
    not hostility, but only baffled good will, because they
    don’t grasp what it really means: humiliation. The white
    man presents an image of superiority even when he isn’t
    conscious of it. And superiority excites envy. Destroying
    white civilization is the inmost desire of the league of
    designated victims we call ‘minorities.’

    No truer words were ever spoken. This is basically just as important as the Sermon on the Mount, the Gettysburg Address, or Buddha’s Fire Sermon at Benares.

    • thwack July 10, 2017 at 10:11 pm #

      Now if he could only figure out which bathroom to use

      • Janos Skorenzy July 10, 2017 at 10:19 pm #

        Silence up in the peanut gallery, munky. Don’t make me go up there and thrash you.

      • hmuller July 10, 2017 at 11:12 pm #

        Hey, the trannie bathroom issue was a pet project of Bathhouse Barry from Chicago. You may remember him.

        • BackRowHeckler July 11, 2017 at 12:23 am #

          Tranny Bathroom Movement gaining steam here in the Constitution State, with local colleges and univ. jumping on the bandwagon and leading the charge. Local TV news riding the wave too; get this, whenever this or that school announces Tranny Bathrooms, TV news crew film the blessed event!

          Only problem is, I’m not seeing any Trannies around here in this green valley, which makes me believe they are largely mythical, like unicorns. Where are all these Trannies Democrats are all worked up about? Not in these small towns out here. How come we ain’t seeing any, huh? There’s Hartford and Bridgeport, nasty little cities whos streets are run by Puerto Rican and Black street gangs; these Gangstas might not be too tolerant of some dude with a 5 o’ clock shadow walking around town wearing red pumps, nylon stockings and a blue dress. In fact it might not be a healthy thing to do if you know what I mean. It won’t be a cake walk and the Tranny career might come to a screeching halt without so much as an ‘excuse me, M’am’.

          brh

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 10:05 am #

            Maybe thats because if a tranny looks good enough, you can’t tell its a tranny?

            Just sayin.

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 2:00 pm #

            until its “too late” I should have added

      • jim e July 10, 2017 at 11:18 pm #

        Is it true that Gram Parsons deserves a credit on “Wild Horses”…
        Youno that he liked alabama women too….

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNdQds7v18A

    • seawolf77 July 11, 2017 at 9:02 am #

      Gentlemens. This is bullshit. They hate us because of our freedoms.

    • michael July 12, 2017 at 2:47 pm #

      We are all agreed that the current economic and technological system
      is leading the world to destruction. We are also agreed that it is mostly a product of the western mind, the intelligence of whites.

      So: the product of white intelligence is leading us all toward extinction and this is the proof of white superiority?
      I am still having a little troulbe with this interesting logic.

  53. thwack July 10, 2017 at 11:40 pm #

    Jury Awards $1.26 Million For Dog Shot, Killed By Police Officer

    http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2017/05/10/dog-shot-by-cop/

    Good thing their dog wasn’t black.

  54. Pucker July 10, 2017 at 11:41 pm #

    The gasoline tractor was first employed on US farms around 1910. Robots today are just starting to be rolled out.

    • thwack July 11, 2017 at 9:47 am #

      Manuel laborers?

      • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 11:16 am #

        “Manuel laborers?”

        Yes, Manuel, and his consort, Cuntsuelo….

    • JimInFlorida July 12, 2017 at 5:06 pm #

      The gasoline-powered tractor amplified labor output. It didn’t throw anybody out of work.

      Robots completely displace human workers. Even though robots can eliminate human production error, at some point, the perfection is not worth the destruction of the social fabric – caused by robot-created unemployment.

  55. Pucker July 11, 2017 at 12:11 am #

    Lincoln was a corporate lawyer for Illinois Central railroad. One of the biggest beneficiaries of Lincoln and the Republican Party were the railroads.

    “The federal government began its participation in 1850 by helping the Illinois Central. The real subsidies began, however (as we have already noted), in 1862, as a result of the Civil War, during which it began to seem lawful and natural for Washington to be involved in everything. Lincoln lent $ 65 million directly to the first transcontinental railroad and during the Civil War decade, 1861–70, the government handed over more than 100 million acres as a further direct subsidy. Washington, of course, was not the only source of subsidy. All the states of the South went into the subsidy business in different ways: Texas alone gave the railroads 27 million acres. Up to the beginning of the 1880s, New York State, Illinois, and Missouri, plus local governments, contributed $ 70 million in direct subsidies. Before the Civil War, about 30 percent of the financing of the railroads came from the public; after 1870 the proportion slowly fell but in absolute terms it rose, as the scale and cost of the networking increased. It is calculated that the total direct aid of government to railroads in the years 1861–90 was over $ 350 million. 47 The railroads were subsidized and legally privileged in six ways. First, they got charters (rather like the original banks) from state legislatures, often—it was claimed—in return for free passes handed out to prominent state politicians. Second, they were given special banking privileges to raise money. Third, they got the right of ‘eminent domain,’ in effect the legal ability to make compulsory purchases. Fourth, they were given both state and federal tax exemptions. Fifth, they often secured monopoly protection against competitors. Sixth, further capital was raised by federal, state, county, and municipal subscriptions. In the thirty years after 1861, for instance, national bond loans totaled $ 64.6 million (all repaid). The rails received tariff remissions too. But the most valuable form of government subsidy was undoubtedly the gift of federal lands, made on a prodigious scale. No other corporations in human history have been endowed in such a profligate manner by a paternal government—they were indeed treated as Eldest Sons. 48 The rails got one-fourth of the states of Minnesota and Washington, one-fifth of Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, and Montana, one-seventh of Nebraska, one-eighth of California, and one-ninth of Louisiana. In all 242,000 square miles, a territory larger than Germany or France, was handed over. The biggest recipient was the Northern Pacific with 44 million acres; then came Southern Pacific with 24 million, the Union Pacific with 20 million, and the Santa Fe with 17 million. In addition, individual states donated a total of 55 million acres, bore the cost of surveying in many cases, and contributed to the stock. In New York State alone, for instance, 2,94 cities, towns, and villages contributed $ 30 million, and fifty-one counties gave subsidies as well.”

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  56. Pucker July 11, 2017 at 12:33 am #

    Lincoln was a corporate lawyer for the railroads.

    “Vanderbilt came to see the law as something created in favor of one group of businessmen by manipulating members of state legislatures or paying expensive lawyers to win court decisions. So he learned how to use and bribe judges, to square politicians and even whole state legislatures, and in time how to get aid from the federal government—including entire regiments of marines when he was operating in Latin America. It is important to grasp this point.”

    “A History of the American People”, Paul Johnson

  57. Pucker July 11, 2017 at 12:57 am #

    The Corporate Lawyers leveraged the black man to grab power for corporations and the Oligarchy.

    “The Fourteenth Amendment, Section One, stated, ‘No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States’ and so on, ending ‘nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.’ This amendment was aimed at slavery and designed to protect the blacks. But it was also immediately and very effectively used by corporation lawyers to prevent state legislatures from interfering in business. It became extremely difficult for states to curb business practices they did not like without falling foul of this Constitutional safeguard. That was one reason why President Grant, victor of the Civil War, so quickly got his administration into trouble. Grant, ironically, had been elected by the poorest black voters. His majority over Seymour was only 307,000 out of a total of 5.7 million votes cast, and nearly all the 500,000 negro voters favored Grant.”

  58. dolph9 July 11, 2017 at 6:18 am #

    I’m not white, but the whites I went to school with were dumb as bricks, easily manipulated by tv, movies, preachers, businessmen, military recruiters, etc. to believe they are “the best, number one” even as they are worked to death and sent overseas to die.

    I don’t like the violence of blacks, but blacks have the edge of not caring about the system. Just like the immigrants who are just in it for personal gain.

    • janet July 11, 2017 at 7:10 am #

      Ding ding ding! It is so obvious. “We’re good people because we are easily manipulated”

    • thwack July 11, 2017 at 8:42 am #

      blacks have the edge of not caring about the system. Just like the immigrants who are just in it for personal gain.

      ***************

      And what system might that be?

    • malthuss July 11, 2017 at 11:46 am #

      where did you go to school? Are Punjabis better?

    • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 2:29 pm #

      Once we attain power, you will be sent packing – with honor! Sikhs have their own battles to fight back home, not here. You have to defeat the Hindus and the Muslims and win yourselves a home on plains of Punjab and the Vale of Kashmir.

      • thwack July 12, 2017 at 2:02 pm #

        A person in California told me the Sikhs are the Jews of India.

        Just sayin

  59. FincaInTheMountains July 11, 2017 at 8:05 am #

    Where is the Bormann’s (NSDAP) money – that is the question

    How the cold war turned into Korean, and the Korean war almost turned into the Third World War

    I warn you in advance – this post spells out the essence of our time with a dotted line.

    There is a wonderful, I would even say a brilliant Soviet film – “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, but everyone I know does not want to understand that we all live in this film.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_Moments_of_Spring

    The National Socialist Party of Germany (NSDAP) in the last months of the WWII concludes a separate peace with the United States for a joint war against the USSR. Soviet spy Colonel Isaev, on the instructions of the Center, breaks the negotiations between Himmler and the head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, but as the head of the Gestapo Muller explains to him, he just cleared the way for similar talks between Dulles and the head of the NSDAP Marin Bormann, who keeps the NSDAP treasure.

    The treasure of NSDAP, which plundered the whole of Europe (including Russia) for 15 years, and in the 90s in the person of Helmut Kohl and Gorbachev, also laid hands on the gold reserves of the USSR and Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

    Can anybody imagine what kind of money we are talking about? According to my estimates it is about 25 trillion dollars minimum. That is, it means that the capitalist world in which we live belongs to the NSDAP.

    The NSDAP is a world project, that is, a plan for some kind of reorganization of the world, not just its social organization, but, above all, a change in the relationship between God and man.

    That is, we are dealing with a religious sect, and I can confidently trace the history of this sect to the 11th century, although in fact, perhaps it originated even earlier.

    As a tip, I can say that the history of this sect is easily tracked in the history of architecture, because it has such a wonderful marker as the so-called “westwork – western facade”, consisting of two symmetrical twin towers.
    http://www.arteguias.com/catedral/notredameparis-4.jpg

    And if a history of such a building in the city of New York is researched, it immediately becomes clear that the first victim of the Allan Dulles and Bormann conspiracy was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the leader of another medieval sect, which I call the Western Red Project and which for centuries has been struggling with a Western Black Project, periodically concluding an alliance with it against the Western White Project, whose head was then Winston Churchill.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Twin_Towers-NYC.jpg

    The most interesting thing is that the religious foundation of World War II was perfectly understood by Joseph Stalin and this forced him to abandon the Comintern (Communist International) and try to build the Orthodox International instead, the cornerstone of which was to become Orthodox Greece, where power after the war was to be taken by Communists.

    But Truman in the Union with Great Britain drowned in the blood he Orthodox-Communist Greece, and Stalin answered them in Poland and Berlin, but above all in Korea.

    • thwack July 11, 2017 at 8:46 am #

      The National Socialist Party of Germany (NSDAP) in the last months of the WWII concludes a separate peace with the United States for a joint war against the USSR.

      ***************

      Why didn’t this happen at the beginning of the war when the USSR invaded Poland?

      • FincaInTheMountains July 11, 2017 at 9:17 am #

        Why didn’t this happen at the beginning of the war

        Back then, in 1939 Roosevelt, who was a great anti-Nazi leader, had an upper hand over American Nazi-lovers, and he was actually actively seeking Stalin alliance to oppose Nazi takeover of Europe and the world.

        when the USSR invaded Poland

        When Hitler in 1939 attacked Poland and it became clear that Polish army was going to fold, Stalin had no choice but send Soviet troops to secure at least Eastern part of Poland as a buffer against inevitable Nazi aggression.

        I am pretty sure that it was agreed on with Roosevelt first.

        • thwack July 11, 2017 at 9:52 am #

          But Hitler was only taking the part that was full of ethnic Germans who were being abused, and mistreated by the Poles?

          Why would Roos ally with the Godless communist Russians over the white Christian Germans?

          Seems counter intuitive?

          • FincaInTheMountains July 11, 2017 at 9:56 am #

            I agree.

            A “black” Nazi-lover seems pretty counter intuitive.

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 10:08 am #

            The ethnic Germans in Poland were being treated like niggers.

            Im a nigger lover.

            Do the math faggot.

          • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 11:13 am #

            “Do the math faggot.”

            Well, Finc., you are now in august company…being declared a faggot by Thwack…he certainly seems fixated on the subject of faggotry…maybe on the DL?

            We so-described “faggots” of the readership should gather…flash mob style…and go antique shopping….

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 11:35 am #

            would you rather be a nigger lover?

          • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 2:33 pm #

            Indeed. Why did America fight the Man who was fighting for Western Civilization against the Communists?

            Has there ever been a more confused nation, more dedicated to its own destruction?

            We learned nothing from Slavery at all. Instead we invited a whole new Nation of People (Mexicans) into our Land who also deeply hate us.

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 3:07 pm #

            Janos,

            Mexicans don’t hate “us”, they just hate YOU; and with good reason I might add.

            Don’t get it twisted,

            mmmKay?

          • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 6:46 pm #

            “would you rather be a nigger lover?”

            Thwack…

            I might already be…as I am confused as to my race, I am equally confused regarding my wife’s.

            Should I learn to sleep with one eye open, lest she abscond with my Jordans?

          • thwack July 11, 2017 at 8:21 pm #

            Nawh,

            you’ll find out if you are a nigger lover when they start hanging niggers cause they’ll hang you last.

  60. 100th Avatar July 11, 2017 at 9:09 am #

    The Guardian’s piece on the mass extinction event of the Anthropocene is a huge step in the discussion everyone ignores. “Humanely begin the population shrinkage required…”
    Perhaps the shutters on Overton’s window are being opened.

