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What is most perilous for our country now, would be to journey through a second epic crisis of authority in recent times without anybody facing the consequences of crimes they might have committed. The result will be a people turned utterly cynical, with no faith in their institutions or the rule of law, and no way to imagine a restoration of their lost faith within the bounds of law. It will be a deadly divorce between truth and reality. It will be an invitation to civil violence, a broken social contract, and the end of the framework for American life that was set up in 1788.

The first crisis of the era was the Great Financial Crash of 2008 based on widespread malfeasance in the banking world, an unprecedented suspension of rules, norms, and laws. GFC poster-boy Angelo Mozilo, CEO and chairman of Countrywide Financial, a sub-prime mortgage racketeering outfit, sucked at least half a billion dollars out of his operation before it blew up, and finally was nicked for $67 million in fines by the SEC — partly paid by Countrywide’s indemnity insurer — with criminal charges of securities fraud eventually dropped in the janky “settlement.” In other words, the cost of doing business. Scores of other fraudsters and swindlers in that orgy of banking malfeasance were never marched into a courtroom, never had to answer for their depredations, and remained at their desks in the C-suites collecting extravagant bonuses. The problems they caused were papered over with trillions of dollars that all of us are still on-the-hook for. And, contrary to appearances, the banking system never actually recovered. It is permanently demoralized.

How it was that Barack Obama came on-duty in January of 2009 and got away with doing absolutely nothing about all that for eight years remains one of the abiding mysteries of life on earth. Perhaps getting the first black president into the White House was such an intoxicating triumph of righteousness that nothing else seemed to matter anymore. Perhaps Mr. Obama was just a cat’s paw for banksterdom. (Sure kinda seems like it, when your first two hires are Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.) The failure to assign penalties for massive bad behavior has set up the nation for another financial fiasco, surely of greater magnitude than the blow-up of 2008, considering the current debt landscape. Not a few astute observers say they feel the hot breath of that monster on the back of their necks lately, with all the strange action in the RePo market — $500 billion “liquidity” injections in six weeks.

But now we are a year into Attorney General Bill Barr coming on the scene  — the crime scene of RussiaGate and all its deceitful spin-offs. The Mueller investigation revealed itself as not just a thumping failure, but part of a broader exercise in bad faith and sedition to first prevent Mr. Trump from winning the 2016 election and then to harass, obstruct, disable, and eject him from office. And six months after Mr. Mueller’s face-plant, out comes the Horowitz Report tracing in spectacular detail further and deeper criminal irregularities in the US Justice agencies. What’s more, tremendous amounts of evidence for all this already sits on-the-record in public documents. The timelines are well understood.

And so, an anxious nausea creeps over the land that Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham are dawdling toward a goal of deflecting justice from the sick institutions behind the three-year coup — that our polity is so saturated in corruption nothing will be allowed to clean it up. Personally, I don’t subscribe to that hopelessness, and I will say why. But I must also say that if Barr & Durham fail to deliver a bale of indictments, they will be putting a bullet in the head of this republic. There will be no hope of restoring trust in the system and the hopelessness will inspire serious civil violence.

It ought to be obvious that we are well into Strauss & Howe’s Fourth Turning, the generational climax of a grand political cycle tending towards darkness and ruin (and eventually the birth of a new cycle). But the God of History-in-the-Making is a prankster. For instance, in the Fourth Turning there is the archetypal figure they call “the Gray Champion,” specifically a Baby Boomer who emerges as the national leader to turn back the gathering darkness. Well, you order up a Gray Champion and cosmic room service sends up a New York real estate grifter with a twenty-three-word vocabulary, an impulse control problem, and a mystifying hair-doo. It becomes extremely difficult to defend this ludicrous character — except that the conduct of his antagonists has been much much worse, and probably more destructive to the long-running American experiment in liberty.

Exactly because the misconduct against Mr. Trump was so deep and broad, bringing actual cases to court will require extreme care, especially if these cases are folded into a RICO rap. Mr. Barr has been surprisingly transparent in his procedures and his motives. He made it quite clear in speeches last fall at Notre Dame and the Federalist Society that he deplores the lawless anarchy of “Resistance” efforts to engage “in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.” He stated recently that he expects Mr. Durham to act by late spring. Many are discouraged that he did not bring a case against James Comey on an earlier referral by IG Horowitz in the Hillary email server matter. Mr. Barr averred that it was not the strongest case against the former FBI chief. I took that to mean that graver charges await and there was no point going through the motions with a weaker Mickey Mouse count — and possibly losing in court. Point taken. We’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, there is the impeachment ceremony, connoting a trial in the senate to resolve the charges. Just days after it was voted out in the house — and in the limbo between Christmas and the New Year — nobody seems to know what will come out of all that. The president seems eager for a senate trial. His counselors could call witnesses until the cows come home, and probably do a great job of humiliating and disarming the rabid forces of the Resistance. But hauling in the likes of Brennan, Comey, Strzok, McCabe, et. al., might only queer any cases to be brought against them by Mr. Durham. Limiting the witnesses to the Ukraine “whistleblower” scam that provoked the impeachment — Eric Ciaramella, Michael Atkinson, Adam Schiff — would be a capital entertainment, but it might also queer federal cases against them, a necessary corrective in the big picture.

