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All of a sudden, events are looking a bit fluxy out there, as though the world is shuddering through some spooky ch-ch-ch-changes, like a monster waiting to be born, with strange convergences of ecology, politics and economy, and there’s only so much you can do to prepare, really. Criticality is in the air!

The horses are out of the barn on the Wuhan Coronavirus. Air travel was curtailed too late in the game — and still only partially — with asymptomatic-but-infectious human carriers winging to every corner of the world and probably contaminating airports all along the way. There’s plenty of thought and counter-thought on what exactly is going on behind the scenes in China. The ruling party has knocked itself out demonstrating its earnestness in the crisis, performing great feats like the construction of a one-thousand-bed hospital in ten days, shutting down the lunar new year festivities (like cancelling Christmas here), and locking down a hundred million citizens in quarantine. Pretty impressive.

But there’s also a theory that the Coronavirus affords a cover for cascading failures in China’s corrupt and shifty banking system. The country had already stepped across some frontiers in demographics, energy consumption, and industrial growth that were shoving it toward contraction for the first time in two generations. Coronavirus has shut down a lot of production in big things like cars and big-little things like cell phones, and supply lines are shutting down to world markets. This amounts to the first big test of the integrated global economy, as well as the world’s debt-saturated business model.

When a lot of parties and counterparties can’t pay each other because their revenue flows are cut off, the securities, currencies, equities, and other abstract representations of wealth go south. The US and Europe are no better positioned for a crisis in their banking arrangements, and confidence is starting to crack. Both economic mega-regions have relied on central banking hocus-pocus to prop up stock markets and maintain the illusion that the logic of bonds still applies. The first thing to go moneywise in a contracting financial system is the magic of compound interest.

The US Federal Reserve has been massively gaming the Repo markets — overnight lending that uses bonds as collateral — since September, raising suspicions that more than one of its “primary dealer” banks are insolvent. Juicing them with “liquidity” is like painting over sheetrock infested with black mold. Looks good for a week or so, and then you’re in intensive care. Nobody knows yet what the effect of Britain’s escape from the EU will do to the Union’s remainers, but Europe’s bonded debt arrangements are even dodgier than America’s, since there is absolutely no EU central control of each member’s fiscal affairs. Anyway, the meta-trend now is the devolution of governance from giant-and-central to smaller-and-local, so the real question is how much disorder and damage do these nations endure as that happens. It’s been manifesting vividly in France for a year in the yellow vest protests.

Here in the USA, the knock-on effects of converging crises begin to look like a game of four-dimensional eight-ball. The oil markets are getting slammed around the $51 hashmark, making it more difficult for the shale oil producers to meet their onerous debt repayments (in an industry that just doesn’t make a profit). Lower gasoline prices may seem like a boon for US motorists, but it comes at the expense of bankrupting more oil companies and punishing lenders like pension funds that invested in shale securities in the desperate search for “yield.” Shale never was a rational business model despite its fabulous production surge in a very short span of years. Don’t be surprised if there’s an attempt to nationalize it, which will induce new problems of capital allocation and sheer incompetence in a world where central planning of anything is more and more a bad bet.

Looming and converging multiple crises are also behind the gross disorder in US politics, though the connections may not be so discernably visible. President Trump foolishly took credit for financial markets that he had correctly described as being “one big, fat, ugly bubble,” back in the febrile days of the last election. Now it threatens to leave him holding a big fat ugly bag of trouble. That booby trap is surely more hazardous to his reelection chances than the frenetic efforts of pissants like Adam Schiff running Wile E. Coyote ambuscades in the DC Swamp. Mr. Trump spent three years working, jawboning, and bluffing over global trade arrangements that are now suddenly falling apart. How much of that will turn out to be a temporary effect of the Coronavirus, nobody knows. Or maybe it’s an inflection point in the workings of our over-hyper-complexified human ecosystem.

These shifting quandaries leave the Democratic Party between that ol’ rock and a hard place. All of their bad faith ploys against Mr. Trump have failed so far. I speak to supposedly educated people every day upon whom the failure of the Mueller Investigation, the fiasco of impeachment, and the revelations of IG Michael Horowitz have made no impression at all. The Golden Golem of Greatness is still Putin’s Puppet to them. It’s a wonder of the age that they can’t cut their losses. And now Bernie Sanders suddenly looks poised to win the Iowa caucus and inflame the not-quite-so-socialist factions of the party, who appear to be ratcheting up some Wile E. Coyote traps against him. If that works, it’ll blow the party apart, 1860 style, into rump factions. But if Bernie  somehow perseveres and gets the nomination… and the Potemkin financial markets tank… and Coronavirus turns out to be a very big deal for upsetting global trade… then, America may get its first zealous socialist president.

Yes, history repeats and rhymes and all that, but I don’t see Bernie replicating the triumphs of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Great Depression 2.0. Rather, by attempting to overlay command-and-control policies on a zeitgeist that wants to take us smaller and local, Bernie Sanders will only be bucking reality. The net effect of Bernie Sanders in the White House will be to finish off the economy… and imagine where that will take us.


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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.

876 Responses to “Crisis-O-Rama”

  1. malthuss February 3, 2020 at 10:13 am #

    Look toward the east,

    Shanghai stock market was limit down 10% at one point even with short selling ban.
    the entire index limit down.

    • Daddyotis February 3, 2020 at 10:52 am #

      But the US markets are all up over 1% as I write this (WAY over for the NASDAQ). Go figure.

      It’s all a game. Once the blood has been fully squeezed from this stone, the major players will see that it (and the rest of us) are crushed into sand.

      Prepare accordingly.

  2. newworld February 3, 2020 at 10:21 am #

    It really is something when middling IQ folk can glom onto a conspiracy theory as whacked at the Putin Puppet scam. As of 9AM CDT the Dow our measure of Imperial Greatness is up 300 points, my guess the Dow is the port in a storm.

    I was hoping for some pithy commentary on the Superbowl and its donkey show halftime act. And non-Americans want to send their money here, now there is a joke.

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 10:25 am #

      the 2 Latino Chiquita singers are both middle age.

      • newworld February 3, 2020 at 11:02 am #

        And want to look “whiter”, and complain about another conspiracy theory “white supremacy” or whatever inflates their floaties, total joke.

        Does the D-party even have an adult section anymore? When I used to read Daily Kos it was obvious the Left had a small contingent that provided a semblance of sanity to the narrative, but since the rise of Twitter I have a suspicion that was all washed away.

        • lbs February 3, 2020 at 11:28 am #

          The antiwar faction of the left is still semi-sane. Jimmy Dore, Krystal Ball (The Hill program Rising), Matt Taibbi.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 3, 2020 at 12:21 pm #

            My homies.

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:56 am #

            I’ve just started “Hate Inc” Mr Taibbi’s most recent. Recommended, so far. But I’ve never read a Taibbi I’ve not liked.

            IBS, how did you like “Insane Clown President”?

        • WayfaringStranger February 3, 2020 at 5:04 pm #

          The idea that anyone wants to look whiter escapes me.

          re: Daily Kos. It was all hyper-control and actual echo-chambers (like they called the back channel groups “echo chambers” in their conversations) already back then. You joined *and repeated* the strategist-approved narratives or you were squashed. The Kos conventions were lefty-Davos bullshit. Astro-turf existed in fact before astroturf existed as a term.
          In the early days humans functioned as the algorithms. Clicks got more clicks, trackbacks, links, all of that raised your rank for search engines. Lefty link lists in sidebars excluded independent thinkers and most importantly – those on the left who would dare to criticize the left. At all.
          It was easier (and more rational and justified) for the public to have faith in the Dems overall when it was Dick Cheney we were looking at. When Russ Feingold was the only guy who read the PATRIOT Act. Before Obama. I suppose in a way it’s nice when a black man can actively model to goofballs who think that POCs are somehow innately pure, that shittiness happens independent of melanin, but besides that, Obama raising hopes and then fucking them all hard was a blow from which people will not recover. Most people who believed don’t even fully admit what a blow that was to this day.
          Twitter is solid evil, but its elements were hard-wired in the mass of participants before it arrived on the scene. When Facebook was still just for individual college units politicians already had stiffies over how they could capture the potential of that crap for their own gain. Leaving the kids alone was never an option.
          Another thing – hate (and I mean fuckin’ hatred) for the working class, and rural/small town people, non-college educated people was intense. I realized over years some of that was driven by psychological aspects, but overall it was because they had already committed to screwing over those people with NAFTA and all that China outsource bullshit, the killing of the family farms, all of it.
          So in order to be able to look themselves in the mirror they had to demonize the people they were killing. Establish an accepted shared narrative that they were “to dumb to vote for their own interests” (that was the phrase back then) and now of course the same kind of “nice, moral, educated” person, in an era of dwindling prospects and security, are fighting for the shrinking pile of crumbs, and have decided who the losers will be, and it won’t be them. The other guys HAVE to be bad. Or else…They are themselves.

    • shotho February 3, 2020 at 10:45 am #

      Now, there’s a crisis for you.

      • stelmosfire February 3, 2020 at 10:49 am #

        I watched only halftime. I was wondering why the PR flag took center stage. You gotta admit, “Jenny from the Block” looks good for over 50.

        • ellipsis February 3, 2020 at 11:03 am #

          Yes, her soft core porn act was quite stimulating. I’m thinking of the rear view bent over crotch shots in which her panties (or replicas thereof) made an apparently “tasteful” appearance. Quite amazing where they’re taking things these days.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 3, 2020 at 12:33 pm #

            Quite an improvement over the old days, in my opinion. You know, the good old days when sex was taboo and child rape by family members and priests was commonplace, but never talked about (because it was taboo!).

            Sigmund Freud was so close to pulling aside the veil, early in his career. He had women on the couch telling him the truth about what their fathers did to them, making the connections with the issues that had gone on to plague them their entire lives. Freud trembled on the precipice of speaking openly about this commonplace trauma… and lost his nerve. Instead he would obfuscate the real issue with ‘penis envy’ and all the rest of it.

            Anyway, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira shaking their rumps seems to me like a huge improvement over bear-baiting, public executions and other popular entertainments of years past. But maybe I’m a minority.

          • ellipsis February 3, 2020 at 12:57 pm #

            A tad ironic that in the era of #metoo all this #fuckmerightnow stuff is going on at the same time. Talk about mixed messages.

          • BornToKillPeace February 3, 2020 at 4:47 pm #

            “A tad ironic that in the era of #metoo all this #fuckmerightnow stuff is going on at the same time. Talk about mixed messages.”

            The signs from up high to down low suggest this is the point. To confuse, enrage, divide; leading up to the flash point.

            One ironic example; feminists take to twitter the most fervently. We then get a twitter President.

            In the paraphrased words of another fine author by the name of James (Ellroy), “This is a great culture to completely ignore.”

    • Daddyotis February 3, 2020 at 10:58 am #

      Speaking of donkey halftime shows, in the coliseum circuses in the later part of the Roman Empire, one of the fun things the ringmasters thought up was to tie down a female Christian (or some such) in the center of the ring and allow a donkey loose to have its way with her. I shudder at the evil of it, but that sort of thing was as common and accepted as our circuses (ie: sportsball tournements) and halftimes are today.

      I wonder when our current society will revert back to the original circuses for the entertainment of its masses? Sort of like gleefully imagining conservatives being forced into gulags.

      • ellipsis February 3, 2020 at 11:04 am #

        Can’t imagine we’re far off.

    • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 11:13 am #

      All that was missing from the halftime show was Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke showing the kiddies what makes the economy run.

      # (pound)metoo

    • butter56 February 3, 2020 at 1:19 pm #

      On the half time show, I’ve heard better singing by my church choir and better dancing at my local strip club

      • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 7:12 pm #

        “Best halftime show ever.” Jeb Bush

    • elysianfield February 3, 2020 at 1:46 pm #

      Newworld,.

      Once was a big fan…seen every S-Bowl since 1967…even owned a SB IX Super bowl ring. First year ever I never even tuned in for a second…not even for the commercials.

      I…I have a bad attitude….

      • ellipsis February 3, 2020 at 3:28 pm #

        You didn’t miss much. I turned it off in the 3rd qtr. Going for cold turkey next year for sure. Think I’ll consign football to the recycle bin with the rest of the ball sports I ever paid attention to. The hype surrounding the event and the sport in general has reached totally ludicrous proportions.

      • benr February 3, 2020 at 4:37 pm #

        Watched zero season, zero play offs and barely paid attention to the stupid bowl.
        The commercials for the most part were a waste of time as well.
        Half time show was soft porn and terrible music a reflection of a society in complete free fall to the sewer.

      • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 7:08 pm #

        I gave up football this year too. It was like losing a useless family member. 4th quarter heroics are an oxymoron to a stable genius like me.

    • SpeedyBB February 5, 2020 at 9:32 pm #

      “…non-Americans want to send their money here…” would be funny if it were not so sad and potentially catastrophic. The image of the USA as a bulwark of stability, prosperity and opportunity is holding up amazingly strongly thanks to a tyrannical global media barrage and seemingly invincible petro-dollar.

      Meanwhile, if you want to see where the “smart money” (read = offshore Chinese dough) is headed check out LORDS OF THE RIM. The late Sterling Seagrave and his wife were brave and brilliant researchers and writers. The book is a bit dated but the fundamentals have not changed.

      Singapore continues with a frenetic building boom (mostly high-rise apartment towers) – one assumes it is mostly PRC flight capital that is fleeing to this region. Hong Kong shekels are pouring in as well.

      It is all based on ignorance: Singapore is a tiny island of five million souls and could not defend itself if its big entitled neighbors got really nutty with religion and decided to lean on it. Smart Singaporeans compensate by heavy investment in Thailand, Vietnam and (especially) Indonesia, hoping that by linking up they can forestall annihilation. Kind of a chancy bet when religion fizzes up the mix.

      Westerners are likely beginning to face the brutal reality of NO BOLTHOLES. Asians not at all, thanks to global media delusions. When it all falls apart like a rotten paper bag in a flood there will be huge amazement in this part of the world.

  3. thenuttyneutron February 3, 2020 at 10:23 am #

    I wish we had actual numbers that we could trust on how many have been infected by the Wuhan virus and how many have died.

    I don’t trust anything reported by the PRC.

    • neon sky February 3, 2020 at 10:31 am #

      Try this. An interesting perspective on the early days of the pandemic:

      http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/

    • lbs February 3, 2020 at 11:26 am #

      Yes. Doctors get in trouble with the law in China if they spread the news to their friends and family about what’s really going on.

      To me the great sources for China news are China Uncensored and ADV Podcasts.

  4. Htruth February 3, 2020 at 10:28 am #

    Coronavirus eating live mice and bats: https://youtu.be/myHCdK9OMec

  5. City_of_76 February 3, 2020 at 10:29 am #

    Jim writes, “Criticality is in the air!”

    Yup, we’ve heard that one before. Maybe it’s time we all agree that none of us knows what the fuck is going to happen.

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    • ellipsis February 3, 2020 at 3:31 pm #

      I think most here agree, however, that whatever it is, it’s going to be bad. That seems to be a constant these days.

  6. venuspluto67 February 3, 2020 at 10:31 am #

    Well, I would rather have somebody like Bernie Sanders in charge of the country as it faces a true series of crises than any of the Captain-Queeg-type figures who would likely be in charge instead of him.

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 10:46 am #

      Just what we need. A fifty year Communist promoting independent jerk running the country during an extreme change period. He has zero experience handling anything consequential. All he has done is run for office to promote his socialist programs. Not a good choice.

      • lbs February 3, 2020 at 11:24 am #

        Plus, with his age and tendency to acquiesce to bullies, AOC will be the real power behind the throne in a Sanders administration.

        • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 12:25 pm #

          Thanks to the MSM, she has already ousted Pelosi as the leader of the House.

        • Beryl of Oyl February 3, 2020 at 1:03 pm #

          AOC isn’t the power behind AOC.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 3, 2020 at 10:37 pm #

            That’s for sure. But who has her strings?

        • Janos Skorenzy February 3, 2020 at 10:39 pm #

          Yes, we need cartoons of AOC nursing Baby Bernie. Will Playboy rise to the occasion? Doubt it – too PC now

    • benr February 3, 2020 at 10:48 am #

      Bernard has spent more money on private jets than all the other Democrat wanna be Presidents.
      You know Mr. pretend greenie weenie fossil fuels are causing global warming himself.
      They hypocrisy is simply to much.

      https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bernie-sanders-outspent-rivals-on-private-jets-at-1-2m-late-last-year

      Its so bad an ex Clinton staffer is lampooning him for it.

      • Walter B February 3, 2020 at 11:30 am #

        Perhaps Hillary Rodan Clinton will skewer Bend over Bernie once more just for good luck.

        • Beryl of Oyl February 3, 2020 at 1:09 pm #

          The Democrats will have the nominee the Democrats want.
          They are rigging the contest now, to take care of the threat Bernie poses.
          Suddenly the rules change (sound familiar?) and Michael Bloomberg qualifies for the debates.

          John Kerry is so incensed at the idea of communist Bernie dragging the party down (as if it wasn’t already in the sewer), he’s tweeting out the F word.
          As a not really Democrat, Bernie qualifies as an outsider. The Democrats are already dealing with one outsider who intends on exposing the whole Ukraine racket (which Kerry also has kin involved in), they can’t have another.

          • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 4:09 pm #

            Don’t count Bloomberg out.

            It will be interesting at the convention in Milwaukee if the delegate count is manipulated and the nomination is snatched away from Sanders and handed to Bloomberg. Bernie’s Bros will be far from happy, and may take to the streets.

            Brh

    • Daddyotis February 3, 2020 at 11:00 am #

      Rather have Trump, thanks.

    • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 11:17 am #

      I still think Bernie could have done some good in another life. Had he not caved to Clinton and the corporate Resistance folks, I could have conceived of voting for him. I probably would have.

      But not now. Based on the above as well as some of the policy positions he voiced in the aftermath, no sane indy could vote him in.

  7. sprawlcapital February 3, 2020 at 10:36 am #

    In recent days we have heard from numerous sources that the coronavirus could trigger an economic crisis. Thanks Jim, for giving us details as to how that could happen.

  8. Pucker February 3, 2020 at 10:39 am #

    I arrived in the US yesterday from Hong Kong. Basically, no protective measures are being taken at the US airport. They only asked me if I had been to “China” recently. They probably won’t be able to stop it as the virus is highly contagious before, during, and after symptoms. Even after the subject “recovers”, he/ she can still transmit the virus. A friend had a much more rigorous inspection entering Australia. Australia advises self-quarantine for 14 days. I’ll self-quarantine here in the US for 6 days as the German case study suggests that it lies dormant for 3 – 4 days. I have a small fridge and a microwave in my hotel room. I’ll wear a mask to the supermarket today and stock up on food.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8lZAMQ8kpjk

  9. shotho February 3, 2020 at 10:43 am #

    And yet, for me, the essential problem is still the character of the American people in general. Crises come and go, but it’s how those effected respond that tells the tale of what happens next. With an absolute dumbing down of the people over the last 2-3 generations, intellectually, morally and physically, we can expect nothing in the way of a hopeful response to the ‘crises’ soon to beset us.

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 10:50 am #

      Hopeful Response?

      With the success of the stupidification of America by the Democrats, the response to the oncoming crisis will be simple, lots of people are going to die.
      Maybe because the AGW wing of the Dems want it that way?

    • Pucker February 3, 2020 at 10:50 am #

      I got the impression at the US airport upon arrival yesterday that the CBP officers were just blindly implementing the new rules, but with the minimum effort and inconvenience to themselves. Bureaucracy….

    • lbs February 3, 2020 at 11:22 am #

      And now Sanders and his ilk want the government to fully fund the dumbing down of American youth.

      • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 12:23 pm #

        And our educators too.

  10. stelmosfire February 3, 2020 at 10:43 am #

    “The horses are out of the barn on the Wuhan Coronavirus”
    or shall we say ” Charlie is in the wire!” I was watching planes on Flightaware a couple days ago and 747’s from the Peoples Republic were landing in the USA every hour, a couple in Boston within an hour. Now we have a case of “The Wuhan” in Boston. Where did the other 500 people in the metal tube disperse to?

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  11. Pucker February 3, 2020 at 10:46 am #

    It looks like the Fa L…un Go…ng may be a homegrown, indigenous Chinese millenarian cult. Their thinking seems basically involve ancestor worship. They seem to believe in Ancient Chinese spirits and in reincarnation: The ancient Chinese spirits bestowed Chinese traditional morality upon Man and that Morality is necessary for People to exist as people on this Earth (rather than to degenerate “Huihuai” into evil com…munists born of “Hate” “Chou Hen” and to cultivate themselves in order to progress spiritually in the Spirit Realm. They maintain that the Ancient Chinese Spirits are very angry at the CC…P for trying to expunge traditional Chinese culture. They believe that the C…..CP (and Com…munism generally) at a spiritual level is an “Evil Spirit” “Xie Ling” and the “Red Demon” “Hong Mo” which purpose is to deprive Mankind of Morality and to Exterminate “Hui Mie” Mankind. It was kind of creepy reading it on the plane with everyone freaking out over this apparently pandemic virus breaking out all over China, which would appear to the Fa L…un Go..ng people as fulfillment of “Prophecy”. They believe that the C…CP’s primeval spirit was a snake that evolved via Hate into the “Red Dragon”. I read that the pandemic virus probably came from a snake and/ or a bat) that was bioengineered by C,,C.P mad scientists. Creepy….

  12. Goodwalkspoiled February 3, 2020 at 10:53 am #

    Yes, the plague might just be China’s great purgative. Agree they might be using the virus as a smoke screen for economic and market turmoil. Central control is their game. Don’t believe a word of the media reporting out of China. It’s like CNN and MSNBC on steriods. Their daily stats and talking points come directly from the central committee. It would make Joe Stalin blush, and Mao would love it. He’d infect all resistance, and let them die off. Great cover for a purge of epic proportions. Also helps control the population. Reducing by 1/3 may be their target.

    • lbs February 3, 2020 at 11:21 am #

      Right. CNN and MSNBC just play “propaganda ministry for tinhorn dictatorship” on TV. Chinese media are paid by their government to do it. CNN and MSNBC are amateurs, the Chinese media are professionals.

      • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 12:18 pm #

        Something struck me reading this.

        CNN and the rest of the MSM represent a segment of our society. It is the power driven gang that are members of a minority group. They cannot get what they want as they are not the majority. They use the public forum to mouth off their frustrations from their lack of true power. Think about who you see on CNN, or MSNBC. It is pretty obvious.

        • CancelMyCard February 3, 2020 at 1:12 pm #

          See my response below to this post of yours.

          Go Fox News FTW!!

        • Beryl of Oyl February 3, 2020 at 1:16 pm #

          A blogger calling himself Ace of Spades recently made an interesting point about CNN. Most of what they call reporting is really just tattling.

          • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 4:47 pm #

            Can you imagine their editorial meetings daily?

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 12:22 pm #

      It still bothers me that what is the big brouhaha about this virus if the seasonal flu takes out many more folks. What is the real story? Even more so, where are these weirdo viruses all originating in China? If I was in the Chinese government, I would want to know why this is always starting in China. It is stifling them.

      • CancelMyCard February 3, 2020 at 12:55 pm #

        So, John, we should be getting all the “facts” from Faux Noos, because they are trustworthy? Because they are “Fair And Balanced”? Because they regurgitate all of Trump’s talking points?

        Hmmmmmm??

        • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 2:15 pm #

          You could start by rejecting the binary.

          This will require using your brain. Not sure how far that will take you.

        • benr February 3, 2020 at 2:28 pm #

          To be fair you should be listening to a lot more than just msnbc, cnn and the leftist controlled media.
          You should also be hearing from places like Fox News, Mark Levin, Rush, Andrew Wilcow and even people like Alex Jones.
          If all you hear is the same echo chamber how do you know you are actually hearing anything close to the truth or do you care?
          Is it really all about getting your bias confirmed?

      • draupnir February 3, 2020 at 4:51 pm #

        Look at what they do, not what they say. When have you ever heard of a major city being quarantined, let alone 15? Chinese New Year is a big deal, a 3,000-year-old tradition and a time of big spending, equivalent to our Christmas, and maybe greater. They cancelled the celebrations, but extended the closure times of businesses and factories. Their GDP is going to take an enormous hit. The situation must be dire for them to take such steps. Their stock market went limit down today. This thing is airborne and has an R0 currently estimated at about 4.1, with a long incubation period and proof of transmissibility before onset of symptoms. This means that everyone who catches it will transmit it to approximately 4.1 people. For comparison, seasonal flu has an R0 of about 1.3. The Spanish flu is estimated to have been around 1.8. It is a novel virus, which means that nobody has any immunity to it, and it mutates, so a vaccine may be problematic. The numbers reported out of China cannot be trusted, so who knows what the mortality/morbidity rate actually is.

    • Beryl of Oyl February 3, 2020 at 1:14 pm #

      There is a conspiracy theory that this virus may have been deliberately unleashed.
      If it could interfere with the reelection of their enemy, Trump, what would the Communists care about the deaths of millions of their own people?
      They have plenty more where those came from.

  13. James Kuehl February 3, 2020 at 10:55 am #

    The brilliant Steve Ludlum at economic-undertow.com sums up the energy vice our nuts are in. “The oil industry needs $120/barrel or more to meet expenses, while the price trend indicates a price higher than $70/barrel will cause another energy/credit crisis.” I wouldn’t want to be holding that bag of toxic dung without first donning a full hazmat suit.

    • Laundromat Blues February 3, 2020 at 12:32 pm #

      Barack Obama had 3 years of $100+oil with no recession. He does not get near enough credit for that. His recovery just powered through it. Of course, once the price collapsed the recovery gained momentum, and that is the powerful economy Trump inherited. I’ve done the #’s and it is north of $100.

      • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 4:53 pm #

        Clinton had the same thing happen. As JHK states over and over, the economy follows oil.

        If fracking hadn’t come towards the end of Obama’s time, the price would not have dropped. Add on the corporate rate reduction and the regulation reduction, and the economy bounces back from the oil shock and increased taxes during Obama.

        We would be in pricing dire straits right now if fracking hadn’t shown up. It is just a postponement.

      • Kim February 6, 2020 at 2:20 am #

        Subtracting government debt, the united States has not had a single quarter of growth since 2012. In other words, the country has been in and is currently in a Depression.

        Yes, yes, yes, last year’s best performing stock markets were Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

        20% of all companies listed on the S&P are zombie corporations. In order to stay alive they have to borrow to pay the interest on their debts. The main thing that permits this is that the federal government is borrowing a trillion $ a year and will continue to do so forever into the future. To permit this, interest rates cannot rise over 2%.

        And need I mention the shale oil fraud? Virtually the entirety of the world’s increase in oil production since 2008 has come from US shale oil – which is not profitable and can be sustained only by ever more ponzi-style borrowing as investors seek junk-bond returns in this low-interest rate environment.

        Thus we have an asset price boom that leaves behind 95% of the populace who must live in ever-more-depressed ages and welfare and an energy system that is a house of cards. But you think this is a good economy? It’s an economic rape. The wealthy asset holders are raping the lower classes in terms of asset inflation, wage suppression and through the looting of their savings.

  14. SW February 3, 2020 at 11:03 am #

    The statistics on the number infected with the virus and the number who have died are probably not going to be accurate for a while b/c it’s happened so fast and is impossible to gauge the impact yet. And the media has no restraint in reporting anything anymore so who knows at this point if it’s just highly contagious but with a low mortality rate or something much worse. But this could be the dress rehearsal for greater disruptions to come.

    I saw a documentary on the Great Depression and it made the point that most people did not own stocks and didn’t feel the effects of the crash immediately and took little notice. It was when local banks started failing they felt the impact. And they owned less, bought less and their food was locally supplied so in a lot of ways, they were better off than we are now.

    It looks like the Democrats will be in full panic mode if Bernie wins Iowa or comes in second. Why will they not realize people care about issues that effect THEIR lives? There are still plenty of true believers that hang on every platitude that falls from Schiff’s pursed lips but with half of the population living pay check to pay check, it may not be enough to win the election.

    • volodya February 3, 2020 at 2:08 pm #

      Why will they not realize people care about issues that effect THEIR lives? – SW

      A mystery for the ages. The same malady afflicted the Republican Party but they’re paying for it. What about the Democratic Party? The other side of this riddle is why do Democrat voters put up with this.

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 2:18 pm #

      The stock crash did not cause the depression and the president [s] made it worse.

      • SW February 3, 2020 at 2:38 pm #

        From what I understood (and I’m not an economist or an historian) it was a series of events that included the Dust Bowl, poor or nonexistent regulation of banks, tariffs and the death spiral from all these events that created economic catastrophe, not just the stock market. Just like a lot of factors will go into the next depression with some being more devastating than others my guess. The problem now is, from what I understand, 40% of GDP is in finance.

        I think Democratic voters put up with it b/c they don’t have much of a choice. Bill Clinton once said — “who else are they gonna vote for?!” and so the working class got dumped but it took a while for them to catch on. Enter Trump who called them a bunch of hypocrites and decided the Republicans would at least let them keep their guns without listening to a bunch of lectures.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 12:58 am #

      Infectious stats over recent epidemics:

      https://www.sciencealert.com/this-chart-shows-how-the-wuhan-virus-compares-to-other-recent-outbreaks

      • SW February 4, 2020 at 11:59 am #

        That’s a great chart — thanks for posting it. I doubt China will slow down for very long after this virus burns out.

  15. Daddyotis February 3, 2020 at 11:12 am #

    Interesting barometer of the times: My darling wife (bless her soul), while amazing in a multitude of ways, simply has never bought into the concept that our society (and civilization in general) always hangs on a tenuous thread. This week she has just started bringing up the idea that we might want to think about purchasing a remote cabin in our Northeastern state “as an investment property for use as a camp”. There are also some other new remarks:

    Her: “Do you think we should maybe buy a little extra food?”

    Me: “Ummm, that’s been taken care of, sweetheart. The floor-to-ceiling stack of cases against the wall of the basement ain’t the family china.”

    Her: Do you think we should maybe buy a firearm and learn how to use it??

    Me: Ummm….. 🙂

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    • stelmosfire February 3, 2020 at 11:26 am #

      The wife says” Why do we have a shotgun in the closet?”
      I say ” because CHARLIE IS IN THE WIRE !!!”

    • elysianfield February 3, 2020 at 2:01 pm #

      Daddy,
      Funny. Back in the 80’s, (after retirement) and up to including last year, I have bought metal working machinery…many dozens of pieces and tens of thousands of dollars spent…lathes, mills, grinding machines, machines to support those machines, and hundreds of pounds of tooling. I always told the wife that sometime in the future we would be able to make money with them.

      Now those machines support us. All the money goes to the wife for bills, etc. Several times, in the last three years she has asked me if we needed any more machines or tools…

      Firearms? Yeah, a few….

      • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 3:43 pm #

        E. Where do you buy that machinery? Auctions? Shops that have closed up? I think I mentioned a few years back I was helping a guy out who was a millwright, moving machinery like Bridgeports, milling machines and huge lathes out of closed factories in old industrial cities like Waterbury and Naugutuck. We rigged them up, loaded them onto flatbed trucks, then drove them to the New Haven railyard where they were put on to flat cars… I understand they were headed to Asia somewhere. I was just like a helper and a gofor, but I learned a few things too. Best part time gig I ever had, guy carried a big wad of 100 dollar bills in his pocket, when the job was over he pulled it out and peeled off a bunch of Bill’s, handing them to me. He’d even buy lunch for us every day, money seemed to be no object. I had met him when he was moving a big web press into our plant and showed an interest in what he was doing.

        Brh

        • elysianfield February 3, 2020 at 6:35 pm #

          BRH,
          Some of the exotic machinery I have had freighted, or travelled to acquire. Many other pieces I found locally within 100 miles of my residence. A few at auction (maybe a dozen in all). Craigslist in my current location served to acquire dozens of goodies… turret lathes, screw machines, and a few exotics, such as tap grinders, hydraulic benders, etc.

          Never saw a machine I didn’t like….

          • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 4:12 am #

            My grandfather ran a machine shop in Upstate NY when my dad was a kid. He later did the same thing as you, bought up machinery (from his old shop at discount prices [lathes, etc.]) and ended up with a nice business out of it.

            Honest work. I always wish I had done something similar instead of having gone into journalism, publishing, etc.

            Creating with your hands and earning a living while doing it beats the white-collar office grind any day.

        • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 6:55 pm #

          So E. do you restore this machinery and sell it? Or do you have a factory set up and fabricate things?

          I’ll bet more than a few of those machines were made in Connecticut. The Bridgeport was one of the best and most versatile machines ever made.

          It’s all very interesting.

        • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 7:00 pm #

          A few summers ago I got an anvil, big heavy thing. It was in a barn at a trout fishing camp my brother lives in. Guy said if I could get it out of there I could have it. Loaded it into my truck and carried it away.

  16. JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 11:14 am #

    Steve Hilton asked an obvious question. What will happen if the GOP Senate really started investigating Biden, Kerry, Hunter, Blumenthal et al for the real corruption in the Ukraine? His comment was, not much!

    The Swamp protects its own. The Deep State Uber Party. The RINOs are blocking everything Trump is trying to do to break up the Deep State. He needs the GOP to unite behind efforts to reduce government control. The problem? They do not want to. They want their power just as much as the Dems.

    Folks, this is not GOP vs. Dem. It is the populists, representing the people, vs. the Deep State, the Swamp in DC. If it was not for the threat of a Trump victory in November, especially a landslide, the Swamp would be running over everything and everybody in DC right now. Even if the GOP takes back the House, if Trump doesn’t clobber his opponent, the RINOs will ensure the Deep State dominance over the DC scene.

    We are very close to deciding the future of the country. Individual freedom and liberty vs, government dependence and control. For now, the people’s vote will decide. If the Deep State continues its onslaught, that “right” may disappear as the Swamp deepens its control.

    Our votes this year are so important. Everything we take for granted as liberty in this country is in jeopardy if uniparty, ie the Deep State takes control.

    • fugeguy February 3, 2020 at 11:31 am #

      Probably so.

      • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 12:50 pm #

        “Our votes this year are so important. Everything we take for granted as liberty in this country is in jeopardy if uniparty, ie the Deep State takes control.”

        That is a good laugh. Only the votes of persuadables matter.

        The horse is out of the barn. The deep state thinks they are in control but all the surveillance and data points ‘they’ have on your porn habit is not going to stock grocery shelves when the trucks stop moving.

        • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 1:24 pm #

          Unfortunately, you may be right. The situation may be bigger than the governments ability to deal with it.

    • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 11:29 am #

      He is pretty good, RIB. He appears to be a pretty decent guy too.

      I remember his dad on the Mets in the late 90s, went 8-0 one year.

      Brh

      • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 4:42 pm #

        folks say the same about rapist Kobe.

    • Cargill February 3, 2020 at 12:11 pm #

      That’s appallingly racist. Do you do it just to troll and stir the pot, or are you really that backward-looking? The guy has a thousand times the talent and brains of anyone who wastes their life on here.

      • benr February 3, 2020 at 12:13 pm #

        If you consider lying, conning, race baiting and hucksterism a talent well then you are correct.

        • Cargill February 3, 2020 at 12:47 pm #

          What on earth does that mean? Are you accusing Patrick Mahomes of those qualities, or RIB? Please do be clearer … it would be helpful.

          • Majella February 3, 2020 at 12:51 pm #

            benr’s default setting is ‘Obama did it!”

          • RIB February 3, 2020 at 2:39 pm #

            No, he was referring to the dethroned Magical Mysterious Mulatto named Barry Soetoro, a.k.a. Barack Obama.

        • Majella February 3, 2020 at 12:49 pm #

          Does that football player do all those things? Well! I never!

          • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 4:41 pm #

            NFL National Felons League

        • RIB February 3, 2020 at 2:36 pm #

          Go cornhole a jumpbuck, mate

          • Cargill February 3, 2020 at 3:19 pm #

            Is that all you’ve got? Anyway, I’ll call out ugly racist language any time I see it. Better get used to it!

      • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 2:20 pm #

        yawn

      • cbeard February 4, 2020 at 7:47 am #

        Talented, yes. Smart, I don’t know. Doesn’t take a lot of smarts to play football. In some instances racism is realism. As far as him having 1K times the brains of anyone posting here, I would remind you that you are venting on this site also. There are some very bright people posting here every week.

  17. lbs February 3, 2020 at 11:18 am #

    Well, at least one thing is getting better. Public sentiment about race relations has become far more positive than when Trump took office.

    The Democrats efforts to create a race war in our country do not appear to have gained traction. In that way, the analogy of 1860 and 2020 may not hold too well.

    • Daddyotis February 3, 2020 at 11:23 am #

      Yup. I loved the Trump superbowl ad featuring Alice Johnson. After it aired, I stuck my ear out the window and was delighted to hear the quiet wailing of the democrat faithful in my neighborhood as their race-baiting TDS heads exploded.

      There literally isn’t enough popcorn to last through November.

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 11:38 am #

      Interesting statement.

      In 1860, of course the dividing issue was slavery. It had divided North and South since the FF set up the country. A number of compromises had kept the Civil War at bay through the early 1800’s but like any infection, slavery had to be excised eventually. It took hundreds of thousands of lives to do it.

      Today is weird. What is the dividing issue? Is there one? We have an enormous split between the Progressives and the Conservative populists. What is driving this?

      IMHO, only one answer fills the bill. We are still in a huge battle between socialism and individualism in the world. The power hungry socialists want to tear down the Light of Democracy, the US. The globalists want to put socialism into place here to destroy the huge counter current to socialism that the US represents. It has a large representation in the US, the Progressive movement, that has created a public inside the US that wants dependency.

      These people are power mad. They would kill off half the world’s population to get their agenda put into place.

      • Cargill February 3, 2020 at 12:28 pm #

        Interesting grab-bag of paranoia and hysteria.

        The battle is not between Republicans and Democrats – that one is lost – Republican ruthlessness and corruption has trumped Democrat commitment to fair play mixed with naive incompetence, plus the decline of its union base.

        The battle is not between “Progressive, One-World, Globalist Socialists” and “Freedom-Loving, Small-Government Conservatives” either … another total myth that might play night after night on Fox News, but hardly anywhere else.

        Anyway – the US doesn’t have a social-democrat worthy of the name, let alone a genuine “socialist” – in many Western countries including mine, Backdoor Bernie would be indistinguishable from the local conservative Tories.

        No – the battle is between decent people who care about the 75% of the population who do it tough every day, and those whose attitude seems to be “I’ve got mine (usually through daddy, like the Dumpster), go get yours!”.

        Sure they wrap themselves in the flag and preach about individual freedom and individual liberty, but in fact it’s the wealthy who gain the most from government – they get far more.

        They are the kiddies who read Ayn Rand at 18, had a few dorm sessions in college, and then never ever grew up. Trump is one of them … and he has surrounded himself with the swampiest cabinet and administration possible … he’s shit-scared because he knows he is unfit for the job.

        But I don’t think anyone in the Democratic circus is fit for it either. Your FF sure mucked it up with that constitution … it’s been hellish for a couple of centuries.

      • Majella February 3, 2020 at 12:54 pm #

        JohnAZ, your catastrophizing is rising to new heights of frenzied fear-mongering.

        • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 1:21 pm #

          I notice you are attacking me, contrary to your statement about attacking attitudes.

          Please tell me your contrary opinion. Why do you deny the battle between the two groups? History shows my side, up til recently the US has been a bastion against socialism in all forms, losing thousands of young men to the cause.