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    • janet July 11, 2017 at 9:20 am #

      Yeah, like overpopulation, energy, financial collapse, and mass extinction have never been discussed before in the main stream press.

  61. Kevvia Knack July 11, 2017 at 9:50 am #

    The “Overton Window” is an important concept. It’s good to have a name for the phenomenon. Jim should write a book about it. He could really go into detail writing about the stupidity in the mainstream media. Now that he’s self-publishing, why not?

  62. FincaInTheMountains July 11, 2017 at 9:52 am #

    As it turns out, the ONLY reason for the Cold War between United States and Historical Russia (then – Soviet Union) was an alliance struck between the pro-Nazi forces in US and NSDAP of Germany, manifested in CIA conducting a separate peace behind the Roosevelt’s back followed by the murder of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in April of 1945 and pro-Nazi coup of Vice-President Truman.

    The hatred of Nazi all over the world toward historical Russia is explained only by desire to seek a revenge for a crushing defeat Russia (in alliance with Roosevelt America) dealt to the Third Reich.

    What we see today on the pages of NYT, Washington Post, CNN and others is the echo of that hatred.

  63. bob July 11, 2017 at 10:19 am #

    You should investigate Professor Ajit Varki’s work to gain an understanding of our human denial of reality.

  64. volodya July 11, 2017 at 11:33 am #

    Another common theme you hear discussed inside the bounds of the Overton window is the deplorable state of the Deplorables.

    The class of people now derided as “deplorable” weren’t always seen as such. They had the progressive wing of the Democrats speaking up for them and a robust union movement defending their interests. There used to exist a rough societal consensus as to a fair distribution of income and wealth. Non-White Americans, for all the depredations and indignities inflicted on them, were making progress.

    And then, over the years and by degrees, this consensus was torn down. American Oligarchs, with justifications gladly provided by the Intellectual Class and with the administrative exertions of bi-coastal clerisies, threw great swathes of American workers overboard.

    Both the progressive wing of the Intellectual Class and its conservative counter-part justified this gigantic betrayal by characterizing the Deplorables as obese racists and tattooed morons. These people never deserved the incomes they got in the middle decades of the 20th century, their living habits and educational and attitudinal deficiencies indicative of their general unworthiness. By this thinking, an economic re-set was long overdue.

    To the extent that there’s a bit of guilt over this, the Intellectual Class also put out the notion that the backward classes merely “feel” left behind. Or that maybe they WERE “left behind” maybe because of a skills mismatch or maybe because of automation. But this left-behinded-ness was portrayed as an unintended consequence despite all the best intentions otherwise ie too bad, so sad.

    But NEVER do you hear that there was deliberate calculation over the years to achieve the very result of the demolition of worker incomes and wealth for the sake of elite well being.

    Was there a – GASP – conspiracy? You betcha. Conspiracy in full view, American Oligarchs in connivance with multiple presidential administrations, with enthusiastic participation of the Intellectual class and the Deep State, with public discussion, replete with lies and bullshit and fairy tales about how the new schemes for global production would benefit all and sundry.

    Such is the deplorable and lamentable state of public discourse.

    • ozone July 11, 2017 at 12:11 pm #

      Good one, V.
      Setting us deplorables at one another’s throats was also a deliberate calculation by said American Oligarchs to keep us distracted from the massive [legalized] larceny they are gleefully engaged in. …Cigars, Armagnac and expensive whores all ’round! [chortle, guffaw]

      • ozone July 11, 2017 at 12:32 pm #

        (V. …And *Lookee!* Right away, another pretended *issue* for the pretend ‘serious posters’ and blinkered idealogues to battle over pops up. Convenient, no? This would be getting downright comical if it wasn’t so inherently dangerous.)

      • volodya July 11, 2017 at 12:42 pm #

        Mr Ozone, the tribal divide-and-rule strategy has been going on for so long that only the deliberately blind can’t see it. While we’re at the barricades duking it out over washroom rights, they plunder the vaults. So pre-occupied are we that there’s no need even for look-outs, the iron-jawed Machine Gun Kelly is unemployed, an anachronism.

        As you say, if something is illegal, they strive to make it legal. That is, they buy the politicians and the politicians enact laws. And presto. Crime? What crime?

        And if something is merely odious, they strive to make it acceptable. Greed? Greed, unalloyed with some consideration for one’s fellow man used to be unsavory. But that changed didn’t it? Greed, as the cinema character said, is good, greed clarifies, greed cuts through. You saw that movie didn’t you? And, astoundingly, this idea has academic backing. That school of thought won out: the only logical priority for the CEO is shareholder value. And we see the results.

        • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 2:41 pm #

          And because the Elite use race to divide us therefore it doesn’t matter or even exist? That doesn’t follow at all. So facile and cheap. In fact, we were always divided and the Elite used the Blacks to overthrow us. And then suddenly the Civil Rights Laws extended to Hispanics. And then suddenly to Non-White immigrants. And then to illegal immigrants. With this flurry of blows, the Elite pummeled Traditional White America to the ground.

          Ozone’s idea of a color free America of all races getting along is a Leftist/Anarchist chimaera. It has nothing to do with the real world. The Blacks still hate us. And countless Whites have now learned to hate them back – Whites who had previously been on board with hating the South.

          Again I agree with the first proposition: the Elite used Race to hide the expansion of the Class interests. But for the rest, there’s just nothing real there. I’m mostly responding to Ozone – I don’t know if you agree with his enthusiasm for John Lennon and Coca Cola commercial secular theology.

  65. ozone July 11, 2017 at 11:44 am #

    Mr. Kunstler has attempted to interject another perspective (one of a pragmatic realism) into the noise and confusion that passes for ‘enlightened discourse’ that turns out to be little more than misdirection and misinformation, and what does he get? A putrid bog of more misdirection, misinformation and a concerted effort to change the subject by the usual shotgunners. Are you (the collective “you”) getting an inkling of how long the tentacles of the Deep State are and how far they’re willing to go to protect and propagate their power and perqs?

    An actual germane comment I thought damn good was posted by Yuri up above. It goes like this:

    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/good-people-really/#comment-310094

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    • volodya July 11, 2017 at 12:23 pm #

      We have documentary evidence that the Deep State is interested in this site. THAT is indicative of how far they’re willing to go to defend their power.

      Their problem is that the system of production and consumption that they’ve set up is unworkable and so the foundation of their regime is unstable. How far this realization has penetrated the inner sanctums of decision making isn’t yet obvious to me.

      To the more astute and clear-thinking in those halls of power it ought to have been apparent decades ago that the globalist scheme couldn’t possibly work. Yet, for the sake of their own careers, they had to stay silent. But fracture lines are appearing all over the map in the form of Brexit, the National Front and other nationalist movements in Europe and Trump on this side of the pond.

      What I’ve noticed among the highly educated is that they lose themselves in airy abstractions or that they deliberately obscure what to everyone else is plainly evident if only to give themselves the air of great wisdom and perceptiveness. But this means they’re blind to what’s around them.

      This much deplored “populism” is happening because a large swathe of people are hurt by economic schemes designed to enrich the rich. Simple as that. But, as is usual among intellectuals, it’s misperceived or misinterpreted and so this discontent is dismissed by the Intellectual Class as racism and stupidity in action.

      Then again, there have to be those intellectuals that haven’t been educated stupid, that have as yet some ability to think.

      As far as the employees of the Deep State go, they better have figured out that they don’t figure in the plans of the high and mighty when this whole mess goes splat. And so again, the old saying, before you enter the yellow box make sure your exit is clear. I wonder if they’ve thought about their exit.

      • ozone July 11, 2017 at 12:43 pm #

        “As far as the employees of the Deep State go, they better have figured out that they don’t figure in the plans of the high and mighty when this whole mess goes splat. And so again, the old saying, before you enter the yellow box make sure your exit is clear. I wonder if they’ve thought about their exit.”

        V.,
        I seriously doubt they’ve thought about their exit (except in fevered nightmares). They’re [mostly] comfortable and have a steady income for the nonce. Now, what they spend, and what they spend it on, is their own misfortune or competent balance. Save your pennies, bureaucratic Minions; the dollars will take care of themselves!

        • volodya July 11, 2017 at 1:07 pm #

          What makes me laugh Mr Ozone is that the minions think that they have the benefit of anonymity, that no matter the outrages they’ve inflicted, that they’re protected by a cloak of official secrecy. And so nobody will know. Shhh…

          Well, Mr Ozone, for one thing, no matter their viciousness, you have stunningly incompetent bureaucracies in charge of – cough – secrecy.

          For another, the general rule is that when you hear the word “encryption”, you can bet that the information has already been stolen.

          And, oh yeah, wait for it, they’ll say that what was done was “legal” and here’s the piece of paper proving it.

          But Mr Ozone, when the lid comes off, in a time of upheaval, when flying objects fill the air, when filing cabinets get ransacked both literally and figuratively, I doubt that people will much give a fuck about what was “legal”. If something that was “legal” was done to hurt somebody, then there will be a reckoning. See, this is what I would urge the minions to consider, that a lot or maybe most of what they did will become known. Hence, the bit about the yellow box and the exit. Those exits will get crowded and the folks waiting outside the gates aren’t going to be in a mood for legalistic hairsplitting.

          • ozone July 11, 2017 at 8:00 pm #

            V.,
            …In the meantime, they’re hoping to have enough ‘legal’ excuses to persecute enough non-believers to scare the downtrodden majority into acquiescence and silence (your basic collusion by non-opposition). Witness it *once again* right here on this backwater comment board with concerted efforts to bring out prosecutable statements by its posters. It’s what used to be known as self-incrimination. Amazing. (Dumb, shitheaded and the lowest of venality, but still, amazing.)

            In the upshot and downfall, contracts and legalities will be swept away, soooo…. good luck to the rest of us; we’ll need it.

          • ozone July 11, 2017 at 8:02 pm #

            “Legal” harassment and persecution. The dog with the K on his tag knows…

      • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 8:47 pm #

        Ask him if he even believes in borders or the nation state. What the fuck does this guy really believe? Do you know? You hate some of the same things, but that doesn’t mean he shares your vision. By no means. Ax him!

  66. janet July 11, 2017 at 12:07 pm #

    Donald Trump Jr. just released email exchanges about dealings with Russian govt attorney lobbying for removal of sanctions on Russian oligarchs. This proves Trump’s QUID PRO QUO … also called COLLUSION … in soliciting Russian interference in an American election.

    We are now beyond obstruction of justice, we are now into perjury and treason, all confirmed by Donald Trump Jr. and his smoking gun emails confirming Trump criminal seditious behavior.

  67. Precipitous Decline July 11, 2017 at 12:21 pm #

    The Overton window actually explains quite a lot. It explains the disconnect between the stories I hear on NPR and what I really think are the pressing and important problems in the world that we should be worried about. How do we break out of it? How do we get people in our circle to actually take things like peak oil, real economics i.e. the oil (or energy) provides the means for economic growth and without it there will be none, and the fragility of the industrial mega-farm system in most of the developed world. I am the crazy eccentric to anyone I share this stuff with. Yet I see these things hitting us very hard in the next few years and by 2030 I think if one does not have some sort of alternative plan it will be all over. Overton window or have I just not found my tribe?

    • ozone July 11, 2017 at 12:52 pm #

      P.D.,
      Some of your tribe actually do exist right here on this board. Finding them in the “real world” is a bit trickier, as they’ve [wisely] become used to keeping their mouths shut, heads down and powder dry.
      Trust is a hard thing to come by and very easy to lose (as you may have noticed). The time will come when personal demonstrations will mean more than strident mouthings…

      • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 2:45 pm #

        Hate and resentment for those who have more is easily found. But shared Vision is the gold. If you won’t talk, no one will know what you really want. Why would they join with you if you are simply another petty dictator in the making?

      • ozone July 11, 2017 at 8:31 pm #

        …And so, one of the many janeys proceeds with strident mouthings. Could one wish for more revelation?

        • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 8:48 pm #

          You didn’t answer, Zone. Again. You are so weak.

    • janet July 11, 2017 at 1:32 pm #

      PD, your concerns are shared by many. But peak oil, not so much. Hubbert predicted that U.S. production would peak in 1969. Did not happen. For every barrel of oil consumed over the past 35 years, two new barrels have been discovered. And this shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Peak oil has moved to a long time from now. That may be why main stream media don’t talk about peak oil that much.

      • thwack July 11, 2017 at 1:58 pm #

        For every barrel of oil consumed over the past 35 years, two new barrels have been discovered

        ************

        Yeah, and those two new barrels are one part:

        5000 ft below the ocean

        one part trapped in tar sand

        one part in some Godforsaken frozen, arctic part of the world

        one part surrounded by Akbars, Mohommeds, Godless savages of every stripe on permanent warpath…

        In other words, all the good, cheap, easy to reach and refine “low hanging fruit” has been picked clean.

        Whats left is all the difficult, expensive, hard to get oil.

        But don’t worry, we can always go BACK to the moon.

        • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 2:51 pm #

          Yeah, all these Whites who want to jump into oil barrels and then declare themselves Black! They disgust me. What about the poor birds with tarred feathers dying on the beaches? Yet these Black Greens don’t care. Too slick/sick by half.

          Have they ever been cold in their lives? Yet they want to stop the flow of oil and coal? White things like coke and sugar are more fun. But it’s the Black substances that allow our lives to continue on this plane. That’s why the Virgin was painted Black – not because she was a Negro but because she was as one with the Earth and the treasures it contains. Likewise, she is Pure White Light – and all the colors between Black and White.

        • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 6:55 pm #

          Thwack,

          EARTH FIRST!

          …we’ll drill and mine the other planets later….

          • JimInFlorida July 11, 2017 at 7:48 pm #

            Traditionally, with drilling and mining operations come saloons and whorehouses. How else can we recruit laborers to go to the asteroids, Mars, or the moons of Jupiter?

        • JimInFlorida July 11, 2017 at 8:19 pm #

          Go back to the Moon? HA!