On balance then, whatever happens in the senate, the briefer the better, and the most obvious tack would be a simple summary dismissal of the house’s charges as devoid of merit. And then a season of patience while events are allowed to play out. What’s at stake beyond the fog of concerted deception and bad faith is whether we’ll return to the principle that actions bring consequences, which is also the basic principle of reality. The departure from that since 2008 has just about wrecked the foundations of this country.


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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.

434 Responses to “Evidence of Absence”

  1. CancelMyCard December 27, 2019 at 9:27 am #

    “What’s at stake beyond the fog of concerted deception and bad faith is whether we’ll return to the principle that actions bring consequences, which is also the basic principle of reality.”

    Don’t hold your breath, Jim.

    This country lost its principles a long, long time ago, and they are not returning in any of our lifetimes.

    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 9:39 am #

      He imagines a structure that does not exist.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 12:59 pm #

        Yes, as Sir John Glubb said, regimes have an average lifespan of 250 years. We’ve had our time and our clock is run out. The bigger story is that our whole Civilization is going as well. In other words, it’s not just a fall of an Egyptian or Chinese dynasty (averaging 250 years), but the end of Egypt as such or China as such. The West is done too, not just America.

        https://www.menofthewest.net/decline-and-fall-of-the-united-states/

        The rest of this post deleted for promoting Naziism — JHK Admin

        • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 4:27 pm #

          What did I say that was bad, wrong, or simply verboten? Really, I can’t remember! And even if I could, I still might not know which of the three it was.

          • GreenAlba December 28, 2019 at 8:56 am #

            You can’t remember? Really?

            I can remember.

            “What did I say that was bad, wrong, or simply verboten?”

            There’s a fourth category. Obscene.

            And your first amendment rights mean diddly in this instance, so quit with the verboten martyrdom meme.

            https://xkcd.com/1357/

            As I’ve mentioned before…

          • hmuller December 28, 2019 at 10:06 am #

            GA, It must have been a rough Christmas. Every comment you’ve posted has been filled with anger and bitterness. Of course, you’re entitled to do that. I’m just saying…..

          • GreenAlba December 28, 2019 at 10:13 am #

            hmuller

            Where is the anger in that comment? It wasn’t me who deleted Janos’ obscene post.

            I sent you a comment before I responded to sophia on the other thread, on the 27th.

            I take it you didn’t like being called out on your bullying tactics, so you have to resort to nonsense like this.

            Of course you’re entitled to do that. I’m just saying…

            https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/christmas-in-flyover-land/#comment-459477

            Got anything factual up your sleeve or is ad hominems all you can manage, hm?

          • GreenAlba December 28, 2019 at 10:22 am #

            Re alleged ‘anger and bitterness’, hm, gaslighting is just another bullying tactic.

            You are not even original.

          • hmuller December 28, 2019 at 11:39 am #

            OK i stand corrected. You have no anger or bitterness; how silly of me to imagine it.

          • GreenAlba December 28, 2019 at 11:52 am #

            Still gaslighting, hm. Give it a rest.

            Just saying ‘sorry, I wasn’t able to respond to your actual points, GA, so I gave in to the temptation of trying to besmirch your character instead’ would have been more becoming.

            And I’d have responded graciously, because I don’t hold grudges. But there we are. An opportunity lost.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 1:15 pm #

            Note her tactics: She suggested a fourth category: obscene (I know it wasn’t that btw). And now a few posts later – it has become that which she so creatively suggested.

          • GreenAlba December 28, 2019 at 1:49 pm #

            I consider the point you made obscene. Perhaps that is not the word our host used in his head when deciding to delete it, but it is the word that occurred to me. To me it was obscene.

            I am entitled to use the adjectives that I choose, since this forum is chock full of people expressing opinions, also using the adjectives they choose, and your tactics won’t work. Including the one whereby one minute you claim not to remember what you said, while now you claim you know it wasn’t obscene.

            If I chose to, I could repeat your part-post not quite verbatim, since you’ve expressed the same thought many times, but I choose not to, partly because it was deleted for a reason and partly because I’m not doing your dirty work for you by repeating your evil crap.

      • zone45 December 27, 2019 at 7:32 pm #

        Something like wistful thinking. Seeing a mirage appear before your eyes, so beautiful, yet so far away. The good guys always get their asses kicked in the game of reality. Yet we will cling to the fantasy until it all falls down.
        Like the scene in the movie Elmer Gantry.
        The whore begs Elmer to tell her a good strong lie, that she can believe in for a little while.

    • abbybwood December 27, 2019 at 12:13 pm #

      What about the possibility (or probability) that this fraud, deception, corruption and criminality has actually been on-going since 2012 or earlier?:

      http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52765.htm

      What then?

      This current crop of government criminals are just at the top of the rats nest. If it goes way deeper than any ordinary citizens realize, will it be thoroughly researched, investigated and torn apart in court?

      This would mean the next four years or more will have to be consumed by truthful investigations.

      Obviously it makes no sense to grab a few rats and say, “Well. That’s that.”

      • Majella December 30, 2019 at 1:49 am #

        Occam’s Razor v. Paranoia… I know where my money would be placed.

    • Matt Holbert December 27, 2019 at 1:57 pm #

      “This country lost its principles a long, long time ago…”

      It’s all about the benjamins. It’s not just the country, it’s the institutions.