          Do not just express your opinion without backing it up. No one will pay much attention.

          Especially name calling, that is so six year old.

          • Cargill February 3, 2020 at 3:16 pm #

            The “Deep State” as many insist on calling it – as if it is a verifiable real thing – if it does anything it is to defend capital, capitalism, and the owners of extreme wealth.

            Along with oil and the military-industrial complex, wealth is the only beneficiary of the “Deep State”. The tying of the Democratic Party, and even more ludicrously, “socialism” to the Deep State has the world entirely and precisely backwards.

            The “Deep State” is in general a conservative force, aiming to keep the American Project within acceptable bounds that don’t scare the horses, and don’t risk the wealth and privilege of the elites, or the relatively ordered ways of society generally.

            It’s been that way at least since George Washington was president. Trump is a threat not because he’s a break-through swamp-draining wunderkid – but because he’s the reverse – a a crook, an incompetent, a loose cannon, and surrounding himself with lunatics who are often far worse, because they are smarter than he is.

            Steve Bannon was as dangerous as Pol Pot – wanting to bomb the US back to some previous stone age … to my mind the “Deep State” had and has every right (in fact a duty) to defend the bulk of Americans from such crazies.

          • Majella February 3, 2020 at 4:00 pm #

            No, JohnAZ…I said ‘your catastrophizing’, as opposed to ‘you’.

            Things like:

            “The power hungry socialists want to tear down the Light of Democracy…”

            “These people are power mad. They would kill off half the world’s population to get their agenda put into place.”

            These are catastrophic views, broad generalizations that have no objective reality.

            You also say:

            “We have an enormous split between the Progressives and the Conservative populists.” Are you sure There’s a lot of cross-over between Trump voters from 2016 & Bernie supporters then, and now, too.”

            Bernie, despite your rather misguided paranoid views about socialism, speaks to the same issues that matter for the poor & disenfranchised as Himself did during the 2016 campaign.

            The thing is, He’s done sweet Fanny Adams to address the genuine concerns of those who thumbed their collective noses at HRC & the Establishment in ’16 – where’s the ‘beautiful healthcare that will deliver everything and cost way less’ for example?

            This – healthcare – is the No. 1 issue for the low-paid, three-jobs on zero-hours contracts for $7.25 per hour, while carrying a huge student loan foist upon them by shyster education-for-profit businesses & for those who fear losing their homes if a significant health issue arise.

            These people are not “dependency’ junkies. They simply want a fair shake, which I imagine you would agree with. The current system does not give them that fair shake.

            Bernie is the LAST person Himself wants to face in November.

          • Majella February 3, 2020 at 4:28 pm #

            Tucker Carlson – a humanoid I rarely refer to for wisdom – has said that

            “The candidate who makes it easier for 30-year-olds to get married and have kids will win the election and will deserve to win…”

            He also points out that in 2016, Himself was an Insurgent candidate.

            Now, He has to stand on his record, which is mixed, to say the least. As well, he’s tainted by his own continuous compulsive lying (about almost EVERYTHING even when the truth would serve him better).

            The fact that he has subverted the GOP & the Senate with a choke-hold, turning them into chicken-shit toadies does not rest easy with Independents, who will determine the final margin against him.

          • Majella February 3, 2020 at 4:34 pm #

            Oh, and John – I agree that name-calling is for play-ground bullies.

            Now, if I called you ‘stupid’, or questioned your IQ, or your ability to understand what you read, that would be extremely childish. You’ll note I don’t do that, right?

          • Majella February 3, 2020 at 5:02 pm #

            (“‘your catastrophizing’, as opposed to ‘you’” should have read “as opposed to ‘you’re’ “)

          • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 6:20 pm #

            Deep State refers to the entreched bureaucracy Washington as well as the intelligence community.

            In other words, the folks who stay over the course of many presidencies. The concept is not difficult.

            I see we still have no crime or evidence of any crime from you.

            But you emote that Trump is a “crook.” Powerful feelings.

            If only you could show us a crime.

            The floor is yours.

        • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 3:03 pm #

          Indeed. What this thread needs is a good dose of Putin and a dash of Kompromat.

          Take it easy on us though.

          • Cargill February 4, 2020 at 1:53 am #

            I see we still have no crime or evidence of any crime from you. But you emote that Trump is a “crook.” Powerful feelings. If only you could show us a crime.

            The withholding of funds by the Administration (to Ukraine) that were lawfully appropriated and approved as to purpose by Congress, cannot be anything BUT a crime.

            Your denial is impressive and persistent … but it doesn’t change the facts. A bit like Global Warming.

            And the Dumpster is not only guilty of the federal crime, he has been duly impeached by the House of Representatives, on the grounds of abuse of power (the standover threat) and obstruction of justice – covering up the crime in the Ukraine.

            The toadies in the Senate are all equally guilty of the cover-up and are traitors to the country, its people, and its constitution … they should be sacked then jailed.

            And the ultimate lickspittle toady – John Roberts the alleged Chief Justice – should declare a mistrial and demand it be done properly. History has a long arc … but obviously these scummy people only care about power, not about honour or legacy.

            And I know what the Deep State comprises – and it it overwhelmingly conservative (serving the Republicans and their wealthy backers) – but mostly it is into the preservation of its power and ensuring its ongoing survival.

          • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 3:54 am #

            Name the crime Cargill. And provide the concrete evidence for that crime.

            Why can’t you?

          • benr February 4, 2020 at 9:11 am #

            @cargil

            Impeached on a faux made up reason along pure partisan lines.
            It means exactly zero and guess what?
            Every President until this form of government cease to be will now be impeached because the other side won’t like having lost to them. The rules keep getting changed to suit the ruling party in the houses wants.
            That makes this country almost ungovernable but the fools think this is how it should be because Orange man bad.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:05 pm #

            Trump is a Spiritual Criminal because Cargill et al feel that our system is criminal. The details don’t matter to them and thus they are defeated since he isn’t an actual criminal according to the laws now in place – no more than most at any rate.

            But they are correct in their fundamental intuition and the John Azes and Benr’s are wrong. Trump’s taxes couldn’t stand the light of day or reason – anymore than Hillary’s could.

    • Beryl of Oyl February 3, 2020 at 1:23 pm #

      The attempt by the Mighty O’s, Oprah and Obama, to stir up trouble via a takedown of the British Monarchy, has not had the intended effect.
      I have seen a couple of references to men being Markled, already.
      It’s in the lexicon, and it is n’t going away any time soon.

      • RIB February 3, 2020 at 2:44 pm #

        Markle is the U.K. version of Colin Kaepernick

        Harry probably has a future appearing in a commercial where Markle changes a flat tire and he stands there helplessly

      • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 4:36 am #

        It was all so predictable, though. Was it not?

        Seemed rather obvious when the RF was busy scrubbing the Internet of her soft porn shots and low-brow social media posts.

        She is what gentlemen refer to as a whore.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:07 pm #

        Yeah, Markle caused havoc and now is walking away from being a Princess with her fallen Prince in tow. The future is dare for this befuddled young man indeed.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 12:59 am #

      Link?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:08 pm #

        Missing Link? You?

        • Majella February 5, 2020 at 2:26 am #

          Beneath even you, Janos. Twat.

  18. BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 11:26 am #

    Say what you want about China, but they built a 1000 bed hospital in 10 days.

    It would take 10 years here just to research the environmental impact of such a project by city, state and federal agencies. And another 3 or 4 years to issue their reports.

    Brh

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 11:39 am #

      Shows we need more government regulation, Right?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:10 pm #

        Yes, it does and we do. You are so clueless. No holds barred Capitalism has destroyed much of the global ecosystem. You don’t know because you don’t care.

    • stelmosfire February 3, 2020 at 12:28 pm #

      Also the railroad over the Rockies,with hand tools, in the winter, uphill both ways. Probably with Collins picks and axes.

      • Cargill February 3, 2020 at 5:20 pm #

        Plus slave wages and innumerable deaths.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:12 pm #

          Yup. And open borders promises more such things. News flash: immigrants are what used to be called “scabs” in American Labor parlance. Now the Unions support that which makes them superfluous. Crazy….

    • Beryl of Oyl February 3, 2020 at 1:24 pm #

      They give their workers drugs, and we drug test.

  19. fugeguy February 3, 2020 at 11:31 am #

    Detention center ehh hospital. To ma to To mat o

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  20. Ishabaka February 3, 2020 at 11:44 am #

    The absence of medical masks for sale worldwide is a symptom of our “just in time” medical supply chain. Your local community hospital (back when it was locally owned and run – now it’s run by a huge conglomerate in Dallas), used to keep about a month’s worth of supplies on hand. Perhaps that cost a few extra bucks, but when a disaster happened it was worth it. No more. Three to four days worth of supplies is better for the bottom line of the corporation in Dallas.

  21. HowardBeale February 3, 2020 at 11:51 am #

    “a game of four-dimensional eight-ball”
    Have to love that one. The literal, unrelated picture is fun to imagine: Musk and Bezos playing eight ball on their first joint-venture Mars-colonization mega space ark as it reached the speed of light while being sucked into a black hole.

    Other than that, agree with your conclusions; to paraphrase, If Coronavirus causes market crash which gets the communist elected, game over. And that is just one of the flaming chainsaws being juggled by the hands of fate.

  22. fugeguy February 3, 2020 at 12:07 pm #

    Let’s see (in no order):

    – ME conflict (on simmer not dead)
    – China/ US conflict (again on simmer not resolved)
    – Pandemic
    – Banking collapse (repo market, Douchebank, over valued everything that is a financial instrument)
    – third year of soft coup against the 2016 election results (again even after dempeachment ends something else will come up I’m sure)
    – Absolute disconnection from reality and lack of critical thinking skills in roughly 82% of the population.
    – Personal indebtedness
    – Corporate indebtedness
    – Public indebtedness
    – Lack of engagement from the millennial/ gen Zers
    – Unspeakable never seen weapons in the hands of win at all costs leaders
    – The EU breaking up
    – China ready to implode (HK, Taiwan, limits to fake growth, demo bomb, etc)
    – US one event from violent conflict
    – SA a basket case
    – The canooks are ok but for how long once the US fuse is lit?

    What could possibly go wrong?

    • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 12:32 pm #

      ‘roughly 82% of the population’

      So what is the excuse for the other 18% who have let things get this bad and do nothing to mitigate the pain.

      • fugeguy February 3, 2020 at 12:50 pm #

        Because the other 82% are sure their versions of fantasy are correct and they will not be swayed!

        • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 1:16 pm #

          When things fray they will sway but too late in the day.

    • Elrond Hubbard February 3, 2020 at 1:07 pm #

      We Canucks are very favourably placed, actually. Our northerly location makes us (and Russia) about the only country that stands to see a net gain from global warming, for one thing. That’s even before you consider the tar sands, which while ruinous for the planet are likely to be enormously profitable in the short term. Peak oil, shmeak oil — it’s everyone else who will be in cannibalistic collapse, combing through the couch cushions to pay us for a few hectares of smelly mud to tide them through whatever energy transition ends up happening. So, we get to export AGW to the rest of the world in exchange for everyone else’s family jewels. What’s not to like? [Sarcasm, if that’s not clear.]

      That said, we have oceans on three sides of us and the USA on the fourth. So yeah, you guys really are our main worry. Basic decency isn’t the only reason I hope Bernie Sanders gets elected; there’s self-preservation for my home and native land to think of. Medicare for All, and a few other measures to ease off the economic brutality that has reigned at least since Reagan, looks like the last chance you all have to keep your social fabric from well and truly ripping in two. Your last civil war didn’t spill over to us mainly because Britain was the world power, not you. I’m less sanguine about the next one.

      • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 1:12 pm #

        I would imagine the globalists will be relishing the US self destructing.

        Until they figure out they cannot run their financial system without it.

      • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 1:52 pm #

        2019 was declared the hottest year on record in Russia.

        The secret thrill of turning the Arctic Archipelago into a palm tree playground by selling tar sands to the tropics must send shivers down your spine.

        • Elrond Hubbard February 3, 2020 at 2:08 pm #

          Just wait till the Mediterranean comes to a rolling boil. Should be quite a sight.

          Mind you, I’m not a nihilist, I just play one sometimes. You know, for funsies.

        • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 2:26 pm #

          Hottest year since 1871. What are we to infer from that?

          In the middle of the article they also had this headline and an associated link:

          “U.S. ‘Climate Weapon’ Caused Russia’s Warm Winter, Lawmaker Says”

          If only someone had any idea of what is actually happening.

          • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 4:59 pm #

            My question would be

            What was going on in 1871. AGW?

          • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 6:12 pm #

            Too bad no one knows what happened before 1871. Or what it would mean in context.

            Oh well.

        • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 4:48 pm #

          Russians are floating those massive nuclear power plants atop barges on the Arctic Ocean, there will be 6 of them before they finish. Plan is to mine the ocean floor for oil, natgas and rare earth metals. (on top of the earth), using electricity produced by those reactors.

          In the meantime China is building a port and an airbase in Greenland, Chinese geologists exploring for coal, gold, rare earth metals, petroleum and natural gas.

          I doubt if the Russians or the Chinese care about icebergs, temps going up 1.5°C, or sea levels rising .05″ in the next 100 years, or any other lefty obsessions about the weather. In fact, if arctic ice melts off, all the better for them!

          Over here in the west we’re dicking around with windmills, solar panels, and $130,000 electric cars. Who does the future belong to?

          Brh

          • Elrond Hubbard February 3, 2020 at 6:14 pm #

            BRH: the strategy of painting anthropogenic global warming as a ‘lefty obsession’ is just about a spent force. Climate change is slow, as we puny humans count time, but it has titanic momentum. It is happening and will continue to happen. The Left was about bringing some responsibility to the situation, and maybe some humanity, while a controlled response was still possible.

            That opportunity has mostly whooshed past. Greed and well-funded denialism have pretty much succeeded in preventing a serious response in time to prevent the worst effects. Now we’re in for the consequences that have been long foreseen. Russians, Chinese, everyone is going to care as heat, flooding and crop failures send tens, then hundreds of millions on the move looking for a new place to live. I fully expect the most rabid denialists to transform, overnight, into the most rabid opponents of doing anything but shout ‘good riddance’ as they die.

          • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 6:38 pm #

            Elrond

            If you cannot convince China, India, Russia and Indonesia (to name a few countries, but 2/3 of the world’s population) that Climate change is a real threat, what difference does it make, in the US, Canada or the UK, who is a ‘denialist’ and who isn’t? Russia is selling 10 million barrels of oil per day, and China has such an appetite for coal they are buying all that India and Australia can mine and ship.

            Also, I notice the Divestment movement is gaining traction here and in the UK. The goal seems to be to harm western oil companies, but I think all it will do is make gasoline, No 2 heating oil and natgas more expensive for people in the northern hemisphere who need it to keep their houses warm in the winter. State oil producers — Gazprom, Aramco — accounting for 90% of world oil, is cheering on Divestment, and may be behind it; a good opportunity to get rid of those puny (by comparison) nuisances like Exxon and Sunoco.

            As far as ‘lefty obsession’ goes, yes, it is a harsh characterization, but lefties and self professed socialists seem to be the only people who talk about Climate change. Hard core Communists, not so much.

            Brh

          • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 10:10 pm #

            I doubt if the Russians or the Chinese care about icebergs, temps going up 1.5°C, or sea levels rising .05? in the next 100 years, or any other lefty obsessions about the weather. In fact, if arctic ice melts off, all the better for them!

            You are right about the Russians not the Chinese. Beijing is at the same latitude as Philadelphia.

      • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 4:28 pm #

        Current temp, Arctic weather station: -24°F.

        Current temp, Antartic weather station -26°F

        World is on fire, ice is melting, sea levels are rising, sky is falling, palm trees are growing in Greenland.

        Brh

        • capt spaulding February 3, 2020 at 8:18 pm #

          If you really wanna know about climate change, check in with one of the most conservative organisations I know of. The Department of Defense. They don’t have the luxury of bleating their political opinions out to everyone, they have to worry about defending the country, and believe me, they are concerned.

          • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 12:24 am #

            The government is full of AA low IQ people, liberals and lazy people.

          • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 12:45 am #

            Really? The DoD is concerned about Climate change?

            During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the DoD was burning 500,000 barrels of oil per day. Currently it’s at about 300,000.

            They’re really worried.

            Brh

          • Majella February 4, 2020 at 1:05 am #

            BRH
            The DOD is focused on adaptation & mitigation. Loads of bases – camps & ports – at sea level.

            https://media.defense.gov/2019/Jan/29/2002084200/-1/-1/1/CLIMATE-CHANGE-REPORT-2019.PDF

            As for AA low IQ people, there’s more hereabouts than in the DOD.

          • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 4:49 am #

            Well BRH,

            I guess we will just have to take his word. Though, to be fair, Bush was very eco-minded when he told the Iraqis not to set fire to oil wells.

            One of his neoliberal counterparts, Obama, was eco-minded, too. With Operation Timber Sycamore, he didn’t need to send a horde of US troops across the ocean, he simply created a band of local head-choppers to do his work for him.

            Think of the emissions saved.

          • capt spaulding February 4, 2020 at 12:10 pm #

            “All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change.” By Michael T Klare. Maybe you’ll learn something, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:14 pm #

        Yes, you loathe your poor Whites and want to replace them just like our Elite does. And they know it and hate you right back.

      • Kim February 6, 2020 at 1:46 am #

        “That’s even before you consider the tar sands, which while ruinous for the planet are likely to be enormously profitable in the short term. Peak oil, shmeak oil”

        Tar sands are enormously expensive to mine. Venezuela’s holdings are vast but they require US$100 a barrel to be profitable. But I suppose that in any future collapse Canada will be riding high right along with the Chavistas.

        Tar sands also have to be refined and blended with light grades of oil before they can become usable for most purposes.

        Do you have those lighter grades available for blending in Canada?

  23. King of Comedy February 3, 2020 at 12:09 pm #

    For my money, the United States resembles nothing so much as the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years immediately prior to WWI… a nominally united polyglot amalgam of dissimilar things. Of course, by the end of 1918 the Austro-Hungarian Empire was no more. Throughout the recorded history of humans on this planet, the only “glue” that has held groups together for the long haul has been a shared common culture. Political/ideological considerations and economic arrangements can act similarly but only over short time spans. Moreover, even a shared culture is no guarantee to the longevity of human enterprise on the scale of a nation, as the years 1861-65 in this country illustrate.

    History clearly says that cramming a bunch of different cultures together is problematic enough but insisting that they bear no responsibility to adapt/conform to the customs and practice of an adopted country is an outright assurance that the machine breaks down. It’s just a matter of when. In that regard, it looks to me like the 75 year post-war relative timeout from human nature is coming to an end. The reality of course is that human nature never goes away. The inclination to temper tribalism though makes sense because WWII was so devastating to much of the world. The generation that lived through that devastation is passing into history and memory exits with the generation.

    All time is cyclical… inexorably we return to our tribal corners.

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 12:33 pm #

      The number one cultural commonality is language, Europe has been divided for millennia by language. French are French not because they have a Constitution, it is because they understand each other.

      The US, in its stupidity, thinks that anything goes , language wise. Uh-huh!

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:23 pm #

        And Blacks speak English (kind of) and they are completely assimilated, right John?

        And the French Canadians pretended to themselves that language was “It” (and not Race!) and brought in huge quantities of Black Frenchies just to prove it. Now their streets are awash with gang violence.

        Conservative or Liberal, it just doesn’t matter. They are united in their stupidity.

      • Kim February 6, 2020 at 2:35 am #

        What we today call the Balkans has been called this only since the mid to late 19thC. In prior centuries it was usually referred to as “Turkish Europe” and people spoke all kinds of languages, Greek, Turk, Slavic. And they didn’t identify ethnically but by religion.

        Of course, it was afar from unified place. The mountains all ran the wrong ways and there were no good roads or rivers and people in one valley couldn’t easily trade with another. So the idea of ethnic cohesion and nationalism came very late in teh day. It isn’t really sny kind of “natural” human category.

        Anyway, my point is, we tend to look at the world as if it has always been what it is today, dominated by the nation-state with its powerful educating and unifying forces of army and school, media and travel systems and that these in turn force language confirmity.

        But note that, as I have expressed it here, language conformity comes late in nation building, not first. It comes a long way after the guns and butter.

  24. Pucker February 3, 2020 at 12:23 pm #

    Believe it or not, the ancient Persians had some pretty damn good Fuck’n Love Poetry. Better than some of our Western shit….

    “Since my heart was caught in the snare of love,
    Since my soul became wine in the cup of love,
    Ah, the pains I have known through loverhood
    Since like a hawk I fell in the snare of love!
    Trapped in time, I am turned to a drunken sot
    By the exciting, dreg-draining cup of love.
    Dreading the fierce affliction of loverhood,
    I dare not utter the very name of love;
    And the more amazing is this, since I see
    Every creature on earth is at peace with love.33”

    Once on the way back from fishing trip in Anchorage, Alaska, I grabbed dinner at Mexican restaurant. There was a rough-looking white mountain man-look’n bloke who met a very husky, rough-looking white woman at the restaurant for a romantic dinner of tequila, rice and beans. He met her carrying a dozen red roses. Men outnumber women in Anchorage 5 to 1. I hope that it worked out for ‘em….

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 1:02 pm #

      Though I am old, hold me tight in your arms at night so at dawn I will rise beside you as a young man. <– something Persian

      A rough-looking white mountain man-look’n bloke. Hope it worked out for them!

      But out here looks are really not important no, no.
      It’s what’s inside a woman
      When she up against the land.
      <– Mountain Man love.

    • elysianfield February 3, 2020 at 2:12 pm #

      “Better than some of our Western shit….”

      Puck,
      Please reconsider;

      There once was a woman named Esther,
      Who could, and would if you asked her,
      She was so nice,
      But so high was her price,
      That no one could have her save Jesus H. Christ,
      …And occasionally John Jacob Astor….

      That’s Western Poetry at it’s finest.

      • RIB February 3, 2020 at 2:49 pm #

        Twas a gay Irish priest in New Delhi
        Who had the Lord’s Prayer tattooed on his belly
        Along cams a Brahmin
        And before he got to the “amen”
        He had blown both salvation
        And Kelly

        • elysianfield February 3, 2020 at 6:39 pm #

          RIB,
          Excellent! New to me. Thanks.

        • capt spaulding February 3, 2020 at 8:23 pm #

          There was a young man from Bombay
          Who fashioned a pussy from clay
          But the heat from his prick,
          Turned it into a brick,
          And chafed all his foreskin away.

  25. axisboldaslove February 3, 2020 at 12:26 pm #

    “The net effect of Bernie Sanders in the White House will be to finish off the economy… and imagine where that will take us.”

    That can be avoided by electing Andrew Yang. It’s time to evolve from these career politicians who keep playing the same game. Check out Yang. This is happening!

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 12:37 pm #

      Anything outside of the Deep State would be good. Note that the Deep State is already fighting back against the outsiders in the Democratic candidates. When the outsiders finally figure out that their real ally for their causes against the Deep State is Trump, the political revolution may begin.

    • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 12:39 pm #

      Going once going twice. Blame it on Bernie or anything else you can. Decades of bad decisions and cancerous growth having nothing to do with it of course.

      I can’t hang with Yang. Fundamentals, he has none.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:54 pm #

        You’re a Marxist Puritan at heart. You can’t stand that he offers us leisure – the leisure which was the Dream of Ages and the Promise of Middle Industrialism to the middle classes. The Fruits of the Miracle were gong to be shared – but then the Elite reneged upon their promise. You get the latter, but have forgotten the Dream. So all you promise is more of the same unending toil. Everyone equally miserable, right? That’s your justice.

  26. Pucker February 3, 2020 at 12:30 pm #

    They recently interviewed an American “expert” on “American Thought Leaders” about whether he suspected that the C..,CP may have bioengineered the virus as a bio weapon?

    He replied: “No”.

    When asked why, he replied: “Because (a) China is a signatory to an anti-bioweapons treaty; and (b) biological weapons don’t make sense except as “Doomsday Weapons” because they can’t be contained and escape across borders.”

    When pressed whether he thought that the CC…,P might be given to Doomsday Scenarios, he replied: “I’m not able to comment on that.”

  27. volodya February 3, 2020 at 12:41 pm #

    There’s so many inter-locking wheels in this multi-geared device slipping off or seizing up pretty much simultaneously such that you can’t tell which is the more serious malfunction. 

    Remember Milton Friedman’s doctrine, that the job of the corporation is to maximize benefit to shareholders. And that’s it. So did that give the corporate sector permission and academic cover for what they did subsequently? Because what they did subsequently precipitated many events we’ve been seeing of late, the rise of China, the ruin of workers in western democracies, Brexit, Trump, Bernie, the Gilets Jaunes, and many others all over the world. So, was this a serious misapprehension by the global rich, a misjudgment driven by pure lust for money? Was it the most important of the wheels flying off its moorings?

    As JHK sez, the zeitgeist is becoming one of smaller and local but that didn’t just come out of nowhere, it came out of an economic agenda of taking decision-making away as far as possible from ordinary folk and legislatures accountable to them and putting it into the boardroom or country estate such that the great mass of people have no control over what comes down on them economically. Much like the weather. Complain all you like and it avails you not a whit. 

    For all the posturing by allegedly enlightened “anywhere people” about their superior virtue and intellect, the great neo-liberal projects like the EU, globalization, off-shoring to China and Mexico, the relinquishing of national sovereignty in general, had greed at their root, moving money and power to an unaccountable handful, but unworkable as successive blow-ups of the financial system indicates. 

    Legislatures are bought and paid for. That’s no secret, look at the mega-bucks underlying politics, such that Democrats in power do much the same thing as Republicans, so that one administration is looks the same as the last. Bill listened to Wall Street, likewise Tony Baloney, and for all the invective hurled at Dubya over a great many things, he followed ruling-class consensus, ie people with a lot of money and so did Obama. 

    And so smaller and local. Fascism? Nope, fascism in its hey-day was the opposite, it was centralist and militarily aggressive and expansionist and imperialist. IMO what we’ll see in the USA won’t be centralist or imperialist, it will be otherwise. Never mind overseas protectorates, those days are coming to an end. What’s in the future is disintegrationist, Little Englanders everywhere, laying claim to bits of turf in the US homeland, trying to re-establish local control, breaking and resetting rules.

    Washington may still exist but its reach cut down, its swamp-dwellers going about their rituals as a cover for their their various scams, but their scams less profitable. Same with Manhattan. And I think you’ll see versions of this all over the world.  

    • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 1:08 pm #

      Good analysis.

      We are seeing it in California and NY. I really believe that the Deep State is a reaction to the decentralization efforts. They are not party centered either. California Dems are not the same as Deep State Dems, although that may not be a good example as California sort of owns the DC scene by sheer force of numbers. Different geographic and economic regions are following their own needs and commonality is on the decline.

      Time to Wag the Dog?

  28. JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 1:01 pm #

    Please provide a definition of the following:

    Progressives

    Moderate Democrat

    Independent

    Romney Republican

    Trump Republican

    No anti propaganda, being AntiTrump is meaningless.

    Define what they stand for and where they see the US in the future.

    I really do not think people understand these differences, I know I don’t.

    • Majella February 3, 2020 at 6:06 pm #

      “Please provide a definition of the following:
      Progressives
      Moderate Democrat
      Independent
      Romney Republican
      Trump Republican
      No anti propaganda, being AntiTrump is meaningless.
      Define what they stand for and where they see the US in the future.”

      JohnAZ, I’ll give it a go – my opinion only, of course…

      Progressive –

      Someone (like me) who

      > wants to see the poorer and disenfranchised in the Western economy (not just the US) given a fairer deal in higher wages, single-payer healthcare, affordable education;

      > wants to see a genuine labour movement develop and for unions (not corrupted by the mob) to reestablish power for working people and reverse the income inequality trend;

      > wants to see taxation on the huge corporations;

      > wants to see big & dark money out of politics;

      > who accepts the reality of climate change, and wishes to DO something effective about it (see below);

      > who understands that transitioning to a greener economy is actually an opportunity and a way to revitalise the economy with new sustainable businesses & industries…among other things.

      Moderate Democrat –

      > someone who supports the DNC Establishment, probably voted HRC in ’16 and still chokes over it; doesn’t want the applecart upset, and will probably vote for Biden or possibly Klobuchar (not sure if the Billionaires are really on the radar).

      Independent –

      > not entirely sure, but someone who is fluid in her views and has no adherence to any particular political stance;

      Romney Republican-

      > an old school GOPer, who thinks the 50s were a great time (newsflash: they weren’t – sexism & racism were rife, the process of environmental destruction really got started while politics were just as corrupt as today) and wants to simply have these ‘old ways’ restored – a fantasist, in essence, and becoming utterly irrelevant.

      Trump Republican –

      > Sorry, John, but I don’t think he’s Republican any longer – he’s now a ‘Trumpista’. He also wants to be given a fair shake, and to see the old-school trough-feeding pols kicked out on their arse. He wants a living wage and security at work and home and in healthcare. In the economic & financial questions, he’s probably not that far from the Progressive voter in terms of the desired outcome, but they differ in their beliefs in how it can be achieved.

      > However, he’s been duped and the sooner he realises it, the better. off we will ALL be.

      My two ha’pth.

      • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 7:19 pm #

        A truly honest answer and I agree with most of it. I can tell one of the differences between us is reality. This country is broke, I mean it’s government. All the things the progressives want are impossible, financially. There is not enough capital in the US to do everything Bernie wants to do. Even the European govs. Do little more than socialized healthcare (which by the way I agree with). More later.

        • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 8:03 pm #

          Unions- first step is to return manufacturing jobs back here so that we have folks that can form unions, first things first.

          It has been shown over and over that handouts do not help people, hand ups do. So many examples have been shown of people who rip off the government for welfare that it hurts the people that really need the help. Remember that Clinton and Gingrich put together a workfare program that worked, and was very opposed by the Left at the time. It has been whittled down to nothing now.

          Getting the government to pay for college education will make it more costly as the University crowd would love to have more moolah to spend. The only real solution is to put tuition and other costs under tight control. Never happen, the Dems would lose their philosophical hot bed.

          Tax the corporations more, Obama did this, they all started leaving, After the Midwest saw their jobs go offshore for a generation, they voted in Trump. It will be interesting to see the government start taxing Hollywood the way it should, might be a change of attitude there. Especially a wealth tax.

          I think that everyone acknowledges warming. Especially the violence of low pressure systems as wind speeds increase. The problem is what to do. If you have read and understood JHKs The Long Emergency, you know that there is no way to “Green Up” the energy requirements of our society. If the Green Way was more profitable than fossil fuels, the energy companies would be jumping in along with a lot of entrepreneurs to make lots of profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Fear not, AOCs GND will eventually happen and the world will convert, but at a significant loss of life and a loss of our modern civilization. World made by Hand. But the common man will fight it until Peak Oil is a reality in about 30 to 50 years.

          One of my predictions is that the ult left and the Trumpers are going to figure out a way to use government for the betterment of folks and limit the corruption of the Deep State. A new party will form, after Trump, that will continue to tear down the rotten mess in DC. Bernie’s group will have to acknowledge that the government in place now will never support his ult socialist ideas. Where the government helps, it must be small and effective. That is the opposite of what it is now. A better way of saying it is,

          Stop the damn Deep State from spending so much money for such lousy payback for the folks. Make the government lean and mean to protect all its people. It will take Trump and the Bern in concert to make the correct changes.

          The other three groups want business as usual in DC. That is because they are the Deep State.

          Remember, extremists want change to the status quo. Left extremists want change, Trumpers want change. That may in itself promote the combination.

          • Majella February 3, 2020 at 9:14 pm #

            JohnAZ

            Yes, we are in fact not far apart on desired outcomes, just the means of getting there. I get your pessimistic view of the cost, but it’s more nuanced than you approach it here.

            “Tax the corporations more, Obama did this, they all started leaving, After the Midwest saw their jobs go offshore for a generation, they voted in Trump.”

            JohnAZ, the big corporations didn’t leave the US because Obama started taxing them. They were long gone already, and they have massaged the Tax Code through lobbying so that off-shore profits not repatriated are exempt.

            You try that as an individual citizen – say, you took an employed (not contracted) post with a company in, for example, New Zealand. It pays you $US equivalent $200,000 p.a. You are REQUIRED to file that income in the US if you are still a citizen. The federal impost on that at (roughly 35% marginal, 30% average) is $60,000. You get a credit for the $40,000 you paid in withholding in NZ, but you’re still up for the other $20K to Uncle Sam (or go to jail if you fail to report it and are discovered later).

            How come Apple doesn’t have the same issue?Or Alphabet? Or facebook? Or Amazon? In fact, the rort is so sophisticated that even revenue raised INSIDE the US by these guys can be assigned to an off-shore registered company and *boom* tax liability erased.

            This is not a problem that is difficult to fix, but it requires legislators that are not in the pockets of lobbyists with unlimited “campaign finance” contributions.

            If this putative new political force/movement (which could indeed be a coalition of Sanders & Trumpistas – “The Disaffected”) could get hold of the legislative houses by ‘throwing the bums out!”, such change could be achieved.

            Yes, the US government is broke, the cumulative result of under-taxation on the REAL money and deficit funding out the wazoo. In terms of having ‘enough’ resources to, over time, achieve the agenda, slashing the military budget would deliver a lot of that, and at the same time free up industrial capacity and innovative engineering to at least start the process of weaning our civilisation off fossil fuels.

            Reducing reliance on a diminishing resource (the cost of which is inevitably going to inexorably rise) is just common sense. Use the high-density fossil fuels where their ‘bang’ is most effective, rather than generating electricity and useless consumer-level one-use plastics.

            The cost of universal single-payer healthcare is NOT as unattainable as it looks on the surface. When your current private insurance premiums (for a ‘plan’ that is stacked with exclusions & co-pays etc) is eliminated and you instead pay, say $3,000 – $5,000 p.a. per adult through a dedicated tax – just like the SS deduction – combined with the efficiencies of a Single-Payer negotiating (actually, dictating) drug prices and doing away with a whole swath of people employed in pushing paper, declining claims and trying to collect co-pays & deductibles etc, it would likely be around half the total cost it currently is – the US healthcare is 18% of GDP, whereas in all the ‘socialistic’ systems it runs to around 9%

            https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

            Lots more to discuss, but time is against me.

          • Cargill February 4, 2020 at 4:27 am #

            “Unions- first step is to return manufacturing jobs back here so that we have folks that can form unions, first things first.”

            And how would you achieve that? I’m afraid those jobs really have gone forever … wage rates are so low and productivity is so high in the developing world that no-one would repatriate any business to the USA – even huge tax breaks and other incentives might well not be enough.

            I don’t see a solution to the fact that unionised labour prices itself out of a market that they use to dominate.

            “It has been shown over and over that handouts do not help people, hand ups do. So many examples have been shown of people who rip off the government for welfare that it hurts the people that really need the help.”

            A more realistic, hard-nosed view is that paying the urban poor | underclasses to stay docile, and not go bat-shit crazy with crime and gangs, is actually a good investment. Look at South Africa, for example – the vast mass of unemployed people live on a couple of dollars a day, and no welfare transfer payments, but the white middle class can’t go out at all – they are prisoners in their compounds.

            “Remember that Clinton and Gingrich put together a workfare program that worked, and was very opposed by the Left at the time. It has been whittled down to nothing now.”

            Australia has had pretty-good long-term success with workforce type programs … targeted funding, training, apprenticeships, employer incentives, and so on … and pretty tough rules for the unemployed who were clearly able to work.

            “Getting the government to pay for college education will make it more costly as the University crowd would love to have more moolah to spend. The only real solution is to put tuition and other costs under tight control. Never happen, the Dems would lose their philosophical hot bed.”

            I was a beneficiary of free university education in the late 1970s … it was fabulous for all of us, but we were the well-off richer white kids from the better suburbs. Free education did not lead to a great upwelling of working class and minority students getting entry and getting degrees.

            We are back to university fees and long-term student debt. Plus as JHK has talked about frequently – higher education has become a huge money-making racket … and in Australia we fleece thousands of students from Asia every year. Coronavirus is having a serious impact.

            “Tax the corporations more, Obama did this, they all started leaving, After the Midwest saw their jobs go offshore for a generation, they voted in Trump. It will be interesting to see the government start taxing Hollywood the way it should, might be a change of attitude there. Especially a wealth tax.”

            The US has almost always had low corporate tax rates, compared to most other advanced economies – I don’t think that was a big reason … but I agree, personal and corporate tax rates as a competitive tool have led to a race to the bottom among the OECD, and even broader.

            But wealth taxes (taxing assets and capital, rather than income) are a great idea, but unfortunately governments the world over are bought and paid for by the rich, so it is unlikely to happen.

            Close all the tax havens around the world – they are despicable!

            “I think that everyone acknowledges warming. “

            Really? I wouldn’t think 10% of the Trumpster crowd – or even 10% of the regulars on here – are committed to the recognition of Anthropogenic Global Warming, and more importantly, that societies and economies need to change, respond, and adapt.

            Personally I am very pessimistic on this front … I think we will continue doing what we do until we cannot, and the same with peak oil.

            “One of my predictions is that the ult left and the Trumpers are going to figure out a way to use government for the betterment of folks and limit the corruption of the Deep State.”

            I can’t agree at all whatsoever. Trump does not care in the slightest about “folks” as you call them … in fact it his goal to cut just about everything he can to ensure the rich remain well-fed. Social Security, Medicare, health care generally, and much much more.

            And meanwhile, wind back just about every progressive policy that there has ever been – protecting workers, families, mothers, the environment, safety in cars and planes and mines, and everywhere else. And just to be doubly sure stack every federal court in the land with ludicrous unqualified toadies, fruit-loops, and flat-earthers.

            Protect the Second Amendment, ban brown people entering, destroy Roe v Wade … the evangelical agenda rights on! This isn’t the Deep State in operation – this is the lunatic direction that the Republican Party has spent 40 years “perfecting”. The “Deep State” is a terrible distraction – and an obsession of the Right.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 1:58 pm #

            Maj is right: The Corporations wanted slave labor. No Westerner can compete with coolies without becoming one in this regard. John can’t grok this because he wants to keep life the way it is was in the 1950’s or something. That’s never coming back. It’s either National Socialism/Fascism or Communism or the World made by hand and all its horrors and joys.

  29. Majella February 3, 2020 at 1:13 pm #

    V

    The Friedman Doctrine arose in the late 60s and got a global grip in the 80s, which is when this neo-lib/con -Reagan & Thatcher being the trans-Atlantic face of it, but it got in everywhere in the West.

    The responsibility “to maximise benefits to shareholders” is not necessarily a bad or wrong expectation. However, it was distorted into “maximise PROFITS “ – i.e financial benefits only. The externalities have been huge, much greater than the obvious environmental damage, which you list succinctly. Chickens coming home to roost.

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    • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 1:20 pm #

      Uncle Milt still isn’t dead enough.

    • volodya February 3, 2020 at 1:39 pm #

      You bet, everyone in business goes into it to make money and I have no objection. But they carried it too far, ruining everything for huge numbers of people. As you say, the externalities were too much.

      Btw, about that vinegar comment: Didn’t mean to offend. I was trying yet again to be funny. But I’m no good at it. As for stridency, worry not, yours has agility and creativity.

      • Majella February 3, 2020 at 4:07 pm #

        🙂 I wasn’t offended.

  30. Laundromat Blues February 3, 2020 at 1:45 pm #

    I was at Denver’s airport yesterday and I saw a young woman walking through the airport with a mask on. Creepy.