          We can’t even build an AM/FM radio in house! A nation of bread, circuses, dead factories, LGBTQxyz freaks, fast food, meth heads, and Common-Core zombies will NEVER get us to the Moon. The industrial superpower America that allegedly took us to the Moon has long since disappeared and its memory desecrated upon the altar of Political Correctness.

          When Elon Musk’s con game finally runs its course, it will be Russia or nothing to get our stuff into orbit.

      • michael July 12, 2017 at 2:42 pm #

        For every barrel of oil consumed over the past 35 years, two new barrels have been discovered — in the period 1940-1975.

        In earnest: where do you have this information from?
        Directly contradicts everything I have ever heard.

        • thwack July 13, 2017 at 6:49 am #

          For every barrel of oil consumed over the past 35 years, two new barrels have been discovered — in the period 1940-1975.

          ***********************
          For planet we’ve landed on over the past 35 years, two new planets have been discovered — in the period 1980-2015

          Get it?

  68. janet July 11, 2017 at 12:22 pm #

    Donald Trump Jr. Was willing to work with a foreign government to undermine the American election. Solicitation by itself is criminal… independent of ootcome.

    Soliciting dirt on Hillary from the Russian attorney who represents 44 of Putin’s oligarch mafia, setting up a meeting with her, is criminal… even if nothing was given by her.

    Mueller is all over this new evidence provided by Trump Jr.

    • janet July 11, 2017 at 12:34 pm #

      Nothing burger … so-called nothing burger… just became Big Mac Cheeseburger collusion sandwich, thanks to EVIDENCE … incriminating evidence provided by Donald Trump Jr releasing his emails proving criminal solicitation / COLLUSION to interfere with an American election.

    • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 11:32 am #

      “Soliciting dirt on Hillary from the Russian attorney”

      Russian Attorney’s real name is…Honey Potski….

  69. 100th Avatar July 11, 2017 at 2:26 pm #

    The MIC needs NATO. The MIC needs NATO in the Ukraine. The MIC needs a foil for NATO, something to make it relevant. They need the Ukraine angle, they need it boiling. Hillary’s State Department was more than on board, it orchestrated tensions, just as the MIC demanded. Who cares what the EU wants, NATO is our device, “F*ck the EU”.

    In comes ole Orange Top. “What the f*** are we doing’ ova there? Why are we paying all of NATO’s bills? Oh, NATO is just a cover for US imperial ambitions and hegemony?’

    The MIC wants someone on board reading from there playbook. Russia doesn’t want NATO over in the Ukraine. Easy. Link Orange Top to Russia and get someone in who will keep the status quo.

    The 4th estate will disperse the MIC’s propaganda.

    Dummies digest it.

  70. capt spaulding July 11, 2017 at 2:38 pm #

    Looks to me like Trump’s boys screwed up. They got their experience playing in New York’s real estate market, & thought that that experience could translate into national politics. What they didn’t understand was that they had been playing class AA ball, which does not translate to the Major Leagues. National politics is a different game, and all of your moves will be observed under a microscope, and the slightest misstep will be noted. Even if it’s reported in the “fake news”, which translates to news which isn’t favorable to me, it will still be seen and noted. By the way, I find it interesting that all of the Trump team appears willing to appear on the “fake news” programs for interviews. Kellyann Conway comes to mind. I will be surprised if these current affairs don’t lead to a political fiasco, which will lead to a further degeneration in the public’s regard for the office of the President, and further distrust of the legislature supposedly acting for the benefit of the citizens of this country. I may be wrong, but I will bet on my prediction. As fa as the right wing goes, spin it any way you want, it’s still bullshit. Time will prove me right. By the way, global warming is a hoax, just listen to Rush if you want to know the REAL truth.

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    • capt spaulding July 11, 2017 at 2:53 pm #

      By the way, Trump asked Putin if he would be interested in joining forces to work on cyber security. He asked Putin if they had interfered in our elections and Putin said no. That’s good enough for me. I think we should share all of our launch codes and the disposition of our military forces with our new super best friends. In the meantime all of us on this website can continue to expound on philosophical differences involving the state of our country. If Rome had an internet, you’d probably see the same kind of shit posted just before the collapse. But hey, charge on.

  71. wm5135 July 11, 2017 at 2:45 pm #

    Please, just pass the paregoric Pall Mall. – Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me

    been working on getting an order of rosin for everyone’s bow.

    thwack – “Whats left is all the difficult, expensive, hard to get oil.”

    Getting the cash to settle to oilfield bonds will be much easier. “Bail em in boys.” As the FED raises the rates and the spreads widen I think we can guess what the next troubled asset will be.

    • thwack July 11, 2017 at 4:36 pm #

      Getting the cash to settle to oilfield bonds will be much easier. “Bail em in boys.” As the FED raises the rates and the spreads widen I think we can guess what the next troubled asset will be.

      ***************

      are you saying we can dodge bullets?

      • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 11:59 pm #

        “are you saying we can dodge bullets?”

        Thwack,

        Nooo, but we are suggesting you should try.

  72. GhostOfHam July 11, 2017 at 2:59 pm #

    They ARE good!

    Good like this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60BYwQ73TBc&ab_channel=JustinLudwig

    “How did the thinking class of America sink into this slough of thoughtlessness? And why – what is motivating them?”

    “….who exactly is in this corps of “respectable people””

    If one watches this documentary, and if one goes to Jan Irvin’s http://www.gnosticmedia.com (and it’s youtube channel) to watch the series of discussions, especially the episodes featuring Steve Ottrim, where quotes from the primary sources’ own spoken words and writings are shown, one of the discoveries and conclusions one may come to understand is that, despite some random feed back loops, what has been happening to us is not completely the result of some series of long-term accidents. It’s not just some bunch of happenstances guided by idiots which dull people were doing just because it seemed like a great idea at the time.

    The old wisdom is that you are NOT supposed to ever be a respecter of Persons.

  73. nsa July 11, 2017 at 3:26 pm #

    HMMMMM……the UN predicts the population of Nigeria alone will be greater than all of Europe by the year 2060. Probably aren’t enough email scams to employ all of them, so guess where they might relocate to. Couldn’t possibly be the area to the north promoting widespread homosex and inclusiveness i.e. lots of empty white wombs to colonize and automatic welfare for all arrivals. Any ideas as to the exact group promoting whitey’s extinction?

    • thwack July 11, 2017 at 4:57 pm #

      Some white scientists had an idea to build a pipe line from the Mediterranean sea to the middle of the Sahara and flood it with water and create an inland African ocean?

      Khadaffi was interested, and based on satalite photos, there was water there in the past….

      Not sure why it was dropped?

      • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 7:01 pm #

        “Not sure why it was dropped?”

        Racism?

      • JimInFlorida July 11, 2017 at 8:04 pm #

        Those “White” scientists were working for the Dark Side. Flooding the Sahara with ocean water would percolate down and destroy the FRESH WATER in the deep aquifer! And Gaddafi knew this.

        Muammar Gaddafi developed the fossil fresh water reserves under the Sahara. There is a grid called the Great Manmade River that pumps up the water and distributes it to the population centers in Libya. It also sent water to the farms, which the Libyan Jamahiriya subsidized to encourage Libyans to take up farming. Thus enabling the country to produce more of its own food. The same Libyan Jamahiriya which provided dividends and benefits that We Teh Serfs could only FANTASIZE about!

        Stuff that only a brutal dictator like Gaddafi would do…

        but ZOG-E.U. (under ZOG Washington’s direction) destroyed it all and gave them our sick joke of “freedom” and “democracy.”

    • malthuss July 11, 2017 at 8:46 pm #

      Kenyas population to double in 18 years?

    • malthuss July 11, 2017 at 9:12 pm #

      while it is true that black people as a group are not very bright there is almost certainly a black guy somewhere who is smarter than you are.

      Per the normal distribution, the chance of a random White being as smart as me is about .004%. The chance of a random African-American being as smart as me is less than 3 in TEN MILLION. That means there might be 12 of them in the entire USA.

      If we take Africa’s average IQ as 70 with a standard deviation of 10.5, that number becomes about 1 in 80 trillion. Of course, we can’t take so heterogenous a population and expect the distribution of any trait to fit a bell curve, but we can be certain that there are whole African countries which have zero natives able to meet the entrance criteria for MENSA.

      • thwack July 11, 2017 at 10:56 pm #

        Ok,

        How high an IQ do you need to know which bathroom to use or to produce children?

        • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 11:23 pm #

          “How high an IQ do you need to know which bathroom to use or to produce children?”

          Thwack,
          I think the real question is how high an IQ you need to NOT produce children….

          • thwack July 12, 2017 at 10:05 am #

            Which is easier

            producing

            or

            NOT producing children?

          • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 11:19 am #

            Thwack,
            We are discussing intelligence…the ability through knowledge and learned experience to avoid unwanted consequences of one’s actions.

            Discussing the “ease” of an action only defines one’s sloth.

          • thwack July 12, 2017 at 12:58 pm #

            How can you have a “learned experience” if you are never born?

            in other words:

            If you don’t eat yer meat, ya can’t have any pudding?

            how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?

        • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 7:20 pm #

          “If you don’t eat yer meat, ya can’t have any pudding?

          how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat”

          Thwack,
          A conundrum for the ages…no wonder you seem confused. Eat your meat…avoid the meat of others…trust me on this….

          Capishe?

  74. Sean Coleman July 11, 2017 at 4:58 pm #

    One of Ireland’s best thinkers (or only thinkers) John Waters talks about this media corruption. The first ten minutes gives a good idea.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxFpb7WnWE&t=3s

    Waters was hounded out of his job as journalist at the elite Irish Times during the build-up to the Gay Marriage referendum.

  75. Pucker July 11, 2017 at 7:02 pm #

    Do you remember the “Sizzler” steakhouse? Cheap steaks, corn on the cob, wagon wheel chandeliers, photos of 19th century Native Americans hanging on the walls.

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    • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 11:27 pm #

      “Do you remember the “Sizzler” steakhouse?”

      Puck,
      What is to remember? There is a “Jizzler” in Coos Bay, Oregon…open 7 days a week.

  76. Pucker July 11, 2017 at 7:23 pm #

    It must be surreal being one of the black “Talented Tenth”, as WEB Dubois called them? More intelligent than most whites; subject to the lunatic “Yankees”; On a “holy mission” to uplift and civilize the other 90% of American blacks who are indifferent, if not recalcitrant, most of whom are dysfunctional and seemingly hell bent on their own destruction.

    • Billy Hill July 11, 2017 at 8:02 pm #

      Puck — you read a lot and maybe you listen to a lot of different music. I was driving to an appointment last week and by chance had tuned in the local 24 hour all-“classical” station down here in Hicksville. As fate would have it the station was fading in and out as a 20th century style piano piece was playing. I was hooked and at the edge of my seat waiting to hear the composer and title. Fortunately it ended while I was on a rise and was informed: George Walker, Piano Sonata No. 1, 1953.

      Google George Walker, composer, pianist. The cat plays his ass off, and writes like a MF’er. Born of immigrants from Jamaica in 1922.

      Frankly, I don’t think he gives a damn.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 8:53 pm #

        He should have stayed in Jamaica and uplifted them then – they need it more than we do. Instead they got Rasta and Rude boy savagery – now spread to North American Cities.

      • Pucker July 11, 2017 at 9:32 pm #

        Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs

    • malthuss July 11, 2017 at 9:08 pm #

      Talented tenth= IQ 90-100. Not smarter than average YT.

      • malthuss July 11, 2017 at 9:10 pm #

        while it is true that black people as a group are not very bright there is almost certainly a black guy somewhere who is smarter than you are.

        Per the normal distribution, the chance of a random White being as smart as me is about .004%. The chance of a random African-American being as smart as me is less than 3 in TEN MILLION. That means there might be 12 of them in the entire USA.

        If we take Africa’s average IQ as 70 with a standard deviation of 10.5, that number becomes about 1 in 80 trillion. Of course, we can’t take so heterogenous a population and expect the distribution of any trait to fit a bell curve, but we can be certain that there are whole African countries which have zero natives able to meet the entrance criteria for MENSA.

        • elysianfield July 11, 2017 at 11:36 pm #

          “Per the normal distribution, the chance of a random White being as smart as me is about .004%”

          (giggle)

        • michael July 13, 2017 at 6:13 pm #

          Given this amazing IQ what accomplishments do you have?

          • thwack July 13, 2017 at 8:25 pm #

            He’s fat?

      • thwack July 12, 2017 at 1:03 pm #

        Talented tenth= IQ 90-100. Not smarter than average YT.

        *************

        No,

        because a black person with a 90-100 IQ has a 90 – 100 IQ while FUNCTIONING as a black person.

        And since its more difficult to be a black person, the black person is actually smarter.

        A black person with an IQ of 100 is equal to a white person with an IQ of 120.

        Just sayin

        • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 2:54 pm #

          So the number doesn’t matter (It’s just a number and Blacks don’t use scales for drug sales), it’s just how difficult things are. By that logic, a mongoloid idiot is the smartest person of all.

          The Wisdom according to Thwack

          • thwack July 12, 2017 at 3:23 pm #

            No,

            its just means if you are I both score 1600 on the SAT; it still means Im smarter than you because I did it while functioning as a nonwhite person in a system of white supremacy.

            As a white person, you had everything made easy for you, no one tried to stop you…

            As a black person, I had to duck and dodge, bob and weave… get around all the roadside bombs you planted…

            Thats why you get that look on your face when the elevator door opens and you see me standing there,

            “going down?”

          • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 7:25 pm #

            Thwack,
            It does not mean you are smarter, but it does mean that you are accorded an accomplishment due to your circumstances.