      As an example:

      “November 29, 2017
      SPOKANE, Wash. – Danielle Xu, Ph.D., professor of finance, has been named Gonzaga University’s Phyllis and Angelo Mozilo Chair of Business Administration, succeeding Professor Kent Hickman. The five-year renewable appointment begins this academic year. The professorship was established by a permanent endowment from the Mozilo family.”

      I’m sure Kent was glad to shed the title. Gonzaga should have done the right thing and given Mozilo the money back.

      https://www.gonzaga.edu/news-events/stories/2017/11/29/professor-danielle-xu-named-the-mozilo-chair-of-business-administration

      • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 4:31 pm #

        Kent? Any relation to Clark, aka “Superman”?

  2. K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 9:35 am #

    Without anybody facing consequences.

    As it was in the beginning and so it will be until the republic falls. Democrats, and Republicans it does not matter. Both parties became the parties of elite privilege power and money. Neither party represents the American people. Neither party is committed to the welfare of the body politic. As the wheel turned Democracy in America became homeless without an address, job or pot to piss in.

    There will not be a new turning. We no longer will be able to produce enough food to feed more than 300 million people once our fossil fuels go. Without unity solidarity or any clear idea of how to go forward after the wheel stops turning the ten petrocalories in every calorie of food you eat now will become zero.

    A fossilized elitist might imagine a new Strauss & Howe turning like an ancient Egyptian could imagine the return of Nile floods. But the Nile stopped flooding when the Aswan High Dam was built and no American company has made any money fracking. As soon as the public realizes this and has addition and subtraction explained to them the stock market will begin to reflect the reality of average Americans. But for now the stock market reflects the reality of average American Billionaires and the interests of all the temporarily embarrassed American Billionaires who will be happy to begin defending elite interests as soon as they can get money too. Dreams being free make fora multitude of the temporarily embarrassed.

    • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 9:52 am #

      “As soon as the public realizes this and has addition and subtraction explained to them the stock market will begin to reflect the reality of average Americans. But for now the stock market reflects the reality of average American Billionaires…”

      The stock market, driven by buy-backs that consolidate ownership in fewer and fewer hands, reflects the reality of the dominance over human life by an oligarchy – as long as the population is this crowded and civilization this complex. There is no other quasi-stable state. Any revolution will only replace the oligarchy with another, probably more ruthless, oligarchy.

      • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:02 am #

        A revolution would result in accountability through fear. A new oligarchy would not dare risk the outrageous as the oligarchy we have now does in latte comfort. For at least a generation a pretense of fair play would be honored. Swinging from lampposts would be part of failing to uphold a new social contract. Consequences and justice would return. At least for a while. Solidarity would rule.

        Elsewhere today I did say dreams were cheap in America. I have a dream too!

        • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 10:40 am #

          “A revolution would result in accountability through fear. ”

          I have no doubt of that.

          A problem of revolutions, if they succeed, is that they usually “devour their own.”

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:32 am #

            they usually “devour their own.” That is very true.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 1:01 pm #

            Washington could have been King – but he stepped down. Your ruthless Capitalist ideology (merely the flip side of Communism) has dulled you to the finer things of life.

    • cc rider December 27, 2019 at 9:59 am #

      Indeed.

      Regarding food, well, by mid-summer Americans are in for a rude awakening. If not earlier. I’m talking about grocery store sticker shock, unless the Trump led government subsidizes food even more to keep prices artificially low. I’m sure that will be attempted. But the food shortage that is in the works from this past year’s devastation in the wheat, soy, and corn belt cannot be stopped. Oh, potatoes too.
      Most people even here on this blog do not know how bad the situation is. And meat will be affected too in part because of the grain shortage and the pig virus which started in China and is spreading.

      A North Carolina Rancher keeps up with all of this for those who are interested:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-zGkUeZKds

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpC3M7f_cSs&t=1594s

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udXxaAXHKe8

      • Ishabaka December 27, 2019 at 10:24 am #

        The majority of American adults would actually benefit from a modest food shortage, and that is not a joke.
        Type 2 diabetes carries the same early mortality risk as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

        • cc rider December 27, 2019 at 10:49 am #

          The type 2 diabetes situation might be helped a bit this year when fast food burger joints will have to charge a lot more for fries. The potato situation is really, really dire. I think this will be felt by May. Also the price of burgers themselves will have to go up in price a lot. I’m thinking that many will just by the burgers themselves without the fries.

          But………the soft drinks are really the main culprit with diabetes. In 2020 I don’t foresee those prices going up. May even come down to help alleviate the higher cost of the “Happy Meal”.

          • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 11:37 am #

            Not good news in that fast food joints employ so many people now. Local MacDonalds down to bare bone staffing, and as discussed in last weeks thread some Macdonalds are going the Koisk route, eliminating people altogether.

          • Beryl of Oyl December 27, 2019 at 12:05 pm #

            If fast food is driving obesity, why aren’t McDonald’s customers fatter than average?
            It was a performance artist who came up with that notion, and it is surprising to see it carried throughout the media as if it were hard scientific fact.
            On second thought, no it is not. The purveyors of the diet that is fueling obesity would just as soon have a major corporation like McDonald’s take the heat, as their customers won’t do any different.