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 2:24 pm #

      what kind of mask?

      whats creepy is the ‘art’ at that place and Blueciper.

  31. rhys12 February 3, 2020 at 2:19 pm #

    “I don’t see Bernie replicating the triumphs of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Great Depression 2.0.”

    Neither he nor any other President have the remotest possibility of being the next FDR. Under FDR the USA had great credit and low debt due to Coolidge and Harding keeping spending down and paying the National Debt way down. They gave FDR a lot of wiggle room.

    In the present day, we have been piling on ever more debt ever faster in “boom times”, leaving only default of some sort as a possibility when things go south. I think you will eventually see the whole monetary system replaced, with all your assets becoming worth pennies on the dollar.

    The petrodollar is already well on the way to being replaced, and once that happens the USA as we know it is doomed. Hence all the recent wars – notice that all have been launched against countries seeking alternatives to the Petrodollar and the Swift Payment System.

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 2:26 pm #

      1930 =

      1 in 3? lived on a farm.

      90% of ‘us’ were White.

      The federal income tax was 17 years old…..so less weight on the little man.

      Read ‘The Biggest Con’ by Irv Schiff.

      • Majella February 3, 2020 at 4:08 pm #

        Irv Schiff? No relation?

        • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 7:11 pm #

          Peter Schiff is a Connecticut guy.

          His father was famous (or infamous) around here back in the day for refusing to pay federal income tax, and making a big deal out of it. Needless to say he was sent to federal prison.

          Brh

          • Majella February 4, 2020 at 1:11 am #

            Ah! THAT guy! Yes, I read about him in one of David Kay Johnston’s trilogy – ‘Free Lunch’, ‘Perfectly Legal’ and ‘The Fine Print’ – compulsory reading for those who want to understand just how the Federal Tax Code has been corrupted by ‘vested interest’

            I’ve mentioned these often. Anyone hereabouts read any of them (yet)?

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 2:27 pm #

      once that happens the USA as we know it is doomed.

      USA is doomed, if being a Euro culture w a White majority = USA.

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 2:33 pm #

      “I don’t see Bernie replicating the triumphs of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Great Depression 2.0.”

      The triumph of Bern and Ms bern is filling their pockets with cash.

    • Kim February 6, 2020 at 1:53 am #

      I can’t see bernie being an economic saviour. There simply isn’t the surplus energy available.

      Texas and Lousiana oil boomed in the 1920s and 1930s. So whatever policies FDR followed, good or bad, it couldn’t help but restore the economy to have oceans of oil available at 3c a barrel.

      People talk all day long about policies and ideologies, but Huey Long could not have created the Louisiana road network or given away free schoolbooks or brought natural gas to New Orleans except that he was able to tax Standard Oil.

  32. K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 2:25 pm #

    Too Freaky.

    A hospital in ten days. That is what we are told but watch this and tell me. Why a deep fake video? This is clearly CGI.

    What ‘R’ are we not to notice?

    A double fake? CGI to make us think they did not build a hospital? Take a look.

    • Majella February 3, 2020 at 4:49 pm #

      K-Dog

      Really? What specifically leads you to the conclusion?

      I mean, a command economy like China’s, it’s entirely possible that they could pull this off.

      • capt spaulding February 3, 2020 at 8:29 pm #

        It’ll take less than 10 days to fill it.

        • Majella February 3, 2020 at 9:18 pm #

          …which is why there’s a second one going up next door, with a greater capacity.

          • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 12:54 am #

            That’s pretty impressive.

            They have everything they need to get the job done: labor, capital and political will.

      • K-Dog February 3, 2020 at 10:12 pm #

        Watch the video.

        • Majella February 4, 2020 at 1:12 am #

          I have -several times…can’t see what you see. Can you give us some reasoning for your call?

  33. Billy Hill February 3, 2020 at 2:36 pm #

    Pre-Panic shopping at Trader Joe’s yesterday. Shopping carts filled to the top with all sorts of stuff. Vegetables, fruits, onions — picked over to almost nothingness. Two asians wearing blue surgical masks.

    Here you go Greta! Utopia in preview: Cities emptied of pedestrians, roadways emptied of automobiles. No trucks transporting foodstuffs or Amazon Prime! All hunkered down, the trust horizon collapsed to one’s four walls. Mr. Rogers ignores the knock at the door.

    The revolution will not be televised.

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 4:38 pm #

      what city or town?

      • Billy Hill February 4, 2020 at 9:17 am #

        Tallahassee.
        It did not look like pre-Super Bowl.

  34. mow February 3, 2020 at 3:28 pm #

    we are the worms

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    • capt spaulding February 3, 2020 at 8:30 pm #

      We are the children

  35. wm5135 February 3, 2020 at 3:37 pm #

    Start a trade war, export some mischief into Hong Kong, sanction corporations as a tool of economic warfare. Kill a million children in twenty years, do a little “strategic deterrence”.

    Allow the spread of a contagious virus that has the potential to devastate elderly populations world wide, crash the global economy, change society worldwide.

    “Everyone has a strategy until they get punched in the face”. Mike Tyson

    Lose half your population, still have 750,000,00 mostly rural and up to the task of rebuilding. Lose half of 350,000,000 and most that have a trade or mechanical skill, don’t need shades the future ain’t that bright.

    Don’t F..K with the wrong monkey.

    Exceptional, indespensable and Joseph McCarthy was a Democrat.

    Wrong on all counts.

    The number to remember is 49.99%

    • malthuss February 3, 2020 at 4:39 pm #

      Kill a million children in twenty years, do a little “strategic deterrence”.

      what do you mean?

  36. Majella February 3, 2020 at 5:32 pm #

    For all those who dismiss AOC without due consideration, I recommend you watch this town hall.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoFaQ9foV8I

    • Nightowl February 3, 2020 at 6:08 pm #

      She has learned to spit out talking points with fewer gaffes.

      That aside, what substantive items did you find compelling? Include details or make an argument.

      I honestly have no clue what one would pull out of that discussion, other than the usual feel-good blanket statements on “green” positions and healthcare.

      What solutions were proposed? Be detailed.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 2:03 pm #

      I consider those crazy big smiles and heaving breasts. I’m not going to be able to resist her on the island.

      • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 3:04 pm #

        IDK. That face has a Halloween-mask quality I can’t get past.

        On the other side of the aisle, I would gladly take Chanel Rion (were I not married).

        She’s an art chick too, so bonus points.

    • Majella February 5, 2020 at 5:07 pm #

      Real high class commentary from two of the saddest males on this board. Nice work, you guys, showing yourselves for what you are – again.

      • Kim February 6, 2020 at 1:58 am #

        Toxic masculinity! Simply toxic!

        You mansplaining manspreaders!

        How is it that I picture you as Miss Hathaway, from the Beverly Hillbillies?

        Yes, I understand, that Jethro Bodine is an ape, a brute….but what a brute!

        • Nightowl February 6, 2020 at 5:19 am #

          Indeed. Liking beauty and art is most toxic.

    • Majella February 6, 2020 at 4:22 pm #

      Hey – I didn’t use the ‘toxic’ reference, nor ‘manspreading’.

      I was only referring to your juvenile responses.

  37. JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 7:12 pm #

    Just had a horrible thought.

    You pull up behind a car at a light. It has a New York license plate. Certain thoughts go through your mind about the folks in that car, certain stereotypes.

    We may have two candidates running for President that are both from New York City this fall.

    Why can we not do better than this?

    • ellipsis February 4, 2020 at 6:43 am #

      Because that’s where the true power – big money – resides.

  38. Elrond Hubbard February 3, 2020 at 7:23 pm #

    For 1st time in Iowa history, mosques will serve as caucus sites
    Community members say the 5 ‘satellite’ sites give Iowa Muslims a ‘safe place’ to actively participate in 2020 election.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/1st-time-iowa-history-mosques-serve-caucus-sites-200203194831339.html

    “Four years ago, Mohamed Ali, a volunteer with the Bernie Sanders campaign, said it was hard getting those in his community to take part in Iowa’s caucuses.

    “‘They just didn’t have the confidence’ or they felt uncomfortable, Ali, who is a Palestinian-American real estate agent in the Des Moines area, told Al Jazeera by phone. Others, he said, didn’t want to be involved in politics for fear of being targeted or discriminated against.

    “But this year participation of the Arab-Muslim community ‘has been huge … it’s been really amazing’, he said.

    “According to Ali, that’s in large part due to the five mosques that will host caucuses on Monday evening – the first time Islamic centres will serve as sites for the party gatherings where Iowans openly discuss and choose their preferred Democratic candidate of the United States’ 2020 presidential candidate.

    “‘It’s historical,’ said state Representative Ako Abdul-Samad, the only Muslim state legislator in Iowa.”

    Three cheers for democracy! Hip, hip…

    • wpa_ccc February 3, 2020 at 7:35 pm #

      Thanks for sharing, Elrond. We only have 3 million Muslims in the USA and I hope we get more Muslim immigrants. They are good god fearing hard working people.

      • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 8:08 pm #

        Most of them, maybe.

        Eliminate CAIR and its anti-USA bent. They want control of this country in the long term.

    • BackRowHeckler February 3, 2020 at 7:56 pm #

      We’ll be looking for Christian safe space voting centers in Islamabad, Tehran and Tripoli.

      Or does it work only one way?

      Brh

      • JohnAZ February 3, 2020 at 8:10 pm #

        Assuming there is real voting in those three places.

        Christians in the Middle East better be watching out for their heads.

      • KesaAnna February 3, 2020 at 9:40 pm #

        What about Palestine ?

        Three cultures I know of where the Bagpipe takes center stage ;

        Scotland , Ireland , and among Palestinian Christians.

        I don’t know where , why , and how the Bagpipe became symbolic of Palestinian Christian culture.

        Anyway , one reason I don’t give two cents credit regarding Western rhetoric regarding the Middle East is it is quite obvious they don’t give a damn about middle east Christians , or even know that they are there.

        • KesaAnna February 3, 2020 at 9:48 pm #

          Like , notice that American media only points out that the Assad regime of Syria is a dictatorship .

          Do they ever , though , likewise point out that it is also a coalition of minorities — Shia , Alawite , Druze , Yizidi , and CHRISTIAN — regime ?

          Not every fucking day , that’s for sure.

        • Majella February 4, 2020 at 1:14 am #

          …and north eastern states’ police forces.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 2:05 pm #

      Iowa mosques. You can’t imagine the pleasure Elrond gets out saying that. That in itself indicates the Evil of it.

      • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 10:17 pm #

        yuck…LA TIMES has a sunday front page—‘Racism in Iowa’ article by a wimpy looking Black man. Tyrone Beason.

  39. KesaAnna February 3, 2020 at 9:11 pm #

    ” History clearly says that cramming a bunch of different cultures together is problematic enough but insisting that they bear no responsibility to adapt/conform to the customs and practice of an adopted country is an outright assurance that the machine breaks down. ”

    There is no responsibility to adapt / conform unless you get your own spot at the feeding trough , and everything that goes with that .

    ” Everything that goes with that ” may very well mean that in the fullness of time the customs and practice evolve to suit you , and not the other way around.

    I have noticed , I think , reflections of this point in the curious case of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

    Shelby Foote called him the one towering genius on the Confederate side , and they say his ideas are still a subject of study at West Point a hundred years later.

    So much for neutral military science.

    I notice that interested parties on both the left and the right only ever seem to point out that Nathan Bedford Forrest was the star founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

    And I have noticed that interested parties on both the left and the right NEVER seem to get around to pointing out that once the KKK had served its purpose of smashing military rule and martial law in the South , Forrest called for its disbandment.

    Further , and this is the really interesting part they always leave out ;

    Forrest saw that if blacks were ever to be genuine citizens of the United States then they needed education , money , and access to inside information .
    In short , they needed genuine empowerment.
    And he spent the rest of his life and his fortune trying to accomplish precisely that.

    Interested parties in the South , of course , wanted no such thing.
    Forrest was labelled a N—- Lover and became persona non grata among many ex – Confederates.

    He wasn’t popular among Abolitionists or Republicans either. To preach freedom ? that’s easy enough , and there isn’t really any meat in it.
    Empowerment though ? That has teeth .

    Now a hundred years later ;

    It’s very much the same story !

    it’s all Nathan Bedford Forrest , first Grand Wizard of the KKK.

    But nary a word , from either side , concerning Forrest the N—– Lover.

    Why would Leftists and Right – Wingers practice the same re- write of history ?

    I would guess that it’s because both actually want a common culture at someone elses expense.

    And both ignoring that you will never achieve that under compulsion.

    To use an extreme example ; You may be obliged to submit to rape , but the one thing you CAN do is refuse to except it in spirit.

    The number one cultural commonality is language, Europe has been divided for millennia by language. French are French not because they have a Constitution, it is because they understand each other.

    The US, in its stupidity, thinks that anything goes , language wise. Uh-huh!

    Now I think of Ulster.

    There you have two groups of white people . Both Freckle – faced , red – haired white people no less. Both speak English , and with the same charming accent.

    The bad blood is ridiculous ? I don’t think so.

    The Catholic versus Protestant thing ? I’m Catholic , and I think it’s a hoot.

    No , my opinion is that a united republican Ireland is going to mean that the Protestant Loyalists are going to lose every vote.

    And that likewise they will lose the better educations , the better jobs , the raises , the promotions , the higher statuses , the muscle of money.

    Republicans damn well know this , and it’s damning that they never point it out as a consequence of their united Ireland , of their , ” Get the Brits out of our Country. ”

    — The U. V. F . will be shit out of luck in their country too , never mind the Brits.

    I’m Catholic , but when I put myself in the shoes of an Ulster Protestant ?

    No way in Hell would I trust Dublin , or the hypothetical tender mercies of the likes of Gerry Adams.

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    • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 9:55 am #

      Kesa

      The UVF are nasty fuckers – they have nothing to do with the UVF of the early 20th century, any more than the current ‘New’ IRA or ‘Real’ IRA, who are basically just thugs. As were many during the 70s, despite the completely justified civil rights movement that preceded ‘The Troubles’ proper.

      The UVF committed the worst atrocity of the entire period of ‘The Troubles’ and they did it in the Republic of Ireland, because they were against the power-sharing agreement for Northern Ireland.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_and_Monaghan_bombings

      Most of the victims, as it says, were young women, but included a full-term unborn baby.

      People who live in Ireland (or Northern Ireland) don’t confuse these nasty fuckers – on either side – with the people of either country (or region, in the case of NI), most of whom would just like to get on with doing what everyone else wants to do, like send their kids to a decent school and have the occasional holiday. Catholic or Protestant is just a cultural identifier that corresponds to nationalist or unionist – per se it has little to do with any conflicts, despite gobby women in the 70s (anecdote from my Belfast friend from the Shankhill Road) shouting at random mothers picking up their kids from Catholic schools ‘youz can’t have the pi-ill; youz can’t have the pi-ill’.

      This kind of behaviour results from Protestants in NI in earlier days feeling threatened (in terms of a united Ireland) by the power of the Catholic church in government and society, but that’s largely gone, so residual religious animosity makes less sense (but when did it ever need to make sense, I suppose).

      The majority of people in Northern Ireland – of either community – just want to live their lives, without their family members risking being shot, like Lyra McKee, while doing their job.

      You’re right, I think, that the IRA thugs don’t really want what Ireland actually offers. Many of them are unemployed and on benefits – the Irish government would not offer them the same largesse (although it actually has higher unemployment – but fewer public-sector jobs). And many of them just like breaking heads.

      Nor would they get a free health service. Any trip to A&E in Ireland will set you back 100 euros – cheap by American standards, but they’re not used to putting their hands in their pockets to pay for for being patched up after a brawl. Although currently the NI health service is falling apart, after three and a half years of no proper government (see below). It can take six weeks to see a GP and years to have hip surgery. But when you get there, eventually, it’s still free…

      https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/northern-ireland-health-service-at-point-of-collapse-as-waiting-lists-hit-record-high-38736198.html

      But you’re wrong about the ‘better educations’, ‘better jobs’ etc. Ireland’s economy is far healthier than that of Northern Ireland, which is a bit of a basket case, with longstanding structural problems.

      Their politicians have only just been pretty much coerced into getting back to work at Stormont after over three years of gardening leave following a renewable energy scam presided over by the bulldog-like Arlene Foster and her ever-intransigent DUP, who insist on everything being exactly the same in Northern Ireland as on the UK mainland – except for things they don’t like, which they then insist should be different.

      GDP per head in Ireland is higher than in the UK and massively higher than in Northern Ireland.

      I think you are also mistaken in your assumptions about Brits in Ireland (and by extension, in a united Ireland). A large number of British people work and live in Ireland and an increasing number of them are applying for Irish citizenship as a result of Brexit. I intend to apply for an Irish passport myself thanks to the Norther Irish grandfather I never met (all citizens of Northern Ireland are entitled to a British and an Irish passport and may use whichever they choose). Relations between Ireland and the UK (barring hiccups over Brexit, which is going to do considerable collateral damage to the Irish economy) are excellent, and the Irish do not dwell on the belligerent history between the two nations the way a minority of the Northern Irish do.

      Re education, you will get a great education in Northern Ireland if you’re one of the 35% who pass the 11+ and get into a grammar school. If you’re one of the 65% who don’t, you are likely to fare worse than a similarly endowed pupil from a British comprehensive school. Swings and roundabouts…

      Interesting article here about the two systems:

      https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/john-fitzgerald-north-s-poor-education-system-a-recipe-for-failure-1.3871711

      “In Northern Ireland today, 21 per cent of 30-34 year olds have not completed post-primary education, the highest in any UK region. It contrasts with a figure of 9 per cent for Ireland.”

      “Addressing the education gap for disadvantaged boys is particularly urgent. The limited job opportunities facing a large number of young men who leave school early is a recipe for alienation and social problems, particularly with Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide.”

      I don’t think most Irish people are in any hurry to incorporate the failing Northern Irish model of anything much into their economy or society. The last thing they want is sectarian thugs in their country – my (Irish, ex-Catholic) husband used to say when he lived there most people would have been happy to see a moat dug between the two parts of the Ireland and Northern Ireland pushed off into the Atlantic.

      None of this is a personal attack on anything you said. so hopefully you will take it in that vein and not feel the need to continue your ‘fucking reptile’ meme. It’s just a perspective from someone a little closer and with friends and family on both sides of the border, even though I don’t live there.

      • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 10:06 am #

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48435872

      • Kim February 6, 2020 at 2:00 am #

        “Most of the victims, as it says, were young women, but included a full-term unborn baby.”

        And what’s the problem with that? That the child wasn’t first “made comfortable” before it was killed?

        • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 8:27 am #

          Not sure why that is relevant, Kim. Nobody was ‘made comfortable’ before they were killed – the unborn baby probably felt less than most and certainly missed the momentary or prolonged existential angst that might have preceded its demise. The tragedy is primarily that even the young women had experienced a bit of a life before they were brutally murdered.

          But yes, I do get your agenda – it’s just that it has no relevance to the matter in hand.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 2:09 pm #

      It’s moot at this point since Sinn Fein is globalist. Who cares who “wins” if the whole Island is going brown and black? The North is the most conservative part so should never join the South. Irish Catholics and Protestants have far more in common than they do with Nigerians or Muslims.

      Alba is stuck in the past. So is Kesa.

      • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 2:53 pm #

        And yet, Janos, I’ve taught in Catholic schools where quite a number of Asian parents chose to send their kids, simply because they like that ‘conservative’ touch. There is a bit of cross-fertilisation in NI as well, but most of the schools remain divided across sectarian lines.

        • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 2:57 pm #

          I mean cross fertilisation across the Catholic/Protestant divide.

          However you must be happy to know that non-Catholic taxpayers in the UK subsidise the sectarianism here, as the Catholic schools are generally state schools, paid for by us all. I don’t mind subsidising them, but I think keeping kids apart like that is dysfunctional.

        • Kim February 6, 2020 at 2:03 am #

          Parents know that, aside from genes, the most significant impact on outcomes for their children is their peers.

          So they send their children where it is hopefully not necessary to stack desks and chairs like a krall to hold off the bantu.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 8:33 am #

            So which community – Catholic or Protestant – are you suggesting need to have chairs and desks stacked against them? I’m not sure what your point is.

            There are some mixed schools even in Northern Ireland – and definitely many cross-cultural grassroots initiatives entirely started up by parents of both communities. Those are the lucky children – they grow up not seeing stacked chairs and desks as in any way relevant to their young world. More power to their elbow.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 8:39 am #

            I went to non-denominational schools (which, since the only denominational schools were Catholic ones, just meant non-Catholic). There was one Catholic girl in my class, who was part of my group of friends (she even came to our Proddy church youth club), and another who was Jewish (so did she). Neither of them experienced the slightest prejudice or even curiosity from being entirely surround by non-Jewish and non-Catholic kids. Religious prejudices come from parents – children aren’t born with them.

      • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 5:16 pm #

        Actually I’d revise my second last short paragraph in the light of how well Sinn Fein are doing in the polls (in Ireland). They have a lot of support among the young, whose viewpoint is different. A reporter said tonight that the feeling (in Ireland) still seems to be ‘let Ireland be united, but not yet’. Unionism is still far too strong in the north for it to happen without serious repercussions. The numbers are changing in the north too, but you don’t need big numbers on the side that’s against change to cause those repercussions.

  40. snagglepuss February 3, 2020 at 11:30 pm #

    Jiminy crickets! What’s all this flotsam jetsam about an Iowa Caucus about? I drove through Sioux Falls or Sioux City once and scored a muffler repair for $10.70 so I am forever grateful to the citizens of that great state, but are they serious about getting behind Bernie Sanders? The same guy who thinks he can flip a switch and like magic duplicate the health care system of your great white northern neighbour? ( notice how I spelled neighbour the ‘canadian’ way?).

    Sorry kids, but it’s just not on. Never think that because there are some similar characteristics between the two nations that we resemble one another on fundamental infrastructural matters. If you doubt this do a quick fact check on for example on the two banking systems. Other examples too numerous to bring up. Let’s just let us be us and you be you.
    Just say ‘uncle’ and admit D.J. Trump is the best of the worst out there. An effective President is more valuable in the long run. I’m on pins and needles waiting to hear the State of Union Address tomorrow evening. I wonder what Melania will be wearing.
    As for the Superbowl extravaganza I had to turn it off as soon as Joe Buck and Troy Aikens appeared on the screen ‘manspreading’. Jesus H. Christ! Couldn’t the cameras shoot them both from the waist up like Elvis?

    • KesaAnna February 3, 2020 at 11:54 pm #

      ” Never think that because there are some similar characteristics between the two nations that we resemble one another on fundamental infrastructural matters. ”

      Like , in land mass it is similar.

      But two – thirds of that land mass is all but uninhabitable.

      Last I heard though , in population , Canada is slightly smaller than united Germany.

      ” fundamental infrastructural matters. ”

      Your intuition is sound.

  41. KesaAnna February 3, 2020 at 11:49 pm #

    Nice essay Majella .

    But ,

    ” … it’s more nuanced than you approach it here. ”

    ” … slashing the military budget would deliver a lot of that, ”

    Ironically , rather like the old Soviet Union , the military in the United States is a massive dole itself.

    It is not just infantrymen , aircraft carriers , and tanks.

    Corporations build those tanks at profit. Factory workers build those tanks at wages they could not get anywhere else. The restaurant down the street stays in business because of the lunch time and dinner time traffic from the tank factory.

    Quite possibly the biggest market for prostitutes and brothels are American military bases . Of perhaps both the cheap and high dollar kind.

    The G. I . Bill is no minor thing. I have no doubt a great many Americans , and especially white Americans , never would have amounted to anything except hamburger – flipper or janitor without the G. I . Bill .

    When you walk into a state employment office , the first question the clerk ALWAYS asks you is , ” Are you a veteran ? ”

    There is a purpose behind the question ; Veterans get to pick over the job offerings , in both high and low categories , in all categories , before anyone else.

    Another example of , ” All animals are equal , but some are more equal than others . ” * Wink *

    Near as I can tell , not uncommonly the difference between a private sector retiree obliged to live with one of their children , and at least to consider food stamps ,

    and a retiree who still lives independently , and is further taking Gulf shore vacations , is that the latter was career military.

    ( The things you see and learn by attending church. )

    You rarely , or simply don’t , hear of the military being described as a welfare system.

    ” Welfare ” is a dirty word in America,

    — but with a subtle twist.

    America has been steeped , and for 200 years , in an extreme interpretation of free will , and an extreme form of The Just World Hypothesis.

    That your good fortune might primarily be due to the fact that your parents were Care Bears , and / or you happened to be born into an already juiced – in demographic , might actually LOOK BAD , when the dogma is ,

    ” All men are created equal . ” ( And presumably in subsequent practice too. )

    Two – thirds of all wealth is still essentially inherited wealth , sounds a bit too feudal for comfort . It suggests , if ever so indirectly and subtly , that the founding fathers might have been just a bunch of bullshit revolutionaries who were totally full of shit.

    So nothing is ever described as ” welfare ” except that it applies to outcasts and marginals.

    If the object is not marginal or outcast the hand out is never to be described as a hand out , but always rather shrilly and aggressively pushed as something earned and deserved.

    Like we owe soldiers because they put their ass on the line for our freedom.

    Never mind that for a hundred years past now the logistical needs of armies have grown to the degree where at least one out of three soldiers is actually a clerk , not a rifleman. And not uncommonly the proportion is even greater than that.

    What the fuck do you especially owe to a warehouse clerk ??

    Well , you best not ask.

    ” This is not a problem that is difficult to fix, but it requires legislators that are not in the pockets of lobbyists with unlimited “campaign finance” contributions. ”

    You are basically talking , whether you realize it or not , about corruption.

    The United States is fantastically corrupt , but , and only , obliquely so.

    That is , so that it doesn’t LOOK , BLATANTLY , like corruption.

    For example , no , the average Joe , typically , can not go down to the DMV , slip the DMV officer 500 dollars , and get a drivers license.

    But drivers licenses are not whipped out of thin air. Some machine is used to manufacture them.

    The machine manufacturers have a vested interest in better , fancier , more complex drivers licenses. They are gonna make more money off of it they figure.

    Surely so. In the old days the State could accomplish the same task with a mimeograph machine and a cheap camera.

    The drivers license machine manufacturers typically sit down every election and write a big check for the democratic candidate — and they sit down and write a big check for the republican candidate.

    They are covering both bases. And , no , it is never stated outright that they better contribute ….

    But , after all , the state always could go back to mimeograph machines and cheap cameras , or they could find themselves a different supplier. So maybe you better contribute ?

    Whoever wins the election , the politician can then tell his fans that he has made the streets safer ,

    thus pandering to their control freak conceits. That , too , is not overtly a bribe , or graft , except that indirectly ,

    it really is.

    Thousands of Americans wind up driving around on expired licenses , and thousands of illegal immigrants avail themselves of near – perfect forgeries made on these same machines , smuggled out of the factories piece by piece and then set up south of the border .

    The politicians and drivers license machine manufacturers were in the know , and so already knew this would happen.

    But , of course , never say a word about it.

    Probably quite a few of their control freak fans could figure it out too , but it marres the beauty of their control freak narrative , so they won’t say anything about it either.

    — Except , perhaps , as brief preamble to the next rationale for why they should — EXPENSIVELY — tighten up on things some more.

    As I said , fantastically corrupt , top to bottom.

    Ironically , a cruder , more low – ball , kind of corruption might have been preferable ?

    ” the US healthcare is 18% of GDP, whereas in all the ‘socialistic’ systems it runs to around 9% ”

    As regards corruption again ; It has been observed that anonymity is actually much easier in a large city.

    Much harder , or simply impossible , in a one – horse town.

    My bet would be that most of these countries in the 9% bracket are countries no larger than the single state of Virginia , and so , metaphorically , a one horse town .

    Does the 9% include Russia , China , and Brazil ?

    If so , and if the picture there is rosey , then very well.

    In any case , Russia , China , and Brazil are the comparisons to be made.

    I have noticed though that Americans are decidedly reluctant to make particularly those comparisons.

    And most of you outsiders , well , apparently can’t read the implications apparent in a map.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 1:57 am #

      Thanks KA

      Great insight into the corruption woven into the social fabric. I really hadn’t thought of that in such granular detail.

      In terms of the MIC, yes, I get that but your microscopic exam is truly helpful. But that resource currently focused on turning large rocks into small rocks in nowhere-places is a large part of it. Also, the veneration of the guy that got gasoline into the Hindu Kush at a cost of $500 a gallon for the Humvee fleet from some Fort in South Carolina does rather undermine the myth.

      As to the healthcare, according to the OECD, the Russian spend is 6.5% GDP & Brazil 9.4% (January 2020). I’m sure neither system isn’t without its problems and flaws, but…everyone is covered. In both countries, an individual can buy private cover as well, but that doesn’t give an opt-out of the public levy to pay for the public levy.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 2:02 am #

      ‘..to pay for the public system’ I meant.

      Oh, and China – the public system costs 6.5% (or thereabouts) but only offers 70% cost coverage. Private plans are also available.

    • Kim February 6, 2020 at 2:06 am #

      Writing a new sentence on a deparate line does not qualify as paragraphing. You may as well just type out a wall of text as you still leave the cognitive load of organzing the text to your readers. Very rude and lazy.

      Perhaps at the schools you attended, essay and report writing was not part of the curriculum.

  42. toktomi February 4, 2020 at 12:04 am #

    @JHK

    Hey, thanks, James for your analysis and speculation about the state of industrial society in these days – very entertaining and enlightening.

    It’s a fine eye that you thread to be able to write of these things in order to analyze the effects but yet, stay clear of the probably forces that orchestrate the machinations. It’s easy to say too much when you have a big audience; there are a fair number of silenced voices from these last couple of decades who apparently did not thread their needles properly.

    ~toktomi~

  43. wpa_ccc February 4, 2020 at 1:17 am #

    JohnAZ, do you know the core principles of CAIR? I think you and I both agree with most of CAIR’s principles.

    Core Principles

    CAIR supports free enterprise, freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

    CAIR is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, regardless of faith.

    CAIR supports domestic policies that promote civil rights, diversity and freedom of religion.

    CAIR opposes domestic policies that limit civil rights, permit racial, ethnic or religious profiling, infringe on due process, or that prevent Muslims and others from participating fully in American civic life.

    CAIR is a natural ally of groups, religious or secular, that advocate justice and human rights in America and around the world.

    CAIR supports foreign policies that help create free and equitable trade, encourage human rights and promote representative government based on socio-economic justice.

    CAIR believes the active practice of Islam strengthens the social and religious fabric of our nation.

    CAIR condemns all acts of violence against civilians by any individual, group or state.

    CAIR advocates dialogue between faith communities both in America and worldwide.

    CAIR supports equal and complementary rights and responsibilities for men and women.

    • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 9:16 am #

      Asoka, do you know Taqiyya, especially of the CIA Muslim Brotherhood kind?

      • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 9:22 am #

        That should read Vatican/CIA, as the two are one and the same.

  44. SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 1:20 am #

    The official statistics on the Wuhan Coronavirus are not trustworthy according to even mainstream conformist sources. And what’s super scary about that factoid is not just that they admit it, but also that the “official” numbers paint a dark and grim picture. Unusual since we were just being told that the everday flu is way worse and that business as usual will definitely continue. As I type, there are allegedly (Wikipedia) 20,629 people who have been infected by this new virus. Out of these, 427 have died and 516 have recovered. So basically 95.5% of everyone that we are told has been infected since the beginning of this outbreak are still struggling with infection. If the dead versus recovered percentages hold as these numbers go forward then we are in big big trouble. That’s because of the resolved cases, 45.3% resulted in death and 54.7% are considered recovered. And as if the dismally low recovery numbers weren’t enough to trouble you, new research from the cases in Germany indicate that recovered may really be “recovered” since some infected patients appeared to get over initial symptoms but have remained infected post symptoms and with tremendously high viral counts. It’s not clear if the post symptom viral shedding creates opportunities for spreading infection. It’s also not clear what sort of damage the longer term infection is doing but testing on an asymptomatic 10 year old boy in China showed that while appearing perfectly healthy he was spreading the virus and internally was beginning to show signs of pneumonia.

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    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 2:10 am #

      Hey SSL

      Did you happen to cycle back to the last thread re: our conversation on Maori? I tried to discern a question and respond.

      • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 9:26 am #

        Hi! Ok, I will try again. So in the past, you have intimated that it is ok or even a positive thing for the Maori to love Maori. So in other words, it is ok for the Maori to love themselves as a people, as well as their history and culture. This is actually considered ethnocentrism btw, though I realize others view it as a normal affinity to one’s group. So my question is this. Since diversity and a “melting pot” are envisioned as such great goods (Cargill can’t get enough), isn’t it essentially racist for the Maori to love Maori? Shouldn’t they be as eager to dive into the melting pot as any White New Zealander? Shouldn’t they be eager to disappear as a distinct group to join the emerging mixed world culture?

        • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:36 am #

          Heres what I replied with;

          SSL

          This may or may not be addressing your ‘question’ but I’ll offer this anyway.

          You ask whether Maori should be “eager to dive into the melting pot?” I’m not sure what your intention in asking this is, but I can tell you that there are probably no ‘pure blood’ Maori left. At all.

          From the earliest times, Maori embraced the Europeans in order to acquire the technology they brought with them. They traded across the Tasman with the Australian colonies from the early 1800s. They intermarried (sorry – miscegenated!) with Europeans from the earliest days.

          While there are (probably) no ‘pure blood’ Maori any more, there are plenty of people who are obviously Maori by their appearance. Likewise, there are many Maori who don’t look in the least bit like the genotype. It’s the luck of the genetic draw.

          A very good friend of mine is a teacher in his late 40s. He teaches Maori, Kapa Haka, and music at a Dunedin state-funded high school. His name and looks are Maori (last name is TeNgahue) and he has a very attractive brownness to his skin. Yet his mother is a Pakeha, and his grandmother was also.

          In fact, his father ADVISED him to NOT marry a Maori woman (find a nice Pakeha girl) and he took the advice, having produced three children over two marriages. His younger two are girls aged 8 & 6. The older of them has his looks and colouration while the younger is a stunning blue-eyed blonde.
          However, she’s as much Maori as her father & sister and older brother, and is anyone who can recite their whakapapa.

          “Maori” ness is a concept that’s difficult to explain. It’s as much about identification as lineage. There’s a number of Maori who don’t identify (and generally don’t look like Maori either). There’s plenty of Maori who don’t look like Maori but identify as Maori and are active community members.

          So, a melting pot? It sure is and always has been. Eventually, it’s expected that all New Zealanders will statistically have some Maori blood in them. No worries – this place is our Turangawaewae and we rub along pretty well. Maori have been in renaissance culturally since the 1970s and we all – all New Zealanders – are benefiting from it.

          Here’s a Maori but you’d never know it:

          google.com/search?q=tony+brown&oq=tony+brown&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.2399j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

          Here’s his younger brother – and it’s perfectly clear:

          https://www.odt.co.nz/sport/rugby/super-rugby/cory-brown-joins-brother-sunwolves

          • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:05 am #

            There is no pure blood anybody. 98% of Whites accept this and the 2% are just damn fools. We are not even pure Cro-Magnon, having Neanderthal blood across the board coming from Europe. Our countrymen that need to remember the cross fertilization of the races are the Browns who think they are above everyone else and the US needs to follow their leads. BS, THE US needs to follow the same leads as the combinations afforded by everyone. The halftime show at the Super Bowl is a good example. Having a Latino flavor and displaying the Puerto Rican flag is very appropriate in Miami Florida. They finished with Old Glory.

            The divisions in the country are not coming from the Trumpers, they are coming from the blowhard racists in the Democratic Party trying to hold onto their dupes. The dupes are getting wise to their shenanigans and it scares the heck out of them.

            For all you racists out there, both sides of the fence, remember we all stem from 1-3 genetic stocks, meaning we are one or two environmental genetic changes from each other.

            Mix that in your coffee and drink it.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 3:25 pm #

            In other words, we’re all the same? So why do they make a big shit about being a Maori? Perhaps all the perquisites that go along with it? No wonder women want to pretend to be non-White – especially with all the detriments that go along with being an ordinary White.

            See the Maori who look just like anyone else (White?)! If he’s Maori, and thus Good and thus able to Collect, why can’t I be a Maori too, the feminine mind wonders.

            Women go with the Winners. And if White tax money is going towards other groups, along with countless perks, all while Whites are considered the scum of the Earth, Whites are clearly the Losers.

            Maj isn’t so bad or unusual – rather SSL is just so unusually Good.

            Other, more sensible women, like Alba, don’t pretend to be non-White, they just accept the existential guilt of being White and then proceed to virtue display. They’re some of the few Good Ones – not like ordinary Whites. Thus do they throw their brothers and sisters under the Bus, or the Knife, or heavy platform of logs (New Guinea). Political Correctness is a religion of human sacrifice.

            Also, for well heeled heels in high heels, there are expensive luncheons where minority women rate White suckers as to how racist they are. More sensible feminine suckers just make public donations.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 3:30 pm #

            So much John’s being on my side, which he affects on a regular basis now. We feel we’re special. No one else has to feel that way. It’s not up for a vote. We want our own Thing – and that includes Nations.

            John doesn’t see us as anything special and so he has no place among us since his loyalties are inevitably going to be divided. If Whites had valued themselves, they never would have brought in other races to share America with. No Black slavery. No Mexican servants. And no White servitude either, needless to say.

            You can’t keep a People down forever after all. It goes against Nature and your own nature. And if they had loved their own People correctly, this never would have been an issue.

          • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 5:32 pm #

            “Other, more sensible women, like Alba, don’t pretend to be non-White, they just accept the existential guilt of being White and then proceed to virtue display.”

            More nonsense from the one who thinks he knows what people think. I don’t feel the slightest guilt at being white. I feel guilty, when I do, about things I’ve done myself, not who I am. And I haven’t thrown anyone under a bus. You seem to think I have some power – even electorally – to do something or anything. Get real.

            As for ‘the Good ones’ and women (what, all of them?) ‘wanting to pretend to be non-white’, gawd, get a grip.

          • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 1:36 am #

            Yes, we are special and unique. And that isn’t a question or up for a vote. It’s not a discussion point. We will get what we want one way or another. All who want to live in a mixed race society please feel free. Just know that while Whites who have no affinity for their own race are fleeing to presumably greener pastures the non-Whites only grow in their solidarity to their own various groups/tribes. So good luck finding friends with them.

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 2:45 am #

            SSL

            You’re welcome to your fantasy world, which you’ll never find or build yourself.

            The smarter option is to live in the REAL world, deal with it, form relationships with those with whom you share your community, and just BE HUMAN – there’s only 1 ‘brand’ of ‘Earthling’

        • Cargill February 5, 2020 at 8:01 am #

          “Since diversity and a “melting pot” are envisioned as such great goods (Cargill can’t get enough), isn’t it essentially racist for the Maori to love Maori? Shouldn’t they be as eager to dive into the melting pot as any White New Zealander? Shouldn’t they be eager to disappear as a distinct group to join the emerging mixed world culture?”

          You know so little about indigenous affairs, however your obvious lack of understanding doesn’t stop you mouthing off in a grandiose fashion – but that’s pretty much par for the course on this forum.

          When you’re really ready to understand how indigenous affairs work in countries like New Zealand and Australia, get back to me and I’ll be happy to run a tutorial for y’all. Free of charge.