            On the other hand…

            “White man never get the blues, ’cause he never got nothing to worry about”- Leadbelly (Huddy Ledbetter to the better informed)-“Good Mornin’ Blues”

  77. 100th Avatar July 11, 2017 at 8:05 pm #

    All this talk about Russia influence and the opposing side in this farce goes forgotten. Totally forgotten, ignored, and discounted? What is their interest in all of this? What about their, the Ukrainian, influence? What about Pinchuk’s investments in the Clinton Inc. pay-for-play initiative? To the tine of $30 odd million. What does Ukraine have at stake? An existential quandary will push entities to the extreme in their fight for survival, from swamp spawning bureaucrats to Ukrainian oligarchs all of whom are in it for the money more than anything.

    • Billy Hill July 11, 2017 at 8:32 pm #

      Yeah, I think the Daily Caller posted a piece today about the DNC-Hilary-Ukraine connection with corroboration from Politico if I recall correctly. This is all getting tiresome. Was it Ben Carson at the Prayer Breakfast who pointed out that most Americans commit three felonies per day because of the flatulent corpulence of the US Code? Of course Uncle Ben got audited shortly thereafter by Barry and friends at the IRS, which to my mind is a more egregious abuse than flirting with foreigners. But whatever. If we’re lucky the entire federal population of DC will be indicted for something (Ben’s 3 felonies rule), tried, and sent to jail. Then we can all get about the business of figuring a way out of this mess.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 11, 2017 at 8:55 pm #

      Yes, they demand moral perfection from the Trump team, but they have no morals at all. Ditto for Democrats as a whole. Two solutions: separation or war.

    • 100th Avatar July 11, 2017 at 9:48 pm #

      And how can the US be certain that the EU will remain in its sphere of influence? A crucial step is making sure there is a bogeyman outside the gates, particularly in a place consisting of a largely defenseless continent that has surrendered most of its defense to an entity running under the rubric of a treaty organization. Ostensibly a collaborative effort, NATO is nothing more than the US’s wing enveloping its fledgling client states. Can’t have those birds out flying on their own. The yoke of eternal indebtedness, what two world wars and a cold one gets you, isn’t thrown so easily. Putin,not being agreeable and democratic enough (he has the courage/audacity to drop the pretense of free elections) makes an easy bad guy to present to the western audience, an audience that still clings to the belief that voting every four years is proof enough of a fair and openly democratic system. Russia is the lone obstacle to the globalism agenda. From markets to militaries all leverage has been spent. The Chinese state, the ruling mandarins, allowed themselves to be too intertwined with the west and western markets. They are conjoined despite their absurd and rather pathetic posturing. Dredged sand islands, that’s your play, seriously? Again, Trump comes in to this as some rube. The US has vested immeasurable amounts of money and resources in the past 7 decades or more to bring Russia to heel. It ain’t gonna be abandoned now, and not by some pageant host sniffing out bad deals. His olfactory bulb ain’t strong enough to process this stench, and neither are those of Americans still paying attention.

  78. janet July 11, 2017 at 9:31 pm #

    It’s now established that the Trump campaign was aware of, and involved in, Russian attempts to meddle in the election. The only question now is whether President Trump was personally involved or not. But the question of the campaign’s involvement now appears answered (in the affirmative). For Donald Trump Jr., Manafort, and Kushner, the relevant legal category is conspiracy.

    • DrGonzo July 11, 2017 at 10:36 pm #

      Exactly. Thank you, Janet. I don’t know why JHK is so resistant to the facts as they dribble out. Because he thinks Drumpf is too ETHICAL, or something? Odd.

  79. DrGonzo July 11, 2017 at 10:24 pm #

    What a difference 36 hours of Drumpf Junior revelations makes. Still doubting Russian election interference (your first bullet), JHK?

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  80. Pucker July 11, 2017 at 11:29 pm #

    What ever happened to The Anthony Weiner Laptop?

    • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 12:22 am #

      Whatever happened to “Q”? I’d scan the obits, but I do not know his name….

      • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 1:06 am #

        BRH might know. Q revealed a picture of himself in a newspaper once.

  81. MrTibbs July 12, 2017 at 12:45 am #

    ADD HARTFORD
    ….to the watch list.
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-11/connecticut-capital-hartford-downgraded-junk-sp

    Local levees break when present serving civil service pensions cease, retiree payouts freeze, and law enforcement exits.

    In the old republic, the Congressional Approval of 8 Trillion dollars over the preceding 16 years in expansion of the effective means of destruction allows for a multidimensional game of chance, strategizing, tactics, financing, contracting, manufacturing, employing, deploying, importing, exporting, abstraction, distraction, propaganda, conquest, destruction, death, influence peddling, bribery, extortion, kickbacks, racketeering, treason, sedition, and corruption.

    Y = career politicians x career lobbyists x globalist mainstream media x career unelected Deep State bureaucrats x Hollywood elites x unprosecuted corruption

    “God integrates empirically.”
    – Albert Einstein.

    Y = old republic NETWORK globalism = THE SWAMP.

    In the New Republic, all good people in the arena enjoy resuming the restoration of the Constitutional republic from JFK’s point of interruption, can see for miles and miles, and enjoy Liberty in building out properties and the local means of production, with the capability to sow, nurture, grow, harvest, store, cook, engineer, design, program, automate, construct, process, raise, teach, counsel, hunt, defend, provide, debate, organize, compose, perform, worship, dance, laugh, love, celebrate, and sustain.

    We are the sheepdogs.
    And we are old fashioned and sentimental.
    And we belong to the longest serving Civil Rights organization in the Republic.
    And we don’t require others for border protection or building bridges.
    And members are made by undying love, devotion, and loyalty to the Constitution.
    And we are happy to participate in the proper pursuit and offering of due process under the Constitution to the NETWORK globalist class charlatans who sold out the old republic in their lust for power and the love of money.
    And we are ready for what’s next.

    Sent from the New Republic.

  82. janet July 12, 2017 at 4:40 am #

    Thank you, Dr. Gonzo. The only way to get the truth out of these snakes is to put them in front of a grand jury UNDER OATH. If Donald Trump Jr. changes his story in frontt of a grand jury, the way he has changed his story to the NYT, that will be perjury and he will go to jail.

    • janet July 12, 2017 at 5:55 am #

      ^The only way to get the truth out of thes “high quality” individuals^

  83. StillFarmin July 12, 2017 at 7:41 am #

    Pass the popcorn!

    It’s going to be dismally entertaining, watching Drumpfistas squirm and try to change the subject while the constrictor patiently tightens its grip with every new ego-maniacal squeal, pathological tweet, and nasty vindictive leak.

    Too bad 60m+ could be swindled into thinking these clowns were somehow a better option than the stinky establishment.

    Hint: they’re not.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 1:05 pm #

      The gentle Black peace maker wouldn’t take no for an answer and tried to strong arm her. He didn’t realize Serbians aren’t like White Americans or Western Europeans. He paid dearly for his ignorance, and of course his existential Negro ignorance.

      Drinking at 3 am in a bar in a foreign country should give people pause. Maybe tone it down a little? Be a little more respectful than you usually would be?

      • thwack July 12, 2017 at 3:09 pm #

        How do you know this Janos?

        Taking a selfie with a waitress at a resort is quite common, and waitresses are all too happy to oblige because they know it means a better tip.

        You must not get out much?

        Greece is broke, their economy in shambles after getting raped by the banksters. They love Western tourists because we have hard currency.

        My sister spent two weeks there last year.

        I smell jealous white boys.

        • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 8:30 pm #

          Divine intuition, Thwack. He acted up in the wrong place and time. Bosnia is the new Old South. We’re all Bosnians now – or soon will be. Blacks taught us to hate and you taught us well.

          • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 8:35 pm #

            Serbs that is. Bosnians are Muslims and even more violent than Serbs. Probably like Blacks even less.

          • thwack July 13, 2017 at 7:03 am #

            You think they hate blacks more than you?

          • thwack July 13, 2017 at 4:05 pm #

            CCTV footage outside of the bar

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC8Jv1ev0jU

            Not very detailed but enough to show the victim was running away, chased and caught by a mob.

            In addition, the plot thickens; grape vine says Serbs have “issues” with Americans and Brits?

            Possibly due to the NATO Kosova intervention?

            Location of resort reveals why it may be full of Serbs.

            My suggestion if you are attacked in a private business or public facility?

            NEVER leave the facility or business, even if you are getting your ass kicked.

            REASON: The business or public facility has greater liability than the street; in other words, a specific PERSON is responsible for the safety and security of a business or public facility.

            Once you go outside, they are off the hook.

            And you are on your lonesome.

            Finally,

            when in doubt?

            set off the fire alarm, they are usually clearly defined and accessible.

            If you don’t see one, look up and bang on the nearest sprinkler head. They contain a small fragile glass vial which when cracked activates the sprinkler system, sounds the alarm, and also often automatically calls the fire department.

            If you get killed outside, your killers won’t get this:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihH_-O7ev2o

    • Petro July 12, 2017 at 6:47 pm #

      The smoldering rank gases emanating from The White House for months seem to have turned into exploding flames this week thanks to the idiotic Fredo Trump. But no one should hold their breath waiting for the clever geniuses on this blog to acknowledge it. Nothing will pop the intellectual bubbles they inhabit (while bitching every week about the bubbles others inhabit).

      As best as I can understand, JHK appears to think it’s all either bogus, or exaggerated and not important enough to take our eyes off the real problems. But how might collusion and corrupt relations between the Trump syndicate and Russia affect our ability to address the serious challenges which face us? For many here the answer is: “Who cares? It doesn’t matter. Drop the investigation. He’s being hounded by dark forces.”

      Let’s turn this outlook to the financial meltdown and the big banks. They were treated with kid gloves, no one indicted or prosecuted, and were even bailed out. Our host and commenters here howled (rightly so). I don’t recall reading anyone here saying: “Oh, leave Eric Holder alone. What’s the point of more investigations and going to court? He says there’s no good evidence to go after these banksters. Let’s move on. It’s all just a distraction.”

  84. thwack July 12, 2017 at 7:53 am #

    A confrontation began after Henderson, who was vacationing with friends, asked to take a picture with a waitress, and quickly escalated into a fistfight involving other customers and two bar employees, Greek police spokesman Theodore Chronopoulos told The Washington Post. Video surveillance shows that the 22-year-old recent graduate of the University of Arizona was fatally beaten in a span of just 30 seconds, Chronopoulos said.

    ***********************

    I guess the primitive tribesmen thought the camera was stealing her soul?

    It will be interesting if the details ever come out on the event; but I suspect it will be buried.

    They need to get to the waitress and find out what she says?

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    • thwack July 12, 2017 at 8:33 am #

      Its interesting how the camera is becoming an adjunct to the gun?

      They are mounted and “aimed” all over the place. And if you pull one out and pointed it at someone, they might get angry or violent; this includes the police.

      I predict that in 10 years body cams with be as ubiquitous as smart phones.

      and cars will come equipped standard with factory cams.

      There was some famous photographer who designed or had a camera constructed that shoots sideways. He explained that too many people freeze or mug when they know they are being photographed.

      His mechanism allowed him to photograph people watching him take photos. He said these images were much more authentic.

      Probably saved him from being beaten to death by the local savages too.

    • thwack July 12, 2017 at 1:57 pm #

      Looks like several Serbian guys ganged up on him. Makes perfect sense too.

      There are no black guys in Serbia to blame for all their problems.

      Let me guess, his “friends” were white?

      How do I know?

      They just sat there like bitches.

      (((shaking my head)))

      • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 8:02 pm #

        Thwack,
        Finish this joke;

        Two Serbians and a black dude walk into a bar….

  85. janet July 12, 2017 at 9:36 am #

    Another week has finished and Obamacare remains the law of the land, thanks to our Republican-controlled White House, Republican-controlled Senate, and Republican-controlled House.

    Open enrollment for Obamacare 2018 is set to begin on November 1.

  86. zchomsky July 12, 2017 at 9:38 am #

    While I generally agree with this article, I see the same intellectual blinders on with respect to Islam and world politics.

    First, we acknowledge (don’t we?) that PNAC and various unnamed parties led to 9/11 …a “War on Terror” and campaigns against Iraq and other nations. Hundreds of thousands died. Backlash results. Now we are saying “Islam” – a religion – is to blame. Laugher! Blowback hurts. Surely these countries are not really Islamic but a basket case of rogues, angry dissenters, un-islamic Monacharies and despots. You obviously have not been in touch with any real muslim. The issues are challenging. Obviously the bigger picture “energy” issues are also to blame because the US wants its “energy security” and stability (i.e. we don’t give a damn about the nations we want their oil). Much simpler to talk about a book, steal a passage or two from it, and not listen to any real islamic scholarship. Of course you have to ignore socioeconomic realities too such as if you have hundreds of young people from war torn lands show up in Europe with no employment – guess what thats not a good situation.

    Intellectual blinders, sadly here too.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 1:08 pm #

      These are Muslim countries – violent and ignorant. You’re right that that should be left alone. But you’re wrong to think they’re therefore morally superior. The old Liberal knee jerk.

      You obviously haven’t studied. They are all about conquering the world for Islam as Qutub explained in his book, “Milestones”.

  87. beantownbill. July 12, 2017 at 10:11 am #

    I for one, am sick of all this Trump stuff. And I’m sick of the diversionary stories like Syria and North Korea. In the meantime, super-important issues like overpopulation, destruction of the environment, soil erosion, climate change and a very shaky economy barely get mentioned in the national media and in public discourse. The level of obfuscation has been ratcheted up to insane levels. Speaking of insanity, I’m back to feeling I’m the only non-crazy person left in this psycho world. I

    • malthuss July 12, 2017 at 10:45 am #

      Define ‘Overpopulation’–dummy.
      USA had 180 million people before it was javitsed.

      • malthuss July 12, 2017 at 10:47 am #

        Sweden, with some of the most beautiful women in the world, was Spectered,

        Swedish people leaving Sweden in droves
        http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/03/swedes-leaving-sweden-in-record-numbers-number-1-destination-the-usa/

        • thwack July 12, 2017 at 6:02 pm #

          What is the problem here?