            In my estimation, it is the low fat diet causing the problem, in large part.
            Diabetics don’t just have to watch their sugar intake. They also have to watch their carbohydrate levels.
            Eating fat does not cause a spike in blood sugar levels.
            In the 1990s, I believe it was, the old “food pyramid” was redesigned, and suddenly a healthy diet included a whopping amount of what we used to call starch.
            Is it a coincidence that Big Food had a say in the new guidelines?
            The “healthy” diet that Michelle Obama (who used to work for Big Food)) jumped in to rescue school kids from being overweight with, is in actuality a low fat diet.

          • cc rider December 27, 2019 at 12:22 pm #

            Yes I lost weight this year by eating a high fat diet. Butter, cheese, bacon, avocado, etc…. And by cutting out most sugars and simple carbohydrates. Pastries, candy, soft drinks, crackers, breads, etc….

            The worst thing as far as making one fat in a McDonald’s restaurant is the soft drink. And they do have some sugary deserts and breakfast foods such as pancakes. It would be better if the fries were fried in lard like the old days. Vegetable oil is not good for you, especially when heated up. The bread in the bun is more fattening than the meat in the burger.

          • Nightowl December 27, 2019 at 2:44 pm #

            High fat is good. Meat and veggies with a small amount of bread and carbs.

            High-carb diets are the worst. Carbs are converted to sugar and Americans, on average, already consume more sugar than just about any other society.

          • Nightowl December 27, 2019 at 2:46 pm #

            Also, intermittent fasting is very good. I normally skip breakfast and will do the same with lunch once a week.

            I have returned to my fighting weight of 170 at 5’11” by doing this and eating largely meats and veggies. No more post-meal carb slump either.

            The food pyramid was a massive lie.

          • Ishabaka December 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm #

            That’s a popular misconception, that sugar rich foods are what cause type 2 diabetes. Type two diabetes is caused by a mixture of heredity, age, and obesity. Doesn’t matter if the obesity is caused by drinking Mountain Dew or eating kale.

          • Bill7 December 27, 2019 at 4:06 pm #

            Repyling to Ishabaka
            >December 27, 2019 at 3:25 pm #
            That’s a popular misconception, that sugar rich foods are what cause type 2 diabetes. Type two diabetes is caused by a mixture of heredity, age, and obesity. Doesn’t matter if the obesity is caused by drinking Mountain Dew or eating kale.

            You are quite mistaken. If that were so, what, then would explain the absolute explosion of T2D, even in children?

            See Dr. Robert Lustig M.D., an actual, well-credentialed
            researcher at UCSF, who has written a number of fine
            books on the topic, and has any number of videos
            available in the usual places.

            It’s the Bad Food that we’re subjected to that’s killing us.

      • Walter B December 27, 2019 at 10:28 am #

        Inflation in food prices has been noticed by all that shop for the stuff for years now, evidenced by smaller package sizes and higher prices, sometimes, huge spikes. Good thing that food prices don’t count for increasing our cost of living, eh? I do believe that you are correct about crop issues resulting from fires, floods, and generally bad weather, but the issues in South America are going to exacerbate the problem too. Occasionally I am reminded that I should lose 20 pounds by my health conscious friends and family. I always tell them that I will last longer than the skinny people and besides, they’ll be plenty of time to lose weight once the food runs out. Peak oil? How about peak food?

        • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 10:30 am #

          Peak oil? How about peak food?

          uh..there is a connection.
          tractors, trucks, pesticides, fertilizers, petrochemicals.

          • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:40 pm #

            I think it was in The Long Emergency that JHK said that when you look down a food counter in the store, you are looking at oil. Well said!

        • cc rider December 27, 2019 at 10:43 am #

          Yes the developing agriculture collapse is worldwide. This is the first time certainly in my lifetime that the US breadbasket has been clobbered so hard. I was born in the mid-60s.

          Yep. Peak food. Most definitely.

        • Beryl of Oyl December 27, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

          Nobody talked about the rising price of groceries during the Obama years.
          I mean nobody in the media.

          • Ron Anselmo December 28, 2019 at 2:23 am #

            All look at the Chapwood Index for true cost of inflation. CPI obviously a hoax, for easily understood reasons, manipulated by substitution and other sleight of hand adjustments..

            Finding a city in the Chapwood Index with an annual rate of inflation of 12%, and then using the rule of 72 (72/12), means prices will double every 6 years.

            A hot dog costing $0.50 in 2000, cost $1 in 2006, $2 in 2012, and $4 in 2018.

            Wages flat for 30 years? COLA’s based on CPI? Not hard to figure out that feeling of being in a vise, each time one goes to the grocery store.

          • benr December 28, 2019 at 9:18 am #

            I have been posting about rising food prices for years.
            Also the index used to measure inflation kept getting changed under MaOBAMA.

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 1:56 am #

            Benr – I know you think everything that went wrong from 2009 till 2017 is Obama’s fault but, seriously? Do you actually think that how the COI index is set is decided at Presidential level?

            The same shenanigans as to how CPI is calculated have been implemented around Western Civ. It must be some sort of…conspiracy!

      • sophia December 27, 2019 at 6:58 pm #

        Potatoes are not difficult to grow. We should do as the Russians did and start growing them. Won’t help this year, though.

        • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 9:04 pm #

          Wonky weather ruined my potato crop. I only got maybe three times my seed potatoes total. Last year I did better but a heat wave cut into my yield. I grow them in a big wooden box. I am going to move it so it gets more morning sun.

    • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:00 pm #

      Right! The Dem GOP collusion you infer IS the Deep State. The Deep State whose function is to protect itself from incursions from the people they are supposed to represent. A great example was the town halls that moderate Dems held prior to the impeachment vote where they were told that the voters were anti impeachment. Made no difference, with three exceptions, they voted right in line with the DS bosses in their caucus. My hat is off to the three who represented their constituents.

      The Deep State is the absolute enemy of the Constitutional model of the USA. Unfortunately, we have been training our kids and admitting immigrants who are not smart enough to realize that they are jeopardizing the institutions they came here for. If the DS seizes power in DC, we are finished as a republic.

      There will be a new turning, just at a much lower energy level, to a structure that not many people would recognize. The only justice to the situation is that the ones causing the change will be the first to bear the brunt of the downturn. Just desserts!

      • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 1:08 pm #

        And the Deep State is nothing but the Corporations and the Banks ruling via their political puppets. As the Comedian in the movie, The Watchman, said to people like you, “What happened to the American Dream? You got it. This is it.”

        Don’t blame the Dream for being a Nightmare, John. Blame the Dreamer – yourself and people like you, for dreaming it in the first place.

      • Ricechex December 28, 2019 at 2:32 pm #

        So right, JohnAZ. Back in 2008 House Rep Susan Davis (D-CA) had a poll on her website regarding support of the bailout. The response from the constituents was something like 95% NO bailout. What do you think she did? She voted YES to the bailout. That is when I knew that nothing really mattered.

        • lbs December 30, 2019 at 1:12 am #

          They told us the bailout saved the economy from collapse. Easy for them to say, there is no way to prove or disprove the assertion.

          They say the same thing about Obama’s “stimulus” bill.

          I doubt either were true, especially the Obama slush fund program.

    • abbybwood December 27, 2019 at 5:07 pm #

      Your post reminds me of an exchange I had with my Mellenial son who has been a major Bernie supporter since 2016.

      Yesterday he said, “Hey Mom! Did you see where the Democrat Establishment is starting to believe that Bernie might become the nominee?!”

      I said, “Yeah. Until the convention when The Superdelegates decide some nice middle of the roader, like Klobuchar, would be better.”

      He said, “If that happens, it will be the DEATH of the Democrat Party!”

      And I said, “In my dreams”.

      That’s when the fight started.

      • benr December 28, 2019 at 9:22 am #

        Bummer.

        I sent my daughter to the Cal State San Marcos and watched her morph into a progressive for a short time and then she realized what a false bill of goods she was being sold.
        We got her back before she went raging libtard and ruined every family get together for the rest of our lives.
        Best of luck recovering your son.

      • lbs December 30, 2019 at 1:14 am #

        Hold him to his promise. If the nomination gets stolen from Sanders, his supporters have a moral obligation to destroy the Democratic Party.

    • SpeedyBB December 27, 2019 at 5:56 pm #

      WOW WOW great post, K-Dog. Dismaying but what else can one expect when looking at reality ?

  3. Epicur December 27, 2019 at 9:38 am #

    “The result will be a people turned utterly cynical, with no faith in their institutions or the rule of law, and no way to imagine a restoration of their lost faith within the bounds of law. ”

    That pretty well describes me, but I do not find in it a an “invitation to civil violence”. I’m just wanting to hold some niche, some where until the storm passes for my grandchildren. “There is a tide in the affairs of men…”

    Most of the principles on which the nation was founded are basic to human flourishing, but infinite growth on a finite planet, especially growth of population, is coming to an end. The end of that growth will change a lot of priorities and principles.

    Interesting times.

    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 9:49 am #

      The end of that growth will change a lot of priorities and principles.

      But it never worked out that way before. Idealists thought electing Trump would change priorities and principles but that has not happened. More for me and none for you is Americas’ new mantra. More for me and some for you was Americas’ old mantra but the pretense of fairness is lost, replaced by a dogma of deception.

      Civilizations ossify and die. The idea of a new turning is hope candy.

      • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 10:01 am #

        “The idea of a new turning is hope candy.”

        I agree. That is not what I meant.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 1:10 pm #

        Trump: “I want these people here because the economy is so good.” A Traitor to the real American People who elected him what to speak of his ignorance of the Laws of the biosphere.

    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:10 am #

      I do not find in it a an “invitation to civil violence”. I’m just wanting to hold some niche, some where until the storm passes for my grandchildren.

      When this storm passes there won’t be anything left for your grandchildren. It is as simple as that; so how do you feel about that? Still in a comfortable wait? If you are then you still believe there will be enough metal and oil to grow enough food for your grandchildren to get by. There will not be.

      Your billionaires have other plans. They plan on taking care of themselves, not you or your grandchildren. They live like there is no tomorrow because as their fortunes continue to grow they can’t imagine life being any other way than the way life is now. Criminal ignorance it is.

      • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 10:33 am #

        youtube–Jeremiah Babe, his last talk.