          • Majella February 6, 2020 at 4:29 pm #

            Cargill

            The state of indigenous affairs in Australia is a conundrum to me. I’d appreciate some ‘on-the-ground’ reporting.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 2:14 am #

      Also Re: Coronavirus & infection rates. Thanks for that analysis. Here’s some context:

      https://www.sciencealert.com/this-chart-shows-how-the-wuhan-virus-compares-to-other-recent-outbreaks

      Check out the 760 million infected for H1N1 but still only a 2% fatality rate…(245,000 souls!)

      • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 9:34 am #

        Yes, I continue to see data like this as well. Hopefully you are right and I am the one wearing a cute tinfoil hat :-). But the way math works, one day my conspiracies will be correct! They may be this time too. The problem is there is not enough trustworthy data yet to come to any good conclusions and the situation is still evolving.

  45. Majella February 4, 2020 at 2:24 am #

    ? what would you expect him to tell you?

    In the US, until just last year, there was an actual Act of Congress that specifically DOESN’T require your FA to put your best interests ahead of the Adviser’s. I hope your guy got the memo.

  46. tucsonspur February 4, 2020 at 2:33 am #

    Zap the map!

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/artist-wheeled-99-smartphones-around-172836389.html

    Naughty, but nice – and simple. Google mapped the zap.

    • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 9:38 am #

      Haha! And it brings home the point made in the article that data is not simply gathered to make traffic better. It always seems like it’s about getting that personal data and selling it to the highest bidders. So hopefully more people “jam” them up lol!

  47. tucsonspur February 4, 2020 at 2:53 am #

    “Democrats are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?” said Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager.

    “Tonight President Trump posted a record performance in the well-run GOP Iowa caucuses with record turnout for an incumbent,” he added.

    The belief in the integrity of the Iowa caucuses will vary inversely to the time it takes to report the results.
    Reasons for the delay; “Quality checks” and “inconsistencies”.
    Very early numbers had Biden kissing the canvas. IOW, KO’d.

    • ellipsis February 4, 2020 at 6:40 am #

      Translation: Sanders did even better than expected and that can not be allowed under any circumstances. Bernie has no chance whatsoever running as a Dem, which you would think 2016 would have taught him. No fool like an old fool, as they say.

      I imagine Biden is their ideal candidate if having a sock puppet in office is the goal. His speeches, assuming they were foolish enough to even let him speak live, would be a late night comedians’ treasure trove. Perhaps Americans could even unite around having a doddering old fool – a grandpa with Alzheimer’s, if you will – as the Commander in Chief?

      • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 8:43 am #

        Did you see the current doddering old fool orchestrating the Star-Spangled Banner before the Super Bowl while his wife Melania respectfully placed her right palm up against her heart? I was almost hoping beyond hope that he would dance a jig and yell “Kapernick, Kapernick, Kapernick!”

  48. Pucker February 4, 2020 at 3:05 am #

    Correction after Peer Review:

    Believe it or not, the ancient Persians had some pretty damn good Fuck’n Love Poetry. Better than some of our CONTEMPORARY Western shit….

    “Since my heart was caught in the snare of love,
    Since my soul became wine in the cup of love,
    Ah, the pains I have known through loverhood
    Since like a hawk I fell in the snare of love!
    Trapped in time, I am turned to a drunken sot
    By the exciting, dreg-draining cup of love.
    Dreading the fierce affliction of loverhood,
    I dare not utter the very name of love;
    And the more amazing is this, since I see
    Every creature on earth is at peace with love.33”

    Once on the way back from fishing trip in Anchorage, Alaska, I grabbed dinner at Mexican restaurant. There was a rough-looking white mountain man-look’n bloke who met a very husky, rough-looking white woman at the restaurant for a romantic dinner of tequila, rice and beans. He met her carrying a dozen red roses. Men outnumber women in Anchorage 5 to 1. I hope that it worked out for ‘em….

    • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 10:27 am #

      A dozen red roses you say? That is a sweet sentiment you know.

  49. Pucker February 4, 2020 at 3:27 am #

    I’ve got a friend who, believe it or not, works for the DNC in Iowa. True story…. I’m going to show mercy and not say anything re: the Iowa Caucuses yesterday unless asked….

    I’ve always suspected over the years since 2016 that the DNC gives the party apparatchiks “Talking Points” to talk about issues to keep conversations consistent and scripted? Not sure…. I imagine that they’re probably waiting at their computers to get the DNC talking points to find out what to say regarding the Iowa Caucus App fiasco?

    It’s insane….

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    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 3:43 pm #

      I’ll ask. What’s the story from your friend?

  50. Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 3:48 am #

    Dems eating each other alive in Iowa, claiming results can’t be trusted.

    https://twitter.com/rickklein/status/1224562658302623744

    I have long said I think this is the exact tactic they will use in 2020 vs. Trump as well.

    Seems we are on track.

    • RIB February 4, 2020 at 5:52 am #

      Easy explanation for Democratic Clusterfuck in Iowa

      Orange Man Orange Man Orange Man

      Rusia Russia Russia

      • RIB February 4, 2020 at 5:52 am #

        Russia

        • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:07 am #

          I notice that the officials in Iowa are being very emphatic that their incompetence is NOT a hack or other interference.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 3:33 pm #

            They bought a bad app. But only Government can be incompetent, right John?

          • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 1:43 am #

            Good point! Private corporations fail too. Because like any other organization corporations are made up of people. People have the capacity for failure and therefore so do all organizations.

  51. K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 4:17 am #

    @BackRowHeckler

    I think it was you who asked about Q a couple of weeks ago. He made contact through my website and explained that he was on a sabbatical from this place. He gave permission to say he was OK.

    As many years as some of us have been hanging around here, taking a break can be a good thing to do. An occasional, clust-exit one could say. He sends his regards.

    • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 8:07 am #

      Thanks K-Dog.

      Q, if you’re looking in, I wish you the best.

      I probably should take a break from this place myself; I’m amped up like everybody else about the political situation, combined that with working nights with not many people around during the day, and a bad case of cabin fever peering out at the semi frozen landscape in this endless winter … here I am.

      Your site has evolved nicely … a work in progress but looking like its reaching completion.

      Brh

      • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 9:35 am #

        Taking a break from what exactly? Does anyone take this stuff seriously? It’s good typing practice, that’s about it.

        • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 10:09 am #

          And I’m a hunt and peck, one finger typist. On a tablet, no less.

  52. Pucker February 4, 2020 at 5:04 am #

    This new pandemic virus has got my sphincter clinched….

    I met a British bloke while soaking my balls in the public hot bubbling tub in Busan, South Korea over Chinese New Year. I was reading a Chinese politics book while soaking in the hot tub amidst the naked Korean blokes who are ok since they leave you alone. No queer stuff…. The British bloke’s first question after asking about the book: “When are you getting out?”

    He said that he was getting himself and his family out of South Korea. In response to my query as to whether South Korea is “Safe”?, he replied: “ No way…Kim Jong Un is a nutter.” He said that Kim Jong Un has some big doomsday plan if he thinks that the Americans will prevail.

    Great….

    You’d think that the bottom line for even these psychos would be self preservation? I think that Freud contemplated this issue when considering WWI, and he then developed his theory of the societal “Death Wish”. Great….. Fantastic…..

    • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 10:29 am #

      LOL you really are unbelievable. Hey! You know that Kim Jong Un had promised to give the world a “gift” in 2020. You don’t imagine his gift is Coronavirus do you? You better stop traveling so freely over there are you might catch a cold!!!!

  53. Pucker February 4, 2020 at 7:27 am #

    Apparently, the Iowa Caucus App was developed by a company called “Shadow” and was paid for in part by the Pete Buttigieg campaign. True story…. It’s a big joke….

    You can’t make this up….

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L6iWphKg5Vw

    • Pucker February 4, 2020 at 7:50 am #

      Imagine the audacity of the DNC contracting with a company called “Shadow” to develop an App to count the votes and to have Mr. Naval Intelligence Pete Buttigieg help to pay for it. You gotta be shit’n me?!

      • Pucker February 4, 2020 at 8:11 am #

        They must be psychopaths?

        • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 1:13 pm #

          Are you just figuring that out?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 3:36 pm #

        That seems like a conflict of interest. Or maybe it’s just me….

  54. Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 8:01 am #

    Trump commenting on how Bloomberg wants a box to stand on for the debate.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHWnrLR-6tw

    I love this kind of stuff. It appears so beneath a candidate for Pres. on one level, but on the other it is extremely effective. Since the advent of the TV presidency, all that matters to most voters is the superficial (witness Trump haters’ superfical attacks in particular here).

    All people will think now when they see Bloomberg at the debate is “He is standing on a box.” And no one wants a leader who stands on a box.

    And the real beauty is, the statement is fundamentally true. Why should Bloomberg get a box to stand on?

    How far removed is that from getting the questions ahead of the debate (as with Clinton)?

    Why can’t Bloomberg go toe-to-toe with his competitors without getting an unfair advantage?

    Trump is a master of media. LOL.

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    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:11 am #

      Yep.

      Commercials are gauged for a sixth to eighth grade mentality.

      Trump understands marketing.

    • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 10:18 am #

      “And no one wants a leader who stands on a box.”

      Indeed. And yet you used to have a leader in a wheelchair. Sad days.

      • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 10:50 am #

        Things got real (or real fake) in about 1960. Like it or not, superficial aspects are more interesting to the herd than facts and figures.

        • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 11:25 am #

          I don’t disagree, Nightowl.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 3:38 pm #

          Remember when Trump made fun of that vicious spaz journalist? That’s Trump at his best.

          • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 5:32 pm #

            Oh Janos.

            He didn’t though. There is a video out there (which I posted a while back) where someone took the time to compile about 20 different moments where Trump used the exact same gesticulations and speech to imitate people he claimed he caught in a lie.

            The entire story was a classic Fake News hit, swallowed up by the low IQ set. This was Koigate on steroids.

      • RIB February 4, 2020 at 11:19 am #

        Right. And the MSM went to great length to avoid publicizing that fact. From Wikipedia: Roosevelt was able to convince many people that he was getting better, which he believed was essential if he was to run for public office again. His public appearances were choreographed to avoid the press covering his arrival and departure, which would have shown him getting into or out of a vehicle or train. In private he used a wheelchair, but was careful not to be seen using it in public, although he sometimes appeared on crutches. He usually appeared in public standing upright, supported on one side by an aide or one of his sons. For major speaking occasions, an especially solid lectern was placed on the stage so that he could support himself on it; as a result, in films of his speeches, Roosevelt can be observed using his head to make gestures because his hands were gripping the lectern. He might raise one hand to gesture, but his other hand held the lectern.
        Journalist John Gunther reported that in the 1930s, he often met people in Europe, including world leaders, who were unaware of Roosevelt’s paralysis.[10]:239 David Brinkley, who was a young White House reporter in World War II, stated that the Secret Service actively interfered with photographers who tried to take pictures of Roosevelt in a wheelchair or being moved about by others. The Secret Service commonly destroyed photographs they caught being taken in this manner; however, there were occasional exceptions.[7][12][13]
        Disability advocate Hugh Gallagher posited that Roosevelt was desperate to appear able-bodied. When discussing Roosevelt’s limited use of a wheelchair in public, Gallagher stated, “This was not by accident. It was a strategy that served to minimize the extent of his handicap, to make it unnoticed when possible and palatable when it was noticed.”[11]:xiv In contrast, historian James Tobin argued that Roosevelt used his disability to his advantage. Tobin stated, “But he could, instead, show himself to be something he had never been seen as before: a fighter and, and better yet, an underdog; not a man to pity, not a man to envy, but a man to cheer.”[2]:273
        When Roosevelt addressed the Congress in person on March 1, 1945, about a month before his death, he made public reference to his disability for almost the first time in 20 years.[10]:36 “I hope that you will pardon me for this unusual posture of sitting down,” Roosevelt began, “but I know you will realize that it makes it a lot easier for me not to have to carry about ten pounds of steel around on the bottom of my legs.”[14]
        Roosevelt was the United States’ first disabled president. The Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., includes a statue of Roosevelt in a wheelchair.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 3:37 pm #

          Yes, a vicious crip. One of the Fathers of the New World Order, in bed with both Capitalists and Communists and the Bankers who own them both.

  55. fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 8:49 am #

    And these guys want to run every aspect of your lives:

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-04/iowa-caucuses-botched-results-may-end-an-primary-tradition

    All you need to know when dem’s blames the Russians or whatever:

    “Caucuses are run by the political parties, ”

    Says it all.

    • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 8:56 am #

      Another title could have been- “Why the democrats miss the Rod Hammer”

      Subtext being that it is easy to “run” an election when the results are already in the can.

      No troubles no worries.

      Just anoint the winner and move forth. None of this messy vote counting.

  56. stelmosfire February 4, 2020 at 9:05 am #

    So, good to hear Q is still in the house, other posters over the years, Lewislucanbooks, Trippticket, Mudhut Asoka, Spidy, Rippedthunder AKA, Marlin AKA, add to the list. OZONE, There have been many over the last 15 years.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:45 am #

      Where’s Ol’ Scratch?

      • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 1:53 am #

        For some reason I think Ol’ Scratch is still around sometimes. It just feels like it I guess anyway. But I don’t sense Lil Deb’s presence anymore. I think he was a mad scientist in a good way. Perhaps he is working on developing a nano weapon that can destroy the Wuhan Coronavirus?

  57. AKlein February 4, 2020 at 9:18 am #

    Perhaps the people who installed the video system at the Manhattan federal jail where Epstein was housed are also in the “App” business?

  58. BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 9:18 am #

    Who won Iowa?

    • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 9:20 am #

      Soros

      • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:38 am #

        Ha!

        • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 1:06 pm #

          Marx didn’t distinguish between Communism and Socialism. Why should we?

    • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 9:32 am #

      Vlad.

      Or is that old hat yet? Hitler?

  59. akmofo February 4, 2020 at 9:19 am #

    Mrs Green, the Sky is falling:

    https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=GBP&view=1Y

    NOT!
    Big Ben has sung the sun is shine and youz iz fine

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    • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 10:32 am #

      Mr Akmofo

      The sky is fine.

      But there is a wider range of economic indicators here:

      https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/30/how-has-brexit-vote-affected-uk-economy-january-verdict

      And the pound is still way below where it was before the Brexit vote. It’s all to play for. The pound went up with Boris Johnson’s massive victory and slumped again with his pronouncements indicating the hardest of hard ends to the transition period (aka a very hard Brexit, damaging the economy).

      We will just have to live with whatever Boris – and the markets – ACTUALLY deliver. Time to move on to other things, like how to explain to Boris about yon peak oil thingy. He has no idea. None.

      Shall we tell him before the new runway at Heathrow is finished or before, do you think?

      • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 10:43 am #

        or *after*, even – maybe that was my subconscious preference for foresight showing…

      • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:47 am #

        Me thinks you underestimate all the world leaders. I believe they all understand what is coming, and it scares the heck out of them that there is nothing they can do about it politically.

        Macron tried a tax increase to try to slow the dependence on Fossil fuels in France.

        He hatched a nest of Yellow Jackets and immediately backed down.

        I would like to be a mouse in the room at Davos, I will bet the future is a constant source of discussion with a lot of shrugged shoulders and acquiescence.

        • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 10:58 am #

          I think you’re overestimating Boris in this instance, JohnAZ. I don’t think he gets what’s REALLY coming. Nor do I think he would care, as he will be well insulated and will hope, in any case, that it would be ‘après moi le déluge’.

          I share your curiosity about how much ‘they’ really really know about what’s coming. I’d make TLE required reading for every politician entering the House of Commons but that would be very totalitarian of me, wouldn’t it?

          We could make it required reading for all aspiring college and university entrants too – might affect people’s career choices.

          But if the climate protesters were accused of causing depression in youngsters, what would ‘they’ do to me for making them read The Long Emergency?

          • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 11:28 am #

            A grand idea!

            Unfortunately, the Left constantly pulls the wool over its constituency’s eyes. The kids going through “higher education”, cannot be upset by the real world.

            When I read TLE in 2008, it scared the heck out of me. Why? Because his delivery of his prophesy made sense. In 2008, the idea that oil was going to cost more and more was very scary.

            His predictions were and are spot on. The only flaw might be that he predicts changes too fast. The Finnish article Above says however he might be closer to the truth.

      • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 12:25 pm #

        Mrs Green, glad to see them Commie-Jihadi propagandists are on mye side. ‘Cos EVERYTHING them are for, mye iz against. Not so glad youz iz reading and believing them loser propagandists.

        When the EUro implodes, as it will, guess what currency will be used instead? There’s a world of hurt coming to that wretched Vatican/Nazi continent:

        The German auto manufacture, which is the backbone of the German export-economic model built upon the old mercantilist system, is bearish. Production of cars, the largest export product in a German manufacturing sector, has fallen by about 16% over the past year. In the first half of 2019, German auto production is down 12% year-over-year. In fact, German auto production has hit a 23 year low. Their loser quality reputation is catching up to them. The French is already long ago in the garbage.

        Then add the climate change idiocy Europe has adopted, and they clearly are poised into self-induced economic suicide. Best you keep as much distance between youz and them losers.

        • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 7:25 am #

          “‘Cos EVERYTHING them are for, mye iz against. ”

          Mr Akmofo, I thought you had Siri (or one of her relatives) typing for you. She seems to have gone all gilets jaunes on you. Or perhaps you need to give her crankshaft a twirl.

          Re the rest, yeeeaaahhh…

          You might like this Merkel joke, although it’s a bit elderly now:

          Greek customs official greeting visiting Merkel: Name?
          Merkel: Angela Merkel
          Greek customs official: Country of origin?
          Merkel: Germany
          Greek customs official: Occupation?
          Merkel: No, just here for a holiday.

          • akmofo February 6, 2020 at 10:43 am #

            Hebrew anecdote: Give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s.
            Translation: Keep your Caesar coins out of our land.
            Explanation: NAZI GERMANY is occupying the whole of the EU.

          • akmofo February 6, 2020 at 12:25 pm #

            Britain = Bnei Brit = Sons [of the] Covenant = Light [to the] Nations

            Finnish MEP: https://youtu.be/9gCGFClbVjA

    • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 10:39 am #

      “Big Ben has sung the sun is shine and youz iz fine”

      BTW I believe Big Ben is not bonging yet, as it’s under renovation, but I’m too distant to have paid attention to the details and its bongs can’t be heard up here. I believe they played a recorded bong for Brexit?

      We just have a cannon that goes off at 1pm every day from the castle – a once-a-day time check seems to be enough for the citizens of central Edinburgh. Maybe it’s because it means lunch.

      Re how fine we iz, nothing has changed yet for businesses and won’t till the end of December. So let’s just keep our fingers crossed for all those at risk (hint: not Jacob or Boris or either of the two Dominics).

      • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 10:47 am #

        More the Micks and Kevs and Billys…

      • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 12:43 pm #

        Mrs Green, I saw that bell chiming all the way where I am at:

        With Britain exiting the EU, the EU will find a huge hole in their budget, which Germany will not agree to. This means that either the EU breaks up, or they are compelled to raise taxes on the remaining member states. Germany will demand austerity and remain against a consolidated debt or a national debt for the EU especially those that run perpetual deficits. And what fun it will be when Deutsche Bank goes down, and we watch the German hypocrisy to save it, or not. Either way, it’s a WIN-WIN!

        • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 2:13 pm #

          I am intensely relaxed regarding the EU vaporising into a mist, now that we are not in it and not reaping the many benefits of membership. However, I hope, if it happens, that it will not cause too painful disruptions to ordinary people within the R-27. A simple European free trade area would be fine, but maybe even that would be too much for the zealots. And the academic and research co-operation has been to the benefit of all our countries – from this year it won’t benefit the UK, unfortunately. Likewise security.

          Mr Putin, though, is delighted at any chinks in the armour of the EU, which has been a bulwark against Russian, Chinese or American hegemony, for all its faults. That’s why Mr T doesn’t like it either.

          I remain grateful for the peace dividend of economic co-operation. Who knows where a less co-operative arrangement will lead?

          The Big Ben Bong you heard was a recording. It’s out of commission till later in the year.

          • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 2:32 pm #

            Don’t let commie-tinted glass blind you emotionally.

            Indian oil giant, Israeli start-up to develop metal-air batteries

            https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Indian-oil-giant-Israeli-start-up-to-develop-metal-air-batteries-616490

            This could have been youz as our partners. But you hitched your fate to Commie-Jihadi EU losers. It’s not too late.

            As for the Russians, they’re fighting the Turks in Syria over oil that’s in American hands. It’s all good:

            https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/01/29/turkeys-erdogan-says-russia-not-abiding-by-syria-agreements-a69091

          • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 2:42 pm #

            This is what the market thinks:
            https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EP8OUqnXsAImelL?format=jpg&name=small

            General Motors Company NYSE: GM $34.78 USD
            Tesla Inc NASDAQ: TSLA $927.12 USD

            Capish?

          • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 2:43 pm #

            Akmofo, if nothing else you should have noticed that it’s not an emotional issue for me, but a pragmatic one. Unless you call being distressed at the thought of farmers losing their farms and workers losing their jobs emotional, which would be fair enough but nothing to be ashamed of.

          • akmofo February 4, 2020 at 2:49 pm #

            Sorry, Mrs Green, pragmatism does not read the Commie-Jihadi lying propaganda rag “The Guardian”. Youz that story tell to some naive dolt.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 4:48 pm #

            Alba’s worried about losing the most precious commodity of all: Non-White immigrants/refugees. Any crisis is acceptable as long as diversity isn’t threatened.

          • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 5:47 pm #

            akmofo – even people on here who claim to share none of my views regularly cite the Graun. It’s not what paper you read (and I don’t only read the Graun) it’s how you read it.

          • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 5:57 pm #

            Janos, please try to stop talking bollocks. If the people of England (because that’s what we’re talking about) decide to stop non-EU immigration into England tomorrow, that’s entirely up to them and entirely their business. I haven’t the slightest quarrel with it.

            BTW, here’s a quote from Boris Johnson from a few years ago, regarding TTIP (which I opposed because it allowed corporations to sue national governments):

            ““As Churchill might have said, it is altogether unsordid. And yet virtually the only commentary we have been offered is absurdly hostile and misinformed. The debate is dominated by leftwing misery guts anti-globalisation campaigners.

            Boris Johnson characterises anti-globalists as ‘leftwing misery guts’. Boris Johnson, as I’ve said before, is a globalist, and his post-Brexit Britain will be globalist. Just without being in the EU.

  60. Billy Hill February 4, 2020 at 9:27 am #

    This just in from Moon of Alabama:

    PUTIN PREPARES TO RELEASE IOWA CAUCUS RESULTS

    • messianicdruid February 4, 2020 at 10:15 am #

      ” Hillary wins “

      • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:25 am #

        Do you think she is deleting Iowa emails and smashing cell phones this morning?

        Strike one. Obamacare web site

        Strike two. Iowa caucuses

        Strike three. ???

        Does anybody in this country know how to run computer systems correctly?

  61. Pucker February 4, 2020 at 9:28 am #

    The Deep State rigged it against Trump by making up the Russia hoax and the Impeachment hoax. The Democrats in bad faith played along in order to get Trump. Now it’ll get turned against them in a rigged election?

    The chickens are coming home to roost. And they’ve got the Coronavirus….

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:37 am #

      All of the things we are aware of that the Deep State (not just the Dems) pulled to try to kick Trump off the rails in 2016, and he still prevailed.

      They threw the book at him and he beat them all. That is the basis of TDS. If he is re-elected in 2020 and gets a Conservative House (not GOP), as a lame duck, he is going to rip the Deep State apart. This year they are going to try to throw the Encyclopedia Britannica at him. This time though they do not have the FBI, CIA and MI6 working for them.

      My sincerest hope is that all the instigators of 2016 get their just desserts. This usage of government resources to favor one group must stop.

  62. Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 9:37 am #

    This just in “Mike Bloomberg has just offered each and every candidate $100 million dollars to drop out of the race leaving him the sole, remaining candidate. Mike Bloomberg is declared winner in Iowa.”

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:22 am #

      Seriously, Bloomberg does not represent any Dem ideal except Climate change, maybe. I do not believe the majority of Democrats believe in anything this mogul believes in. A good statue of him would be him thumbing his nose at the whole Democratic Party with a bid s**t eating grin on his face and money dripping out of all his pockets.

      Dems, beware of this joker.

      • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 4:06 pm #

        Thing is he’s the real Trump. Self-made. Billionaire. Pretty good mayor i.e. he has track record. Steady. Even-handed I want my politics to go back to boring. I’m tired of the tweets. I’m tired of the bragging, the self-aggrandizement, the lies. It’s all too much. Take me back to boring, unentertaining, and dull.

        • Majella February 5, 2020 at 2:50 am #

          ACTUAL Billionaire…

  63. Ishabaka February 4, 2020 at 9:51 am #

    Yesterday, Adam Schiff declared President Trump must be impeached because he might sell Alaska to Russia.

    This is your new Democratic Party legal platform: we must try and convict Americans based on imaginary crimes we think they might possibly commit sometime in the future.

    A brave new world indeed!

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:18 am #

      If I have heard anything that proves that the Democratic leaders are insane, this takes the cake. The Dems in the Congress just passed the ludicrous point of the Presidential candidates.

      Majella. The Progressives are driving the Dems over a cliff. Better be careful you do not become a lemming this fall.

      This country is not socialist. Even the immigrants know this, that is why they are here. They had enough socialism where they came from.

    • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 11:04 am #

      He also claimed Trump might move back down to Mar-a-Lago and Jared Kushner would be the functional President.

      His eyes protruded as he said this, and he shifted to and fro.

    • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 12:49 pm #

      One must thank Adam for the confirmation- that the democrats have completely and thoroughly lost their minds. At first I thought he was trying to make a point but in re watching it, dead pan serious.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 5:19 pm #

      Typical misconstruing of what was actually said. He asked ‘what’s to stop him….? and he’s right.

      • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:03 pm #

        What’s more, now Himself has heard these ‘GREAT IDEAS’ who would actually be surprised if he now isn’t contemplating these and loads of other juicy ‘fuck you all’ options and self-dealing benefits?

        He knows now that even GOP Senators who say publically he was guilty of the House charges in the Impeachment case, STILL won’t vote to dump him…just as he predicted in the ’16 campaign about shooting someone in 5th Ave.

        • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 3:57 am #

          Her eyes protruded as she typed, and she shifted to and fro.

  64. BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 10:07 am #

    “… and I made a bet that Iowa was as sweet as its name.”

    -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

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  65. malthuss February 4, 2020 at 10:23 am #

    GREEN ALBA, Ireland is finished, as a majority Irish [White] nation.

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:26 am #

      The Celts are dead?

  66. malthuss February 4, 2020 at 10:25 am #

    A large number of British people work and live in Ireland and an increasing number of them are applying for Irish citizenship as a result of Brexit.

    –face the facts,they are running from the invasion.

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 10:29 am #

      Running from a problem instead of fighting back leads to extinction.

      England needs to stop the invasion if they want to stay England.

      • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 1:05 pm #

        After what the sassons [east india company] did w Opium and what
        they did to Ireland and India, maybe let UK die.

        • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 11:34 am #

          And here was I thinking you guys weren’t into reparations for things done in previous centuries by the long-dead antecedents of the ruling classes.

          But malthuss is. One to remember.

    • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 10:35 am #

      The Muslim invasion that Elrond begs for lol! Just wait till they start throwing Gays off buildings and decapitating people for drinking and watching J. Lo twerk. Then the Elronds of the world will weep and wail – but alas! It will be too late.

      • Elrond Hubbard February 4, 2020 at 11:35 am #

        Religious troubles being a:

        completely …

        unknown …

        phenomenon …

        … in the British isles before now. What’s also odd is how colonizing powers always seem to think their influence on subject peoples will only ever be one-way.

        If and when (god forbid) any such troubles ever do come to Western countries, SSL, my money is on a white-supremacist-reactionary Day of the Rope scenario targeting non-Christian non-whites, driven by exactly your kind of irrational animosities.

        • benr February 4, 2020 at 12:23 pm #

          Show me where the modern “white supremacists” movements are murdering people throwing gay people from buildings and sawing the heads off of people who don’t believe exactly what they believe.
          How about mass church burnings and rapes.
          Genital mutilations and setting off roadside bombs for that matter when is the last time you heard of one driving a tractor into a crowd of Jews?.

          Not happening!

          Why because they for the most part don’t behave like that and last there are not enough of them!
          There are more crazy antifa kooks who get violent at the drop of hat.

          Get real!

          This is not a defense of White power types its just reality something I am afraid you severely lack in perspective and understanding of current real world problems.

          • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 1:06 pm #

            Show me when the modern “white supremacists” use the N word, its like..imprison them for hate speech!!!!

          • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 2:45 pm #

            Actually Elrond would say that such activity is retribution against colonizers. Such activity would only be totally reprehensible and critique worthy if it were indeed initiated by White “Colonizers”.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 4, 2020 at 4:58 pm #

            benr, the public terror spectacle known as lynching used to be commonplace in the USA. People took souvenir photos of hanged men and sent them as goddamn postcards.

            The last recognized lynching in the USA took place as recently as 1981, well within living memory. In fact, no less an authority than arch-white supremacist William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, termed the horrific murder of James Byrd Jr.* a lynching, and that happened in 1998. I’ll spot you the Oklahoma City bombing, though, even though it was clearly inspired by Pierce’s book.

            I refer you to the Gospel of Matthew. If I lived in a country with that kind of history, I would stop and think before proclaiming myself absolved because people elsewhere can also be extremists.

            * He was chained to a car bumper and dragged till his body went to pieces.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 4, 2020 at 5:00 pm #

            Mote and beam, SSL. Not that I’m surprised to be misrepresented; that just means it’s a day that ends in ‘y’.

          • benr February 4, 2020 at 6:12 pm #

            @Elrond

            Pfft both a lifetime ago for some.

            Yet no mention of black on black murder which far out strips any other violence in America!

          • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 2:06 am #

            Black on Black murder is far more prolific than White on Black murder which is much less still than Black on White murder. I’ve not heard a liberal address the horrendous Black on Black murder rate in the US other than saying White people talking about it is racism.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 5, 2020 at 1:05 pm #

            Elrond: Given that about a quarter of lynchees were White (why don’t you people ever talk about that, eh?), and given that Blacks murder and rape (lynchable offenses in other words), at far more than four times as much as Whites, the rate of Black lynching seems low. But of course, perhaps their crime rate was much lower then. In other words, the strictness of the Law, both official and unofficial, was keeping them in line.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 7, 2020 at 9:25 am #

            I have no response to these remarks other than they, and Eyesore himself, should be assessed with the following obvious fact firmly in mind:

            Lynching is terrorism.

        • elysianfield February 4, 2020 at 12:24 pm #

          “irrational animosities.”

          Elrond,
          Interesting qualifier…are there any animosities that might be considered rational? I believe there are.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 4, 2020 at 5:05 pm #

            EF: A ‘rational animosity’, if it means anything, would have to mean judging ourselves according to the same standards we apply to others. Nothing more, nothing less. And do that first, so we can see clearly to judge others.

            Amazing how many who proclaim themselves Christian feel entitled to disregard Matthew 7:1-5, then holler at anyone who reminds them.

          • elysianfield February 4, 2020 at 5:10 pm #

            “EF: A ‘rational animosity’, if it means anything, would have to mean judging ourselves according to the same standards we apply to others”

            Elrond,
            Exactly! it is entirely subjective.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 4, 2020 at 10:32 pm #

            What a dumbfounding comment, elysianfield. It is the exact opposite of subjective.

            Same planet, different worlds.

          • elysianfield February 5, 2020 at 1:28 pm #

            “judging ourselves according to the same standards we apply to others””

            Elrond,
            Do the terms “subjective” and “objective” have different meanings in your mother tongue?

            Some on this site might harbor animosity towards you…I don’t.

            Where, then, is the objectivity in the above sentence? The animosity is engendered by disparate personal values…hence the subjectivity.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 6, 2020 at 3:07 pm #

            elysianfield, I consider ‘subjective’ to mean something that depends on one’s point of view, while ‘objective’ means something that holds for all observers.

            When you talk about rational animosity, I suppose you mean something like this: if one considers something a threat, then it’s rational to feel animosity toward that thing. Maybe I’m wrong and you meant something else, but that’s what I’m going with for now.

            Because of subjectivity, people can share the same values and still disagree. For example, I agree that it’s rational to feel animosity toward a threat, so we share that value. But the sense of threat is itself subjective. Where you see a threat, I might see no threat. That’s down to differences between how you and I perceive the world.

            If we leave it at that, there’s no resolving any disagreements — we’re all just special snowflakes. To do better, we have to set objective standards and agree to be disciplined by them. But that doesn’t only apply to how we assess facts (true or false), it applies to value judgements (right or wrong) as well.

            If I condemn country X as a warmonger for invading country Y, and then my own country drops bombs on country Z, then it behooves me to be consistent. If I say instead that our leader is a genius and the bombs are for the ultimate good of country Z, then I look like a joke. So I choose my values on the basis that I’m as willing to be held liable to them as to hold anyone else — true for all comers, i.e. as objective as I know how.

            I’m just some rando, and politics is my hobby, not my vocation. But there you go.

        • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 2:43 pm #

          I understand Elrond. You believe in retribution and you would want Whites to accept retribution. And of course as you lay out here, only Whites have the ability to be supremacist and reactionary. All others would obviously be heroically organizing against and fighting colonizers. And thus you want to go back into history to look at the evils of White, Native Britain rather than focusing on the here and now and who is doing what in the here and now. Gotchya.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 4, 2020 at 5:06 pm #

            Sarcasm absorbed with equanimity, SSL. If you read my other responses, only you can be blamed if you still refuse to understand where I’m coming from.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 5:12 pm #

            Yes, this is the dark root that support and nourish those sweet flowers of Evil.

    • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 2:19 pm #

      So, malthuss…

      (1) there is an invasion of the UK;

      (2) there is likewise an invasion of Ireland, which is ‘finished as a majority white nation;

      Hence…

      (3) white people from one invaded nation are fleeing to another invaded nation.

      I wouldn’t want to be inside your head, malthuss.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 6:05 pm #

        Good logical catch. But his premises are correct. Too bad your powers of observation aren’t equal to your powers of logic.

        • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 9:45 am #

          Janos, the point is (contrary to what malthuss imagines) that people go to Ireland (a) for opportunities and (b) because, for young people in particular, it’s fun. And the people are friendly. And they speak English (but with a charming lilt).

          The high rents and house prices – especially in Dublin – are a bit of a bind but that’s the price of going somewhere currently enjoying popularity.

          There are far more Irish people and their descendants living and working in the UK, since (a) we basically used to be the same country, when Ireland was ‘West Britain’, and (b) because the two countries, since separating, have shared certain rights, e.g. my husband, who does not have a British passport, can nevertheless work freely in this country, use our health service, and even vote in all our elections and referenda, whereas even actual British citizens (700,000 of them) living and working in the EU, were not allowed to vote in the Brexit referendum.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 9:52 am #

            It’s also a bit of a tax haven. 🙂

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 11:13 am #

      Wow. Good article.

      You would see a duplicate of its premises in The Long Emergency circa 2005.

      JHK predicted many of the events mentioned in the Finnish report. His prediction of Peak Oil was by the end of the century. This is 2020.

      And Peak Oil was never the end of oil, it is the end of affordable oil. Letting the price follow the supply-demand curves will allow the development of alternatives, maybe? Get ready to pay a lot more for the privilege of not walking.

      • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 12:07 pm #

        Conventional oil has been running low 80’s mbpd since 2005. That is good cheap energy. Once that starts dropping it’s over. We went from wood to coal, coal to oil, oil to natural gas. The question is how will renewables and natural gas interact during the transition away from oil. Changing your car to burn natural gas is about $10,000, still way cheaper than a Tesla. Oil companies are the new tobacco. Will they endure? How will they endure? Young people don’t want to own them, investment groups don’t want to hold them anymore. Yet the world still runs on oil. A collision is coming, a big one.

        • benr February 4, 2020 at 12:16 pm #

          All we need to do is go to hybrid diesel engines.
          Bio Diesel is cheap and easy to create.
          America is after all paying hundreds of thousands of farmers to not grow crops.
          Henry Ford had Bio Diesel engines back in the day running on Hemp seed oil.
          Here Is to another 100 years of motoring on.

          • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 1:20 pm #

            Thing is Ben, you’d need to create 10 million bpd of that bio diesel to match the amount of gasoline we use in the US each day.

          • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 1:21 pm #

            If by chance you are wrong how is your blind optimism helpful?

          • elysianfield February 4, 2020 at 5:12 pm #

            BRH,
            To paraphrase the old Gospel tune;

            “If Oil were a thing that money could buy,
            The rich would drive and the poor would try….”

        • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 12:42 pm #

          Right now there is an oil glut,

          Worldwide demand stands at about 101 million bpd, no shortages in sight.

          We are being assured by those in the climate change movement that the age of oil, coal and natgas is over, that a modern industrial economy can be run on windmills and solar panels. Haha, I’d like to see it. And if they are successful in harming the remaining private oil companies with their divestment movement, overseas state oil giants like Gazprom and Aramco will ramp up production to meet any shortages.

          Brh

          • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 1:28 pm #

            Be careful of the knee-jerk interpretations. Once a pipe is in the ground oil is going to be pumped. It has to be pumped because bills have to be paid regardless of the price oil can be sold for. A glut can mean people don’t have a cash flow to buy the oil. A glut can be a symptom of an economy in failure.

            Gazprom will sell if Putin wants it to sell. Not if he does not and he knows Americans need to experience some austerity to build character. A nation of narcissists with most of the nuclear weapons on Earth is not a good thing.

          • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 1:42 pm #

            K-Dog

            Even at the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union kept their oil and natgas pipelines moving supply into Germany and France.

            One of the main points of dispute between Ukraine and Russia right now is that those pipelines go thru Ukrainian territory, and Ukraine wants their cut — of both the oil and gas flowing west, and the Euros flowing east.

            Brh

          • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 1:57 pm #

            “Despite offering a scathing critique of conventional peak oil theory, the report arrives at the shock conclusion that the economic viability of the entire global oil market could come undone within the next few years.

        • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 12:47 pm #

          And if meddling by lefty weather fanatics interferes with natgas and Number 2 heating oil supplies, we’ll begin heating our houses with coal again, and barring that, stripping the forests for firewood.

          Then pissed off Americans will go hunting for the people responsible for this disaster.

          Brh

          • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 2:22 pm #

            Easter Island!

          • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 2:32 pm #

            Basically, brh, you’re just talking about timing, since it’s going to happen anyway. Who will pissed-off Americans shout at then? God?

            On the other hand, maybe Americans will start to think about how non-Americans have lived with so much less for so long and…managed.

            You’re going to be increasing your own need for air conditioning too – how clever is that?

  67. PeteAtomic February 4, 2020 at 10:51 am #

    I see the poor Iowans who vote democrat can’t figure out who voted for who, or even how to figure out how to count who voted for who… and the Iowa Democrat Party in their media blurb to explain the trouble of course needs to mention that the problems aren’t from “hackers” LOL!

    maybe this is the democrats in microcosm?

    …I’m waiting for the calls of ‘racism’ or ‘sexism’ about the troubles in Iowa to begin from left wing identarians.. I know its coming..

  68. PeteAtomic February 4, 2020 at 10:54 am #

    Well it’s Feb.4th 2020 and the Wicked Witch of New York, aka Hillary Clinton, hasn’t gotten on any democrat state primary rolls.. so, I was wrong!.. I was sure she was gonna run..
    ..but hey, this democrat primary may very well end up brokered.. and if the DNC/donor elite end up with Bernie as their potential candidate.. who knows what types of shenanigans will occur??

    so, HRC maybe still has her shot out there! 🙂

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    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 11:17 am #

      I think Hillary is not healthy enough to campaign. But if someone offers it to her at the convention, I will bet she would say yes.