          As long as they are young and hot, Swedish women can go anywhere in the known universe and not only NOT be rejected; but be immediately be ahead of you.

          You would know this if you checked out there selfies.

      • beantownbill. July 12, 2017 at 10:52 am #

        Don’t you have a dictionary? I have a sneaking suspicion it would clear up your confusion.

        • 100th Avatar July 12, 2017 at 11:00 am #

          The Anthropocene extinction event? No worries, we have Mars, and out of an AI summit in Hong Kong, scientists are hoping that AI will soon solve our problems. That’s techno-narcissistic buck passing by the way. Mars and robots. That’s where we’re at.

      • pequiste July 12, 2017 at 12:20 pm #

        Oh Malthuss, I think you have invented a lovely neologism verb with “javitsed.”

        Very much like its cousin “quisling” def: a person who betrays his or her own country by aiding an invading enemy, often serving later in a puppet government; fifth columnist; the only difference would be that Sen. Jacob Javits (D) N.Y. served out his full terms of office with a nice pension and fancy civic center named after him while Vidkun Quisling was executed by firing squad for his collaboration and treason.

        The Hart-Celler Act 1965 was the lynchpin to our current population and demographic clusterfuck.

    • cbeard July 13, 2017 at 10:50 am #

      You are 100% correct on the issues, especially overpopulation. All the political bullshit and televised spectacles are entertainment for the masses.

  88. beantownbill. July 12, 2017 at 10:20 am #

    Sometimes I wish I was a substance abuser so I could drink myself silly or become permanently stoned. But this is just a feeling that I’m not going to act on. I’m too rational, so I’ll just make sure I can lead the best life possible for me without getting myself crazy. But it can be difficult not to get wrapped up in the insanity I’m getting slapped in the face with daily.

    • ozone July 12, 2017 at 10:28 am #

      ” I’m too rational, so I’ll just make sure I can lead the best life possible for me without getting myself crazy.” — BTB

      Beans, I think that’s the most practical way forward (for us as individuals) as well. …Besides, reality is *so* much more interesting and entertaining!

      • beantownbill. July 12, 2017 at 10:57 am #

        Yeah, true.

      • thwack July 12, 2017 at 1:43 pm #

        …Besides, reality is *so* much more interesting and entertaining!

        **************

        No its not.

        Your life is just too easy right now.

        Once your problems grow large enough, you too will start hitting the bottle, and possibly the needle too?

        You are not Jesus Christ.

        • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 7:37 pm #

          “You are not Jesus Christ.”

          Jesus never got the blues, ’cause he never had nothing to worry about. Proves he was white? Listen to Leadbelly, and become enlightened.

          Bean, concerning your angst;

          Embrace the train wreck…this is honest advice…once you understand that you cannot control or in any way influence national events…accept the train wreck, expect the train wreck…love the train wreck. Prepare yourself as best you can and then…enjoy the spectacle. You will develop, as I have, a “curious detachment” to current events.

    • malthuss July 12, 2017 at 10:46 am #

      Some drunks regret getting drunk. Sick to death of alcohol.

  89. ozone July 12, 2017 at 10:21 am #

    “This raises another question: who exactly is in this corps of “respectable people” who set the parameters of acceptable thought [The Overton Window]? Primarily, the mainstream media — The New York Times, The WashPo, CNN, etc. — plus the bureaucratic functionaries of the permanent government bureaucracy, a.k.a. the Deep State, who make and execute policy, along with the universities which educate the “respectable people” (the thinking class) into the prevailing dogmas and shibboleths of the day, and finally the think tanks and foundations that pay professional “experts” to retail their ideas.” — JHK

    A perfect example of this is Sy Hersh’s revelation that heretically counters the “Assad gassed his own people (a la Saddam Hussein)” patented load of hogwash.

    “…the western media were supremely uninterested in the story. Hersh, once considered the journalist’s journalist, went hawking his investigation around the US and UK media to no avail. In the end, he could find a home for his revelations only in Germany, in the publication Welt am Sonntag.” — Jonathan Cook

    First, read about the squelching of a thoroughly damning story:

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/30/after-hersh-investigation-media-connive-in-propaganda-war-on-syria/

    …then read Hersh’s report for yourself (while you still can):

    https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article165905578/Trump-s-Red-Line.html

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    • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 1:12 pm #

      Do you even believe in the Nation State btw? Why don’t you write out a short manifesto of what you do believe in? I’m sure I won’t be the only interested party.

  90. malthuss July 12, 2017 at 10:45 am #

    Sweden cancels largest music festival next year due to rapes and sexual assault.
    http://speisa.com/modules/articles/index.php/item.3903/sweden-s-largest-music-festival-cancelled-next-year.html

    • 100th Avatar July 12, 2017 at 11:04 am #

      You are the dancing queen
      Young and sweet
      Only 17
      Dancing queen
      Feel the hands of the mujahadin

      • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 11:28 am #

        ABBA AKBAR?

  91. volodya July 12, 2017 at 11:59 am #

    We’ve all seen the rituals. Membership in the Inner-Sanctum requires a profession of belief. There are dogmas and the Member must state with a straight face “I believe… ” . There doesn’t have to be any connection to reality, in fact, the more outlandish the statement, the more preposterous the assertion, the better.

    And then the people in the Inner-Sanctum exercise power: they assume threatening poses, they make folks bend, they require them to similarly profess belief, they make them suffer the humiliation of talking nonsense or suffer severe sanction.

    JHK gives us a list of dogmas. In these you must profess belief. The items on the list are known among the unwashed as bullshit. The proponents of this bullshit portray themselves as sane and reasonable and just, and similarly the bullshit they promote.

    Deception is one thing. Self-deception is something else. When those in power believe their own bullshit is when they get into trouble. In order to stay in power they have to deal with reality. And bullshit isn’t reality.

    We all live with bullshit to some extent. We go along to get along, we tell our wives that no, she isn’t getting fat, that yeah, the dish she cooked is really good. The wife for her part pretends that we’re warrior-protectors, she pretends to like the shelves we just put up. Day-to-day bullshit IOW, bullshit we hold our nose to and just get on with.

    But there’s petty bullshit that we pretend to believe to make life grind on. And there’s bullshit that can destroy societies if you actually believe it. The bullshit that JHK lists is the latter. This is delusional, 3D, Technicolor bullshit that the people in power – those same people that tell us that they’re sane, reasonable and just – actually believe.

  92. janet July 12, 2017 at 12:30 pm #

    “The Anthropocene extinction event?” –100th avatar

    Gaia is speaking to us.

    A massive iceberg the size of Delaware has broken free from Antarctica and is floating in the sea.

    Earlier Wednesday, scientists announced that the 6,000-square-kilometer (about 2,300 square miles) iceberg had come loose, after satellites detected it had calved off the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula.

    • thwack July 12, 2017 at 1:08 pm #

      If you paint it black it will die.

      • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 7:40 pm #

        “If you paint it black it will die.”

        If you paint it black it will die…sooner.

  93. janet July 12, 2017 at 1:22 pm #

    Black is Beautiful! Black Lives Matter! Black Icebergs Matter! Gaia is Speaking to Us! The End is Near!

  94. janet July 12, 2017 at 1:30 pm #

    Trump is an illegitimate president. He has stopped functioning as president.

    The evangelical prayer meeting didn’t appear on Trump’s public schedule, which has been devoid of appearances every day this week. He’s due to depart for Paris late Wednesday.

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  95. messianicdruid July 12, 2017 at 1:51 pm #

    “Do the Ten Commandments apply to people in other countries?”

    If they are in covenant with the Creator they apply. If they are in covenant but ignoring [ not teaching ] them, they are perpetrating a fraud.

    • janet July 12, 2017 at 2:07 pm #

      The ten commandments are the old covenant. They are obsolete and have been forsaken by the Creator. You are free to walk about the cabin.

      • messianicdruid July 12, 2017 at 10:23 pm #

        This explains a lot. You are antinomian.

        Have you not read, “I did not come to destroy the Law, but to fufill [ fully practice, fully teach ] it?

        The Law [ covenant ] of Moses was nailed to the cross. God’s commanments, stuatutes and judgements were not. Gen.26:5

  96. capt spaulding July 12, 2017 at 2:48 pm #

    What a relief! I’ve been reading all of the stories & seeing on the news about Donald Jr’s e mails with the Russians, and I became concerned with the apparent attempt to interfere with our upcoming elections. Thank God I had the wisdom to tune in to the Father Coughlin program (some of you may call him Rush). He explained to me that this uproar is just part of a vast conspiracy between the fake media and the Democrats to try to put a negative spin on the goings on between Trump Jr., and the Russians. I have learned over the years that you don’t need to read those pesky books and “fake news” stories to under stand the truth about what’s going on. Between him and Sean Hannity, everything you need to know is revealed. Everything else can be seen on Fox news, and you know they’re FAIR AND BALANCED, hell they even say so, you know, like Putin told Trump that there was no interference in the elections. I remind you, Trump asked him “sternly”, twice. That honest response led Trump to suggest that the US & Russia combine our computer security to combat the bad guys. There is no end to the benefits that can come if we just join up with the Russians, and work for the benefit of the peoples of the world. As Father Coughlin frequently says, “I will tell you all you need to know”.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 2:52 pm #

      Wow, you sell your soul so cheaply. After a year of absolute lies, fury, and vicious innuendo – this is all the media have? What about the overt sins and crimes of the Clintons – that’s the real stuff. But you prefer this?

      • capt spaulding July 12, 2017 at 10:30 pm #

        You assume that because I express dislike for Trump and the others in his billionaires boys club, that somehow I am a fan of the Clintons, which is not the case at all. The Clintons are just wannabe billionaires and move in the same circles as the rest of the Oligarchs. Putin would fit into that cozy little group seamlessly, which is why George W said he could look into his eyes & see his soul. Father Coughlin has many millions as well, & I think that it’s sweet that the little people look up to him for guidance in these “parlous” times. Wash. D.C. is rotten to the core and should be burned to the ground.

        • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:21 am #

          Father Coughlin hated all the right things and people. You are way, way off base. He was silenced for criticizing the monetary policy and the Tribe. Limbaugh? Oh dude……

  97. Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 2:58 pm #

    Where did Weiner put the laptop? Read Papillion to find out. Weiner downloaded the files onto a memory stick. Inserted the stick into his “Plan” (a cylinder some inches long) and then the Plan up and in.

    • capt spaulding July 12, 2017 at 10:11 pm #

      In the joint it’s commonly known as a “kiester stash”. It assumes the role of a safety deposit box for the convict on a budget.

  98. Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 3:01 pm #

    Hang on just a little longer, Puck, she’s almost here. Harmony can hold a conversation and quote Shakespeare. And yes, two more openings besides her mouth.

    https://www.dailystormer.com/rise-of-the-fuckbot/

    Got 15,000? How serious are you?

    • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 7:57 pm #

      Janos,
      Would trying to rent one of the dolls be considered pandering for prostitution? I see parallels here. I expect that the bots will, just as the mainstream job market loses jobs to robotics, put many honest prostitutes out of business, or at least drive down the take home pay to 3rd world levels…hardly will they be able to achieve a living wage. How will their pimps survive? What of the Mack Daddies? The Superfly?

      Talk of “rough beasts slouching towards Bethlehem”….

      These soon to be out of work women will be driven to sell their…oh, Christ.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 12, 2017 at 8:27 pm #

        Yes, how will Thwack survive? It’s takes a lot of start up capital to become a high tech pimp. Perhaps as one of the cleaners of the dolls….

      • thwack July 13, 2017 at 1:06 pm #

        These soon to be out of work women will be driven to sell their…oh, Christ.

        ************************

        All women turn themselves to God once the devil no longer has use for them.

  99. janet July 12, 2017 at 3:20 pm #

    The Constitution grants Congress the ability to impeach and remove “the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States” for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

    But Trump might be concerned about how then-House Minority Leader Gerald Ford summed things up in 1970:

    “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

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  100. janet July 12, 2017 at 5:27 pm #

    There is nothing discussed here which is not also discussed in MSM. Case in point, THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

    Poisoned oceans, financial collapse, mass extinctions, etc. It’s all there in public mainstream media.

  101. Pucker July 12, 2017 at 6:51 pm #

    Probably because of the nature of the plantation economy, the Northern banks and railroads couldn’t take control of the Southern states and grab their assets (land and slaves). (It’s problematic to get an enforceable security interest in a slave.) They needed to smash the slave economy and they found a hammer in Lincoln, a corporate railroad lawyer and a “Free Soiler”. Lincoln was protected by railroad bodyguards, “Pinkertons”. Lincoln was assassinated after they pulled his Pinkerton bodyguards. Lincoln must have gotten too big for his britches and done something to anger the railroads and the banks?

    Railroads transverse state lines; plantations don’t. Thus, the railroads used Lincoln to smash the states.

  102. Pucker July 12, 2017 at 6:59 pm #

    The Yankees were probably Freemasons, who tend to think in terms of “Architecture”? A divided government with strong states rights is a very poor “Architecture” for Yankee railroads, bankers, and industrialists. They used Lincoln and the Civil War to redesign the “Architecture” of the US Government into a “Union”, and later a US Empire.

  103. janet July 12, 2017 at 7:13 pm #

    No Obamacare repeal. No tax reform. Trump has no government experience, no military experience. He is failing.

    “The White House is paralyzed,” a top Republican close to the West Wing told CNN ahead of Trump’s departure to Paris, a withering assessment of an administration whose goals of passing a health care bill, overhauling the tax code and defeating ISIS have been complicated once again.

    “Another week lost,” is how one official described the legislative timeline for Trump and Republicans, an acknowledgment that the latest swirl of Russia developments complicate an already imperiled agenda.

  104. Pucker July 12, 2017 at 8:03 pm #

    Slavery created a terrible misallocation of Capital: the only party who can extract value from a slave is the Master who, in turn, invests his profit in more land and more slaves rather than investing in banks and industry. The slave economy is a bit akin to today’s war economy?