        He mentioned a yacht that has a 65 million dollar a year maintenance cost.

      • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 10:38 am #

        There about 600 billionaires in the US right now. The top 20 each donated $100 million to various charities in 2018. Ascribing any economic problems the US might have to the existence of billionaires is absurd. You sound like Bernie Sandals, K-Dog.

        You could confiscate every penny from these so called billionaires and you’d be able to run the US for about 2 months.

        But it would probably make you feel better ‘getting even’. And once you got thru with the billionaires the next step would be go after the millionaires.

        Breadline Bernie is the leading candidate in Iowa right now but I expect any day for him to be up on the podium complaining about ‘millionaires and billionaies’ — stirring up class hatreds — shouting about ‘Revolution’, and straightvaway keel over from another heart attack. So much for ‘The Revolution’.

        Brh

        • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:50 am #

          But it would probably make you feel better ‘getting even’

          Watch the rudeness this week BackRow. You know damn well I am a better man than that; which makes your backstabbing contemptible. You have been pushing it and I’m at my limit with you. So back the fuck off.

          The billionaires I know are obsessed with getting to Mars. The billionaires I know and the temporarily embarrassed rich who are without funds, don’t see social problems. They ignore that the planet has limits and are lost in ego and fantasy. Life to them is about the numbers and nothing else.

          • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 11:16 am #

            Nothing personal K-Dog.

            That was a generic ‘You’.

            My humble apologies.

            Brh

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:29 am #

            Well Ok then.

          • elysianfield December 27, 2019 at 11:50 am #

            “Watch the rudeness this week BackRow. You know damn well I am a better man than that; which makes your backstabbing contemptible. You have been pushing it and I’m at my limit with you. So back the fuck off.”

            Best keep an eye on the dog…he is beginning to foam at the mouth….

          • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 12:32 pm #

            I’m surprised I got under K-Dog’s skin, seeing as how I’m a fan of his blog and a frequent visitor. He has that globe on his site that can pinpoint location but I’m not sure if it can identify individual visitors.

            Janos busts my you know what’s quite a bit but I take it with a grain of salt and sometimes get a good laugh out of it. Not everybody can do that apparently and you have to learn who you can engage and who you can’t. For example, Green Alba is pretty touchy too, but you can go back and forth with Majella without anybody getting mad or without it getting personal. Live and learn.

            Brh

          • GreenAlba December 27, 2019 at 1:33 pm #

            “but you can go back and forth with Majella without anybody getting mad or without it getting personal. ”

            Anybody?

            If you ignore the epithets flung in her direction by Nightowl, I suppose.

            Seems to me too, brh, that we’ve had some very pleasant exchanges about food, wine, Basques and a whole lot more, despite your earlier endless ‘hey GreenAlba… muzzy mayor of Londonistan…blah blah blah.’

            And when you stretch your observational powers to the (literally) uncontrollable wildfires in record-drought-ridden Australia while you’re telling me about the miraculous phenomenon of snow in winter in Connecticut, I’ll find some of your later posts less exasperating too. 🙂

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 1:41 pm #

            The Aryan ideal is war without animosity. But don’t think the lack of animosity means that there will be no war. Read the first sentence again, sport, cuz it really all is a Sport – but that doesn’t mean it’s not serious and that no one is going to “get hurt”. But if a Man is a King, you cannot hurt him…..

            For things to be really funny, there has to be seriousness to begin with. Tension. Form. Structure. Some humor can be good in weakening bad forms. Some can be bad in weakening good forms. And some is neutral, just a temporary release of tension from the inevitable forms of natural life.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 3:38 pm #

            It’s not personal BRH but if I don’t growl at some of what you put out people will get the wrong idea about me. I’m complicated and not the bolshevik communist you seem to take me for.

            I stand against the forces of entropy and the heat death of the universe.

          • elysianfield December 28, 2019 at 12:11 pm #

            “I stand against the forces of entropy and the heat death of the universe”

            Dog,
            I have never before seen such an egregious example of overreach….

            …I…I think you are setting yourself up for failure.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 1:20 pm #

            Yes, that’s why we won’t let him be a Starship Commander. His Messianic Complex!

            The Universe is doomed. But there is that which remains. The Storehouse of Endless Universes and other treasures as well.

        • TiredOfTheTreadmill December 27, 2019 at 11:48 am #

          Maybe if we had a system where 600 people could not amass billions of dollars for themselves, we wouldn’t need charities begging for a $100 million cut and more people could acheive economic freedom, or at least economic sustainablity, instead of needing charitable handouts.

          • RIB December 27, 2019 at 2:58 pm #

            If that were the case you’d be living in a cave

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:04 am #

            Yes – $2 billion in charitable donations from 20 people with a minimum net wealth of $20 billion (at a minimum) is a joke.

            Besides, the tax break it delivers , meaning ‘we’ are subsidizing at a nominal 39% (though that’s unlikely to be their terminal rate anyway) makes it a joke while these generous donors get accolades.

            For feck’s sake…

        • Beryl of Oyl December 27, 2019 at 12:09 pm #

          Bernie is a millionaire himself, but he gets a bit testy when it is pointed out to him.

          • Majella December 28, 2019 at 6:37 am #

            Sanders wrote two books that sold. He was worth, income-wise, just over $1million in 2016 & 2017. If you spend income, you can lose the ‘millionaire’ status pretty quickly.

            Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is worth $23 million. He’s only written two books as well. How’d he get so fat on a Senator’ssalary? Just asking.

          • benr December 28, 2019 at 9:26 am #

            @majella

            So bernie is a millionaire why get so testy about your hero?
            If he was not such a fake he would give it away.
            But again he is every bit about getting his as anyone else.

          • Majella December 28, 2019 at 10:11 pm #

            This ‘Lowest Comon Denominator’ trope about Bernie being ‘a millionaire’ so he’s lost his credibility is such utter bullshit, and you both know it.

            I pointed out that Moscow Mitch is an ACTUAL millionaire – that is, plenty of them, and so many that he’s unlikely to spend it anytime soon, but that gets no response.

            Benr – your well-voiced OPINION of Bernie Sanders doesn’t bear repeating…we all get it. But it is, in the end, only your opinion.

        • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:10 pm #

          Remember Jesus telling the rich guy that to get to the Kingdom, he had to give up all his wealth and follow Jesus. The guy choked on this idea and backed off.

          I have not seen any of the Dem candidates willing to give up their capital assets to better the USA in any fashion.

          Jesus called these rich folks hypocrites over and over. That is exactly what these power hungry creeps are today.

          • TiredOfTheTreadmill December 27, 2019 at 12:25 pm #

            Interesting note about Jesus when most all Republicans are the ones bringing up his name on a regular basis and being supported by the crazier religious folks. Yet you somehow use this little parable to attack Dems. Your bias has heavily clouded your thinking John.

          • Beryl of Oyl December 27, 2019 at 12:37 pm #

            The Democrat presidential contenders are talking about Christianity and Jesus a lot. So is Pelosi.
            https://nypost.com/2019/12/26/tulsi-gabbard-went-caroling-in-new-hampshire-on-christmas/

          • TiredOfTheTreadmill December 27, 2019 at 12:48 pm #

            Well, no wonder I’ve been avoiding what the Dems have to say this year. I’ve already reached my BS quota for 2020 and it hasn’t even started yet. Looks like the 2020 election is shaping up to be the biggest losers bowl ever conceived by humanity.

          • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:49 pm #

            Tired

            I just notice that the Dems talk about taking away our capital in the form of taxes and the GOP wants to give back capital in the form of tax cuts.

            If you wanted to invest money, would you put it into our government to get a return? Not me.

            I wonder if their are more Elites in the Dem party or the GOP?

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:10 am #

            Beryl,

            Pelosi is a Catholic, in the traditional sense. If she feels moved to refer to her faith, it’s specific, while all the ‘evangelicals’ wear who it on their sleeve – or worse, a cross on their lapels. In my experience, those are the ‘Christians’ that are least trustworthy.

      • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 11:32 am #

        “They plan on taking care of themselves,…”

        And the age-old question is whether that is a fault particular to this group of oligarchs or to human nature in general. I believe it is in human nature.

        Elites have always abused their privileges. That is the way nature works. Christianity was founded on the principle that the only way of avoiding it was divine intervention (the Apocalypse) as was Islam and as developed in Messianic Judaism. Eastern religions tended towards escaping this reality only by escaping the wheel of rebirth.

        The belief that humans could construct a system without it is a relatively new product of the “enlightenment”. At the core of this belief is the doctrine of the Blank Slate. I do not believe we are blank slates.

        I do, however, believe that elites contain the seeds of their own destruction because of their separation from reality, and therefore do not wish elite status for myself or my descendants.

        • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:43 am #

          And the age-old question is whether that is a fault particular to this group of oligarchs or to human nature in general. I believe it is in human nature

          I do not agree. It is the human nature of our broken society. Not all societies.

          You make the generalization of a ant walking across a kitchen counter. From the middle of the counter for as far as the ant can see; an endless expanse of hard flat plastic. From above a gnat flys by and sees other furniture in the room.

          You are the ant and I’m the gnat.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:47 am #

            Right living has nothing to do with divine intervention. <- my words

          • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 12:04 pm #

            Have you ever seen this video or something like it?

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHeSlMui-2k

            It provides evidence (not proof) that there are heritable differences in personality between some “racial” groups. If these differences are real, that opens up all kinds of questions about how to order a “just” society and about what eggs must be broken to make a particular omelette.

            Of course, we seem unwilling to face these difficult questions directly.

        • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:46 am #

          I take issue with:

          Christianity was founded on the principle that the only way of avoiding it was divine intervention (the Apocalypse) as was Islam …

          Right living has nothing to do with divine intervention.

          • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

            “Right living has nothing to do with divine intervention.”

            Nor does it have anything to do with worldly success according to Jesus.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 12:11 pm #

            Rather it should be the measure of success.

        • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:15 pm #

          Entrepreneurial hunger causes billionaires and multi-millionaires. Descendants of these folks are notoriously lacking in the entrepreneurial spirit. It causes a turnover from generation to generation of large amounts of capital.

          The last thing we want is the government deciding what to do with capital. Aren’t they the ones that are 23 trillion dollars in debt?

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 1:53 pm #

            We live on a limited planet, John. Not everyone can be a billionaire. There isn’t enough. Where do you think you are? A Libertarian blog?