      • volodya February 4, 2020 at 1:11 pm #

        Yes, but there would have to be a whole lot of protocol, all pre-arranged. There would be leaks to the press, with Hillary denying any such thing was offered, but that if it was offered she would turn it down. And then it would be official, the chalice offered three times and three times turned down. And then the Democrats would have to hire people to turn out to a demonstration (the billionaires taking up a collection) to chant for Hillary, and then after a suitable period, like maybe two or three days, the offer will be most humbly accepted.

        • PeteAtomic February 4, 2020 at 1:44 pm #

          lol u guys are right..

          you can’t keep a narcissistic sociopath down for long!! lols…

      • PeteAtomic February 4, 2020 at 1:52 pm #

        oh totally! if Tom Perez sat down with her during a brokered convention and asked her to do something like “save the party” , I think she’d accept immediately!
        and then she’d get on national TV and pretend to be humble about it..

  69. SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 11:33 am #

    Well Majella I have to admit that you are consistent. Essentially your answer is yes, the Maori should be fine to disappear into history and lose distinction as a unique people. White New Zealanders apparently will join them into the great disappearance into a non-descript, mixed horde of generic humans who are nothing and everything at the same time. The ultimate Globalist dream. A raceless, nationless people simply following the currents and moods of the moment. A very easily controlled herd. The only good thing is that human nature will work against this in every way, shape and form. Thus the Maori Renaissance you mention. And thus John AZ may never get to realize his mixed race, mixed culture, magically civic nationalist, uni-language country!

    • volodya February 4, 2020 at 12:29 pm #

      And thus John AZ may never get to realize his mixed race, mixed culture, magically civic nationalist, uni-language country! – SSL

      Maybe mine eyes do deceive, but I think that in past years, the e pluribus unum worked, borg-like, assimilating what things worked, expelling what things didn’t, Americans being empiricists above all, the various races boffing one another in the bushes even if marriage wasn’t socially acceptable.

      I dunno, call me morally suspect, but I just wanna do who I wanna do, not that who I may wanna do, wants me in turn. And so I watch processions of delicious chicks of various colorations that wouldn’t spit at me.

      Anyway, I’ve been to Hawaii, home to the most spectacularly beautiful babes, a great many of mixed race, Caucasian-Hawaiian-Asian, Black, jaw-dropping six-footers, the likes of which I’ve seen no place else. Don’t know, maybe it’s the water, maybe the climate. You get to call it as you see it but I have a lot of trouble seeing inferiority there.

      • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 2:38 pm #

        I never said anything about inferiority or superiority. I am simply talking about allowing an orange to be an orange and allowing an apple to be an apple. And if they want their own baskets give it to them. Whatever your sexual proclivities are is really your business. I am pretty sure every time the subject comes up you remind us of the jaw dropping, mixed race, delicious chicks you drool over in multiple venues. 🙂

        • volodya February 4, 2020 at 2:46 pm #

          The thing is that these apples and oranges can’t seem to keep their pollen off each other. As to referring to the deliciousness, the point is that it’s futile to think that nature won’t follow its course. You may as well try to to stop plate tectonics. But underlying all that is an implication that there’s something untoward about apples and oranges doing their thing together. I frankly don’t see the untowardness of it.

          • SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 2:58 pm #

            That’s interesting. Then I wonder why Nature bothered to allow apples and oranges to be separate entities at all? Why not just jumble everything up? Again, I am not assigning any morality or ethical values to anything. I am simply noting that it is interesting that boundaries are apparently not a good thing between apples and oranges. So now I am simply perplexed as to why God made them or (if you’d rather) why Nature evolved them to be unique.

          • volodya February 4, 2020 at 3:22 pm #

            That’s just it, if the “oranges” and “apples” were that separate, as say, dogs and cats, they couldn’t mate and produce fertile offspring.

            IOW, they’re just not that separate, there’s been differentiation as populations become separated by distance and then re-mixing as the populations re-connect. You can see the practical results, as I’ve said before, in the looks of people as you go from one end of the Eurasian land-mass to the other. People at one end or the other look distinct from one another, the people in between, not so much.

            The difference in human appearance comes out of geographic distance, climatic conditions, blind luck, the particular quirks of the founding population in an area, whether the place is amenable to farming and a multitude of other factors.

            But it is interesting what nature cooks up. She’s always got something up her sleeve. Go back 40,000 years or so, and sapiens was one of several human varieties walking around. And then about ten thousand years ago with the climate warming and the advent of farming, more evolution, ie the holocene filter, as genetic variation in sapiens was culled and we came to resemble one another more.

            No doubt, the next ten thousand years will spring more surprises.

      • elysianfield February 4, 2020 at 5:16 pm #

        Anyway, I’ve been to Hawaii, home to the most spectacularly beautiful babes, a great many of mixed race, Caucasian-Hawaiian-Asian, Black, jaw-dropping six-footers, the likes of which I’ve seen no place else. Don’t know, maybe it’s the water, maybe the climate. You get to call it as you see it but I have a lot of trouble seeing inferiority there.

        Volodya,
        Well, to complete the thought, you might not see it, but if they open their mouths, you might occasionally hear it.

        • volodya February 5, 2020 at 11:50 am #

          Good point.

      • RIB February 4, 2020 at 5:30 pm #

        Check out their SAT scores rather than their tits, flyboy

        • volodya February 5, 2020 at 11:48 am #

          I like their tits better. i’m very shallow that way.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 4:12 pm #

      SSL:

      “Essentially your answer is yes, the Maori should be fine to disappear into history and lose distinction as a unique people. White New Zealanders apparently will join them into the great disappearance into a non-descript, mixed horde of generic humans who are nothing and everything at the same time. ”

      Essentially, I am saying both Maori & Pakeha New Zealanders are in the process of forming a new distinct culture. IT’s only been 140 years since the Tiriti O Waitangi was signed, the treaty between the British Crown (Kuini Wikitoria) and Maori Tribes (Te Tangata Whenua), and the first 100 years of that was pretty grim for Maori as a ‘colonised’ people.

      The Maori renaissance is what has turned New Zealand into Aotearoa New Zealand and given birth to a bi-cultural society, which, believe it or not, is working. The end result will be a new culture & people, evolved from the base materials.

      Also, the apples & oranges simile simply doesn’t work (as V points out). It’s more like apples & apples – say, Fuji and Golden Delicious. Crossed, we get the Autumn Glory – the best of both varieties.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 6:33 pm #

        Urban Dictionary:

        This is used as a term specifically for NZ European people, in the Maori language it means “foreigner”, so could be used for any Non-Maori person.
        Pakeha doesn’t mean “White Pig”. It means foreigner in Maori.
        #pakeha#foreigner#maori#new zealand#white pig

        JS: So the New Zealand depends on Whites relating to themselves as “foreigners” while the Maori are the Real People. Well it’s obvious which way the Culture is going to go and who is going to get the White Women, eh?

        It doesn’t mean White Pig! So why mention it? It obviously does to some. In popular parlance, it must be a pejorative, just like Gringo to the Mexicans or Haole to the Hawaiians.

        • Majella February 4, 2020 at 8:40 pm #

          Janos, you’re simply scurrilous in your pursuit of fomenting disharmony between races.

          “Why mention White Pig?” – I didn’t. And Urban Dic is your source of truth? Hahahahaaaa!

          Here’s the actual FACTS (inconvenient as they are for you):

          “3. (noun) New Zealander of European descent – probably originally applied to English-speaking Europeans living in Aotearoa/New Zealand. According to Mohi T?rei, an acknowledged expert in Ng?ti Porou tribal lore, the term is a shortened form of pakepakeh?, which was a M?ori rendition of a word or words remembered from a chant used in a very early visit by foreign sailors for raising their anchor (TP 1/1911:5). Others claim that pakepakeh? was another name for t?rehu or patupairehe. Dispite the claims of some non-M?ori speakers, the term does not normally have negative connotations.”

          The ‘turehu’ means ‘pale skinned’ and the ‘patupairehe’ refers to the mythical forest-dwelling fairies of Maori lore.

          Incidentally, Def #7 of ‘Janos’ in the Urban Dic is, most illuminatingly:

          “He is a drug dealer that will destroy your will to live. He will lie to you and not tell you shady things. He always thinks hes right even though he isn’t. He treats like you like shit. He doesn’t make enough effort. He is boring. He is a fucked up crack addict.
          “Is that a piece of shit?”
          “No, its just Janos.”
          by peppathehippo January 07, 2020″

          • Majella February 4, 2020 at 8:44 pm #

            FYI – the ? marks are where a vowel has a macron, mostly ‘a’s, but also ‘e’ and the odd ‘i’.

            (The old ASCII doesn’t seem to be able to deal with it…)

          • Janos Skorenzy February 5, 2020 at 1:46 am #

            No, not “you” (not everything’s about you). Why did the definition mention White Pig? Obviously some people use it that way, that’s why.

            You’re White but more interested in being Maori since they’re the real people and not just foreigners, ghosts, or pigs. Thus you are a Dolazeal type or like that Red Haired Aussie who calls herself an Aborigine. A Jew I think. Or that blonde rap star with the big ass who claims it too. What a thing to want to be – the ugliest and most primitive people on Earth.

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:02 am #

            Janos

            Sorry, but that little outburst makes no sense (what’s new?)

            Your only reference to “white pig” is from the UD and it’s a REFUTATION, for fuck’s sake!

            The rest of your deranged diatribe only highlights (yet again) what a faux-intellectual you are. You pretend to use a ‘logical’ process ( the inappropriate use of “therefore” is a dead giveaway) but you’re basing it all on infantile precepts of your own making.

            You’re a Club of One (with, lucky for you, one groupie, for whom I mostly feel sorry. She’s clever enough, just not clever enough to see through your deluded bullshit. You owe her an apology.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 5, 2020 at 1:08 pm #

            Why did they bother to refute it then, genius? Why bring it up? Because some people use it that way, obviously – well obvious to most people I guess….

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 5:16 pm #

            How should *I* know? You quoted it…and since when is improper or incorrect usage of a word a supportive argument for anything?

            You’re really starting to rant & rave on this one, you loser racist prick.

          • SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 12:58 am #

            I dunno. It’s pretty self explanatory that some people are going to use pejoratives and epithets. Are you sure this is the hill you want to die on Majella? And really. What a completely bitchy thing to say on both counts. You don’t speak for me ok chica. You got this one wrong. And it’s nothing mean-spirited or anything but you do have to admit that the Aborigines look primitive.

            https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Aborigine.jpg

            https://www.debrapascalibonaro.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Lena-and-Rosie-Pula.jpg

            https://l7.alamy.com/zooms/649e928a608b4bcdbf8e1f2c3edd4053/aborigines-marina-murdilnga-and-billy-nalakandi-with-their-children-anc1ea.jpg

          • Majella February 6, 2020 at 6:44 pm #

            SSL

            Sorry! You’re offended because I expressed sympathy for you? Okay – I withdraw it, unequivocally. You make your bed of delusion and lie in it with Mr Janos.

            What ‘hill to die on’? Oh, whatever. Your comment is obtuse as usual.

            And what’s your point in linking to images of Australian indigenes, exactly? You somehow feel that because you subjectively see them as ‘primitive’, they’re…what? Dumb? Must be, because they don’t look like you?

            Cargill, please, if you can be bothered, give her that tutorial you offered.

  70. Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 11:39 am #

    Another good article about Permian’s peak.
    https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/02/03/peak-permian-oil-production-schlumberger

  71. volodya February 4, 2020 at 12:02 pm #

    Maybe I’ve got a head full of boogey-men, but I have a lot of trouble believing this story line coming out of Iowa.   

    I don’t know how you describe these wretched goings-on, wretchedry maybe, but I don’t think wretchedry is a word. Or maybe preposterism, and maybe the Democrats and Republicans and all their antics as preposterist, and the wider trend of public discourse as preposterization, but I doubt that these characterizations do justice. 

    For now we have what looks to me like a ploy to deny a victory to someone that the Democrat heavy-hitters see as the least desirable candidate, and a victory speech, with his followers exulting for all the country and the world to see. I mean, he’s not even a Democrat, his agenda in direct opposition to the Democrat’s billionaire paymasters.

    But if they can’t get away with an outright fraud, and they can’t deny him a win, then they’ll do whatever damage they can to his candidacy, just like last time, brushing off any accusation that they had done so. 

    Yep, history repeats and rhymes and all that, the neo-liberal leopard not changing its institutional spots. 

    But tell me, for all the accusations by Democrats about the current occupant of the Oval Office being a threat to democracy, about his upending the Constitutional order, who looks like the bigger threat? 

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:28 pm #

      Interesting point, V.

      I’m a Bernie supporter and have been since 2015 when he started his astonishing run.

      I’m not and have never been a capital D ‘Democrat’. I have no particular respect for HRC or Biden, but conversely, I don’t buy into all the crazy conspiracy shit spread so thick & wide hereabouts and everywhere else on the interwebz.

      The treatment Bernie was handed in 2016 was deplorable. However, I understood his decision then to back the ‘Democratic Nominee’ (who just happened to be HRC) because I surmise,

      a) he was quite rightly truly concerned at the prospect of Himself in the WH, and

      b) he didn’t need to be carrying the blame for that result, which he surely would have if he’d NOT thrown his support behind her. Imagine the vitriol THAT would have brought down on him! nevertheless, he’s already getting the nasty cold shoulder from HRC & BHO, with HRC even now saying he “didn’t do enough for” her in 2016. What a cunt.

      If he gets again so blatantly, transparently & publically shafted by the DNC, and especially if Biden or Bloomberg (or, unlikely as it is, HRC) is ‘awarded’ the nomination, then there’s absolutely no loss or downside to him or the US if he says “Okay – have it your way” and runs as an independent in the General.

      He’d probably not win but he’d more than likely come in second ahead of the Dem nominee. That’s should put the much jonesed-for proverbial stake through the DNCs’s heart forever, right?

  72. wwg1wga February 4, 2020 at 12:09 pm #

    ****************************************
    My Goldman Sachs advisor ASSURES there is 0% chance of a market correction or recession, thanks to the Federal Reserve Bank AND thanks to the People’s Republic Bank of China. Furthermore, the market will continue to trade higher, with or without humans, as it now is ENTIRELY executed through AI/Robo-trades. Furthermore, troublesome humans who do not possess the technical skills to further the technology of the equity markets are simply surplus and properly offered early retirement via engineered coronavirus and its many subsets.

    Hope I don’t need a new advisor!
    ****************************************

    • elysianfield February 4, 2020 at 12:26 pm #

      “Hope I don’t need a new advisor!”

      wwg,
      Well, maybe you will need a new bankroll….

    • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 12:55 pm #

      Based on the run up today I doubt there will ever be a lack of liquidity.

      Buy stocks
      Buy PM
      Buy crypto

      (after the 3rd precious metal, land , means to produce, h20,etc)

      You win no matter which way it goes.

      Cash at 1/4% is dead money.

      I am only amazed at how long they keep this long dead beast moving. Truly impressive.

    • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 4:13 pm #

      wwg1wga- GS are most practiced and best connected crooks (can’t do any better in the current world).

      When it all falls apart they will most likely head off to mars with Elliot.

  73. volodya February 4, 2020 at 12:49 pm #

    As for this Ukraine stuff, I’d like to know what Hunter was doing being paid a million bucks a year (according to what I hear) to sit on the board of a company in a country that’s as corrupt as can be, whose politicians and oligarchs show the old hands in Italy and Greece how it’s done, all the while his daddy the American Veep demanding that the Ukrainian boss-man fire a Ukrainian investigator nosing into the doings of said company.

    I think that there’s a national interest in knowing exactly WTF was going on, what with these appearances of conflict of interest, pay-to-play, nepotism stinking things up. Do you want to know? Maybe it was all innocent, all above board, and maybe you, like me, was born yesterday and are prepared to believe the best of people.

    I guess that if law enforcement bodies can launch investigations on the basis of fraudulent papers and assertions, then maybe these same agencies can rouse themselves to do some poking around where circumstances look pretty well documented.

    Just saying, just asking, sunlight being the best disinfectant. Dispel the smell at the very least.

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    • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 1:24 pm #

      Grandpa Joe Biden gets pretty ticked off if anybody in the media asks him about Hunter, Ukraine, Burisima, or Hunter’s links with Chinese intelligence. Its Terra Incognita, don’t go there.

      Brh

      • benr February 4, 2020 at 1:28 pm #

        He is going to keel over.

        • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 1:31 pm #

          What quid pro quo are you alleging? Trump withheld $400 million in aid for an announcement of an investigation to smear his political rival. What quid pro quo did Vice President Biden accede to? If Burisma wants to pay Hunter Biden a $million a year because his last name is Biden, that’s not a crime.

          • RIB February 4, 2020 at 1:36 pm #

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhrLWL7jzPY

          • RIB February 4, 2020 at 1:37 pm #

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE7PwqmzSu0

          • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 1:45 pm #

            I’ve seen this 19 times. Everybody wanted that prosecutor gone, including Republicans at the time. They didn’t so much as peep while it was ongoing. Now that it has value in the rearview mirror you can’t shut them up about it. This is classic Trump. Accuse a political rival of nepotism, while every one of his children has benefited far better than anyone else. Washington would shut down without nepotism, and the last time the issue was seriously raised was when the Kennedy’s were in the White House. Now the King of Nepotism raises it. Please. Go take a bath in some purple Kool-Aid.

          • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 2:41 pm #

            The US had a deal with Ukraine to root out corruption. Biden’s quid pro quo was when he threatened to hold aid back from Ukraine if the prosecutor that was threatening to investigate Burisma and his son was not fired and replaced. When it happened, he got on video and bragged about it. And yes, he did it for his personal gain, protecting his rep and his son’s.

            There was a difference. Trump’s shenanigans never got executed. Biden’s did.

            The real problem is when Biden did it, it was accepted policy. When Trump did it, it was an excuse to impeach him. Hopefully, the exposure of the extortion from both parties will stop it.

          • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 2:59 pm #

            Laudromat curiously leaves out the mysterious proof for his claim on Trump.

            Will we ever get Laundromat to back any of his nutbar claims?

            I know the answer.

          • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 3:12 pm #

            It was official US policy to fire the state prosecutor. There was no quid pro quo. The story I heard was the prosecutor wasn’t investigating anybody and that was the problem. Then Ukraine elects an anti-corruption president who says he loves Trump in private but does not yield to his demands in public, knowing full well Trump’s position was contrary to official US policy i.e. it was only a matter of time before it came out. And it did, and they impeached him for it, and he’ll likely get acquitted. But the truth matters. You cannot use Biden as precedent because he was enacting official US policy. The president and the congress share foreign policy authority. The Congress has the purse strings and they had appropriated the money to Ukraine. The president violated the law by withholding it. It will not surprise me if bribery charges are brought in the near future. The Ukraine president played this one “perfectly.”

          • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 5:25 pm #

            “The story I heard … ”

            LOL.

            Just give it up.

        • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 4:48 pm #

          As if anybody here besides you gives a sh#t if Ukraine gets their swag early, late, or not at all.

          • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 5:30 pm #

            And your point is?

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:03 am #

            Recycling again, Marlin?

    • PeteAtomic February 4, 2020 at 1:49 pm #

      absolutely Volodya!.. u got the fella’s son who is running for Prez beholden to the Ukrainian gov’t.. then this Vindman guy who was asked 4 times to run the Ukrainian military..

      it sounds to me like the US is getting pulled into the border war vs Russia by the Ukrainians

      • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 5:48 pm #

        Can you imagine Vindman running anything?

        Lt. Col. Weißwurst.

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 4:16 pm #

      Volodya, no doubt the intrepid William Barr will start an investigation immediately…if there was anything more than rumour & innuendo to go on.

      • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 4:58 pm #

        Be cool, M.

        Barr has the dope to clobber what is left of the Dems in 2020.

        • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:31 pm #

          I’m not holding my breath, JohnAZ.

  74. benr February 4, 2020 at 1:27 pm #

    Judicial Watch: Eight Iowa Counties Have Total Registration Rates Larger than Eligible Voter Population – at Least 18,658 Extra Names on Iowa Voting Rolls
    The chart below details the eight Iowa counties’ registration rate percentages:

    Reg Rate Total Population
    Dallas County 114.8 80,864
    Johnson County 107.9 144,425
    Lyon County 102.5 11,745
    Madison County 102.5 15,720
    Poweshiek County 102.1 18,428
    Dickinson County 100.9 17,000
    Scott County 100.8 171,493
    Warren County 100.5 48,630
    Now comes the screams from the people who have mismanaged this mess and the lame stream media that says voter fraud is not an issue!

    • RIB February 4, 2020 at 1:52 pm #

      According to Facebook, this has been debunked by third party fact checkers. YMMV

    • Majella February 4, 2020 at 4:18 pm #

      benr – the simplest explanation is that voter rolls have not been updated to account for people who have moved on – underground or interstate.

      Is there any evidence that the voter turnout has exceeded the ‘Eligible Voter Population’?

  75. K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 1:30 pm #

    Has Trump claimed he won Iowa yet?

    • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 1:34 pm #

      He did. Got 97% of Republican vote.

  76. PeteAtomic February 4, 2020 at 1:47 pm #

    Then u got this Mike Bloomberg fella.. he has what… 80 billion bucks???

    like wtf?? Who is he, anyway? some mayor of some east coast town somewhere, or what?

    so sick of his ads everywhere.. I’m like.. who are you?? and why are you bothering me??

    🙂

    • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 1:50 pm #

      Some place called Gotham City I think.

      • PeteAtomic February 4, 2020 at 1:55 pm #

        well then he oughta be back there managing batman, or superman..
        wonderwoman.. catwoman… ! all those super ppl

        leave the rest of us out of it

        😉

        • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 1:57 pm #

          I’ll agree to that!

          • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 2:33 pm #

            Get used to him. He is the Dem equivalent of Trump in 2016, independent of the Deep State, not beholden to anyone, an anathema to the crooks in DC. The Deep State Dems will fight this guy anyway they can, but he is their best bet to unseat Trump. What a conundrum!

          • Majella February 4, 2020 at 4:20 pm #

            JohnAZ:

            “The Deep State Dems will fight this guy anyway they can,”

            Not so far…the DNC debate rules have been changed to accommodate him, plus he’s likely to get a box (soapbox?) to stand on.

          • Majella February 4, 2020 at 4:38 pm #

            I just found this on the net:

            “The Nevada caucus works somewhat differently in Nevada than in Iowa, with early voting open for the first time this year with written preference cards for candidates printed in English, Spanish and Tagalog.”

            Tagalog??? Are Filipinos the third largest ethnic group in Nevada?

          • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 5:10 pm #

            Yup.

            Pinoy’s eork the hotels in Nevada. Take a look.

          • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 5:10 pm #

            work

          • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:32 pm #

            K-dog – where’s the link to that? Can you search by any nationality?

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 2:44 pm #

      Peteatomic

      Ex mayor of NYC

      Multi billionaire

      Says he will spend 2 billion dollars to beat Trump if need be.

      Heard today that he is so monopolizing the commercial time spots in Texas that the other candidates have no opportunities.

      I think we will see a lot of MB in the future.

      • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 3:37 pm #

        What happens if Sanders wins a bunch of primaries, but in Milwaukee the DNC manipulates the delegate count and hands the nomination to Bloomberg, whom they think is more qualified to take on the president, and more likely to win?

        Phew! Remember that crazy eyed ANTIFA dude from a few weeks ago outed by project Veritas, a Sanders campaign worker who threatened to lock up everybody in gulags, kick the sh#t out of the MPD, and burn down Milwaukee if Bernie doesn’t win. Well, you’ll be seeing a lot of him on the evening news in July … against a backdrop of burning buildings and exploding teargas cannisters.

        Brh

        • elysianfield February 4, 2020 at 5:22 pm #

          “Well, you’ll be seeing a lot of him on the evening news in July … against a backdrop of burning buildings and exploding teargas cannisters.”

          BRH,
          Perhaps his hair is dirty…might need a shampoo. I have a suggestion.

          • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 5:38 pm #

            No, E.

            He implied he was ready to take on the whole MPD by himself, a two fisted Revolutionary, like Big Bill Haywood.

            I’m sure veteran police officers in Milwaukee have taken notice, and are shaking in their boots.

            Brh

        • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 5:23 pm #

          We won’t though. That dude is everyone I hung out with in my band days.

          More likely is that he gets involved in some self-indulgent art project or goes to Thailand to bend and stretch all day while hooking up with young tourist chicks, while living off his trust fund.

          • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 5:33 pm #

            Nightowl

            You have an interesting background.

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 8:56 pm #

            Telling.

  77. SoftStarLight February 4, 2020 at 3:04 pm #

    The Democrats look foolish and so unprepared. And after the 2016 primaries I would say that no one trusts anything the DNC is doing right now in Iowa. And then we at best have a Civic Nationalist on the Republican side who believes the US is actually Mount Zion and totally open for business and every newcomer who wants to come here (more than ever before actually) as long as they have “skills”. More Billionaire Bilge. Sigh.

    • volodya February 4, 2020 at 3:31 pm #

      Didn’t you hear? It’s the Russians again. I think that the FBI should do an investigation it because it looks like sabotage. Or maybe the software coders were in Putin’s pocket.

      • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 5:33 pm #

        der’mo sluchayetsya

    • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 4:21 pm #

      “The Democrats look foolish and so unprepared. ”

      At first I thought we were switching back to impeachment.

  78. fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 4:30 pm #

    So I predict that Iowa is the beginning of the end of the DNC.

    Bernie will win again and they will steal it from him again. This time his supporters will not graciously accept the results. The Dems exit the convention so badly damaged that Trump spends 5 months sending increasingly sarcastic and possibly humorous tweets about them. Election is not close.

    The Dems lose the house (Nancy still thinks she should be anointed minority leader and acts like a co leader of the house cause the minority still matters) (plus she still wanders the halls aimlessly with her big gavel)

    Repubs gain 4 senate seats.

    Which I hate because that means a whole lotta Trump and repub nonsense going forward.

    The Dems are really the most pathetic excuse for human beings I’ve ever seen. Idiocracy on steroids.

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    • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 5:42 pm #

      What matters is if Bernie graciously accept the results. The fact that he did not take himself more seriously last time bothers me. If there were any others besides him who had any notion of the bigger picture besides him I’d move on. But I can’t. There will however be a green party candidate so I’ll wait to decide.

      Like Thelma and Louise heading for the cliff I’ll let the rest of you put the foot on the gas.

      • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 5:46 pm #

        feel the bern, or in his case, get the pay off money.

      • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 7:11 pm #

        I think the ANTifa crowd might not care if Bernie graciously accepts his quadrennial gang bang from the DNC.

      • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:38 pm #

        As I postulated above a couple of minutes ago:

        “The treatment Bernie was handed in 2016 was deplorable. However, I understood his decision then to back the ‘Democratic Nominee’ (who just happened to be HRC) because I surmise,

        a) he was quite rightly truly concerned at the prospect of Himself in the WH, and

        b) he didn’t need to be carrying the blame for that result, which he surely would have if he’d NOT thrown his support behind her.

        Imagine the vitriol THAT would have brought down on him! Nevertheless, he’s already getting the nasty cold shoulder from HRC & BHO, with HRC even now saying he “didn’t do enough for” her in 2016. What a cunt…

        If he gets again so blatantly, transparently & publically shafted by the DNC, and especially if Biden or Bloomberg (or, unlikely as it is, HRC) is ‘awarded’ the nomination, then there’s absolutely no loss or downside to him or the US if he says “Okay – have it your way” and runs as an independent in the General.

        He’d probably not win but he’d more than likely come in second ahead of the Dem nominee. That’s should put the much jonesed-for proverbial stake through the DNCs’s heart forever, right?”

        • fugeguy February 5, 2020 at 9:23 am #

          Yep. That is all dead on. We need a new party in this country. Not sure the Bernster would be my choice to lead it but someone has to be first.

    • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 6:56 pm #

      There must not be any reflective devices in your abode.

      • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 7:08 pm #

        Your funny. In a Arkansas suicide way.

        • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 7:19 pm #

          Arkancide a term coined by the state police in Arkansas as short hand for the tendency of Clinton opponents to kill themselves, often while tied to chairs, by shooting themselves in the back of the head- twice.

          Considered to be yet another debunked conspiracy theory by the woksters and other intellectual superiors. Debunked yet there are more than three state policemen on the record stating that they used it “all the time” to know that a situation was going to be cleaned up- no questions. Also a term used when removing ladies from Bill’s boudoir to let them know bitching had consequences.

          • fugeguy February 4, 2020 at 7:24 pm #

            But hey they shot Kennedy in front of god and everybody. Cleaned the slate the same way. Could not have been more open about it.

            No consequences other than some took note and added it to the playbook.

  79. BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 4:44 pm #

    Looks like the impeachment vote tomorrow will be near unanimous on both sides. What’s that tell you?

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 4:55 pm #

      It will be fascinating to watch Romney commit political suicide.

      A lawmaker in Utah has already put in a recall for him.

      Read an article yesterday talking about what Trump is going to do to Bolton. The Deep State is going to learn not to mess with this guy, especially if the public re-elects him.

      • RIB February 4, 2020 at 5:16 pm #

        Early Iowa returns have Bernie and Mayor Pete running neck and neck Buttigieg spokesman says candidate will take the stern approach if he wins in Iowa.

        • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 5:20 pm #

          Does Iowa know what is good for them? It the past is any indication I’d not be too quick to start sacrificing goats over the results.

        • elysianfield February 5, 2020 at 12:44 pm #

          “candidate will take the stern approach if he wins in Iowa.”

          RIB,
          Clever….

      • RIB February 4, 2020 at 5:26 pm #

        Trump has told his political enemies that he’ll “have more flexibility”, after the next election. HeeHeeHee

        • RIB February 4, 2020 at 5:28 pm #

          Mimicking Dwight D. Eisenhower Mayor Pete said, “I will not go to Iran if elected.”

      • Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 5:42 pm #

        Post the link please.

        Bolton, Romney — these are names I have long wanted to see associated with personal destruction.

        • Laundromat Blues February 4, 2020 at 6:54 pm #

          GOT thing I guess. Ramsey Bolton loved his pork sausage. You should consider a change to your handle. Daypigeon suits you better.
          pigeon
          noun
          an unattractive, trashy, usually poor female; “hoochie”.
          I don’t want no pigeons!

          • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 3:50 am #

            Cheer up, you’ll find that crime and some hard evidence some day.

            We believe in you.

          • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 6:29 am #

            Eh tu, Daypigeon?

  80. K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 5:18 pm #

    Mike’s Box

    Size needed is debatable. As bait a young blonde woman from an Eastern European country would be more appropriate. Not an American woman. He only grabs those.

  81. Nightowl February 4, 2020 at 5:53 pm #

    Elizabeth Warren caught jetting around in a private plane. Sees the camera and immediately hides behind her staffer.

    https://twitter.com/westerncaucus/status/1224814942022443008

    Sums up the state of the Green movement today.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 6:20 pm #

      But being such a tall, gawky Injun, one could see her Nordic non flowing butchy locks.

      What a jerk, not even rising to the level of being a bitch. She’s not feminine enough for that.

  82. Janos Skorenzy February 4, 2020 at 6:17 pm #

    I wrote about the Muslim rape crisis in Britain last week. Alba replied that it was only an English problem in any case.

    https://www.amren.com/news/2020/02/only-4-of-glasgows-71-muslim-refugee-child-rapists-have-gone-to-prison/

    The sheer brazen mendacity of this woman never ceases to amaze. If she’s capable of this level of dishonesty, how can her word be trusted on climate change – or anything else for that matter. If you see her on the street, don’t ask her what time it is. Or directions: she send you wrong the wrong way.

    • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 7:37 pm #

      Ah yeah, I read your article and followed the links.

      ‘He lured the girls with booze, cash and meals before having sex with them. Judge Lord Turnbull told him: “This constitutes serious sexual offending.”

      When has that ever happened?

      • K-Dog February 4, 2020 at 7:38 pm #

        When has that ever happened?

    • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 8:05 pm #

      “I wrote about the Muslim rape crisis in Britain last week. Alba replied that it was only an English problem in any case.”

      I said no such thing. The case you cited was in England. You were complaining about the officials concerned not listening to the girls. I suggested you take that up with the relevant police in England.

      Your sheer brazen mendacity never ceases to amaze.

      • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 8:32 pm #

        And I’ve noticed that every time I counter some nonsense you come out with about something I’m supposed to have said but haven’t, you come back with something even more wild and mendacious. Because you can’t hack being corrected when you’ve lied.

        Give it a rest. You know my views on rape gangs and unlimited immigration. Or you would if you didn’t ignore what I actually say on both matters.

        • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 10:09 pm #

          Oerhaps anger caused you to address this to yrself-

          every time I counter some nonsense you come out with about something I’m supposed to have said but haven’t/

          In any case, you are a shoot the messenger type.
          The muslim invasion is all 2 real.

          • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 10:11 pm #

            oops..Perhaps.

          • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 7:49 am #

            Oerhaps fits better with your utterances, malthuss. Just live with it.

      • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 9:15 pm #

        And what is this mishmash of supposed journalism from amren?

        Glasgow had been eager to cash in on asylum seekers, and in the last two decades was fundamentally transformed by the tide of migrants filling up its neighborhoods. As Pakistanis became the largest minority group in Scotland, 42% of the country’s Muslim population took up residence in Glasgow.”

        Glasgow eager to ‘cash in on asylum seekers’ (no evidence supplied of motivation being ‘cashing in’), followed by statistics on Pakistanis. Since when were Pakistanis primarily asylum seekers? What deliberate and devious ‘journalism’ is this, making it sound as if the Pakistani community in Glasgow just all arrived over the last couple of decades as asylum seekers. I’ve tried to find out about Pakistani asylum seekers in Glasgow and the only ones that came up were Christian Pakistanis fleeing persecution in Pakistan, like these ones:

        https://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/news-and-events/news/2018/glasgow-christian-teenagers-terrified-to-return-to-pakistan

        Do you want to send them back?

        And just for your general education, here’s another side of life in Pollockshields.

        https://www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/scotland-s-most-ethnically-diverse-street-1-2991437

        BTW the overall proportion of Asians in Scotland is 2.1%, mostly NOT asylum seekers. Even in Glasgow, which is Scotland’s largest industrial city, the proportion of Asians is 8.1%, with Muslims only 5.4% (1.4% in Scotland as a whole).

        • Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:46 pm #

          GA – oh, look out! – he’s likely to throw up!

          Actual facts are not on Janos’ diet – see his egregiously WRONG aspersions cast on Pakeha (up-thread).

          • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 2:25 am #

            Oh really? You admitted that the Maori and the Whites would disappear. Instead their legacies will be melded together into a wholly new and alien people. So why rave about how great the Maori are or any minority is? Who cares about diversity anyway? If we are all going into the mixer to be one then ultimately what difference does diversity make at all?

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:13 am #

            SSL

            I really try hard with you these days, I really do, but read what I wrote above and backtrack to the nasty load of shit your racist ‘beau’ threw at Pakeha (the white part of the Aotearoa story I’ve tried to explain for you).

            Even after providing him with a genuine definition of the word ‘Pakeha’ he continued to insist it means ‘white pig’ when even the scurrilously humorous UD stated that that was definitely NOT what it means.

            Janos is a singular example of hubris wrapped in narcissism.

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:14 am #

            ..and what’s ‘alien’ about what’s happening in Aotearoa New Zealand? You’re playing Janos-style games and restating what I say to fit your nutjob agenda.

          • Elrond Hubbard February 5, 2020 at 9:22 am #

            Correct, Majella. Eyesore‘s and to a lesser extent SSL‘s brains both function on the KIMBO principle: Knowledge In, Malicious Bullshit Out.

            GreenAlba certainly is on the side of the angels. But trying to engage Eyesore as if he were capable of good faith is just poor strategy.

          • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 11:54 am #

            Well cast aspersions as you may. Janos’ arguments on the matter as well as mine reflect in fact the natural position on the matter. Non-White people understand this and that is why non-Whites are much more ethnocentric and proud of their histories and heritages. I think that is a great thing. I wish Whites were the same. Many Whites are not ethnocentric because we have had the privilege of majority status in our lands and have been taught since birth to deny all natural racial and ethnic instincts. Our status is quickly dissipating and all the momentum and favor is on the side of non-Whites. Younger Whites are already aware of this but it makes sense that older generations are still living as if nothing has changed.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 10:43 am #

            “Younger Whites are already aware of this but it makes sense that older generations are still living as if nothing has changed.”

            https://www.standupny.com/10-clever-ways-to-cope-with-your-racist-grandparents/

    • GreenAlba February 4, 2020 at 8:09 pm #

      And ‘my word’ isn’t what you should be reading on climate change – you should be reading the feckin’ science.

      • BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 10:51 pm #

        I’m reading about platoons of young, self righteous, enthusiastic ‘Climate Commissars’ fanning out thru Michigan and Maine, wielding thermometers and semi auto pistols,, kicking in doors and reading the temp inside homes and apartments … any temp. 5 degrees above the ambient outside temp will be evidence of a ‘climate crime’ … similar to NKVD troops combing thru huts of hapless and starving Kulaks in 1931, searching for hidden grain or corn — just one stalk was all it would take to be dragged out and shot.

        “Burning fossil fuels, Comrade? No? Why is it 25 degress F inside your house then, and 0 outside?”

        The house is torn apart looking for a few lumps of forbidden coal or a few gallon of outlawed diesel fuel. Of couse the ‘Climate Criminals’ are shot straightaway and their property is confiscated … that’s how we deal with Deniers and Enemies.of the Climate in the New Order.

        brh

        brh

        • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:17 am #

          Marlin…your evidence is “I’m reading about…”?

          Please, elucidate. I KNOW you have no ag nada to promote here, right? 🙂

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:17 am #

            Agenda…

          • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 5:33 am #

            What was his claim, Galaxy Brain?

            How can you repeatedly make the same basic mistake, over and over and over?

            I know how.

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 5:26 pm #

            @ NigIQwl:

            I genuinely regret calling Janos a ‘singular’ example of hubris wrapped in narcissism. He’s clearly not the only one, as you evidence daily.

            Apparently you missed my diagnosis of you on the last thread as I’d expect some rejoinder…

          • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 6:21 pm #

            Aw, no answer to the question?

            I know why.

          • Majella February 5, 2020 at 7:42 pm #

            Okay. Here it is redux:

            ‘ Green Alba

            Thanks for the recap of that bullshit from LoIQwl. It had slipped my mind. (He had a go at me recently about not being able to translate a German remark without using Google. I’m certainly not fluent and can’t speak with any confidence, but I studied German for all my high school years and lived in Lubeck for close to a year, so I have a passing familiarity and can certainly read the language. Still, no opportunity to denigrate is passed over by this verrückt one.)

            What’s so galling about him is his own deep lack of self-awareness. He’s even unaware that his rampant narcissism is being illuminated by that classic symptom – ‘projection’.

            His self-congratulatory posts, claiming some sort of imaginary victory over ‘low IQ people’ who lack ‘reading comprehension’, really underlines just how screwed up he is, and I fear he’s on some sort of trajectory towards an episodic breakdown. If he disappears for a few weeks soon, he’ll probably be on a court-imposed mental health break.

            Still, it’s encouraging to note that few (if any) hereabouts join him in his pathetic rantings, denying the obvious & screaming for ‘evidence’ all the time. Einstein nailed this particular symptom of insanity with his observation about repeating oneself endlessly expecting a different result.