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  105. JackStraw July 12, 2017 at 8:08 pm #

    Fantastic post, Jim.

    One other item I might add to the 2nd list:

    Environmental destruction resulting from unchecked immigration and increasing overpopulation.

  106. plf123 July 12, 2017 at 9:48 pm #

    Jim, society as we knew it growing up, is over with. Nothing is logical or sane anymore. Everything is a fight and a struggle and he said or she said. I guess the bible is right. I hope “The Bible” is not a bad word on your site. It is the only so-called “relic of the past” that makes sense to me. The book is 28% prophecy and lining up perfectly with world events. That religious group in your town may hold some of the answers. Pay them a visit and ask them their views, then it will all start to make sense how intelligent people can be so stupid. Patrick from Saratoga.

    • messianicdruid July 12, 2017 at 10:33 pm #

      “That religious group in your town may hold some of the answers.”

      We all hold some of the answers. Communication requires a two-way exchange [ and a duplication of what was sent ].

      It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, but how many times they hear it.

  107. janet July 12, 2017 at 10:01 pm #

    FoxNews has implicated Mike Pence in meetings with Russians. In 2018, if the Democrats take control of the congress, and both Trump and Pence are impeached and removed from office, we will have our first woman president, PRESIDENT NANCY PELOSI.

    • onehunglo July 13, 2017 at 12:03 am #

      many people here must be rattling on fly zipper, because you eager to give lip.

      how many time shall washed up ACLU lawyer flap gums and utter words without relevance??

      go and produce something of value with what little time remain.

      let not you heart be troubled.

      may God be with you.

      -onehunglo

    • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:51 am #

      She has dementia, just like Hillary. You sure can pick ’em. Why not Pocahontas?

  108. KesaAnna July 12, 2017 at 10:23 pm #

    speaking of dogmatic bubbles people simply cannot think outside of —

    Here , Janos addresses me ;

    ” You cannot save Humanity. Billions are going to die. Deal with it. ”

    As if I were a secularist and an Etatist.

    Never mind that i have , at least three dozen times , described these as loony superstitions .

    But, ok , as far as secularism and Etatism goes ;

    ” You cannot save Humanity. Billions are going to die. ”

    You admitted it yourself. your Fourth Reich won’t avoid that ( not , apparently, that you wish to avoid it ) anymore that Janet’s Star Trek dogma will , anymore than investing in railroads or pedestrian friendly towns will stave off JHK’s secular world being run over by religion like a truck when the average life expectancy goes back to 35 , and death in childbirth goes back to two in three.

    ” Deal with it. ”

    How old are you ? have you ever lived without running water ? Ever cleared a field with a sling or a scythe ?

    Like 99.9 % of the people here, and I’m including the back-to-land nutters , I suspect you don’t know the first fucking thing about living in an agrarian society .
    or , you are too old to deal with it if it ever came to that anyway.
    you would be dead in the first three years.

    I would include in that number JHK . his knowledge of agrarian societies obviously leaves something to be desired , or he is
    consciously ignoring a lot , otherwise he would be pushing religion pretty hard .

    • capt spaulding July 12, 2017 at 10:38 pm #

      Religion & the bible aren’t necessarily the answer. It depends on the mental state of the reader as to how religion should be interpreted. Someone (I forget who) said “If an ass peers into the bible, don’t expect a wise man to look back out”.

      • KesaAnna July 12, 2017 at 10:58 pm #

        the people who gave you the Bible in the first place never said other than that the Bible will bare whatever interpretation you care to give it.

        The past few years they have waffled on that .

        But i doubt many here would genuinely complain about that waffling.

        • KesaAnna July 12, 2017 at 11:11 pm #

          Kinda funny i admit. as one of the first things you learn in RCIA is that Sola Scriptura is heresy.

        • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:41 am #

          Nor did they say it was the whole truth. As if Christ didn’t have disciples who passed down unwritten traditions.

          • JimInFlorida July 13, 2017 at 10:30 am #

            Christ’s teachings had the distinct perfume of Vedic knowledge. Not of Jewish legalism or Talmudic evil.

            One must go outside of the Bible, and even outside of the Abrahamic trilogy (Christianity, Judaism Islam), to find the vastness of God’s Word, as revealed to all the nations of the Earth.

            Vedic India is the best place to start i.e. Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. The Kolbrin (collection of sacred books brought to England by Joseph of Arimithea) parallels Vedic philosophy and adds valuable insight. The visions of Swedenborg fill out the vast treasure of wisdom missing from the Bible.

            Even Jesus Christ said,
            …. the twelve asked of Him the parable. And He said unto them, “Unto YOU it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but unto THEM that are without, all these things are done in parables.

            “That seeing they may see and not perceive. Hearing that they may hear but not understand. Lest at any time they should be converted and their sins should be forgiven.”

      • onehunglo July 13, 2017 at 12:07 am #

        capn stubing, how many drink Isaac serve you ahead of mindless ramble??

        “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” Proverbs 18:2

        let not you heart be troubled.

        may God be with you.

        -onehunglo

    • elysianfield July 12, 2017 at 10:58 pm #

      Kesa,
      I expect my life expectancy with a full-on “zombie apocalypse” to be two months, more or less….

      I am as well equipped to face adversity as any other on the site, but I cannot/will not learn to sleep with one eye open. In the more “exciting” scenarios, to remain vertical would require one to be a predator…MO-bile and HOS-tile.

      • KesaAnna July 12, 2017 at 11:49 pm #

        You live and learn.

        You actually seem to be one of the more reasonable and objective people here .

        Except when i’m suggesting the police institution is a certain kind of organism, given to manifesting certain traits and characteristics , predictably , neither Thomas Jefferson , nor Karl Marx, withstanding.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:28 am #

      Yeah, I’m toast if it all comes down hard. I meditate on my death a lot. Maybe I can strike a blow first, maybe not. May the quality of our departure be a measure of the quality of our lives.

      You will like Flannery O’Connor. You are too angry to be Mother Abagail.

      If Civilization continues, Black Africa must be isolated. Negroes have nothing to offer the World and they have no right to every part of it.

      • thwack July 13, 2017 at 7:11 am #

        What about the white mans air? and the white mans water?

        • thwack July 13, 2017 at 7:12 am #

          also, what about the chinks?

          • JimInFlorida July 13, 2017 at 10:19 am #

            How about the Chingros?

            Chink breeds with Negro and, voila, a Chingro.

          • capt spaulding July 13, 2017 at 11:40 am #

            Wouldn’t they be more correctly called a Chigger?

          • thwack July 13, 2017 at 1:02 pm #

            Choon Crickets

  109. FincaInTheMountains July 13, 2017 at 5:35 am #

    Philosophical Foundations of orthodoxy

    I specially wrote orthodoxy with a small letter, since in this context we are talking about the historical and philosophical category, and not about the Faith and not about the Church.

    The point is that modern philosophy, including Russian religious philosophy, relates indirectly to Christianity and Orthodoxy, primarily in connection with the inadequacy to the Orthodoxy and Christianity of the philosophical language developed in the West to analyze the relationship between Protestants and Catholics.

    And as an example of such inadequacy, I can cite the fact that within the framework of Western religious philosophy the Anglican Church is considered one of the Protestant churches, despite the fact that it has apostolic succession as well as Catholics and Orthodox, and the Church of England is older than the Roman Catholic Church and from the point of view of religious philosophy, the closest in the West to Orthodoxy, called in the West, caesaropapism.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesaropapism

    Trying to formulate Orthodox religious philosophy, I, as an irresponsible blogger, will begin by saying that Orthodoxy is one of the three branches of Abrahamic monotheism, with the other two being ONLY modern Judaism and Islam.

    These three religions in their religious philosophy share the conviction that the world was created by God in its entirety, that is, the Good with the capital letter, which is God by definition, is the only creative force, and the Evil with a capital letter is a purely destructive essence, and can not create anything.

    And man as an image and likeness of God can create with God, and this puts him above not only animals, including rats who are smarter than man, but also above all angels and archangels who know God in person, unlike a man who to see the Divine Light, must Believe. But that’s why the ability of angels to see God is not their merit, and a person seeing God’s Light is creating Good along with God.

    The above paragraph is elementary in terms of its primacy, but very difficult to understand, since man, being the crown of creation, may not see God because of his slavery to sin, the original sin that arose when Adam used the greatest gift of God – his own Free Will or, if you wish, Freedom – in order to go against the Will of God!

    And immediately all his sensory organs (and, accordingly, ours too) have changed so much that he decided to hide from God in the bushes, obviously thinking that if he does not see God anymore, then God will not notice him in the bushes either.

    And the modification of this religious philosophy to Orthodoxy is the realization of the elementary fact that since the Orthodox and Catholic churches do not maintain church relations, Catholics are not Christians for Orthodox Christians and do not belong to the Abrahamic monotheism from the point of view of religious philosophy.
    This is exactly what the primary source of the conflict, and the notorious Filioque is not the cause of the Great Schism, but the litmus test that has revealed it and with God’s help will help overcome it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism

    And this split manifests itself first of all in relation to sexual life, or as they say in the West the Sex, since according to Saint Maximus the Confessor, sex is the agent through which original sin is transmitted from one generation to another. And the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God and consequently of the Sex as such among the Orthodox and Catholics differs to the exact opposite, and leads Catholics beyond the framework of Abrahamic monotheism.

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    • messianicdruid July 13, 2017 at 9:23 am #

      K.I.S.F.

      A man in the crowd said to Jesus, “We have heard of your teachings and that you herald the Rule of God, tell us about this.” Jesus said, “There is the kingdom of the Spirit, and the kingdom of the Flesh. God rules the first Himself, but the second He rules through his viceroy, man. But man tries ti set himself up as an independent ruler, making his own laws and setting aside those of his Sovereign. When the viceroy ceases to rebel and governs in accord with the decrees of the Sovereign, that will be the Rule of God.” The man said, “This teaching is beyond our understanding. We have the law that comes from the mouthpieces of God.” Jesus said, “Of course you have the law, but it is either disobeyed, ignored or circumvented. Therefore, it is nullified and rendered ineffective.”

    • thwack July 13, 2017 at 1:15 pm #

      “Catholics are not Christians for Orthodox Christians and do not belong to the Abrahamic monotheism from the point of view of religious philosophy. ”

      **************************

      Thats because you are overthinking it to death.

      Look,

      its real simple: When the savior came to Earth in the form of Jesus Christ, the Hebes had a simple choice,

      accept him?

      or

      reject him?

      Those who rejected him became Jews.

      Those who accepted him became The Church.

      The rest is history.

      Got it?

      (don’t make me come out the bag on you?)

    • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:24 pm #

      Have the Jews renounced the Talmud? No. Did nice guys like Abraham Heschel and Martin Buber warn us about what their brethren believed about Non-Jews? No.

  110. janet July 13, 2017 at 6:30 am #

    “She has dementia, just like Hillary. You sure can pick ’em. Why not Pocahontas?” — janos

    Not me picking. The Constitution says House Majority Leader is third in line of succession. We are a constitutional republic, so Nancy Pelosi becomes president after Democrats take the house and Trump and Pence are removed.

    • janet July 13, 2017 at 6:40 am #

      Janos, here is how it goes down. Trump hangs in until the 2018 mid-terms with the help of a spineless majority of House and Senate Republicans who care nothing for the good of the country.

      Fortunately for the Democrats, the Republicans’ self-destructive caving to Trump’s ignorance and lunacy hands the Democrats a majority in the House, and perhaps the Senate as well. Pelosi becomes Speaker of the House and the Democrats immediately proceed to impeach both Trump and Pence (who have been implicated in covering up and obstruction of justice throughout the Russia investigation, Flynn escapades, the Comey firing, and probably a dozen more things over the next 15 months).

      With both President and Vice President guilty of felonies, and both ejected simultaneously — who would be appointed president? As 3rd in line, that would be Nancy Pelosi! Halelujah! There is a god, and she is pissed!

    • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:29 pm #

      So we’re not a Democracy today?

  111. janet July 13, 2017 at 6:54 am #

    President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will be “very angry” if Republicans fail to pass health care reform legislation. Ohhh, no ! Widdle boy will be angry… boo hoo. Idiot Republicans had seven years to come up with a replacement to Obamacare and all they could muster is anger. Seven years of bellowing like wounded elephants how ON DAY ONE they were going to repeal Obamacare. Y’all elected a clown celebrity who has no clue how to govern and no clue how to select competent personnel to help him. Trump is destroying the country.

  112. Pucker July 13, 2017 at 7:08 am #

    General Sherman’s view of the South. I wonder found they view us today?

    “Before prescribing a government for these people, he told Halleck, one had to understand the four classes “into which they naturally divided themselves.” There were first of all the large planters, who held a virtual monopoly of political power, and who could possibly be allowed to retain that power once the full significance of their defeat was brought home to them. There was the pro-Union segment of the population, which Sherman held to be of little account. There were the “smaller farmers, mechanics, merchants and laborers,” who made up about threefourths of the white population, a docile, pliable mass who looked to the planters for leadership. Then finally there was a fourth class that Sherman labeled the “young bloods.” The “young bloods” were the flaming youth of the Confederacy, the hard-riding, quick-shooting young men of good family who followed leaders like Jeb Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest and gave the Southern army a cavalry that Sherman frankly admired. Other Union generals also admired the Southern horsemen but did not see them as a class; this was an idea unique to Sherman. These men he regarded as “dangerous subjects in every sense.” If no way could be found to harness and redirect their violent, disruptive inclinations, then “this class of men must all be killed.”

    “Marching Through Georgia”, Lee Kenneth

  113. janet July 13, 2017 at 7:12 am #

    One of the casualties of the first six months of the Trump presidency is a common understanding of what is normal in our politics. It’s easy to grow numb to abnormal actions, words and tactics.

    We’re getting inured to the daily whirlwind. Each day’s jaw drop or outrage seems to be topped by tomorrow’s. Keep your head, even if all about you are losing theirs.

    It’s not normal for the presumptive nominee’s son to take a meeting with a Russian lawyer who claims she has dirt compiled by Russian governmental forces who want to see your guy win.

    It’s not normal for the President to sign off on a public cover-up of that meeting when confronted with the facts.

    It’s not normal for the President to hold a Cabinet meeting that consists of his staff gushing over him.

    It’s not normal for the President to undermine his West Wing staff by continually asking friends and visitors for their opinions on various replacement options.

    It’s not normal for the President to make a deal with his Russian counterpart for an “impenetrable Cyber Security unit,” let his Treasury Secretary out on a Sunday show to enthusiastically defend the idea, then pull the plug that night after ridicule from fellow Republicans.

    It’s not normal for the President to interrupt his day to watch the press briefing on TV, and critiquing the answers à la “SportsCenter.”

    It’s not normal for the President to obsess about cable-news coverage of himself, and instantly react to stories before checking the specifics.

    It’s not normal for the President to irritate and offend key allies by failing to re-articulate the country’s devotion to their alliance, only to offer the reassurance weeks later, after the damage is done.

    It’s not normal for the President to publicly criticize the mayor of London on the basis of flawed facts, right after a terror attack that killed seven.

    It’s not normal for the President to attack TV news hosts by name, including a personal attack on a woman’s intellect and appearance.

    It’s not normal for both the president and vice-president to be impeached and removed from office after the midterm elections.

    PRESIDENT NANCY PELOSI 2018

  114. janet July 13, 2017 at 7:23 am #

    The blackmail factor: Trumpworld’s Russia lies are a major risk to national security. The Russians know the truth and Trump knows they know.

    Fortunately, we have Mueller, a competetent Republican law enforcement guy, on the case. By now he probably knows what the Russians are up to, and the extent of Trump’s treasonous collusion with Russia. His case against Trump will be airtight.

    President Nancy Pelosi 2018

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  115. janet July 13, 2017 at 7:37 am #

    Think of what we already knew even before the release of the new Trump Jr. emails. An array of Trump campaign and White House aides like Manafort, Kushner, then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions had undisclosed meetings with either actual Russian officials or purportedly private citizens with close ties to Putin. The Trump aides lied about them, again and again and again. Mueller is now looking into whether those dealings broke the law.

    The president himself has publicly disparaged the US intelligence community, continually praised Putin as a strong leader, talked of lifting the sanctions imposed on Russia for its misdeeds in Russia and Syria, weakened Washington’s historic commitment to NATO, and made clear that Putin would pay no real price for his election interference.

    To top it off, Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey in May after Comey refused to drop the FBI investigation into Flynn. That move prompted Mueller’s appointment as special counsel and led to an ongoing criminal investigation into whether the president himself obstructed justice. Trump has since mused about firing Mueller too, and some legal scholars believe he could preemptively pardon Flynn, Kushner, or other aides before charges were even brought, let alone after potential convictions.

    Russia, in other words, has been the dark cloud hanging over Trump since the campaign, when his pro-Putin rhetoric first began attracting public notice. That cloud has just gotten much darker.

    It’s hard to imagine clearer evidence of collusion.

    I can feel it in the air: President Nancy Pelosi 2018

  116. BackRowHeckler July 13, 2017 at 9:45 am #

    “Gaia is speaking to us” — Little Jane

    I think you’re right about that, Little Jane

    Women around the homestead here in a period of high strangeness and weird rituals, the lot of them suddenly taking up Yoga. Yesterday they drove down to this Sunflower Farm in another part of the state for some sort of Women’s Spiritual Awakening, probably more yoga and nature worship mixed up with the latest feminist screeds, i don’t know. But I’m laying low right now and so are the nephews and sons in law.

    Meanwhile, we have this leftover keg of beer — iced up — and leftover steaks from the July 4 party last week … these broads are missing out, and missing out big time.

    brh

    • JimInFlorida July 13, 2017 at 10:10 am #

      MGTOW Is Freedom. Men Going Their Own Way.

      Lots of great channels on YouTube that cover the subject.

      MGTOW’s don’t lay low.

      Marriage is a death trap for men. Take the Red Pill and give it to your sons-in-law and nephews.

      https://youtu.be/1pCHZuErZCM

      The only “Awakening” a woman is entitled to is to wake me with a BJ and then fix me breakfast while I get cleaned up and dressed.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:03 pm #

        Yes, the writer Samuel Becket was in love with his cousin (such romances were accepted back then). She was from a rich family while he was impoverished. She was beautiful, knew it and enjoyed leading him a wild goose chaste through the capitals of Europe. He was in agony and while she may have let herself be captured at some point, in the meantime she was having a lot of fun at his expense. He came to a crisis and realized: she isn’t worth it – no one is. He found a down to earth woman who met his needs and that was that. The cousin was crushed and the extended family outraged on her behalf.

        Many men have come to such a point and asked the terrible question: how does she add to my life? Or does she? A good woman makes your dick hard, not your life. Someone who is pleasant and practical may be worth making a life with. Needless to say, woman are “educated” now to be neither.

        • thwack July 13, 2017 at 2:28 pm #

          Whatever…

          I’ll keep whichever one will hide a gun for me

          (without first peppering me with 50 questions)

          • 100th Avatar July 13, 2017 at 3:40 pm #

            Oh DannyBoy

  117. 100th Avatar July 13, 2017 at 10:49 am #

    Existential panic ensues after giant iceberg calving. Endless news stories documenting the purported effects of sea level rise. NY, San Fran, LA, amongst others. The horror of the silver lining. Time to go throw another tire on the fire.

  118. SomeoneInAsia July 13, 2017 at 11:34 am #

    QUOTE: ***Here is a partial list of the current dogmas and shibboleths inside today’s Overton Bubble:

    Western Civilization is a malign force in human history.*** (End of quote.)

    With all due respect for Kunstler, I don’t see how it counts as dogma rather than plain historical fact that in the past four or five centuries the people of the West have repeatedly made things very difficult for much of the rest of humanity. All respectable texts on history bear witness to this. Even today America has continued this great tradition. William Blum said as much. Then there’s the coming Long Emergency, concerning which I’d like to know (1) if there’s anything else brought about by man that matches it in its scale of destruction and (2) if it could ever have come about had it not been for Western ‘civilization’.

    It’s true the West has come up with a lot of wonderful things in its history. (I love Bach’s music, for example.) But when you weigh the wonderful and the terrible things against each other, in which direction will the balance swing? Don’t forget that the Long Emergency will be precisely one of these terrible things.

    I wouldn’t be so crazy as to think that every white man (and woman) is an epitome of wickedness. I’m sure most Westerners (the 99%, that is, and excluding the sociopaths) just want to live a happy and fulfilling life. Heck, I’ve personally known several Caucasian guys and gals, and they were absolutely wonderful people. What piques my understanding is how, with all those wonderful people, the West could still have given rise to all the terrible things mentioned before. Couldn’t the miscreants in the West who brought about those things — the 1%, I take it — have been stopped by the good guys (and gals)? One would have thought the democratic spirit was something in the blood of all true and worthy heirs of this civilization, as has been repeatedly claimed. Well, perhaps this claim is yet another part of the Overton Window.

    Sorry, but I just had to get all this off my chest when I read the above blog. You can choose to agree or disagree with whatever I’ve said, and it’s just not going to matter to me anymore in view of the giant shithole we’re all headed towards now. That’s the sorry state of affairs in which we’re all stuck. One thing’s for sure: come the Long Emergency, we Asians (after enduring a long period of extreme hardship, no doubt) will eventually see through the false promises offered by the whole modern industrial racket erected by the West, and leave it behind as we chart out for ourselves a new path based on the beliefs and convictions found in our own cultural heritage rather than someone else’s.

    (I’m NOT a Muslim, by the way. Concerning Islam, I agree with basically everything Kunstler says.)

    • volodya July 13, 2017 at 11:55 am #

      The bitchers and complainers about the misbehaving West have got a selective view of history. For long stretches of time Europe was under assault from Asia, from both Muslim and non-Muslim.

      There’s nothing whatsoever unique about the West and its imperial expansions. Peoples that deplore the West should look at their own past before pointing the finger. China, for example, didn’t get to be a continent-sized entity with subjugated ethnic minorities within its own borders through a benign policy of live and let live.

      • thwack July 13, 2017 at 12:53 pm #

        What IS unique about The West and its imperial expansions is the way they base everything on COLOR.

        When Haile Selassie went to the League of Nations for help countering the Italian invasion of Abyssinia; specifically the Italian use of poison gas,

        The West just sat there

        stone faced and silent?

        A Christian Kingdom that held out alone against the Muslims for almost 2000 years; but “the west” couldn’t be bothered to rein in one of its own.

        “misbehaving?”

        LOL

        When your daughter gets raped, murdered and dumped off a bridge, lets see if YOU call that “misbehaving?”

        • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:07 pm #

          A valid point I’d say. The Italians felt terrible about not having an Empire like other European nations. The had Empire envy and wanted to get one ASAP.

    • Billy Hill July 13, 2017 at 1:15 pm #

      Someone — one explanation of the great divergence between East and West can be found in a Ted talk by Niall Ferguson: The 6 Killer Apps of Prosperity. Ferguson also believes this divergence is coming to an end in our time.

      He has some revealing data in chart form comparing GDP from roughly 1500 to the present. In 1500 the average Chinese was wealthier than the average European.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:19 pm #

        “Coming to an end” – as if it just happened. This is like the feminine, “found myself doing”. The West has been murdered by its own Elite. They should pay for this.

        • Billy Hill July 13, 2017 at 2:08 pm #

          He doesn’t believe it inevitable nor the necessary path of all civilizations.

          He focuses on work ethic (one of the killer apps) as an example: the yearly hours worked by South Koreans versus Germans. (1000 hour differential as of 2011). Related is a bar chart comparison of math proficiency among 15 year olds; Shanghai Chinese are as far ahead of the USA and the UK as they are ahead of Albania and Tunisia.

          Yeah I suppose a case could be made that the Eite control of government schools has dumbed down the coming generations. Elite Hollywood propaganda has normalized what used to be labeled deviancy.

          The part of me that believes in individual responsibility (and strict parenting) rebels at this. We should be stronger and not eat of the forbidden fruit.

    • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:17 pm #

      Why did Columbus seek a Western passage to India? Because Islam had us hemmed in. For a thousand years they had been larger and more powerful, almost conquering us again and again. Columbus was a Crusader – he was seeking allies against them.

      How about the Mongols? I’m reading a book about them: the first modern army, their tactics studied by Napoleon and Gustavus Adolphus and everyone after them. They slaughtered the Western Knights easily, riding around them, shooting their horses and then knocking the knights over with their lances. They sat on the Russian people for centuries and would have conquered all of Europe if they were not recalled back to Mongolia, never to return. They also conquered China, much of India, and much of Islam. They were defeated by the Egyptian Mamelukes, elite Slave Soldiers like the later Turkish Janissaries.

      We had a good five hundred years. Now we have self destructed under the reign of Niceness or Liberalism. Think whoever comes next will be any better? Doubt it. The World IS War. You don’t get that, do you?

      • thwack July 13, 2017 at 1:54 pm #

        Nawh, you give Columbus too much undeserved nobility. That ni66a was lookin for a way to get cheap spices for his food.

        Let me tell you, as someone who is so broke Ive been forced onto the gorilla diet, and the Viet Cong diet…

        spices make all the difference in to world to your daily single bowl of swill.

        Pepper, tumeric, paprika, ginger…. you too would be willing to sail off the edge of the world for this stuff if you had to eat the same thing everyday.

        Just sayin

      • Billy Hill July 13, 2017 at 2:16 pm #

        Who, me?

        Life is war writ any size font you wish. Whether amoeba or nation-state, both metabolize and both reproduce. Or die.

      • 100th Avatar July 13, 2017 at 3:36 pm #

        Life is war. The first breath is a gift, every one following is fought for. Welcome to Gaia.

      • JimInFlorida July 13, 2017 at 3:40 pm #

        For the first time in many centuries, the world will be bereft of Anglo leadership. It won’t be as when Britain retired and gave the scepter to the U.S.A.

        It won’t even be as when White Europe took turns ruling the globe at various times.

        For the sake of the PC goddesses and non-cisgendered deities, we have committed suicide and the world will have a new ruler unlike any that we’ve known over the past 500 years.

        The Chinese Dragon will rule by default and it won’t be pleasant for the anomic and decadent West.

        The great tragedy is that it didn’t have to happen. The seeds of our destruction were not congenital to Western Civilization but, were planted by an alien 3rd Party. THOSE who preserved the evil they learned in Babylon and have served the Synagogue of Satan ever since.

  119. Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 1:36 pm #

    Brought down from above. A rain of mercy from the heavens.

    So any psychometrician, psychologist, or geneticist (like Nobel price winner James Watson) who writes anything you don’t like about race and IQ is a “KKK Nerd”? That’s a lot of people Tenney, a lot of people smarter than you. If you care to look into it, the results have been the same for over a hundred years, ever since the creation of the IQ test. But of course if you looked into, then you would have to become what you hate (a KKK Nerd) so you prefer your ignorance.

    A Clown has an essential tragic dignity because of his humanity. You have abdicated this. And you aren’t a good chimp either: they can’t help being what they are and didn’t choose it. In and of themselves, despite how they seem to us or what we make them, they have an animal dignity. You are neither wolf nor dog. And no, don’t try putting a clown suit over chimp hide – that will just make it worse. You could change your name as a first step: Tenney sounds so gay.