            It could be the Trumpian Effect, though. Perhaps some of our ‘fellow travellers’ hereabouts are loath to call him out for fear of bringing his incessant, demeaning nastiness upon themselves, too.’

          • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:31 am #

            Galaxy Brain!

            Good ol’ Night Towel. We’ve had our differences, but this makes up for them.

            Have you thought about joining Bohemian Grove? They worship Minerva, the Owl of Wisdom.

          • Nightowl February 6, 2020 at 5:22 am #

            Aw, still no answer?

            I know why.

          • Nightowl February 6, 2020 at 5:42 am #

            Janos,

            Maybe.

            I suspect there is a good joke to be made involving sacrifice, Dull Care, and Dull Maj.

        • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 7:57 am #

          brh – have you tried valium?

        • benr February 5, 2020 at 10:41 am #

          Nice writing you should write up a book.

  83. wwg1wga February 4, 2020 at 7:19 pm #

    *************************************
    And the winner of the 2020 IOWA Democratic Caucus is….

    http://www.got-truth.com/docs/And%20the%20IOWA%20Democratic%20Caucus%20Winner%20is.pdf
    *************************************

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 7:44 pm #

      America!

      Exposure of the incompetence of the Democratic Party is a good thing.

      I often wondered why the US officers oath states

      “Defend the US from all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC”,

      I now understand, the Democratic Party poses more danger to the Constitution of this country than any foreign power today. You do not see Un, Or Xi or Putin trying to do a coup against the chosen government of this country, over and over.

      Add the RINOs to the list. Remember who carried the Hillary Clinton Steele dossier to the NYT. And the globalists directly supporting the Democrats.

      • wwg1wga February 4, 2020 at 7:59 pm #

        *************************************
        Yes!
        TRUMP shall rip the DO-NOTHING-DEMOCRATS and RINO’s a new asshole in tonight’s State of the Union address.
        I think it’s time to get ready.
        http://funwithdad.net/funwithdad1alive.htm
        *************************************

        • benr February 4, 2020 at 9:51 pm #

          Pelosi looked like she was going to suck her face into her mouth she was sucking on her fake teeth so hard.
          She also was exhibiting a quirk my late mother in law had while suffering dementia the whole tooth sucking lip movement thing.

          Thought she was going to lose it.

          • benr February 4, 2020 at 11:35 pm #

            Well look at that she was so impotent that she ripped the speech up behind Trumps back.

            I tell you she was visibly warring with legion behind Trump speaking in tongues the Demons almost came out of her in a raging ball of ridiculous fury.
            You could really see it in her eyes.
            I think that women is possessed I was waiting for the split pea soup to shoot across the room and splatter orange man bad from behind.

            President Trump has all the Democrats raging he brings out the very worst in all of them.

          • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 3:47 am #

            An action driven by pure emotion, after being steamrolled with the truth.

            Much like some of our resident NPCs.

          • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 9:42 am #

            Steamrolled with the truth. Trump’s buttocks again?

          • benr February 5, 2020 at 10:39 am #

            Seems someone has an unhealthy obsession with the Presidents behind.

          • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 3:47 pm #

            There are two wolves inside you.

            One is gay.

            The other one is gay.

            You are gay.

    • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 8:32 am #

      If you read any more into Nancy Pelosi’s face, you’re going to have to put that book down.

      • benr February 5, 2020 at 9:45 am #

        Obvious you did not watch the Sotu so of course you don’t get what I am talking about and who would you right?
        I mean an hour of Trump making fun of Democrats and ripping Barry apart would have made your little head hurt and explode.

  84. JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 8:03 pm #

    A few good questions

    Why China? Why does swine flu, SARS, Coronavirus, Bird flu, all these weird viruses originate in China? Is it because of their lack of personal space by being overpopulated? Or is it living in crowded conditions with animals that allows the viruses to adapt to human cells? Are Asians immunity setup just more susceptible?

    Are we allowing the future introduction of diseases into the country by overcrowded cities from unimpeded immigration?

    Does the warming climate not allow the virus killing temperatures to stop them? Does that mean that the future means more and more potential pandemics? The World Made by Hand kicked off with a pandemic.

    • wwg1wga February 4, 2020 at 8:09 pm #

      **************************************************
      It is SOC…Self-Organizing Criticality.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S83u_y3ZRYg
      ..and it applies to a wide-range of phenomena….from wildfires to equity markets to pandemics.
      **************************************************

    • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 2:26 am #

      Or the Wuhan Coronavirus was made in a lab?

  85. messianicdruid February 4, 2020 at 8:28 pm #

    @ majella @ malthus @ greenalba

    AGW stuff [ we can do both ]

    https://youtu.be/bl4cQKKudjM

    • malthuss February 4, 2020 at 10:15 pm #

      you might check–youtube–ice age farmer

    • benr February 4, 2020 at 11:36 pm #

      Trump is urging Congress to fund the trillion tree planting initiative.

      Now who on this board has been RAILING about planting trees???

      What a smart person and Trump listened.
      I even tweeted that idea to him!
      Hurray!

      • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:20 am #

        The current NZ labour government has a “billion tree” planting programme underway as part of the climate initiative. Did it get the tip from you benr?

        • benr February 5, 2020 at 8:53 am #

          Nope it is how ever common sense in light of how many trees have been hacked down in the last ten thousand years.

      • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 8:04 am #

        benr

        “Trump is urging Congress to fund the trillion tree planting initiative.”

        Perhaps you could ask Trump to retweet your message to Bolsonaro? Because Bolsonaro’s undoing the effects of any tree planting that Trump instigates. I mean, Trump’s got influence, right? Macho leaders listen to him? Time for some environmental bromance.

        But tree planting is good, although some trees are better than others.

        Next thing you know Trump will be saying mea culpas for seeding the EPA with environmental psychopaths.

    • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:19 am #

      Nice sentiments, but all political rather than fact-based.

      • benr February 5, 2020 at 8:54 am #

        Part and parcel for how Democrats do business.
        Everything is about emotion, polls and how to win so they can push their Socialist take over agenda.

  86. Majella February 4, 2020 at 9:53 pm #

    SSL

    A Maori held in great respect (and has been soince he first emerged locally in 2010)

    Taika Waititi

    https://www.themarysue.com/taika-waititi-jojo-rabbit/

    and here another (not obvious)…can you tell which is the Maori and which the Pakeha?

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

    • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 2:42 am #

      Lol interesting subject matter. So both guys look White to me. I wouldn’t think either were Maori so I’m not sure what to say. If they are Maori then I guess I can understand why you are confused about being Maori. It’s just like the Indian thing here. A person with blond hair and blue eyes can be Indian because there is a drop in there somewhere!

      • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:23 am #

        I’m not confused aboutt ‘being a Maori’ -whatever gave you that idea?

        The guy with the glasses is Gemaine Clement, a great friend of Taika Waititi.

      • benr February 5, 2020 at 8:58 am #

        @SSL

        My dads mom was almost 100% Cherokee Jet black hair, high cheekbones great natural tan all year round.
        My dad has blonde hair with blue eyes stands exactly 5’6″ built like a stump 140 lbs.
        I am 6’2″ strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes 220lbs.
        My daughter got the hair and the eyes but she has the natural all year round tan.
        Genes do weird things.

        • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 11:47 am #

          Very interesting! The expression of recessive versus dominant genes is always something that is fascinating. The recessive traits have only continued because of re-introduction and because clearly the European heritage in your family is dominant. Even if the Cherokee and European heritage were 50/50 the dominant traits of dark eyes, hair, and skin would likely also predominate. Thus Whites will definitely disappear once the percentage of European heritage drops past that mark. It’s just nature and science at that point.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 5, 2020 at 1:17 pm #

            Thank you. If his “dad’s mom’s husband” had also been Cherokee instead of a Liz Warren Cherokee, there would be no more blonde hair in the line.

            Movies like the Matrix, where “Zion” is all mixed race with Blacks dominating but also White blondes around is simply fantasy even at this level. All blonde hair and blue eyes would quickly be bred out – along with high IQ and the morals that go with it.

          • SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 1:13 am #

            To be honest with you the use of the word Zion to describe that underground nightmare was just too much for me. I love the trilogy don’t get me wrong but they really did stretch it there. Why not just go for something more realistic and tangible like “Rock Bottom”. It captures the essence of that moment and place IMO.

  87. snagglepuss February 4, 2020 at 10:29 pm #

    Shocking. Just finished watching the State of the Union Address and witnessed Nancy Pelosi trying to upstage the event by tearing up the copy of the address delivered to her by the President, never mind all her obvious ‘eye rolling’, etc. Pretty disgusting. She should be fired. And then maybe dragged for 40 miles behind a Ford F150 pickup on a gravel road. Disrespectful. Beyond the pale.

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 11:16 pm #

      Democrats are the mental and emotional equivalents of six year old children.

    • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:24 am #

      It was the appropriate response to a Trump Election Advertisement.

      • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 4:58 am #

        There was a thunderous applause as Trump graciously thanked his audience.

        He raised his hand in a show of gratitude, his powerful 6’3″ frame and shock of golden hair casting a shadow on Nancy’s squinched, deteriorating form, despite her being physically seated a level above.

        Her skeletous hands fumbled, finally, at long last, tearing the paper — but just once, too timid and humbled was she by this force of nature to do it within its (HIS) field of vision.

        Her waning significance, even her life force, dimmed to a flicker.
        Relegated to darkness, the shadows …

        (Soft whimpering in NPC …)

        • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 7:15 am #

          Yes his 6’3″ frame, 239 lbs, 1 lb shy of being clinically obese. Landslide Trump. Can you imagine him coming down the mountain, his huge buttocks clip-clopping like a stallion in full gallop, his orange hair electrified like Don King with his finger in a light socket. When he settles at the base, the animals of the forest yawn and go about their business as if a huge, dead, rotten tree had fallen over in a storm.

          • benr February 5, 2020 at 9:00 am #

            You sound tds afflicted seek help.
            MAGA 2020

          • Janos Skorenzy February 5, 2020 at 1:23 pm #

            He doesn’t take care of himself in this way, but his energy is still phenomenal. He has a superb physique that can withstand the abuse – and his passion for life.

            That doesn’t mean he’s right – in fact, he’s wrong about most things and a liar as well. That he lied so well and with such feeling indicates to me that he knows the Truth, but he just doesn’t value it except as a weapon. That’s called corruption.

            Laura Ingraham interviewed him and told him straight to his face that what he’s doing now is not what he campaigned on. He’s just another big business President for the most part.

      • benr February 5, 2020 at 9:03 am #

        Appropriate that is a stretch even for you..
        She behaved like a maniac barely held it together what the hell does she expect when she falsely impeached him a thank you?
        Your politics are seriously fawked in the head.

        • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 9:35 am #

          You could have put a Mr. Potoato Head in for president and the economy that Obama put together after W had totally screwed the pooch would have kept going. Not even Trump could screw it up, although it has slowed down significantly. GDP 2.3% growth last year. Really quite pitiful.

          • benr February 5, 2020 at 9:43 am #

            What is so sad is you actually believe that line of bullshit.
            Barry caused the recession to go on far longer than it should have.
            I suggest you do some research on the Japanese lost decade and come up for air.

          • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 10:22 am #

            Yeah and trade wars are quick and easy to win. You Always Trumpers will believe anything that comes out of his mouth. If he said “We’re going to the moon next week in a DeLorean,” you’d have your moon bags packed, moon screen and all.

          • capt spaulding February 6, 2020 at 9:04 pm #

            While blaming ‘Barry’ for prolonging the recession, it’s convenient to forget who caused the recession in the first place, namely “W” and his Republican buddies who were the majority in both houses for a while. The ability to forget all those “pesky” details that led to the collapse of our economy is a very useful ability.

            Then after the economy steadily picked up after 2008, and still going ok, Trump is taking credit for all that. If he wins this year, watch him wiggle out of any economic catastrophe him and his buttboys caused by blaming Clinton, Pelosi,Hillary, anybody else, because I fully expect things to go south sometime in the near future. Maybe another Trillion dollar tax break for the wealthy will help.

        • Majella February 5, 2020 at 9:02 pm #

          He lied at least 18 times before I stopped counting. Like I said, APPROPRIATE response.

        • Majella February 6, 2020 at 1:57 pm #

          So, the GOP contingent chanting “Four more years” was decorous and NOT evocative of one of his rallies?

      • snagglepuss February 5, 2020 at 5:50 pm #

        Respectfully, I must disagree. The State of the Union Address is annual and while it’s an opportunity for the current President to highlight his accomplishments it’s far from a stumping speech on the campaign trail like for example his recent appearance in Iowa.
        Whatever those in that room might think of him the “office of the President’ deserves respect and decorum. When it’s over the opposition can go back to their attacks and dirty tricks. Otherwise the ocassion becomes a spectacle of sorts, like Roman Collosseum theatre. People all over the world watch the State of the Union….is that what you want for the United States?
        In addition to Pelosi’s theatrical performance of tearing up the speech, I also noticed on review of the video that she deliberately waited until Trump had handed her the speech and turned his head before she theatrically stuck out her arm and hand as if she wished to shake his………in other words she timed it perfectly. He never saw the extended hand, not that he would be inclined to offer his. The video shows more or less no eye contact between the two of them, and who can blame Trump for that? When he is re-elected I will close my eyes and hear the words of the Great One, Jackie Gleason saying..”HOW SWEET IT IS’!.

  88. BackRowHeckler February 4, 2020 at 10:30 pm #

    Hey, I think Mayor Pete won Iowa.

    That’s mildly surprising. Smart money was on Sanders – Biden in a 1 -2 perfecta.

    I know, I know, who cares about Iowa that’s old news, now its on to New Hampshire. We always said its results in New Hampshire that’s matters, not Iowa.

    i hope mayor Pete wins it all. Its gonna be one hell of an inauguration ball, capped off by President Pete’s triumphant, romantic dance with his husband, Chasten. What a moment that’ll be.

    brh

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  89. wpa_ccc February 4, 2020 at 11:04 pm #

    “The Deep State is going to learn not to mess with this guy, especially if the public re-elects him.”

    Trump will not be re-elected president, no matter who the Dems choose. There will be unity behind whatever Democratic candidate is chosen, just as all the groups (farmers, deplorables, former Trump voters, bikers, etc.) united in rural America to vote for a gay guy.

    It is the economy. It is not working for the ordinary folks in flyover country. Millions don’t have enough to reach the end of the month, or pay for an accident or health emergency. Wages are stagnant.

    Sure, the stock market is rewarding CEOs, but that is not the economy and doesn’t help the average jane or joe in iowa.

    • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 11:15 pm #

      Wages are up 16% since 2016 for blue collar workers. If you are going to criticize, get your facts right. This economy is hitting on eight cylinders like it has not done in a long time.

      Your opinion is yours, Trump is going to beat anyone they throw at him. Approval rating up to 49%, Great speech , acquittal tomorrow, it is just starting. The Dems, cannot even run a state caucus.

      • JohnAZ February 4, 2020 at 11:17 pm #

        49% approval on Gallup. Unbiased.

        • benr February 4, 2020 at 11:38 pm #

          Trump > Democrats.

          Pelosi was mad dogging him from behind it was ugly.

          Idiots shouting rudely during his speech.
          One guy does that to Barry and they came unglued.

          • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 7:06 am #

            I loved it when he said the socialists will take private health insurance away from 180 million very happy Americans and 1 person clapped. The one person happy with his health insurance. Landslide Trump.

          • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 12:57 pm #

            You know what gets to Nancy and the Dems more than anything else? Both Bushes and the RINOs all kowtowed to the increasing Leftist pressure of the Progressives.

            Trump does not give a damn about their political pressure, does no give a damn about the Dem media, and does what he thinks is right. They cannot get to him, so they feel all they can do is get rid of him.

            Sorry Dems, it is not going to work. All your BS polls and surveys do not make one iota of difference. The American public is going to re-elect Trump and give him a Conservative Congress.

            I am looking forward to seeing Pelosi hand over the gavel.

      • K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 12:50 pm #

        I’m calling your bullshit and demanding your source. The first time you put out this ridiculous number I ignored it because it was so outrageous.

        I have been all over the web and have found charts showing the real increase which has been tiny and only continues the overall trend from 2010 which still has not brought wages to pre-2008 financial crisis level.

        Sixteen percent lies like a damn rug.

        • K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 12:53 pm #

          I’d link the charts but they are all interactive. I love the interaction but it means I can’t scrape up a link and drop it here. Or I would.

          • malthuss February 5, 2020 at 1:08 pm #

            wages up 16%? whats food gas rent up?

  90. wpa_ccc February 4, 2020 at 11:53 pm #

    JohnAZ, child care and housing costs are rising faster than economy-wide wages. So what does that mean? What do we get in Trump’s economy: a spike in homelessness at the low end of the economy and a decline in childbirths among the middle class. Not good.

    Manufacturing is in trouble under Trump. There is a decline in GDP growth. Millions lack health insurance, while Trump is in court trying to destroy Obamacare and remove protection for pre-existing conditions. He has no plan to replace Obamacare. He could have done that in his first two years. He had the votes. He did nothing.

    Farm bankruptcies are up, in spite of $20 Billion dollars of Trump welfare payments doled out to farmers. Not a good economy.

    Where is the investment in infrastructure? Trump had full control of Congress for two years and did nothing. Everyone stood and applauded, Republicans and Democrats, at the idea in SOTU speech, but Trump did nothing when he had full control of Congress.

    Trump not being re-elected is not my opinion. It is supported by evidence, including the 2018 and 2019 blue wave elections. Virginia is now a blue state. Democrats will gain control of the Texas House. Demographics are destiny.

    Trump is toast according to the Negative Partisanship model. If you want to see the evidence showing Trump has no chance of re-election, which was confirmed by the midterm blue wave, here it is:

    https://cnu.edu/wasoncenter/2019/07/01-2020-election-forecast/

    • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:35 am #

      Thanks for the link. Intriguing. Compulsory reading for Himself’s Pep Rally hereabouts.

  91. wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 12:17 am #

    Trump getting into the White House is the political equivalent of being dealt a Royal Flush in poker. It is not replicable in 2020 with an agitated Democratic electorate. And that is the really bad news for Donald Trump.

    Trump, a draft dodger, mocked the 50 soldiers who suffered traumatic brain injury in the attack by Iran (which Trump ignored).

    Trump mocked Gold Star parents, mocked John McCain. Trump is no friend of the military, whose generals he called “dopes and babies” and he claimed to know more than the generals. Then generals were not in favor of abandoning our allies, the Kurds, on the battlefield after an early morning phone call with a dictator. (phone transcript hidden on a secure server)

    Factories are closing in Ohio. Ford Motor Co. said today it would cut 35,000 jobs and close five factories. Trump lies. He lied tonight about the economy.

  92. wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 12:25 am #

    Crisis-o-Rama indeed. Trump’s U.S. budget deficit will surpass $1 trillion in fiscal 2020. The only other time the country has posted a budget exceeding this number was in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

    Overall, deficits have skyrocketed under the Trump administration, thanks to the Trump’s signature 2017 tax-cut law and increased spending on defense. Though Trump told the “dopes and babies” that he would not go to war with them. Complete disrespect for the military.

    The last big downturn that we had was in 2008. Trump’s 2020 downturn will be bigger and cost him re-election. Trump is a one term president.

    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:50 am #

      Listening to a Liberal complaining about the deficit is one of the few humorous things about this blog.

  93. wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 12:34 am #

    “49% approval on Gallup. Unbiased.”

    George H W Bush had a 68% approval rating. He was not re-elected.

    Trump’s days as president are numbered. Won’t be long now.

    (And I’m not talking about heart attack, or what Sharron Angle called “second amendment remedies”)

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  94. BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 12:36 am #

    It looks like President Trump won the Republican caucus in Iowa.

    Trump: 97%

    William Weld: 1%

    Joe Walsh: 1%

    1% is unaccounted for

    It was a squeaker!

    brh

    • wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 12:46 am #

      It was rigged.

      • wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 12:53 am #

        It looks like President Trump won the Republican caucus in Iowa. Trump: 97%

        Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov was reelected with 97 percent of the vote. When you rig an election, you can easily get 97% of the vote. Bashar al-Assad got 97 percent in a “presidential referendum.”

        Then there’s the 99 percent club, which includes the Castro brothers, and Kim Jong Il. Saddam Hussein went for the full 100 percent in 2002, but then again, he was overthrown a year later. (Why a dictator decides between winning by 97 percent or 99 percent isn’t quite clear.) For some reason Trump decided on 97%.

        Fake president. Fake 97%.

      • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:38 am #

        Yeah..those sorts of numbers usually only arise in banana-republic elections.

        • benr February 5, 2020 at 9:13 am #

          Well that is exactly what the party of Democrats wants so no surprise they want totalitarian style government and the feckless limp wristed Republicans barely put up a fight till Lord God Emperor Trump showed them they could fight back.

    • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 7:44 am #

      Landslide Trump!

  95. wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 1:02 am #

    31,422 : Trump votes in Iowa, 2020

    125,038 : Democratic votes in Iowa 2020

    125,038 > 31,422

    No comment.

  96. K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 1:29 am #

    “A great American comeback” Trump claims as he exaggerates his credit for the current state of the economy. And by the numbers the American economy seems good.

    But what numbers really make it look good? Neither GDP nor Wall Street is a solid measure of the economy. They are fickle and don’t measure stability or how well people are actually doing in their everyday lives.

    In only two years the number of Americans without health insurance increased from 10.9 to 13.7%….

    You can read the rest ==> click here

    • Majella February 5, 2020 at 3:41 am #

      But..but..! JohnAZ has already explained that wages have risen 16% since 2016. However, JohnAZ, you didn’t actually give that raw number any context – it sure wasn’t the average wage, possibly the median? The median would indicate the middle class getting huge rises while the burger-flipper still struggles on$7.25 an hour.

      • Majella February 5, 2020 at 4:18 am #

        …and the burger-flipper workforce is growing, at least till KFC goes AI Robot.

        • Cargill February 5, 2020 at 8:16 am #

          Don’t bet your mortgage on AI robots taking over any time soon, Maj.

          I’ve watched robots on up-scale cruise ships try to mix and serve cocktails to the punters … it works for about an hour, and then all the workers have to come out and fix / clean / reset / and whatever.

          It ain’t the Jetson Age quite yet.

          • Majella February 6, 2020 at 2:00 pm #

            True…but with the ordering stations coming up like mushrooms, it’s “Back to the Future II”…

      • messianicdruid February 5, 2020 at 8:05 am #

        In 1964 the minimum wage was $1.25 .

        Today you can take those five quarters and trade them for 25 Federal Reserve Notes [ if you were stupid enough ] .

        We don’t need to fix the wages, we need to fix the money.

      • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:46 am #

        Okay?

        The middle class getting livable wages, that is bad? So the kids can get their burger flipper jobs back. And the states are slowly giving minimum wage increases to 15 dollars, and clobbering the entry level wage earners.

        • Majella February 5, 2020 at 5:38 pm #

          How about the 35 year old single mother at her burger-flipper job on $7.25?an hour? Those fast food joints are no longer for high school kids summer breaks.

  97. Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 6:42 am #

    Look at these clowns crowing over 49%. Unbiased. Nearly a majority. Landside Lyndon is rolling over in his grave. Next they’ll be celebrating the sunrise with the chickens. Bawk bawk bawk, bawka!

    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:42 am #

      Higher approval rating than Obama at the same time. Keep watching, it is going higher.

  98. Cargill February 5, 2020 at 8:09 am #

    I cannot believe the Democrats actually attended the Dumpster’s Adderall-fuelled address to the nation.

    Every one of them Dems (Reps and Senators) should have simply boycotted the entire event – and the Dump could have preached to his pathetic choir – assuming he has the brain cells left to even read the tele-prompter.

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    • benr February 5, 2020 at 9:07 am #

      Wow look at the angst fueled squeal session can you guys squeal like a pig?
      HAHAHAHAHAHA
      I need to get some more popcorn the next nine months are going to be a hoot.
      You guys have a gay guy who can’t even run a tiny town and a 80 year old communist with a bad heart and a crook for a wife.

    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:40 am #

      If they had, they would not have made asses of themselves as they did. The rudest group of jerks I have ever seen in the public space. They are emotionally a bunch of six year olds.

    • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 11:01 am #

      Brain cells?

      The man doesn’t smoke, drink or use drugs. His brain cells are intact

  99. Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 8:16 am #

    You know that Geico commercial that says Pinnochio would have made a poor motivational speaker because everytime he lies his nose gets longer and longer. The Democrats should have brought in a Trump doll and everytime he lied they should have lenghthened his nose until by the end of the speech it extended all the way to the podium.

    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:37 am #

      And Schiff, and Pelosi, and Nadler and the whistleblower and Bolton and Vintman, and, and etc etc. Give me a break.

  100. messianicdruid February 5, 2020 at 8:22 am #

    wpa-ccc said, “Trump’s days as president are numbered. Won’t be long now.

    (And I’m not talking about heart attack, or what Sharron Angle called “second amendment remedies”) ”

    He has taken full ownership of an economy about to have a global pandemic wrapped around its neck.

    China has already reduced demand for fuel by 20%.

    This is not the Spanish Flu. We have had infected people travelling all over the planet for perhaps two months spreading a disease with no symptoms for days or weeks.

    http://alt-market.com/index.php/articles/4081-how-viral-pandemic-benefits-the-globalist-agenda

    • messianicdruid February 5, 2020 at 8:48 am #

      Lock down New York City and see what happens.

      https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/cruise-ships-quarantined-in-hong-kong-coronavirus

    • benr February 5, 2020 at 9:10 am #

      Yea this is going to get really ugly.
      I suspect the next two months are going to get dicey thankfully the days are getting longer and Mr. Sun will force this thing into hibernation.

      What worries me is they are finding the live virus in fecal matter and I don’t believe our processing accounts for that so if it survives the trip to the ocean it could be all over the beaches of the world and into the water supply.

      • Pucker February 5, 2020 at 9:15 am #

        They think that the Coronavirus virus may be in excrement so that unless the toilet seat is down the toilet will spray it all over everything when flushed. All the food service workers in the McDonalds will have it all over themselves even if they wash their hands?

        • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:34 am #

          Ten feet away if the lid is not closed. Yuck!

  101. Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 9:19 am #

    HIV. SARS. Y2K. Coronavirus. It’s always something that turns out to be nothing.

    • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 10:08 am #

      Surely, Putin is behind this, too?

      Fill us in, sad one.

    • elysianfield February 5, 2020 at 1:09 pm #

      “It’s always something that turns out to be nothing”

      LB,
      Yes, until it isn’t. Seasonal flu has already killed over 10,000 this season alone, and no one is curtailing flights or closing borders because of it.

      • elysianfield February 5, 2020 at 1:14 pm #

        And…the link;

        https://abcnews.go.com/Health/1300-people-died-flu-year/story?id=67754182

        • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 1:28 pm #

          That’s what coronavirus is, isn’t it, a bad case of the flu. No?

          • elysianfield February 5, 2020 at 7:45 pm #

            “That’s what coronavirus is, isn’t it, a bad case of the flu. No?”

            LB,
            Well, reactions of the nations directly involved seem to suggest otherwise.

  102. Vinnie the Vintner February 5, 2020 at 9:34 am #

    Long-time listener, first-time caller. Thank you, Jim. I thoroughly enjoy your weekly musings and have shared your blog and books with my peeps. Much appreciated.
    Now, I am throwing the “bullshit flag” on the generally accepted narrative that opportunities do not exist in this country, college degree or not. Until you run your own business, some folks may have a hard time grasping the FACT that there is a concrete portion of our society that DON’T WANT TO WORK, and are NOT GOING TO WORK. Period. Yes, I get it, there are legitimate people on disability, and there are people that cannot afford to have the mobility to go where the “good” jobs are located. However, I live in a town that has been left behind. Jobs and people leaving. It is sickening how many people are on “scam” disability and hooked on drugs. Babies having babies, grandmas raising those babies, and no father in sight. We stopped in a c-store last week and coming out a 4-5 year old child looked up at his granny and said, “look what I stole” as he pulled a pair of ear pods out of his pocket. She did not make him return it.

    My friends, there IS a pony in that pile of shit. You just gotta be willing to keep digging. I have worked three jobs for a minimum wage to make ends meet. Was it fun? Nope. Was I tired when I got home? Yep. Was it rewarding? Damn right it was! Learn to do the things other people don’t like to do and there won’t be much to impede you.

    The entitlement attitude has spread much faster than any virus, and will likely do much more damage in the long-term. My youngest chap studied in Cape Town his senior year in college and told me how some of his peers would have temper tantrums when the internet would go down. “As much as my parents are paying they better get this turned back on or else.” He told them to shut up. He is now doing TFA in a place I would prefer he not be, but he is telling me how these young teachers are having mental breakdowns. Once teacher said, “ get me out of this classroom or I am going to hurt myself or one of these children”. They put him into a counseling role. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A second grader told my son he was mean to her because she was black.

    He came out of our wonderfully liberal university thinking we all love each other. I called bullshit on that, too. Two months ago, I reminded him of not trying to be a hero if he ran into trouble. Him being a former wrestler, I was worried he might fight (he’s a little guy). A week later he is cruising downtown on his skateboard when a black man attacked him and knocked him off his board, grabbed it from him, and started screaming racial slurs and beating his board on the ground. Thankfully, two black guys in a balcony screamed at him to stop and called the police. He ran and hid behind a car. The police came and my son emerged from hiding to confront the man (not a kid) in cuffs. He asked the perp, “why did you do that? “Because you’re WHITE muthafucka.” As one of our posters said a few weeks ago, “it is getting dangerous out there”.

    Told both my kids, always listen to both sides of the story, be respectful, and make your own decisions. Also told youngest to learn a trade if you want to make a fortune in the coming years. Nobody wants to do it. I enjoy reading everyone’s thoughts and views on CFN. Whether we agree or not, I would offer you a glass of wine. Now that I’m all riled up, a hard day in the vineyard will clear most of that up.

    Peace!

    V

    • Vinnie the Vintner February 5, 2020 at 9:49 am #

      Damn! I was so excited and hyped up to make my first post I forgot the part about a living wage.

      Son number two that’s teaching school and getting his maters was employed in August of 2019 and has saved over $4,000 on a salary of about $36k. No, I don’t pay his phone bill.

      That’s probably poverty level pay, but that’s pretty darn good. He lives within his means, so quit telling me you can’t get by on a living wage. He is.

      Peace!

      V

    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:25 am #

      Address this post to all our Liberal folks who refuse to believe that entitlement is the major pandemic in this country. Entitlement mentality is what is really destroying the Democratic Party. No, it is the Democratic leaders feeding their power drives on the entitlement folks.

  103. Sean Coleman February 5, 2020 at 10:21 am #

    I have not given this new virus a thought. About 12 or 13 years ago I nearly cancelled a family holiday to Spain (from Ireland) over the swine flu, which originated in Mexico.

    Mad cow disease (or CJD) had me worried too. a senior government scientist appeared on BBC’s prime news and politics programme Newsnight to say that the epidemic showed all the signs of a “classic” bell curve distribution (by which I suppose he was extrapolating such a curve from the little bit at the start, like the climate alarmists do).

    Needless to say nothing much happened with any of these. And stopped watching Newsnight (and the BBC, and television) many years ago. I miss their science programme Horizon but that is only because I would not mind seeing it again just to jeer at it.

    Christopher Booker and Riachrd North in their book Scared To Death: From BSE To Global Warming – Why Scares Are Costing Us The Earth, deal with the most prominent such panics. The asbestos scare was particularly odd because it appears to have hinged on the use of the word ‘asbestos’ to describe more than one substance, onlyo one of which was dangerous. Government incompetence and lawerly greed figure prominently throughout the book. This is the same for moral panics too but I will resist the temptation to go donw that road just for once. There seems to be more deceit in moral panics. What”s Flaherty’s catch phrase? Denial, deceit and delusion. The media a re common to all, of course.

    The Chinese lock-down reminds me of |Mao’s absurd war against starlings or sparrows ini the 1950s. And an iron works in every back garden.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:32 am #

      The correct model of the world is everything is a cloud of microbes in which complex organisms move through as voids protected by their immune systems. Immune systems have a problem? Death when the microbes eat you.

      The question in China is why are the immune systems failing?

      • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 11:38 am #

        Severe complications. Respiratory failure. Severe Pneumonia.

    • messianicdruid February 5, 2020 at 11:12 am #

      “Denial, deceit and delusion.”

      “…and the boy cried, “Wolf! ”

      https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-02-04-dr-francis-boyle-confirms-coronavirus-an-offensive-biological-warfare-weapon.html

    • malthuss February 5, 2020 at 5:02 pm #

      Mad cow disease (or CJD) had me worried too. a friends brother
      died very recently, from crustfeld? jakobs disease.
      killed him in 2 weeks.

  104. wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 10:21 am #

    ”You guys have a gay guy“

    Benr, to be precise Pete is a war veteran, not a draft dodger.

    Pete commands several languages, without slurring words.

    Pete is a Rhodes scholar who did not have to buy a degree.

    Pete is height weight proportional, not obese.

    Pete has a spouse who will hold his hand, not swat it away.

    Pete is an executive who did not put his family members on the payroll.

    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 10:27 am #

      Great, all true.

      Trump promised to MAGA.

      He is keeping his promise. That is enough.

      • wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 10:30 am #

        Cults of personality are full of true believers.

        • benr February 5, 2020 at 10:37 am #

          And the progressive aka communist party of America has some of the worst brain washed true believers around which it would appear you are part of.

      • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 11:07 am #

        America was great before Trump, America is great during Trump, and America will be great after Trump. Always Trumpers think Trump has a monopoly on the word. He doesn’t. This is the greatest country on earth, not because of Trump, but in spite of him.

        • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 11:41 am #

          If this is the greatest country on Earth then why do the Leftists, particularly, always rail constantly and consistently about how America is the most horrible nation that has ever existed on Earth on all counts? The most racist, the most violent, the most this that and the other and the litany and indictments never end. Why?

          • volodya February 5, 2020 at 11:55 am #

            Partly because they have no idea of the outside world. Their so-called cosmopolitanism is a pose. So is their alleged multi-culturalism. Mostly they’re know-nothings.

            And partly because it’s the basis for a career in the academic world and in government bureaucracy. If you don’t profess those views you will not get in because these views are widely seen in those circles to be enlightened.

          • SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 12:07 pm #

            So then basically V they are the definition of an echo chamber?

          • volodya February 5, 2020 at 12:16 pm #

            That’s what it is. Impermeable to reality.

          • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 12:44 pm #

            I think you take a lot of what people say to heart, which is unfortunate. Take it with a grain of salt and you’ll hear it differently. People talk out of both sides of their mouths. They want out of wars, but they want cheap gasoline. They want no abortions and no sex education. They want a stop to immigration, yet they like cheap lawn care. On and on.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:48 am #

            Good question, SSL. Bingo, Volodya. Thank you for your honesty, Laundru.

        • benr February 5, 2020 at 12:45 pm #

          Here let me fix this post for you.

          America was great before Trump, America is great during Trump, and America will be great after Trump. Always Trumpers think Trump USES the words to drive Democrats into a frenzy and He does look at Pelosi coming unhinged in the SOTU. This is the greatest country on earth, not because of Trump, but in spite of the communist America hating Democrats trying to tear it apart at every turn.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:45 am #

        No, he isn’t. He’s for his Class in general, and the Zionists in particular. That’s it.

    • benr February 5, 2020 at 10:36 am #

      Seems you missed part of my comment and the most important part!
      That CAN’T EVEN RUN A SMALL CITY!
      The rest of your screed is irrelevant and no one cares.

      • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 10:50 am #

        How can we expect him to know the state of the union when he doesn’t even know the state of Kansas city.

        • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 3:23 pm #

          The owns a hotel in Kansas City. And Kansas City, Kansas has a claim on the Chiefs too.

    • RIB February 5, 2020 at 12:26 pm #

      And he also has an asshole wide enough to drive a mack truck through

    • malthuss February 5, 2020 at 5:06 pm #

      war veteran, he was a secretary?

  105. wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 10:49 am #

    No documents, no witnesses, no trial, no aquittal.

    • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 3:40 pm #

      No crime, no evidence, no trial.

      Thank you for playing.

  106. SoftStarLight February 5, 2020 at 11:36 am #

    Disappointing news…. Yesterday morning there was a hopeful story that a baby girl born in Hubei province China to a mother who was positive for the novel coronavirus tested negative for the virus. Could she have developed immunity? I believe a few tests were administered yesterday and each time the baby was found negative for the virus. Well. Today the baby tested positive for the virus.

  107. sprawlcapital February 5, 2020 at 1:00 pm #

    I did not attend my precinct caucus here in Des Moines, Iowa. If it had been a normal primary election, I would have voted. Voting takes only minutes, not hours like a caucus. And the caucuses are an unreasonable challenge for citizens with a mobility problem, like I developed recently. (No, not a stroke, for which I am thankful.)

    So Nancy Pelosi is disgusted with our President’s State of the Union speech to the point that she tore up her copy of it. Well, Nancy, I am disgusted with your “Democratic” Party, which conducts this travesty of democracy called the Iowa Caucuses. Your party could not manage a kindergarten classroom, let alone a national government.

    Computer applications must be tested, and people must be trained in their use. Who doesn’t know that?

    And why do the caucuses not have a secret ballot? No good reason comes to mind, only bad ones.

    Why is the caucus procedure so complicated and error-prone? Any good reason?

    Iowa has the caucus system so that we do not compete with New Hampshire for the first in the nation primary. That’s not good enough. The Iowa Caucuses should be abolished and replaced with a normal primary election.

    The news media will oppose this change because they are addicted to the advertising revenue they get from the campaigns.

  108. K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 1:06 pm #

    @JohnAZ


    A crucial measure of how far from full recovery the economy remains is the growth of nominal wages (wages unadjusted for inflation). Nominal wage growth since the recovery officially began in mid-2009 has been low and flat. This isn’t surprising—the weak labor market of the last seven years has put enormous downward pressure on wages. Employers don’t have to offer big wage increases to get and keep the workers they need. And this remains true even as a jobs recovery has consistently forged ahead in recent years.

    Here is the source.

    The above paragraph was updated on November 1, 2019.

    You claiming 16% growth in wages is over the top. The truth is ‘In only two years the number of Americans without health insurance increased from 10.9 to 13.7%. The source of that figure is my own website chasingthesquirrel.com and the article I published yesterday. More precision than that you and can hunt down the figure yourself. I’ll stand by it.

    I did figure out one way a 16% increase might come about. Report on only those blue collar workers who have benefited from the minimum wage increases.

    • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 1:16 pm #

      How about the downward wage pressure coming from the illegals coming in. Although thanks to current enforcement, this has declined in 2019. Maybe that it why the wages have ticked up instead of down.

      • K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 1:24 pm #

        Maybe you could find some documentation to support your claim. I’ve found some to refute it. It took me a whole thirty seconds but I’ll admit I already knew the facts.

        According to this which comes from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Obama was doing more apprehensions than Trump has.

        Neener-Neener

        Trump is all about taking credit for Obama’s work but the truth is he can’t even make Barack’s numbers.

        • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:51 am #

          They both want to legalize the whole thing. Thus they are both for the Great Replacement and thus both the enemies of the real America and an American People. And enemies of Blacks too, btw.

        • Nightowl February 7, 2020 at 4:08 am #

          That isn’t what the chart shows specifically. It is titled “Total Southwest Border Apprehensions.” You read the rest into it.