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    • capt spaulding July 13, 2017 at 3:08 pm #

      Janos, you’re on here way too much to pretend that you have a life anywhere else. That’s OK, however, everyone needs an outlet to express their feelings. If you had any friends, you could express your thoughts to them. In lieu of that, you find yourself confined to the internet, where you can barge in anytime. You would not find yourself at my table. You are crippled by your self imposed ideas (I phrased that using a fascist type mode of expression so you would understand it). No doubt you will have a reply 5 minutes after I post this, and that’s fine. I expect nothing less.

      • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 7:55 pm #

        Why the ire? I wasn’t talking to you. Oh I get it: it’s because I told the truth about how ridiculous your comparison between Limbaugh and Father Coughlin is. Coughlin was a very sound man. But preaching against usury is too radical nowadays and he was silenced by a corrupt Vatican seeking “peace” with the dark powers of this world.

        And btw, the sins of the Trump Clan are very small compared to that of the Clinton Cabal. Try to get some sense of proportion, ok?

  120. volodya July 13, 2017 at 1:43 pm #

    Imperial expansion based on color? Get off it Thwack. You forget GREED! Gold! Silver! Land! Prestige!

    Why do you think the Romans were so hungry to get the middle east? it was the prospect of trade routes to India and all its spice and bounty! Roman trading ships made it to Vietnam according to old Chinese records. Chinese warships intercepted them and took them to see the emperor. Business Thwack, BUSINESS! It ain’t all just racism at work.

  121. wm5135 July 13, 2017 at 1:52 pm #

    The little dog laughed to see such fun, and the dish ran away with the spoon!

    • janet July 13, 2017 at 2:14 pm #

      Row, row, row your boat, gently

  122. janet July 13, 2017 at 2:40 pm #

    “mixed up with the latest feminist screeds, i don’t know.” –brh

    Thanks for that honesty, brh. No, you don’t know what we feminists are up to. When you figure it out, you will like it. The spirit of Andrea lives!

    • JimInFlorida July 13, 2017 at 3:29 pm #

      The giant wall painting of Andrea D. on your office wall is possessed!

      Her eyes glare down, upon the campus quad, as students walk by. The college males all know not to walk by janet’s office when the drapes are open!

  123. malthuss July 13, 2017 at 3:50 pm #

    A couple of years ago in Boston, a huge mainline water pipe broke out in Weston, Mass.

    This pipe brings all the water into Boston and some other towns. Probably 100+ years ago, they had the smarts to know they needed a water supply. They took 3 small towns out in Western Mass. Paid them for their property and kicked them out.

    Then they flooded the area w/ water which is the Quabbin Reservoir. http://www.wcvb.com/article/mwra-water-main-break-triggers-state-of-emergency/8158787

    Well, this pipe broke and there was no water. There were stories on the radio of people having fist fights in the supermarket over the last bottle of water. So if we have a “depression” all hell will break lose.

    There was a senior citizen who needed to take her meds w/ water who lived in, I kid you not…….Watertown, Mass. Watertown had no emergency plans in place for disaster. There is no crime there either. They just like to give out traffic tickets to keep their budget from being cut. Well, she walked across the border to Belmont (think Mitt Romney’s town). They asked her for ID. They told her she couldn’t have water because she wasn’t a Belmont resident. She was “livid” and was telling the media, “They told me I couldn’t have water. This is America !”?

    • thwack July 13, 2017 at 4:11 pm #

      What col; er, ah…

      *cough*

      how tall was she?

      Not that it matters or anything…

      just sayin

      • elysianfield July 13, 2017 at 11:07 pm #

        “how tall was she?”

        Thwack,
        I have it on good authority that, while her height was not recorded, it was noted that she had legs all the way up to her ass….

        just visualizing’

  124. FincaInTheMountains July 13, 2017 at 4:56 pm #

    covfefe

    I do not know the cosmic name of God that goes like COVFEFE, but there is something in it, since I come across that hashtag regularly, and contrary to my free will, when I start to fall asleep without finishing a post and go into the alternative state of consciousness that obviously helps me to come into contact with the higher powers of our Universe.

    What reminds me of how bravely Donald Trump fights with the Fourth Power of the United States, which decided to become the First Power or even the only one. He hoped that, having become the president of the United States, he would convince journalists to refrain from the very frenzied lies about him. Yeah, right!

    Then he banned them from the White House press conferences, and they told him that without them he would not be able to deliver his decisions to the Americans.

    Trump fired up like an old trusted Olds and began to bring his point of view to Americans through the Twitter, and a sudden jump in popularity of his blog occurred when he had a hashtag covfefe, apparently also one of the cosmic names of God with which Trump contacted in a similar way, finishing the post at three in the morning.

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  125. Pucker July 13, 2017 at 4:56 pm #

    General Sherman and General Grant were good friends. Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln seemed to share certain views, in particular, a belief in the Union (“Order”), and the nexus of corporate and state power, etc.

    General William Tecumseh Sherman:

    “Many of the general’s political and social views would today be labeled both fascist and racist. He was a strong friend of order; indeed his most recent biographer sees this as Sherman’s most significant trait. He felt blacks were inferior, and he had no use for abolitionists who would improve their lot. Before the outbreak of war he had expressed his opinion that Southern whites and blacks would have to continue a master-servant relationship, for if equality reigned between the two races the result would be “amalgamation,” which he associated with decline; he saw proof of this very danger in the chaotic state of Mexico, whose misfortunes he traced to the intermarriage of Spaniards with the indigenous population.”

    “Marching Through Georgia”, Lee Kenneth

    • Janos Skorenzy July 13, 2017 at 7:57 pm #

      Wise words from the giant killah.

  126. Pucker July 13, 2017 at 5:49 pm #

    The “Young Bloods” must have been like “The Dukes of Hazzard”?

    General Sherman’s view of the South:

    “Before prescribing a government for these people, he told Halleck, one had to understand the four classes “into which they naturally divided themselves.” There were first of all the large planters, who held a virtual monopoly of political power, and who could possibly be allowed to retain that power once the full significance of their defeat was brought home to them. There was the pro-Union segment of the population, which Sherman held to be of little account. There were the “smaller farmers, mechanics, merchants and laborers,” who made up about threefourths of the white population, a docile, pliable mass who looked to the planters for leadership. Then finally there was a fourth class that Sherman labeled the “young bloods.” The “young bloods” were the flaming youth of the Confederacy, the hard-riding, quick-shooting young men of good family who followed leaders like Jeb Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest and gave the Southern army a cavalry that Sherman frankly admired. Other Union generals also admired the Southern horsemen but did not see them as a class; this was an idea unique to Sherman. These men he regarded as “dangerous subjects in every sense.” If no way could be found to harness and redirect their violent, disruptive inclinations, then “this class of men must all be killed.”

    “Marching Through Georgia”, Lee Kenneth

  127. Pucker July 13, 2017 at 6:04 pm #

    I think that General Sherman may have advocated the use of “Shock & Awe” techniques during his March through Georgia as a method to pacify the Confederate rebellion? This may have been a precedent justification for the Yankees’ decision to drop The Bomb on Hiroshima?

  128. FincaInTheMountains July 14, 2017 at 5:18 am #

    Trump’s cutting off the flow of laundered IMF money from Ukraine to Clintons

    Few days after Trump’s meeting with Putin and official visit of Rex Tillerson to Kiev the American-controlled Ukrainian media began to promote the story of number of Ukrainian commercial banks laundering the IMF money received through the National Bank of Ukraine.

    According to the media, in this criminal scheme took part such banks as Tavrika, Pivdenkombank, Avtokrazbank, Misk Commercial Bank (Converse Bank), Finrostbank, Terra Bank, Kiivska Rus, Vernum Bank, Credit Dnipro, Delta Bank.

    Funds were withdrawn from the country through the Austrian bank Meinl Bank AG.

    That is, the “best” part of the banking system of Ukraine was used purposefully and systematically in the laundering operation. Naturally, such actions could not occur without sanction from above. And, of course, the “above” refers not to the head of the Central Bank of Gontarev or Prime Minister Groisman (the Poroshenko crew).

    However, the goal of this operation is not Poroshenko at all – everything is clear with him, but much larger game – Hillary Clinton.

    The fact is that the whole criminal chain leads to the Austrian bank Meinl Bank AG. And this “unknown bank”, it turns out, is closely connected with Kuchma’s son-in-law Victor Pinchuk, who, in turn, was one of the largest foreign sponsors of the Clinton family fund.

    • FincaInTheMountains July 14, 2017 at 5:27 am #

      On July 12, three EU countries (Germany, France and Holland) opposed the possibility of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.

      Before the beginning of Ukraine-EU meeting – this is a pretty unpleasant surprise for Kiev. And Europeans can be understood: in the conditions of the upcoming riot of Eastern Europe, to appoint themselves to be nursing the Kiev regime, into which no matter how much money you inject, nothing is enough, will be the height of idiocy.

    • FincaInTheMountains July 14, 2017 at 7:48 am #

      Did Ukraine try to interfere in the 2016 election on Clinton’s behalf?

      http://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-ukraine-try-to-interfere-in-the-2016-election/

      Poor America! Everybody but the lazy are fucking with Jeffersonian Democracy!

  129. FincaInTheMountains July 14, 2017 at 5:32 am #

    Israelis are sticking Soros’ head up his own ass

    Israel backs Hungary, says financier Soros is a threat

    JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s foreign ministry has issued a statement denouncing U.S. billionaire George Soros, a move that appeared designed to align Israel more closely with Hungary ahead of a visit to Budapest next week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-hungary-soros-idUSKBN19V1J4

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    • JimInFlorida July 14, 2017 at 6:36 am #

      This is only temporary and for appearances. Satan does not cast out Satan. He might wear two Zionist hand puppets and have one say to the other, “Thou Jew!”

      After the visit to Budapest, the Israeli foreign ministry will quietly restore Soros as a member of The Tribe in good standing.

      • FincaInTheMountains July 14, 2017 at 7:51 am #

        Rationale of anti-semites is the rationale of a bull with a red rag before his muzzle.

      • janet July 14, 2017 at 7:57 am #

        In your antisemitic worldview this was not supposed to happen.

  130. janet July 14, 2017 at 8:22 am #

    MAGIC WINS, COAL LOSES

    For months, politicians [CFN] and fossil fuel industry have lied about the viability of renewables. Now Tesla’s big battery in South Australia will prove them wrong

    Elon Musk’s agreement to build the world’s largest battery for South Australia isn’t just an extraordinary technological breakthrough that signs coal’s death warrant. It’s potentially a game changer in the way we do politics, reinserting the importance of basic reality into a debate which has been bereft of it for too long.

    Renewable energy, which obviously wins on emissions, is now beating coal on cost. What’s more, with an energy grid managed effectively by people who want renewables to succeed, it is no less reliable than fossil fuels.

    Elon Musk’s big battery brings reality crashing into a post-truth world
    by Tim Hollo

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/07/elon-musks-big-battery-brings-reality-crashing-into-a-post-truth-world

    • JimInFlorida July 14, 2017 at 9:25 am #

      janet, you dumb whore.

      A battery is an ENERGY STORAGE DEVICE. It does NOT generate power!!! It discharges power that was fed into it from another source.

      What energy source will enable the manufacture of the materials to make the Big Battery?
      What energy source will power the factory to build the battery?
      What energy source will give the battery its first charge?

      COAL or some other high energy source. In all fairness, such alternative energy sources can be used as SUPPLEMENTAL POWER in regions where solar and wind are abundant.

      If Elon the ConMan makes a giant Lithium Ion battery system, where will the Lithium come from? Hint. Politically unstable countries.

      Can Lithium Ion batteries be rebuilt or recycled? Technically yes but, it’s not feasible. ONLY good ol’ Lead-Acid batteries can be rebuilt and recycled economically. Plus the technology has decades of maturity built in. A vital consideration as we approach the World Made By Hand.

  131. ozone July 14, 2017 at 9:27 am #

    To those who don’t seem to get the sarcasm of JHK’s title for this current communique, let’s put the horseshit aside for one brief moment and examine one [of the many] troubles that afflict this benighted land as a result of simply not paying attention:

    “When language is in the hands of Humpty Dumpty and what it means is only what he says it means, the syntax of idiocy and illiteracy do the job as well as the syntax of coherent meaning.

    That world of the governed was already there before Trump arrived. He arrived because it was already there. The only wonder is that it took so long for our post-truth world to birth a President Trump, whose confusing of fact and fiction, spectacle and society seem sui generis, a kind of pathological narcissism setting him apart from the shaping influence of a society arriving at this stage on its own.

    A cultural narcissism proceeds from a fixation on a personal autonomy unchecked by an outside world and therefore spinning reality and truth from its own navel. What results is a clashing confusion of what we personally believe is true and real and what the world shows us is the case. Our own fictionalizing precedes any outside indifference, any obstructions to our own mythmaking, which makes, for instance, global warming science an obstruction to personal fictionalizing as to what we personally feel is “really going on.”

    The nature of the governed is actually a bi-furcated nature, not only red and blue and gentrified and ungentrified but pre-post-truth, if this phrase can stand, and post-truth.” — Joseph Natoli

    The old saw of, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”, is not just saying, “So there; nyah!”. The smoking of a pipe “in olden times” was a pause for reflection and rumination, so in just that sense I say, think carefully about Mr. Natoli has written; put it in your pipe and smoke it.

    • ozone July 14, 2017 at 9:35 am #

      My proofreader has resigned, so to be clearer, I suppose I should change a particularly tortured phrase into this snippet:

      …examine one trouble that afflicts this benighted land…

      (I believe we already know that there are many troubles.)

  132. janet July 15, 2017 at 8:03 am #

    Following a revelation this week about emails between Donald Trump Jr. and a business associate who helped arrange a meeting with a Kremlin-connected pro-Russian oligarch lawyer and a Russian ex-KGB agent (ex?), conservative Krauthammer wrote that the “evidence is now shown.”

    “This is not hearsay, not fake news, not unsourced leaks,” Krauthammer wrote. “This is an email chain released by Donald Trump Jr. himself.”

    Conservatives are waking up!

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