          One obvious issue is that the chart shows apprehensions, but does not include stats for illegals who are simply turned back.

          John spoke of enforcement, not apprehensions specifically.

  109. JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 1:12 pm #

    GA

    Funny story from your side of the pond.

    Oxford students went to protest fossil fuels and climate change.

    The Oxford management took them at their words and turned off all the fossil fuels going into the dorms, including heat and hot water.

    Whoa, it didn’t take the kids long to complain about cold showers and rooms.

    Finally, some kids may have gotten some education.

    • K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 1:29 pm #

      Did Oxford management turn off their own heat and hot water at home.

      The education here is about the comfort and smugness with which power teaches ‘a lesson’.

      • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 1:43 pm #

        No they didn’t.

        But they weren’t the ones protesting against central heat and reliable electric service to keep the lights on and the refrigerators working.

        At Yale student protests against fossil fuels are par for the course, after which the protesters go back into their warm apartments, get a hot catered meal cooked with natgas, or take a limo down to JFK for a weekend flight to Miami.

        On a different subject, what time is the impeachment vote in the Senate? I’m on pins and needles.

        Brh

        • malthuss February 5, 2020 at 1:54 pm #

          you are noting the obvious, Captain Obvious.

      • malthuss February 5, 2020 at 1:54 pm #

        wrong again, Mr soo rong.

        • malthuss February 5, 2020 at 1:55 pm #

          Did Oxford management turn off their own heat and hot water at home.
          No, why should they do that?

      • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:11 am #

        Brilliant! Touche, BRH. Easily defeated as usual, Kdog. You’re no philosopher. Like Kesa, you have the brains – you’re simply too passionate to use them correctly much of the time.

        • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:18 am #

          the refugee serial killer named in 2 more ‘deaths’–murders.
          see refugee resettlement watch.

          And the 24 year old dead blonde cop was a butch gal.
          planning on remarrying soon, [to a femme].
          her plans got scuttled. she liked softball and was in the navy.

          o well.

      • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:19 am #

        turn off your own home power and car for awhile, mr smugmug.

  110. BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 2:02 pm #

    Who wants the job as ‘Climate Commissar’ in the new Sanders administration?

    President Sanders has several times spoken of prosecuting oil company executives for ‘Crimes against future humanity”.

    The Climate Commissar will have extraordinary power, with portfolio to investigate all aspects of American life. And his prosecutorial powers will be immense. After all, the future of humanity depends on his efforts, so fanatical zeal will be necessary.

    A fan and supporter of the old Soviet Union (he honeymooned in Moscow), President Sanders new cabinet post will be based upon laventry Beria and the NKVD. Oh, how sweet it will be to send out party cadre to smash up gas stations, burn piston automobiles, blow up gas and coal fired electric power plants, persecute Exxon executives, hang coal miners, and above all, establish Climate Gulags, where millions of transgressors — climate criminals caught trying to heat their houses with No 2 heating oil or cooking dinner with natural gas — can be locked down and re educated. A brave new world my friends,

    Brh

    • K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 2:16 pm #

      Dude, wait until he offers you the job. Settle down.

    • K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 2:18 pm #

      Sit dog sit.

    • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 4:51 pm #

      Only True Believers need apply.

  111. capt spaulding February 5, 2020 at 2:11 pm #

    My brother in law told me a good one today. “Do you know what goes with Coronavirus? Lyme disease.” I thought it was pretty good. After last night’s State of the Union, I think the people who tested positive for Coronavirus should all be sequestered in Wash. DC., but that’s just me.

  112. KesaAnna February 5, 2020 at 2:39 pm #

    @ GreenAlba

    ” The UVF are nasty fuckers – ”

    Offside anecdote ; I think it is fair to say that the ( P. ) I.R.A are fairly well known in America.

    But the average American wouldn’t know the difference between U.V.F. and Unilever.

    Kinda funny , given , as you seem to suggest yourself (?) , when it comes to ruthless , uncompromising , brutality , the Unionists are perhaps incrementally more so than the nationalists , but at least their equals.

    Anyway , I don’t necessarily disagree with your statement.

    I get the impression , the suspicion , that in the case of at least some of these people , in 1972 , no less than today ,

    Ideology is really just a mask for sadism.

    Then there are those people — this strikes me simply as easier to describe in Christianity at the moment , so don’t get your hopes up —

    whose world view is that this guy is going to Hell for this reason , and that guy is going to Hell for that reason.

    And what about your own sins ? Somehow that is all excused.

    Actually I would describe myself , for lack of a better word , as liberal , because I do NOT suppose my sins are excused . I’m rather inclined to think the opposite.

    Elysianfield shouldn’t hold his breath in expectation that I’ll soon be bending the knee to his kind , though . If such a thing as good guys exist , they sure as fuck are not to be found among the police .

    Anyway , if anything , the second group is far more problematical than the first. Thugs , in my experience , have at least a vague , inchoate , if irrational , sense of guilt.

    But the second group ; their very talent is their ability to re-write reality to not only rationalize everything they do , but to exalt it.

    The impression I get is there is a fair sprinkling of such characters on both sides.

    The question then jumps to mind though ; How did such characters manage to some degree to climb into the catbirds seat ?

    I can imagine such characters slinking around a huge leviathan like America in semi – anonymity.

    But Ulster is a tiny place. You could almost walk across the whole thing in a single day.

    I could be wrong , but I wouldn’t be surprised if the principles here commonly know each other by name , by sight , and even know what their adversaries favorite color is.

    But they are staging parades and painting pretty outdoor wall murals.

    So what the Hell ?

    ” Catholic or Protestant is just a cultural identifier that corresponds to nationalist or unionist – per se it has little to do with any conflicts ”

    I don’t disagree.

    My bet would be that the average Irish Catholic would look at me funny when I say that Church authority is the superior of secular authority. And the funny looks would come even from history buffs who would , in fact , have a clue as to what I mean.

    The other day I listened to a 1973 ( ? ) speech by Gerry Adams. It was about 20 minutes long. He mentioned Republicanism about once every ten words. He mentioned the Catholic Church not once.

    So what the Hell ?

    ” Catholic or Protestant is just a cultural identifier … it has little to do with any conflicts ”

    ” Ideology is really just a mask for sadism. ”

    All else aside , on either side , and altogether , it is a power struggle , plain and simple.

    I’ll pick on Gerry Adams again . Gerry Adams was no impoverished , underprivileged , Catholic waif. And he is no village idiot.

    Gerry Adams has the intelligence and the capacity , and had the privilege , and the access , he could have been an engineer or a college professor , or pretty much anything else he wanted to be.

    But then his name wouldn’t be in the newspapers all the time. A woman on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean wouldn’t recognize his name and face.

    Even with a nice sinecure and a cushy income , people wouldn’t necessarily stand up when he entered the room , or suck up to him.

    Perhaps I’m being uncharitable ? But I suspect sometimes it is as simple as that.

    ” But you’re wrong about the ‘better educations’, ‘better jobs’ etc. Ireland’s economy is far healthier than that of Northern Ireland, which is a bit of a basket case, with longstanding structural problems. ”

    I wasn’t comparing economies , and I’m not comparing them now .

    The way I hear it , the average standard of living in the U. A. E. is a scale or two higher than in the United States.

    ” Middle class ” in the U.A.E means indoor ski resorts .

    And that means ….. diddly , to me. I couldn’t afford to go on holiday to the U.A.E . , much less could I realistically contemplate setting up housekeeping there.

    As I hear it , when my old country folded , The army , the border guards , the state police , the peoples militia , they were all disbanded.

    Let’s consider exclusively the army. Those who qualified ( i.e. they were nearing retirement anyway ) were pensioned off . And , as far as I know , Federal Germany is still paying those pensions.
    That’s nice.

    But let’s say you had put in 15 or 20 years in the NVA , and had risen to the rank of Sergeant Major.

    In a day you have been busted down to nobody. You might apply to join the army of united Germany — like anyone else.

    And if you even get in , it will be as a recruit , like some wet – nosed 18 – year – old. Your former status is , if anything , something of a sticky embarrassment. And all your skills are … irrelevant.

    The Strategy , tactics , organization , and general world view of the Warsaw Pact was very different from that of NATO.

    Like ; a Westerner looks at a Soviet tank and thinks , ” That sucks. ”

    But a Warsaw Pact officer looks at a western tank and thinks , ” That sucks. ” The basic approaches were very different.

    Status ? Status is not uncommonly a very narrow margin that basically consists of where you happen to be standing.

    I’ll use another example ;

    Two girls live in the same low – rent ghetto. Neither family has more than one hundred dollars in the bank.
    Both girls are equally intelligent , of equal capacity , even equally pretty.

    Yet one could be called , “rich ” , and the other could be called , “poor ” . How could this be ?

    Well , one girl wants to be a ballerina when she grows up. Never mind that Ballet lessons , no way around it , are gonna cost a shit load of money. And never mind that Ballet is never going to put meat on the communal family table. On the contrary , the ultimate outcome of this hand — up is that the recipient will be walking out the door , flying away , in the end , and with a blessing too !

    The other girl would like to be a ballerina too . A nice dream is all that is ever going to be though.
    What 12 – year – old , even one who on paper has a million dollars in inheritance coming , has any genuine say in things , or any money in reality , at that time ?

    I picked Ballet deliberately. You cannot just be getting started on a Ballet career at age 35. You get started on that at 12 , or never.

    I’m sure there are exceptions. And they ARE EXCEPTIONS.

    Our second girls parents aren’t monsters either . But they won’t be going along with the whims of their daughter because ….

    …. well , even though our girl happens to live in Michigan , what she lives under is basically Communism , except it isn’t called that , or even recognized as such a thing.

    ” Communalism ” maybe ? 😀

    ” From each according to their capacity , to each according to their need ” I do not think is a bad philosophy.

    But I would agree with Ayn Rand to the extent that — the habitual glossing over of the fact that such a philosophy can have less than happy costs — is an evil wrinkle.

    All of this is to say that when I use words like , “rich ” , “poor ” , “privileged ” , ” better jobs ” , the lines I am drawing TYPICALLY are very fine lines.

    In this case though , when I say , “power struggle ” , I do mean that broadly and generally.

    ” The majority of people in Northern Ireland – of either community – just want to live their lives ”

    I would guess that this is true.

    And I would guess that it is not true.

    ” … just want to live their lives ” takes money , at any level.

    It takes some degree of privilege , of access , the goodwill , or at least neutrality , of peers , and so on , at any level.

    The vast majority , even , may absolutely hate the nasty fuckers ?

    But my bet would be that in some way , shape , or form , they are involved in these power struggles.

    Rather like , in reverse comparison , American TV shows near – uniformly present the police as angels of light.

    And millions of folks in real life go right along with that fairey tale.

    But when Mary Poppins is doing the Happy Motoring thing , and the blue light goes off in her rear view mirror , her knee – jerk reaction is FEAR.

    — Unless she is one of those people I described previously who are absolutely , seriously , convinced of their own rectitude.

    You get two very different stories , from the same person , relative to time , place , and context.

    The same person who thinks a power struggle between Anglican ( sort of ) Clergymen and Catholic Priests is absurd and pointless ,

    would not balk at throwing a cigarette smoker out in the street , when the row houses in question are right down the street from Windscale nuclear power plant.

    ” I think you are also mistaken in your assumptions about Brits in Ireland (and by extension, in a united Ireland). A large number of British people work and live in Ireland and an increasing number of them are applying for Irish citizenship as a result of Brexit. ”

    It so happens I knew a guy once who was a veteran of 1st Para — yes, that same 1st Para of Bloody Sunday fame.

    We didn’t get along. I couldn’t say what his feelings were , but I didn’t like him .

    My dislike had nothing to do with Bloody Sunday though.

    If I’m not mistaken , he swore an oath to the crown , or at least to the UK , when he joined the army ?

    So why the fuck was he retired , on a British Army pension , IN FLORIDA ?

    Yes , I suppose I’m being quite contradictory ; the secular state , any secular state , means nothing to me.

    On the other hand , he was a fan of the United States .

    So , I suppose , I’m at least entitled to resent ; ” How about sharing that globe – trotting , multiple – passport – thing sentiment with your American cousins ? ”

    instead of pushing tyranny with your selective silence ?

    As I understand it , Unionists were , and some still are , rather paranoid about Westminster. That the British government is willing to abandon them.

    Except that government records released this decade apparently show that Westminster has been at least willing to entertain the idea of abandoning them .

    Anyway , I suppose I’m something of an old school German ; My rule of thumb is that the Brits are two – faced back-stabbers , and so , like Thomas , I reserve judgement until / unless I see it myself when it comes to the Brits.

    ” None of this is a personal attack on anything you said. so hopefully you will take it in that vein and not feel the need to continue your ‘fucking reptile’ meme. ”

    Hey , actually I don’t really mind pedophile priest jokes and cut – downs.

    I just mind when they aren’t matched equally by jokes and put – downs of conventional heterosexuals ( though we haven’t actually seen such a species in many decades now ) and the largely bullshit sexual revolution.

    Anyway , my long – term goal is the restoration of Church authority , and the subversion of the secular state.

    You can choose to take that personally , or not. My own view and guess is that my likes and dislikes , and so feelings , don’t amount to much.

    ” However you must be happy to know that non-Catholic taxpayers in the UK subsidise the sectarianism here, as the Catholic schools are generally state schools, paid for by us all. I don’t mind subsidising them, but I think keeping kids apart like that is dysfunctional. ”

    Gee , somehow I don’t interpret the insinuation , however indirect and subtle , that I’m bad for childrens mental health , as a compliment.

    Objectively though , I don’t see it so much as personal . It’s another power struggle.

    @ Janos

    ” Alba is stuck in the past. So is Kesa. ”

    For 4,000 years ( my yardstick here is the Peloponnesian War )

    Secular types have been making the joke , ” How many armored divisions does the Pope have ? ” ( That is , a fair equivalent of the same. )

    And , so far , it has always been the secular types , their regimes , that went extinct.

    If even one – fifth of the worries expressed here come to pass , I rather suspect that I am the future.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
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    • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 3:19 pm #

      Kesa Anna

      You quote Nietzche and GK Chesterton at will, and have read Thucydides ‘History of the Pelopenessian War’ … you come out with these pithy, unbelievably accurate insights into historical events and human nature …

      Who are you , really?

      Brh

      • PeteAtomic February 5, 2020 at 3:53 pm #

        a nun in some priory, somewhere?

        🙂 ha

      • Cargill February 5, 2020 at 5:28 pm #

        Lots of wordage – prolix comes to mind. Some sub-editing would be good.

        And I do wish the girl/boy would learn to PUNCTUATE correctly … note that there is NO) space before a full-stop (.), a comma (,), a colon (:), a semicolon (;), and a closing bracket | parenthesis ()). Additionally, there is NO space after an opening bracket | parenthesis (().

        Meanwhile the Dumpster didn’t get his whole-party “acquittal” vote – good ole Mitt ruined it with a turd in the punchbowl!

        Someone might explain to me how there can be an “acquittal” when there wasn’t a trial. I particularly laughed when that slimy toad John Roberts intoned the words he had been instructed to – as if the process was meaningful and capable of being normalised.

        What a joke – trying to put lipstick on the pig. An abuse of power by the Senate.

        And Nancy Pelosi was perfect in her response … shred the dude’s toilet paper!

        • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 6:29 pm #

          Pro tip: use a semi colon in a complex run-in list.

          Noob.

          • Cargill February 6, 2020 at 2:37 am #

            Been around here a lot longer than you, comrade.

            And a semi-colon as a lead into a list? Nonsense. And using a semi-colon between items – a question of style and clarity, but it is pretty old-fashioned these days.

            That’s a pro tip from someone who has actually worked as a sub-editor and copy checker. I don know my punctuation, digger.

            And your Dear Leader the Dumpster has been trashed – he couldn’t get that bipartisan vote he craved. Mitt Romney is the ONLY Republican in the whole nation who has put principle before power and corruption.

            All the others will go down in infamy in every history book.

          • Nightowl February 6, 2020 at 3:34 am #

            I am a professional editor.

            You are a clown.

    • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 5:17 pm #

      Kesa

      “Gee , somehow I don’t interpret the insinuation , however indirect and subtle , that I’m bad for childrens mental health , as a compliment.”

      That insinuation was not intended. I was referring to the education of children – who are all just children – in separate schools that contribute to an unjustified suspicion of other children who are fundamentally not much different from them, a suspicion which may follow them needlessly into adult life. The sentiment would be exactly the same if it were Muslim children or any other kind of children (or, more accurately, children of any other kind of parents), including any hypothetical non-religious grouping like humanists. It’s better if children can talk to one another without having to cross ideological or religious fences. That’s not the same as suggesting any one of them is bad for children’s mental health.

      I don’t think anyone would argue against the likelihood that religious belief will thrive if society breaks down. Any more than that people whose death is imminent may give more thought than previously to the possibility that there’s something ‘out there’ that they should perhaps give some consideration to, in a Pascal’s wager kind of way.

      I seem to recall the last sputters on the radio in the first of the World Made by Hand novels were shouty evangelicals inviting people to repent.

      “So , I suppose , I’m at least entitled to resent ; ” How about sharing that globe – trotting , multiple – passport – thing sentiment with your American cousins ? ”

      instead of pushing tyranny with your selective silence ?”

      Sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by this. The reason NI citizens have the right to two passports is a benefit of the Good Friday Agreement and an acknowledgement that their geographical space has two equally valued national cultures.

      I’m not sure why the chap retiring to Florida was so bad – lots of Brits with means (and in the case of the lower Spanish cost of living, even those without great means) like to retire to somewhere warmer. I’m not one of them, but I don’t find it all that strange. The guy swore an oath to serve his country as part of his job – and now he’s retired. He’s not harming his country by living his fantasy retirement in Florida, is he?

      Re Unionists’ paranoia, Boris Johnson has rather thrown them under a bus to achieve his Brexit plans (aka to achieve his personal ambitions). But then the DUP were also somewhat devious to have taken a billion pounds from the government, via the beleaguered Theresa May, for a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement, to support the minority Tory government, only to refuse that support when it was most needed. In any case there seemed and seems to be no way not to shove someone or some someones under a bus – whether farmers or Irish-border-dwellers in this whole Brexit issue, since circles, especially on the Irish border issue, simply cannot be squared, with respect the other massively important agreement – the GFA.

      • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 5:23 pm #

        “My rule of thumb is that the Brits are two – faced back-stabbers ”

        It bemuses me slightly when people say things like this, as if the personality and psychology of every individual in any given country were identical, whether they were a double agent in MI6 or a member of the Liverpool Catholic Mothers’ Union. 🙂

        I can’t imagine how I would formulate an opinion that would cover all Germans, or all Americans. Or even all Texans.

      • GreenAlba February 5, 2020 at 5:31 pm #

        “I get the impression , the suspicion , that in the case of at least some of these people , in 1972 , no less than today ,

        Ideology is really just a mask for sadism.”

        That was pretty much what I was trying to say (as in ‘some of them just like to break heads’). I’ve said it more than once.

    • elysianfield February 5, 2020 at 7:40 pm #

      “Elysianfield shouldn’t hold his breath in expectation that I’ll soon be bending the knee to his kind , though . If such a thing as good guys exist , they sure as fuck are not to be found among the police . ”

      Kesa,
      Would you say the same thing about Blacks, Commies, or sex workers? I expect you would find all manner of decent people in each category. Not all, maybe not many, but some decent, good guys, in each?

      You need to qualify your statements. Blanket condemnations are unsupportable…your argument, while passionate, is, by any standard, flawed.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:18 am #

      Yeah well, things change. But I admit the Principles do not. But with high tech, we are in uncharted territory as far as we know. But people will still be people.

      Classical Pagan Civilization was dying and Christianity saved that part of Europe – at the expense of the part that wasn’t dying. But the Germans, Celts, and Slavs would not have been able to handle Islam so there is that.

      Now Christianity seems to be dying, yet you seem to think all is well in Rome under the reign of a False Prophet or THEE False Prophet. You simply aren’t up on what’s happening cuz your mind is in the past for the most part. And you don’t want to know either.

  113. JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 4:27 pm #

    Sitting here watching the vote.

    Struck me that this is a debacle. They vote guilty vs, not guilty. It is a crock. It is political and has nothing to do with whether he is guilty or not. They really never came up with a crime that he did. Everything is opinion, political opinion. There is no whistleblower, it was made up or manipulated to come up with something anything to get Trump with. These people should be liable for slander by Trump and I hope he does it when he leaves office in five years.

    This damn Deep State is so toxic, These jerks have got to be stopped somehow.

    I do not see how the current situation in DC can go on much longer as it is. I wonder what form the civil war will take.

    • wwg1wga February 5, 2020 at 4:38 pm #

      **********************************
      Those “stuck” in blue cities and states with no means of escape shall turn on one another and ultimately perish, all the while blaming Trump for their plight.
      Those connected to the means of production shall prosper in building out their local communities and expanding the means of production.
      **********************************

      • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 4:45 pm #

        Well said.

        Thus it has always been. No government has the power to change it.

    • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 4:45 pm #

      Trump is guilty of treason.Official US policy toward Europe and NATO is they’re allies, and when Russia invaded Ukraine, we came to their aid. When Trump withheld aid, he committed treason defined as:
      Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
      When he withheld aid, he gave aid and comfort to our enemy.
      He’s also guilty of extortion as defined :
      Intent. A person commits extortion when making a threat with the specific intention of forcing someone else to provide money, property, or something of value. However, intent is not based on the defendant’s statements alone, but rather upon the circumstances and facts surrounding the threat. In other words, a prosecutor can prove the accused intended to deprive the victim of property without having to actually show what was going on in the defendant’s head.
      When Trump withheld aid he was attempting to extort the president of Ukraine for political dirt on his opponent.

      • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 4:57 pm #

        He was just acquitted, so he’s not guilty of anything.

        Or do you think he’s automatically guilty of anything you accuse him of?

        Brh

        • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 4:59 pm #

          He was acquitted of Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress. In impeachments terms, sort of like a parking ticket. He has committed numerous crimes for which he can be impeached.

          • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 5:22 pm #

            If that’s the case, why didn’t the Dems bring those charges, desperate as they are to get rid of him?

          • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 5:29 pm #

            They’re not desperate. Remember the last time he thought he got away with it i.e. Mueller’s testimony. That next day he made the call to Ukraine. A zebra can’t change its stripes.

          • Nightowl February 5, 2020 at 6:13 pm #

            Our newest sad NPC bot is unraveling in real time.

            But crimez!

          • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 6:27 pm #

            Got away with what?

      • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 8:31 pm #

        Nice try. Even the nuts in the House couldn’t put together what you just blathered.

        And

        He was acquitted. Give it up and start working on something positive.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:20 am #

        Let’s face it: you people are going to do this with every Republican President from now on. And then maybe even White Male Democrats who aren’t queer or left enough. And then White Women, etc.

        You people need to be taught a lesson or two. Failing that, just let Us go and avoid the inevitable Civil War they you all are pushing for, either consciously or unconsciously.

  114. wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 4:38 pm #

    News Flash: Trump Suspects Buttigieg of Suspicious Travel to Afghanistan. Photo evidence:

    https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5e3af589888b5600080983b8/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/Borowitz-Buttigieg.jpg

  115. JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 4:53 pm #

    It is over.

    For the next twenty minutes anyway.

    Pelosi, Nadler and Schiff already are cooking up the next step.

    In the meantime, Trump will just keep getting more voters this year.

    The Dems need to concentrate on their platform, ideas and candidates to beat Trump in the voting booth in November.

    If they cannot do this and come up with better ideas, they do not deserve to govern. We are doing pretty well now.

    Reminds me of a story.

    Two blood cells in a horse, one was in an artery, the other in a vein. One day they met in the heart and decided to change places.

    Two days later the horse died.

    Goes to show you,

    You shouldn’t change streams in the middle of a horse!

    • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 4:57 pm #

      Actually we’re down from the Obama years. Lower growth. Fewer jobs. Bigger deficits. Fewer people medically insured. Down across the board.

    • BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 7:06 pm #

      Yeah, this whole impeachment hoax is probably good for at least 2 million extra votes for the President in November.

      I’m hoping Dems keep piling on; votes continue to stack up deep.

      Brh

      • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 7:23 pm #

        2 million extra votes and he’ll still lose the popular vote, which Hillary won by 3 million votes.

        • benr February 5, 2020 at 7:46 pm #

          My goodness you keep piling up the ridiculous posts.
          Further proving you don’t have a clue.
          Are you another non-American pretending you know how our voting system and government work?
          Or is this just another case of a failed high school education and progressive indoctrination.

          • Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 8:03 pm #

            Ahhhh benr bene, benr bens, benr bena, benr ben is what exactly… a bend over. Yeah I think that’s about right.

          • benr February 6, 2020 at 4:37 pm #

            “Ahhhh benr bene, benr bens, benr bena, benr ben is what exactly… a bend over. Yeah I think that’s about right.” -landramatblues

            Thanks for soundly making my point.
            Unhinged, afflicted, affected and qq.

        • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 8:26 pm #

          So?

  116. BackRowHeckler February 5, 2020 at 5:19 pm #

    Maoists had their Little Red Book, remember that?

    Greta ists have a Little Green Book, carried close to the heart by little Climate Commissars. Its their Bible.

    Commissar Elrond to kulak: “Comrade citizen, are you a friend of the Climate, or an enemy?”

    “A friend, Commissar Elrond, sir.”

    Commissar Elrond: “Prove it, kulak”.

    Brh

    • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:23 am #

      Do they really? Is it called the Little Green Book? Irony is dead. I have no idea if you’re being serious, these people being that grotesque.

      • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 7:54 am #

        He’s not being serious, Janos. brh has apocalyptic visions, which he periodically shares on here. He shared a more sensationalist one further up.

        Of course the admirable James Delingpole (he whom I saw on TV once providing a timely proviso that he isn’t ‘a scientist, or even an interpreter of science, but an interpreter of the interpreters of science’, i.e. a purveyor of Chinese whispers) has a book called the ‘Little Green Book of Eco-Fascism: The Plan to Frighten Your Kids, Drive Up Energy Costs and Hike Your Taxes!’.

        Best not mention oil penury in public either then. Not in front of the children…

        • elysianfield February 6, 2020 at 12:31 pm #

          “f course the admirable James Delingpole (he whom I saw on TV once providing a timely proviso that he isn’t ‘a scientist, or even an interpreter of science, but an interpreter of the interpreters of science’,”

          Alba,
          Well, I interpret his definition of his own status as being “settled” then.

          (Sorry, I could not help myself….)

        • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 12:38 pm #

          Well, the first nice springlike day, I’ll be headed down to the village of Niantic, on LI Sound; I’ll check for any sea level rise from when I was last down there in mid September.

          On the side of a RR trestle built in 1893 there’s a guage in meters to measure tides and depth of the channel for craft passing beneath it out into open waterm which makes it easy to measure any sea level rise that may have occurred in the past 6 months. We shall see.

          And I still have to get over to Newport to check if Goat Island — site of the mass hanging in 1726 of 26 pirates all at once — is underwater. Hint: I am told the island still exist by my nephew, who owns a bar in Newport.

          Brh

        • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:40 pm #

          The Ayatollah Khomeni on the other hand did have a Green Book. Therein he ruled on whether the meat of an animal you had just raped can be eaten. I believe he said it can – just cut away from the bad part.

          I assume this applies to people as well, given that more than one girl has ended up in the kebabs.

          • elysianfield February 6, 2020 at 1:47 pm #

            “animal you had just raped”

            Janos,
            What a ridiculous concept. You cannot rape an animal.

            They always are asking for it…they like it. Why do you think they are always running around naked?

  117. wwg1wga February 5, 2020 at 5:49 pm #

    ***********************************
    Nice work Nancy!
    http://www.got-truth.com/docs/Nice%20work%20Nancy.pdf
    ***********************************

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  118. Laundromat Blues February 5, 2020 at 5:54 pm #

    Read em and weep. I think Trump’s trade #’s are the worst.
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-boasts-us-economy-best-162800677.html

    • wpa_ccc February 5, 2020 at 8:31 pm #

      Trump’s poor economy is why he will be defeated in November. What is worse he is not delivering. He has used the WH to enrich his family, but his promises were false on infrastructure, medical insurance, homelessness, veterans, climate, ISIS/El Qaeda, coal jobs, education, etc.

      He simply lies and people believe him and vote for him. He did deliver on things he never mentioned, like taking babies from mothers’ arms, deporting the mothers, and putting babies in cages.

      But it won’t work this year. People are woke after three years of lies.

      • K-Dog February 5, 2020 at 10:50 pm #

        Mar-a-Lago will be packed up and moved to new digs on the White Sea when this is all over. It is warming up there.

      • JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 11:37 pm #

        In your dreams!

        We shall see.

        • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 7:57 am #

          JohnAZ, you will remember that Trump’s representatives put in a planning request, on behalf of his golf course on the Irish coast, for a protective structure specifically justified – in writing – by the increased risk of flooding due to AGW. Even Trump cannot hold back the waters.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 8:09 am #

            For New Yorkers, though, it’s to be mops and buckets! 🙂

            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-new-york-sea-wall-mops-buckets-twitter-a9290596.html

          • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:11 am #

            Sea levels are rising??

            By how much? where?

            GA has apocalyptic visions, which s/ he periodically shares on here. S/He shared a more sensationalist one here.

            [hoist by yr petard].

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 11:36 am #

            Only in your jaundiced eyes, malthuss.

            http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/documents/421974/1295957/Info+sheet+%2310.pdf/30611b7b-888d-45cb-bee3-1575b14e2e70

            I try not to do apocalyptic or visions. I just keep my eyes and ears open and adjust my expectations accordingly. Including for the prospects of my kids and grandkid (he is grand too – it’s a damn shame what’s ahead of him. I don’t share my expectations with his mum, though – she’s got enough on her plate just keeping her head above water and could do sweet FA about any of it anyway, same as me. Worrying in silence is one of the obligations of motherhood, possibly.

            Haven’t you got some salacious celebrity gossip to be catching up on?

  119. Pucker February 5, 2020 at 9:24 pm #

    Alibaba’s Jack Ma ?? is fleeing China for New Zealand?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_z-Ikain1C8

    • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:09 am #

      anyone w big $ should be in the country…Stallone bought a zillion acres in Argentina.

      WHO WOULD WANT TO LIVE IN CHINA….Search images for worst pollution in cities.

      • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 11:40 am #

        Producing both necessities and pointless crap for western markets is a dirty business. You claim to want it back, so some of the pollution will move.

      • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 12:27 pm #

        Back in the day Guy Williams– the actor who played Zorro — ditched Hollywood and did the same thing: bought a huge ranch in Argentina.

    • elysianfield February 6, 2020 at 12:36 pm #

      “Alibaba’s Jack Ma ?? is fleeing China for New Zealand? ”

      Puck,
      Are you aware that the 2019 New Coronavirus has finally been given a name?*

      It’s called “The Sniffles”, and Jack doesn’t want the sniffles….

      *proposed

  120. Pucker February 5, 2020 at 10:33 pm #

    They may be starting to shoot people?

    https://vimeo.com/389080997?ref=em-share

  121. Pucker February 5, 2020 at 10:51 pm #

    Pete and Chaz

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r40hSNb6OEo

    • malthuss February 5, 2020 at 11:36 pm #

      ?

      • Pucker February 6, 2020 at 12:43 am #

        They just stick it right in your face. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

      • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:12 am #

        More questions surround Buttigieg mystery win in Iowa

        diebold? soros voting machines?

  122. JohnAZ February 5, 2020 at 11:40 pm #

    It is pleasant watching the Democrats finding out they do not control DC anymore after the last thirty years.

    The fit is about to hit the Shan in DC. Civil war is upon us.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  123. Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:26 am #

    https://vdare.com/articles/patrick-j-buchanan-failed-coup-of-a-failing-establishment

    It’s over, friends. Get behind the Strong Man when he arises. Democracy was always a mistake and the Founders hated it. Once He reestablishes Order, perhaps we can go back to the Republican form that was intended, updated and made stricter of course.

  124. SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 2:55 am #

    Why are the Chinese desperately seeking drugs that treat HIV to administer to patients infected with 2019-nCoV? Indian researchers have apparently found that four discontinuous sections of the primary amino acid sequence of 2019-nCoV contains amino acid residues that are also found in the key structural proteins that comprise the HIV virus. The researchers suggest that no known coronavirus contains these unique amino acid “insertions” and that such a mutation is very likely not natural. So it’s a distinct and highly potent recombination of SARS, MERS, and HIV? Great! I guess tomorrow WHO will come out and state this is nothing. The flu is much worse of course. And business must go on as usual.

    • tucsonspur February 6, 2020 at 3:05 am #

      They say the Chinese are inscrutable, just like these viruses.

      • SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 9:54 am #

        Yes, and thus the unknowns about this outbreak are actually multiplying. More questions than answers. But is the Western mainstream media willing to work for the Chinese government? It seems very likely so. Strange that a brand new virus that has arisen seemingly out of nowhere, that no one has immunity too, and that is considered novel and bizarre is automatically known to be a low risk and something less dangerous than flu. I would say the wool has been pulled over our eyes!

        • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:47 pm #

          Over on Natural News, they quoted a high Chinese Official who said decades ago that they would wipe out America with biological weapons. Two tigers cannot live on one mountain, he said. Why us and not Russia? In any case, nuclear was out since he believed in the MAD (mutually assured destruction) doctrine. So start a war and win without ever so declaring.

          So they may have been preparing this for us and it just got them first.

          Some say Fentanyl was also part of their War against us. And just think, many thought Capitalism was the road to Global Peace! Instead it’s turning into a vector of Global Destruction. Even after the Outbreak, airlines kept brining people in from China. There was money to be made!

        • sprawlcapital February 6, 2020 at 1:35 pm #

          I recall years ago reading in a textbook on news reporting and writing that every news organization has policies on what topics must be avoided in reporting the news. Also, that most reporters find it makes sense to obey the company policy in order to be granted the privilege of reporting the news. (Yes, I am puzzled by this.)

          Anyway, it appears the policy of the mainstream media is to never discuss the dangers of genetic engineering to human health. There are powerful corporations making money on genetic engineering, and they would not be pleased by any story that raised public awareness and fear of genetic engineering.

          That’s why we will probably not see any discussion in the media of the possibility that the Coronavirus was developed in a laboratory or that it is a product of genetic engineering.

          • Majella February 7, 2020 at 3:59 pm #

            Was it “Manufacturing Consent”? Chomsky and Herman (1988)

    • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 8:14 am #

      You didn’t read the comments (including by professional biologists) under that article, then, SSL? You should treat such articles with at least the same scepticism you apply to articles by the world’s most knowledgeable climate scientists. Surely?

      • SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 9:59 am #

        I have been reading a lot about this particular issue. I am skeptical about a lot of things but you have to admit that researchers are finding some very strange things with this virus. Perhaps in time it will all be proven to be not that big of a deal but no one knows for sure. There is a Climate Change agenda. We all know that and you do too. Actually there are multiple agendas. Is there a Coronavirus agenda? Why not? The governments of the world always talk about how they are planning and preparing for everything. But do I have proof? No I don’t. Do I have faith in our institutions and experts? Absolutely not.

        • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 11:50 am #

          There may well be agendas atop the climate change facts, SSL, but there are still climate change facts. You show no scepticism whatever towards the minority of sceptics.

          I still don’t see what benefit the Chinese would gain from a whole load of their people dying. Their economy would be hugely damaged and the real estate bubble would burst. I doubt they want that. I do share your scepticism towards anything spouted by Beijing, however, although I believe they want the thing stopped.

          I didn’t comment on how much of a deal it is or isn’t. I’m just hovering on the fringes, paying moderate attention, not reading dozens of articles like you (that’s not a criticism). I feel very sorry for the Chinese who are succumbing to it but I’m not frantically worrying about it from my own perspective. I hope my daughter in Sg won’t be affected, but she seems sanguine enough about it and thinks most healthy people will be fine, even if they get it, although she does thing Sg is at significant risk.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 11:53 am #

            *think*

          • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:52 pm #

            Well mistakes happen. It may have just gotten out. Just as the horrible things we are creating may get out some day as well. Our Elite may even let them loose, given how much they hate us.

            When Knowledge is used for such purposes, ignorance is preferable.

            It has to be nothing because of your daughter. That’s your agenda.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 1:19 pm #

            Of course mistakes happen. But I am in no position to know anything that might confirm it was a mistake, as opposed to the close proximity of people, snakes and bats.

            I was going to say your last sentence was unworthy of you, Janos, but in fact it’s the kind of evil desperation that characterises you. At no point did I say it was nothing. She doesn’t think it’s nothing either, but she isn’t a catastrophist and she reckons she’s fit and healthy enough to withstand getting it.

            You are sick. Morally.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 1:21 pm #

            You could have gone for the human (and Christian) response and just said I hope your daughter will be OK. But you don’t have it in you.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 1:38 pm #

            Especially since the latest news of the British coronavirus sufferers is that one caught it at a business conference in Singapore.

          • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 6:55 pm #

            I don’t know what you’re mad about. You love your daughter more than other young women – even though she’s White. That’s normal. She won’t leave and you can’t make her. Thus you pretend that everything is going to be alright. Also very normal.

            You are normal – and you seem to feel that is a condemnation. Do you secretly believe in higher and lower individuals and races? I think you feel guilt because you are not a perfect Communist/Christian/Egalitarian. And thus you project all this onto me since I “caused” these bad feelings.

          • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 8:23 pm #

            Janos, that was a scatter-gun serving of random nonsense.

            Of course I love my daughter, but not because she is white.

            And she may well get Coronavirus, but considers herself fit and healthy enough to cope with it. I hope that is the case. But as I said above I am very sorry about the Chinese who are dying. I don’t know who they are so I can’t tell if they were already vulnerable. I would imagine many of them were.

            How you translate that into me ‘pretending that everything is going to be all right’ is an utter mystery to me. A fairly objective risk assessment would suggest that, on balance, my daughter probably would be all right if she got it, because she’s fit and healthy. That doesn’t mean that I’m not concerned about all the other people who are dying or having their lives turned upside down.

            And why would I ask my daughter to come home? The thought never occurred to me. She’s an adult, with a job and responsibilities. And enough of a brain to formulate her own risk assessments.

            I do hope she won’t stay over there too much longer, though, but more for reasons related to SpeedyBB’s post than anything to do with Coronavirus.

            Your second paragraph is a phantasmagoria of demented projection.

  125. tucsonspur February 6, 2020 at 2:58 am #

    Mitt Romney said that he is “profoundly religious”, must be true to his God and vote to convict. What better camouflage for revenge!

    Yes, he must stay soundly invested in God as if HE was his own private equity. What a phony, wrapping himself in the mantle of Mormonism.

    He practically supported the Bidens and made it seem that Trump was going to allow Russia to roll over Ukraine in order to win in 2020.

    Yes, he of the “47%”, he who lost while Trump stunningly won, would have his revenge, and his ‘God’ helped him get it, tying him up in a mocking Mormon knot.

    • Nightowl February 6, 2020 at 3:48 am #

      “To truly be religious, one must be profoundly religious.”

      — St. Mittens von Haifischkapitalismus

      • GreenAlba February 6, 2020 at 8:05 am #

        The line-up that included Mitt Romney in 2016 was both truly and profoundly depressing. From this distance, anyway…

        Not that I was either truly or profoundly impressed by Hillary Rotten Clinton either.

        • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:14 am #

          At least billionaire Gore shared his apocalyptic prognostications with us…were all his predictions wrong?

          • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 10:50 am #

            No, they are not wrong.

            Prophets want the changes they forecast to happen right away to justify their predictions.

            These changes that Gore said are going to happen in 50 to 100 years, if things do not change.

            Oops, along comes JHK and Peak oil that limits the fossil fuels future in the same time frame.

            Good luck in telling what the combined effect will be.

    • SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 10:03 am #

      Mittens is religious when it suits him and when he is wearing a suit. My opinion. As I understand it, God would not be pleased in any way with his record of dispossessing people of their livelihoods. Especially in such callous and careless ways. Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

      • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 10:56 am #

        SSL

        Please google Mormonism to understand what drives the members of this faith. Hint: It is a male based power religion. Mitt is typical, remember Jeff Flake (my worst vote).

      • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:16 pm #

        The Patriarchial aspect is great. Are you some kind of Feminist, John? Do you add that to the rest of your illusions?

        Mormonism is a false religion with many strong points. But yes, too hierarchical, with almost all of them reduced to being zombies.

        They’re coming apart now, with many coming out as Gay, etc. They will morph into the New World Order. They already renounced the all White Priesthood and Polygamy. They will renounce Heteronormativity as well. Anything to make money. They’re very, very American in that way – just like you, sport.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:56 pm #

      His company, Bain Capital, depends on the ruin of America. His God is on the side of Bain, not America.

      Apparently, some Mormons loathe him now, at least that’s what I’ve heard. That’s big since unity is everything to them.

      This is the guy who wept when God make Blacks human. Mitt immediately adopted a Black baby to get back in with the good people.

      • Majella February 7, 2020 at 4:03 pm #

        About these ‘some Mormons’ who loathe him – on what grounds? Calling out the Abomination in the W H? I very much doubt that.

  126. tucsonspur February 6, 2020 at 3:14 am #

    Kirk Douglas is gone. This is much, much more than the death of one man. For years now, for some inexplicable reason, I’ve had the feeling that once Kirk is gone, that then we will really start to see the manifestations of what’s to come.

    It’s like decades ago, at his height, I told people that Cosby was not right, and I got nothing but grief. Spooky.

    • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:15 am #

      I told people that Cosby was not right, and I got nothing but grief.
      –thats just negro worship.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:24 pm #

        Now there is Kobe, with Cos and OJ forgotten.

        Blacks pick the worst heroes, with the Media helping them every step of the way.

        Liberals too (Stormy Daniels!) and with far less excuse given their genetic advantage.

    • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 9:37 am #

      For God’s sake TS, the man was 103.

      Last of the Hollywood giants.

      Brh

      • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 12:59 pm #

        Let’s all watch Spartacus and revere this Aryan Jew. A truly great movie.

        Kirk condemned Mel Gibson for telling the Christian side of Christ’s crucifixion. Hollywood had assiduously left out the fact that the Jews aren’t the heroes of Christianity.

        • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 1:58 pm #

          you should have yr own jew watch site.
          I ll check wiki to see if KD was joo or knot.

    • SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 10:08 am #

      Very interesting. Perhaps 2020 is going to be the year that the rug gets pulled out from underneath all of us really?

    • Walter B February 6, 2020 at 10:31 am #

      Well tucsonspur are actors really acting or simply being themselves and assimilating themselves into the roles they play? I always admired Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster and grew up believing that they were what used to be called men’s men. Men who stood for what they believed in and what they believed in was always just and right regardless of the cost to the individual.

      Perhaps I have become jaded or simply too old, but I see less and less men of character like Kirk and Burt and more and more spineless followers and gutless cowards. You may have a point about what happens once enough of these real men men are gone.

      • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 11:01 am #

        Being replaced by female dominated beta males.

      • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:06 pm #

        Charlton Heston for me. He stood up for the real America in that snake pit known as Hollywood. Douglas wasn’t one of us. Don’t know about Lancaster. But sure, both great actors. Heston too. And yes, it must be hard to find young men who can play masculine roles now, given that it’s so alien to them.

        • Walter B February 6, 2020 at 6:42 pm #

          Ah, The Mountain Men! A whole valley chock full of beaver, as many as stars in the sky, all saying, “Take me Bill Tyler, take me”!

          • tucsonspur February 7, 2020 at 2:02 am #

            I once made a list of then and now. It went like, not necessarily one to one, just general comparisons:

            John Wayne Brad Pitt
            Kirk Douglas Kevin Kostner
            James Cagney Matt Damon
            Burt Lancaster Leonardo Di Caprio
            Anthony Quinn Tom Cruise

            Etc., etc.

            Something like that. I had a list of 25 and started wondering about genetics.

      • EvelynV February 7, 2020 at 1:56 am #

        Walter,

        I wish for you to see this so I’m going to save it and repost it tomorrow.

        Did you ever listen to Click and Clack on NPR? The two mechanics took phone calls about car problems from phone in callers?

        One time a young woman who called went thru the usual interrogation about who, what, and where. She told how her role in life at the time was to serve as a food provider for actors and actresses shooting movies on Hollywood sets.

        One of the brothers tried to get her to reveal who the most obnoxious celebrities were but she demurred telling them such a discussion could only get her in trouble in her job. So instead they quizzed her on who the nicest celebrity was and her answer was Michael Douglas. That prompted me to look him up on the internet to see if I could learn anything about him the synched up with her high appraisal

        My google search led me elsewhere inadvertently. I came upon information about Kirk Douglas. What I learned led to me conceiving of a premise for why Michael Douglas, his son, was such a nice guy. That being, the father was a son of bitch who should have died sixty years ago. Michael was living a life to atone for his asshole father.

        Kirk Douglas is widely believed to have raped Natalie Wood when she was still a young starlet. Not the kind of rape that people blow off because she diddled around with him and allowed it to happened. It was a brutal rape. One that scarred her for life and my contribute to why her life was so short. Kirk was known for similar behavior with other woman and should had his nuts cut off.

        You need to develop keener sensing for judging the people you hero worship.

        • tucsonspur February 7, 2020 at 2:10 am #

          Jeez, who knew? Please pardon my chiming in. Yeah, “The Bad and the Beautiful”.

        • GreenAlba February 7, 2020 at 8:29 am #

          Same with John Wayne – an alcoholic multiple wife and child beater.

        • Walter B February 7, 2020 at 10:00 am #

          Yes, I understand, anything I say is wrong because I am an evil bastard too. Mea coppa mea coppa, mea maxima coppa.

          • Majella February 7, 2020 at 4:11 pm #

            No, Walter

            You saw characters on the screen played by accomplished actors. Your error was in believing they were like those characters they portrayed.

            Look at Himself for instance: he plays “the tough guy” on TV; is said to be utterly charming & affable in person when appropriate; yet in private, he will fly into a demonic rage at perceived insults delivered on TV.

            They’re all the “real person” to some extent.

          • Walter B February 8, 2020 at 4:59 pm #

            Well than let me put it this way. The characters they played and how they carried on, what they stood for and how the characters dealt with life and responsibilities were standards that should still be followed and emulated. Better?

    • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 10:59 am #

      What Kirk was to Hollywood of the Greatest generation, Bob Hope was to the comedians of the GG. Both will not be replaced in this current talentless group.

  127. Vinnie the Vintner February 6, 2020 at 7:32 am #

    So many sour pusses still living in the “Truman Show”.

    Christof: As Truman grew up, we were forced to manufacture ways to keep him on the island.

    Young Truman: I like to be an explorer, like the great Magellan.

    Teacher: Oh, you’re too late. There’s really nothing left to explore.

    I did not vote for Obama, but as a good little patriot, I did not try to deny that he was my president. I did pull for him and hoped he would make things better for all of us, but disappointment is a function of expectation.

    Perpetual hatred, condescension, and division. Can’t remember seeing an extreme lefty that looked anything but miserable. I thought all that money and power was supposed to make you happy.

    Can’t play nicey-nice?

    Then come on, Man, let’s do some push-ups!

    Make it a great day!

    V

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  128. malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:24 am #

    Nashville has been a major refugee resettlement target –> link — e.g. So it begins … Nashville schools to teach Arabic

    Also even when given a chance the Republican governor wouldn’t let up:

    Tennessee governor says state will keep resettling refugees — Republican Gov. Bill Lee says Tennessee won’t stop resettling refugees under an option offered to states by President Donald Trump’s administration

    • SoftStarLight February 6, 2020 at 10:16 am #

      Most normie GOPers are at best Civ Nats. Most are actually ok with turning the country completely over to Corporatist control IMHO. So even though you hear them talk about the Wall and illegal immigration be sure that is all they care about. Halting ILLEGAL immigration. Maybe. When it comes to LEGAL immigration and refugee resettlement Trump has already set the tone and the GOP money makers are ready to cash in. Trump has committed to bringing in more legal immigrants than we have ever brought into the country in our entire history. The GOPers drool over the cheap labor and growing consumer markets. Money, money, money. That is the only name of their game. A strong, solid nation built on the deep ties and bonds that only ethnic and cultural homogeneity can make? LOL – can you make a fortune off of it? If the answer is no than the GOPers say – fuck that!

      • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 11:04 am #

        What holds the US together now?

        Money. And power.

        The rule of law under the Constitution.

        The latter is threatened.

        • Cargill February 6, 2020 at 1:13 pm #

          “The rule of law under the Constitution. The latter is threatened.”

          And the greatest threat is from the Dumpster – he has spent his entire life – since he was sitting on Roy Cohn’s knee – using and abusing the “legal system” to crush adversaries, punish critics, avoid accountability, and to cover the utter failure of his life.

          To the Dump Truck, “the law” is only for suckers – and as in business so in his nightmare presidency being played out.

          The Democrats probably made some missteps in running the impeachment process – they could have gone longer and harder, been stronger and more ruthless, and used (abused) the courts and the subpoena powers more forcefully.

          But with the total and utter moral bankruptcy of the Republican Senate, it’s extremely hard to see any different outcome that was material. Even if it were 40-60 for acquittal, it would have been symbolically powerful, but the net gain politically for November? Much harder to gauge.

          But the Democrats have achieved a few mighty things: they emerge with heads held proud, they occupy the high moral ground, they refuse to accept, kowtow to, or normalise the corrupt lunatic in the Oval Office.

          The ripping up of her copy of the Dumpster’s speech was perfect theatre, perfect optics, perfect politics.

          Pelosi showed in one beautiful act what everyone knows – the emperor has no clothes, and this truly evil, corrupt, lying, venal creature is bringing shame and filth to the Office and to Congress.

          But mostly the Democratic Party showed that rich white men occupying powerful positions are NOT above the law … that the law is NOT only there to crush young black men in decaying cities, or to destroy brown families along the borders.

          So it wasn’t all futile – it was honourable, and right. Sadly however, in what should be their best decade since forever, the Democrats have a dog’s breakfast of a field … they very likely will blow it – again.

          • sprawlcapital February 6, 2020 at 1:54 pm #

            After reading this praise for the sick mess that is the Democratic Party, the dog lost his breakfast.

          • benr February 6, 2020 at 2:21 pm #

            To put it mildly Cargill is out of his fricken mind.

          • Nightowl February 6, 2020 at 6:15 pm #

            Trump’s acquittal has the nuts coming out of the woodwork.

            2020 is going to be off the hook.

          • EvelynV February 7, 2020 at 3:23 am #

            Oh for crying out loud!

            You get the taxes lowered for the rich,
            You trash lots of good evironmental legislation,
            You welsh of perfectly honored and fulfilled treaties with other countries,
            You nominate and install hack judges to the supreme court,
            You destroy trade relationships that imposed extreme hardship on your own nation,
            You appoint and then fire one high level official after another,
            You mock war heroes,
            and yet,
            fuck one whore while your wife is having your baby and lie about it and all they know to call you is a whore fucking tangerine turd. It ain’t fair!

  129. malthuss February 6, 2020 at 8:27 am #

    HEROS

    A 2008 poll of H.S. students asked them to name their top-10 America’s heroes (not including presidents).

    The top 3 were [drumroll or dumb roll]

    Martin Luther King,
    Rosa Parks, and
    Harriet Tubman.

    https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2008/pr-heroes-022008.html

    • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 12:23 pm #

      Their work is not yet complete, Malthus.

      Not until Thomas Edison is kicked off the list and replaced by Malcolm X.

      • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 1:58 pm #

        malcolm ex lax

      • EvelynV February 7, 2020 at 3:25 am #

        Edison was an asshole, he shouldn’t be on anyone’s good guy list.

  130. wm5135 February 6, 2020 at 8:53 am #

    malthuss

    HEROS

    A 2008 poll of H.S. students asked them to name their top-10 America’s heroes (not including presidents).

    Post your list

    • elysianfield February 6, 2020 at 1:42 pm #

      Malthuss,
      My List;

      My father…

  131. Ishabaka February 6, 2020 at 11:49 am #

    Let’s hope this is the first and last time an American citizen is tried based on the second hand allegations of a nameless accuser.

    • Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 1:10 pm #

      Unless some of them go down, they will do the same again and again to Republican and/or White and/or anyone they don’t like, be they Presidents, Candidates (like Tulsi), Politicians and ultimately, anyone they don’t like.

      • benr February 6, 2020 at 2:20 pm #

        Yep to include loud mouth John Q Public on forums just like this one.

    • Cargill February 6, 2020 at 3:36 pm #

      Let’s hope it’s the last time a person so corrupt and incompetent is able to steal the presidency with Russian dirty tricks, rigged voting machines (remember Ohio and John Kerry?), outrageous voter suppression, and a totally biased electoral college.

      A a totally compliant mainstream media.

      And you can hardly blame the indictment on “second-hand” testimony when the defendant, corrupt judges, and lickspittle Republican senators REFUSE to allow first-hand testimony.

      You do know what a circular argument is, don’t you?

      And the whistleblower has a right to anonymity, career protection, and freedom from retribution. You do know what whistleblower protection legislation is there for, don’t you?

      • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 4:23 pm #

        Who’s meddling in Australian elections? Or are they on the up & up, Mate?

        • Cargill February 7, 2020 at 2:33 am #

          Australian elections are fair, clean, and fun!

          I fully understand that good ole hayseed boys from the flyover states think that the USofA is the greatest darn little country that god ever blew guts into, but I have to advise that OTHER COUNTRIES DO A WHOLE LOT OF STUFF SO MUCH BETTER. REALLY! IT’S TRUE! OT FAKE NEWS!

          Having a constitution that works – unlike the appalling US device – is a good start. Australia also found absolutely no need to have an elected president – they always wind up behaving like a king, like a dictator, corrupt, week, or ineffectual … and sometimes – as is the case with the incumbent – all of those.

          No – we believe in the sanctity and supremacy of the people’s house … the Senate is a house of review only – no real powers, other than to delay legislation sent to it.

          No bills can be initiated in the Senate – as it should be. When you have such an unrepresentative structure – Montana with as much clout as NY, California, Texas, or Florida, then you know you have a crock.

          I have worked on many Australian elections (both state and federal | national) … all ballots are paper – no machines, no online stuff, no punch-cards and hanging chads.

          The goals of the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) are threefold:

          1. Maximise the number of people who can vote and do vote
          2. Ensure the vote is fair, accurate, and scrupulous
          3. Be efficient – and make the whole thing well-informed and fun

          Elections are held on a Saturday – there are LOTS of polling booths, and there are cake-stalls, sausage-sizzles, and a good community feel.

          Districts are determined by the impartial AEC in association with the Australian bureau of Statistics. Voting is compulsory, and it is great – there is about 99.9% compliance, and there is no fraud. Plus we have preferential voting – much fairer.

          Americans could learn a lot from our system … but of course no-one in the US wants it to be fair and clean – it’s corrupt to the core and those who benefit from the dodgy sleaziness of it all are going to fight to keep it just as it is.

          I’m not excusing the Democrats of sleaze here either, but about 90% of the serious grubbiness is on the Republican side (gerrymanders, too few booths, voter suppression, and extortionate ID rules).

          The US is the least democratic western country – you oughtta be proud!

      • Nightowl February 6, 2020 at 6:14 pm #

        There is no anonymity right under the law.

        You are my favorite of the new crop of forum fantasists.

      • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 7:36 pm #

        You have made a record. 100% of your post is absolutely BS. Not one true item.

        The whistleblower gave up his right when he contacted Schiff and his staff of crooks.

        Keep your Aussie opinions in Australia please, until you can say something legitimate.

        • Cargill February 7, 2020 at 2:41 am #

          Everything I say is legitimate … you just don’t like the truth.

          And of course I notice that the good ole boys here are keen on attacking the messenger – but not at arguing the issues. Just like all the Republican traitors, and the Dumpster himself.

          His rambling ranting incoherent Adderall drool today was disgusting – attacking the religious hypocrisy of others is close to the most laughable thing I’ve ever heard from his drugged-out mouth. He must laugh himself sick when he gets back to his couch!

          And the rubes suck it all up … gosh you must be really proud to bend over for Dear Leader! I would be ashamed.

          And thank god I’m an atheist!

          PS The whistleblower legislation provides for anonymity and protection from career and personal retribution.

          • Nightowl February 7, 2020 at 3:55 am #

            What crime did the President commit and where is your concrete evidence?

            I know the answer already.

            Emote away. You have a strong feminine quality about you.

    • EvelynV February 7, 2020 at 3:27 am #

      Keep gulping the kool-aid dumbass.

  132. wpa_ccc February 6, 2020 at 1:25 pm #

    More questions surround Buttigieg mystery win in Iowa. diebold? soros voting machines? –malthus

    It was Trump meddling in the 2020 elections. His campaign flooded the caucus phones and jammed the system so the election results could not be phoned in. The Democrats foolishly made the number public and Trump could not resist dirty tricks election meddling. More to follow. Maybe another impeachment. More subpoenas for illegal activities. Nixon was removed because of election meddling.

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    • wpa_ccc February 6, 2020 at 1:28 pm #

      BTW, with 96% of the vote in Bernie Sanders is in a tie with Buttigieg. Pete has not yet won and cannot be declared the winner until the remaining votes are counted. I bet Bernie Sanders wins. Middle America is OK with a democratic socialist who fights the 1% for the benefit of the 99% and their families.

      • benr February 6, 2020 at 2:19 pm #

        So nice of you to talk for middle America how ever you are flat out wrong.
        Much of Middle America still believes Socialism is evil and Bernie is a communist.

        • wpa_ccc February 6, 2020 at 2:34 pm #

          benr, you support socialism in the form of Medicare, Social Security, and the United States military. Socialism takes care of people. You might think that is a liberal mommy government and that you oppose it, but you support the military and the military is the biggest mommy of all.

          No other federal government program uses taxpayer dollars to provide so much “Mommy care.” No other government-run program does the food shopping, prepares meals, buys the clothes and picks out what clothes to wear, and no other government-run program determines when to go to bed and when to get up.

          Mommy-military spends our tax dollars to do that for all the little soldier-children. And Mommy-military tells the little soldier-children fantastic stories about bravery and courage and how the soldier-children guarantee Freedom for all the citizens and keep our country the best in the world!

          The US military, Social Security, etc. is socialism in action. Middle America supports it. It works!

          • benr February 6, 2020 at 4:39 pm #

            You can say it you can believe it but that is not a Socialist government top to bottom stop playing stupid you know what you implied.

          • wpa_ccc February 6, 2020 at 5:49 pm #

            Have you been in the military? It is top to bottom. They own your ass. They feed you, tell you what clothes to wear, when to go to bed, when to get up, what you will do every minute of the day. Isn’t that what you say socialism is: loss of freedom?

            Bernie is not a communist, not a socialist. He is a democratic socialist like the socialist governments that work in Europe with socialized medicine, socialized education, etc.

            You can no longer scare voters, especially those age 18-49, with the word “communist” or “socialist”

          • benr February 6, 2020 at 7:23 pm #

            Eight years in uncle Sam’s canoe club I know first hand exactly how it works.
            Your screed simply lacks merit.

          • capt spaulding February 6, 2020 at 9:08 pm #

            look out sailor, you dropped your soap!

    • Billy Hill February 6, 2020 at 4:37 pm #

      Hey Janet — “It was Trump meddling…” Hmmm. Best that can be said is “Trump supporters…” Put another way, “Trump is metonymically guilty of election meddling.” Reminds me of Henry L Gates on the Tawana Brawley affair: Her Story was “symbolically” true.

      Language is shape shifting, melting, gassing, solidifying before our very eyes! Tropes like dry tinder everywhere. Civil War 2 — Road rage writ large — just up ahead, around the bend…

      Is it lead in the water? Smart phones? Last words heard on the Hindenburg: “mind if I smoke?”

      • wpa_ccc February 6, 2020 at 5:52 pm #

        Janet?

  133. wpa_ccc February 6, 2020 at 2:23 pm #

    Trump lies about employment. He says the number of people with a job is increasing, but it is only increasing because the overall population is increasing.

    The percentage of Americans who are employed is not at a record, as Trump says. BLS data shows that under Trump 61% of the American population has a job, well below the record high of 64.7% set in April 2000 and pre-recession high of 63.4%. Trump is lying about employment and never mentions the labor participation rate, which is worse under Trump.

    People are not better off now compared with three years ago, unless they are millionaires heavily invested in the stock market. Trump’s billionaire friends have benefited. Joe Sixpack not so much.

    • K-Dog February 6, 2020 at 4:08 pm #

      The job market is a muddled mess. If it is doing as well as claimed then I should be able to find all sorts of jobs matching my professional background. I can. The same job posted five different ways on job boards and represented by 25 different head hunters as contract ‘opportunities’.

      I’m not exaggerating. I can apply for a job locally and have three out of state employment agencies try and place me in the same job I applied for within driving distance a day before. It happened twice this week. These jobs typically have sixty or so applicants each not counting the contract agency representation which can’t be measured. With that many applicant they figure out you are over 40 and you are fucked. But for Trump the voodoo low unemployment number will bring in many votes.

      Eventually many of these jobs vanish and I don’t think they even get filled. Computers can’t find the exact match so employers get frustrated causing internal dynamics to change making the job go away.

      The truth is we have an ice queen of a job market and she ain’t putting out.

      • K-Dog February 6, 2020 at 4:13 pm #

        Correction:

        With that many applicants they figure out you are over 40 and you are fucked. But for Trump the voodoo low unemployment number will bring in many votes.

        Eventually many of these jobs vanish and I don’t think they even get filled. Computers can’t find the exact match so employers get frustrated causing internal dynamics to change making the job go away.

        Only to get re-posted another day.

        • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 5:24 pm #

          K-Dog, no work for an electrical engineer? Have you considered freelancing, just working for yourself, or consulting?

          I wish I could have been an engineer. Not smart enough, had trouble with math beyond algebra.

          Brh

    • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 5:18 pm #

      Little Jane

      What’s the middle age Cat Lady unemployment rate?

      Just taking care of 16 cats is a job in itself.

      Crates of cat food for the cats, 1/2 dozen boxes of cheap wine per day, cable TV Bill… the Subaru payment … it runs into money, but you once told us you live in an adobe hut outside Phoenix on $12000 per year, no problem.

      Brh

      • wpa_ccc February 6, 2020 at 5:52 pm #

        Little Jane?

        • BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 6:49 pm #

          Yeah you

          Asoka, Janet, Little Jane etc

    • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 4:32 pm #

      Why the heck don’t we go back to paper ballots and man things up adequately to get them counted. This fascination with computers is really stupid. Iowa shows it in spades. As long as the internet is used for data collection, hacking is possible. People who say that the cyber networks in the USA are unhackable are the problem and not the solution.

      A good question is,

      Is this part of the stupidification of America, making voters believe in voting systems that can be manipulated at will.

      Another is,

      Is it possible to stop foreign powers from manipulating our social media towards one candidate or another.

      In other words, are we just blowing smoke with the voter system integrity as long as we use computers.

  134. messianicdruid February 6, 2020 at 4:26 pm #

    Questions for scholars:

    If Flavius Josephus [ and whatever accomplices he required ] wrote the New Testament at the direction of Romans to passify the militant sects among the judahites why were not Paul, Peter, Timothy, etc. not on the payroll? If Rome invented Christianity, then why execute Peter and Paul and numerous others?

    “Atwill claims that Christianity didn’t exist before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. But even the Roman historian Tacitus places Christian persecution under Emperor Nero in AD 64—well before the destruction of Jerusalem. Tacitus even calls the Christian movement an “immense multitude.” He writes,

    ‘Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fa urstened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome… Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired.’

    http://www.evidenceunseen.com/theology/book-reviews/a-critique-of-joseph-atwills-covert-messiah/

    1. If Christianity was a Roman conspiracy, then why would Tacitus—a Roman historian—claim that Christianity existed in AD 64?

    2. And, more importantly, why would the Roman emperor Nero persecute Christians in this way, if Rome was actually trying to support, promote and sanction christianity? Why would the Romans invent a religion that they would later persecute like this?

    3. At what point do the “immense multitude” of witnesses become dupes? How does the blood of.multitudes get washed away by fiction?

    • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 4:37 pm #

      Another Roman, a doctor, wrote the New Testament biography of Jesus and the immediate history of the Church after the Resurrection.

      He interviewed many folks who knew Jesus, including his Mother. He never met Jesus himself.

      Lucanus.

      St. Luke

  135. JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 4:43 pm #

    There are so many Liberal exaggerations, cherry picking, and out and out lies on the blog any more.

    It won’t work.

  136. wwg1wga February 6, 2020 at 5:42 pm #

    ********************************************
    Nancy, it’s all over now, baby blue.
    http://www.got-truth.com/docs/Nancy%20its%20all%20over%20now%20baby%20blue.pdf
    ********************************************

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  137. BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 6:47 pm #

    Uh oh, trouble in Jersey.

    In Newark, at Malcolm X Shabazz HS, JV basketball players dragged their own coach off the team bus and beat the sh#t out of him right on the street. I mean they were wailing on him, the whole team. After they got him down with a few well aimed and powerful punches to the head, they began kicking him all over, presumably with their ‘Air Jordans’. It went on for a long time. The poor coach was left writhing in the pavement like a lizard run over by a car. Police are investigating. What now? Is the season over? Is practice cancelled tomorrow? Odd thing, the coach didn’t fight back. It may be a situation like in the UK, where the police have warned British women if they resist rape attempts by immigrants with mace, or any type of chemical element, they will be facing weapons and racism charges.

    Brh

    • malthuss February 6, 2020 at 11:45 pm #

      black coach?

      • BackRowHeckler February 7, 2020 at 12:42 am #

        Oh yeah none other.

        Last month in Baltimore, a beloved basketball coach who worked at the Y — a white guy who dedicated his life to inner city kids, was shot to death in a home invasion.

        You can add basket coach to the list of dangerous occupations in the city, along with store clerk and pharmacist.

        Brh

  138. BackRowHeckler February 6, 2020 at 6:54 pm #

    The distinguished Newark mayor, Ras Baraka, stated “this is not who we are.”

    Imagine something like this happening during Black History Month.

  139. Janos Skorenzy February 6, 2020 at 8:10 pm #

    https://www.amren.com/news/2020/02/still-too-white-barnes-noble-cancels-race-switch-classic-novels/

    Barnes & Noble produced a line of classics with Blacks on the covers. Blacks are outraged since the books have nothing to do with Blacks. Can you see that such utter ignoble pusalimousity invites further arrogance from Blacks? There is no answer really, since Blacks haven’t produced many classics. The logical thing would be to give all the proceeds to Black Causes or simply burn all the stores down or something.

    Nothing is better than something that offends Blacks – and everything ultimately offends Blacks because they are nothing. They are destined to rule in Hell rather than serve in Heaven. And given Heaven, they will make it into Hell.

  140. KesaAnna February 6, 2020 at 8:36 pm #

    ” Lots of wordage – prolix comes to mind. Some sub-editing would be good.

    And I do wish the girl/boy would learn to PUNCTUATE correctly … note that there is NO) space before a full-stop (.), a comma (,), a colon (:), a semicolon (;), and a closing bracket | parenthesis ()). Additionally, there is NO space after an opening bracket | parenthesis ((). ”

    If you were referring to me ( ? )

    Well , no , grammar wasn’t my favorite subject , or even a subject at all.

    A hundred years after the advent of public schooling , presumably for the benefit of the working class ,

    The upper class , the middle class , favorite sons and daughters , get the education they always got before there were public schools.

    And the working class kids get nickled and dimed .

    They get ( what actually are ) excuses .

    They get obfuscatory rhetoric .

    You might dispute that ?

    Anyway , public school or no public school , I got my education from the public library.

    I model my writing on what I have read. That may be , for example , Wlliam Shakespeare.

    As far as I know , William Shakespeare didn’t have an established law of grammar either in his 16th Century.

    I’m not William Shakespeare — but then there is some question about whether William Shakespeare WAS William Shakespeare ?

    It could be that the Bard whose ass everyone kisses is actually as anonymous as Jack The Ripper.

    Anyway , much of what you see in my case isn’t grammar at all , it’s aesthetics.

    And the model I use there is the children’s book.

    Generous spacing , generous margins , the theory being that it is easier on the eyes , then easier on the intellect , so then easier to read and understand.

    And that’s the point ; I’m not trying to sell books , win friends , or land a sinecure.

    If I’m disliked or looked down on ? Boo fucking whoo.

    If I could figure out how to do it , I would use a font at least three sizes larger than this for the same reasons.

    Before the internet , email , and all of that , and back when my hands still worked , with pen on paper I wrote in block letters , not cursive , again for those reasons.

    • JohnAZ February 6, 2020 at 9:11 pm #

      This is an example of the disservice the Democratic Party has done to the cities. You are right, kids in the cities do not get the education compared to the suburbs and elsewhere. The Dems have been in control of the cities and their education systems for fifty years. All that has happened is the decline of education and the formation of gangs to survive. The center of the stupidification of America is the cities. Why?

      The last thing that Dems want are educated citizens to challenge their power base.

      These new opportunity zones in the cities should help? The people living in the cities, however, need to develop themselves. The politicos will not help them. If they continue waiting on the do nothing Dems, nothing will help.

      • KesaAnna February 6, 2020 at 9:58 pm #

        You said nothing here I would disagree with or qualify.

  141. KesaAnna February 6, 2020 at 9:55 pm #

    ” Writing a new sentence on a deparate line does not qualify as paragraphing. ”

    I wouldn’t know whether it is or not.

    ” You may as well just type out a wall of text as you still leave the cognitive load of organzing the text to your readers. ”

    The first time I read Milton’s , ” Paradise Lost ” , I tried to read the text on the left hand , and read the “translation ” in Clift Notes on the right hand.

    Whether Milton used proper paragraphs , I wouldn’t know.

    My problem was that in at least every third sentence Milton makes reference to something in Classical history or in the Bible that my 12 – year – old self wouldn’t know.

    So the sentence itself scarcely makes any sense.

    But it sure doesn’t look much different to me when people today use acronyms in every third sentence , not uncommonly acronyms that are about two months old , and originate from some subculture.

    Just recently I made reference to Gerry Adams. My guess is the name might ring a bell with GreenAlba ?

    Otherwise , who the fuck is Gerry Adams ?

    I not uncommonly make reference in my writings to Pavik Morozov.
    I really don’t think the name would ring many bells in America ,

    not least because those on the right and the left who are better – informed , typically , aren’t interested in educating or publicizing the implications of that sort of thing.

    But , today , you can Google all of that.

    A mere 25 years ago , though , that was not the case. People needed to physically go to the library — and they wouldn’t — unless there was money in it.

    But was the writing any more conducive to hand – holding then ?

    Nope , not a bit.

    It’s left to the reader to perceive obfuscation in , “National Security ” , or euphemism in , ” Correctional facility ” , if they do at all.

    And left to the reader to figure out the how’s , why’s , and wherefore’s of why that would be.

    I spent the first ten years of my life in a country where they spoke a language which , to this day , I understand only crudely.

    Did anything on that score really change when I came to an English – speaking country ?

    Not that I can tell.

    ” Very rude and lazy. ”

    I think it’s rather rude and lazy to pretend that the public schools are for the benefit of the working class ,

    and for all sorts of interested parties to skate over or ignore that the public schools are a police apparatus in another guise.

    ” Perhaps at the schools you attended, essay and report writing was not part of the curriculum. ”

    I attended schools .

    Don’t hold your breath waiting for any tearful thank – you’s.

    I got my education at the public library , as I said.

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    • BackRowHeckler February 7, 2020 at 12:32 am #

      You are what is called an ‘Autodidact’, my dear.

      In earlier America, when there were no high schools to speak of and just a few dozen colleges, every accomplished person in politics, science, literature and the arts ( who wasn’t a member of the upper class) was autodidactic to a certain extent. Lincoln, Mark Twain, Andrew Jackson, Herman Melville, Poe, Washington Irving to name a few, were all self taught to a large extent, and honor graduates of the school of hard knocks.

      As far as sentence structure, punctuation etc … that’s the job for the editor, not the writer. Don’t worry yourself over it.

      Brh

      • Nightowl February 7, 2020 at 8:38 am #

        Intelligent people tend to be curious and have a passion that drives them to learn independent of formal schooling.

        In my experience, real learning largely occurs in the real world, and is autodidactic in nature.

    • GreenAlba February 7, 2020 at 9:47 am #

      “Just recently I made reference to Gerry Adams. My guess is the name might ring a bell with GreenAlba ?”

      Ring a bell? He was never off our TV screens. Even when Maggie Thatcher had the *cough* inspired idea that the Provos could be seen but not heard (seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up), we got to see his lips moving while an actor read out what he’d said. Not that you’d need to know anything he said, since you could have written it yourself. His brain wasn’t wired much differently from one of those dolls you can buy your kids that are programmed to respond to things they say.

      Likewise Martin McGuinness, who, for all his politiciking, is believed to have had actual blood on his hands, from actually murdering and torturing people. Adams not so much – he considers his hands clean, because he was just on the admin. side – I don’t personally see a whole lot of difference but there we are.

      • GreenAlba February 7, 2020 at 10:00 am #

        Reminds me of an excellent French film from the 70s called “Le Juge Fayard dit Le Shériff”.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Juge_Fayard_dit_Le_Sh%C3%A9riff

        The eponymous judge, (‘known as the Sheriff’..) was on the side of the angels, against organised crime, and ended up being assassinated – based on a real judge, the identity of whose assassins was never established.

        Anyway, the abbreviation DST was repeatedly cited, they being a French secret service counter-terrorism and counter-espionage outfit, with a history of false flag ops in Algeria, but their existence wasn’t acknowledged by the state, so every time someone in the film said DST it was blanked out. But everyone could read his lips so it became a source of utter hilarity among cinema goers (today it would have ‘gone viral’) and gave the DST more publicity than it ever could have had otherwise.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direction_de_la_surveillance_du_territoire

  142. KesaAnna February 6, 2020 at 11:22 pm #

    ” I told people that Cosby was not right, and I got nothing but grief.
    –thats just negro worship. ”

    So did I.

    I also said that something was very much off about Robin Williams, and I got nothing but grief.

    He was white , I’m mulatto , so I kinda doubt it was a case of negro worship.

    What I noticed about Cosby was that he was something of a poster boy for the narrative , ” You , too , can be rich. It’s your own fault you are poor. ”

    Early to bed , early to rise , don’t drink , don’t smoke , don’t fuck with the help —- oops !

    I suspect he would still be the poster boy for all of that , if it were not that there are rich women to be sucked up to , police angling for promotions , and politicians looking to score in their own way.

    That Robin Williams became a millionaire while a full – blown drunk kinda fucks a bit with that narrative too.

    Happily though , it is impolite to point out that he was a hopeless drunk , and impolite to point out that the millionaire hanged himself with two dollars worth of rope.

  143. KesaAnna February 6, 2020 at 11:58 pm #

    ” Kesa,
    Would you say the same thing about Blacks, Commies, or sex workers? ”

    Near as I can tell , Blacks , Commies , and , yes , even sex workers , somehow work it out in their own minds that I should kiss their ass.

    And they can fuck off too.

    ” I expect you would find all manner of decent people in each category. Not all, maybe not many, but some decent, good guys, in each? ”

    Depends on WHAT , exactly , you mean by , “decent ” ?

    In any case , my argument has always been that the police as an organism , as an institution , is the same everywhere and always.

    ” If only we had the right people in there… ”

    ” If only our side was in charge of things …”

    ” If we write a law … ”

    Bullshit . The creature will always run true to type.

    It doesn’t appear to me that I win any friends anywhere with all of that.

    ” Cops ” was a very popular TV show in jails and prisons !

    Black – Lives – Matter don’t like me either.

    ” You need to qualify your statements. ”

    Near as I can tell , I’m in a rather tiny minority that doesn’t think that locking up more people ( like locking up some police , for example ) will do any good.

    I don’t think shooting some more people will do any good. ( I have pointed out that in police states , police purges ( ” Police Purge ” — the police themselves are taken out and shot ) are pretty common. )

    Meanwhile , I get complaints that I’m much too wordy .

    Much of which is due , it seems to me , on account of my trying to qualify and elaborate.

  144. KesaAnna February 7, 2020 at 12:27 am #

    ” “My rule of thumb is that the Brits are two – faced back-stabbers ”

    It bemuses me slightly when people say things like this, as if the personality and psychology of every individual in any given country were identical, whether they were a double agent in MI6 or a member of the Liverpool Catholic Mothers’ Union. ?

    I can’t imagine how I would formulate an opinion that would cover all Germans, or all Americans. Or even all Texans. ” ”

    My opinion / suspicion is that only one out of four , or one out of five , men actually has an acute sex drive.

    My opinion / suspicion is that one out of four , or one out of five , women has an acute sex drive.

    About the same percentage of men are essentially sexually neuter, as likewise women.

    The rest has more to do with social and cultural conventions and expectations , useful narratives , peer pressure and conformity ,

    less to do with biology.

    Some Feminist theorist has said that rape is about control , not about sex .

    After making that initial statement though , that whole thought and where it might lead typically gets promptly dropped otherwise.

    My guess it is only useful as an alternate derogatory epithet .

    Otherwise … ” It’s not about sex , it’s about control ” … potentially would be just as much a hot potato for women as it is for men.

    But my opinion is clearly a minority opinion .

    I suppose I could invoke my “authority ” as a former sex worker.

    I would guess though that the assumption would only be that — presumably — I’m the only deviant and freak here.

    😛 lol.

    Anyway , I’m bemused at so many people generally describing / stereotyping half the population , and then the other half of the population ,

    and then of course the entire human population of the planet.

    Especially bemused , when I think AT LEAST 70% ( ? ) of it is bullshit.

    • KesaAnna February 7, 2020 at 12:46 am #

      — That is , making broad , general , statements about Texans or Germans is far less problematical .

  145. tucsonspur February 7, 2020 at 1:48 am #

    The following is hard to believe. Or maybe I still don’t fully understand the depths of Dem depravity.

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-criminals-would-be-protected-from-deportation-under-bill-aoc-and-other-house-democrats-back

    Balack Obama set it all in motion. He and Michelle said it from the get go, that they were going to radically transform America. Into what you see above and probably worse.

    So in this sense it does matter who leads the nation up until around the Tricentennial when “the bullet hits the bone”. Then rebels and tyrants.

    There’s some canned food left in the Safeway, and you and your hungry family can get to it except for one problem. Tattooed mutha fuckas with machetes and Kalashnikovs.

    “Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”

    • BackRowHeckler February 7, 2020 at 6:00 am #

      New Way Forward Act.

      Thanks for pointing that out TS. That’s what we are in for if the Dems win in Nov.

      Is eliminating ICE still on the table? That was one of Warren’s main initiatives but it doesn’t look like Warren is going anywhere despite her NYTs endorsement.

      Brh

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