            You lack of intellectual integrity in the technical sense (one complex of thought not agreeing with an other you hold as per Libertarianism and Christianity or the former and Environmentalism) is a sign of Man’s fallen nature. If you were aware of the discongruity but kept putting them both forward for political gain, that would be another sign.

  4. hmuller December 27, 2019 at 9:55 am #

    So Nancy Pelosi has stuffed the bill of impeachment into the bottom of her purse and plans to carry it around like a high-end boutique gift card – until she decides to use it.

    What if the Senate decides to proceed anyway. Will Nurse Ratched (Pelosi) tell them she decides how they run their chamber and when they can proceed?!

    It’s very confusing. I still don’t understand how Trump got charged with the same crime Joe Biden bragged of committing, and Biden goes untouched..

    • Nightowl December 27, 2019 at 10:07 am #

      She hasn’t used it, because she can’t use it, because it is backed by nothing and therefore not real.

      She knows it, we know it, everyone knows it.

      • hmuller December 27, 2019 at 10:42 am #

        I agree, the bill is less a list of crimes and more like a snow flake’s claim of objectionable conduct. In other words, it’s a joke unless someone can uncover the long hidden micro-aggressions clause to the Constitution..

        So if it dies in her purse, will history record that Trump was ever impeached?

        • Nightowl December 27, 2019 at 2:55 pm #

          Interesting that JHK brings up the 4th Turning.

          As I recall, Bannon was talking about this back when he briefly headed up Trump’s campaign, and the Paper of Refuse did indeed let the ink flow freely in mocking him on this very subject.

          It would appear Trump and co. are far more prescient and tuned in than many would admit or are even aware of.

          Because, you know, bad hair and gold elevators and stuff.

          • Nightowl December 27, 2019 at 3:03 pm #

            This was not a reply to hmueller, btw. Website wackiness.

    • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:14 am #

      That’ll be because it wasn’t the ‘same crime’. One (Biden’s) was open and in service of the President’s and allies agenda. The other (Himself’s) was secretive & self-serving treason. Lose the Hannity/GOP talking points…

  5. redrock December 27, 2019 at 10:01 am #

    As always Mr Kunstler I look forward to your writings eagerly. My week would not be complete without them. I feel as though I am living in a lunatic asylum the inmates are in charge of. Yours is a clear voice I cherish. Perhaps the only clear voice. Someday in the distant future science will identify the virus that infected American brains into creating this everything go’s and nothing matters insanity. History does rhyme after all. SEMPER FI

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:14 am #

      Someday in the distant future science…

      Why wait. It was not a virus. It was high fructose corn syrup. It sugared the seven deadly sins. All of them.

      • hmuller December 27, 2019 at 10:44 am #

        Fructose? I think the wandering magnetic poles are scrambling our brain waves. It’s even tougher on migratory birds.

        • hmuller December 27, 2019 at 10:48 am #

          The north magnetic pole is now moving 34 miles per year towards Siberia. What’s happening is obvious; and I’m surprised Rachel Maddow hasn’t revealed it already.

          The Russians are stealing the pole, and Trump is helping them.

          • cc rider December 27, 2019 at 11:03 am #

            I knew it!! Those bastards!

          • cc rider December 27, 2019 at 11:06 am #

            We MUST help Pelosi and Schiff restore the pole! Resist Trump and the Russkies.

            New Dem slogan: Give us the pole. Not the shaft!

          • Beryl of Oyl December 27, 2019 at 11:47 am #

            Speaking of Rachel, right now the Washington Post seems to be trying to pin the blame for the phony Russia story on her.
            The finger-pointing has begun. This should be good.

          • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

            Nah!

            The pole just hates socialism and is moving away from the USA and toward Russia.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 1:55 pm #

            That’s all that Tina Fey lookalike was trying to say.

    • James Kuehl December 27, 2019 at 10:40 am #

      I agree, redrock. My politics lean left and Mr. Kunstler helps me see through the smokescreen that might otherwise be blinding..

    • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 11:04 am #

      ” I feel as though I am living in a lunatic asylum the inmates are in charge of.”

      You are.

      Like they say, “Pay attention to your feelings.”

    • SW December 27, 2019 at 1:23 pm #

      There is no logic at work and no trusted institution so I fear your worst fears have already taken root. Neither party has even the slightest credibility and after 8 Obama years of hope with no change (except for the worst) in medical care, housing, and income for most of us, we don’t really believe a rescue plan is shaping up. It IS important that the people who participated in this travesty be indicted but even if indictments are issued it will turn into a political they’re-prosecuting-us-b/c-they’re-against-us-for-trying-to-stop-Trump and will be spun into this narrative across the media. Just look at the number of people who still believe Trump should be prosecuted for “obstruction of justice” of the Mueller report even though it proved to be a false accusation.

      Another reason people are cynical is even though we’re still paying for the 2008 crash, it doesn’t take much investigation to see that crime does indeed pay — especially crime that was legalized under Clinton, Greenspan, Rubin and Summers. A friend of mine’s son was a hedge fund guy who AIG paid $50 million in “insurance” when the stock market crashed. He created no jobs, built no factories, invented absolutely nothing but is still wheeling and dealing in this market and it’s all perfectly legal. Has even one of the Democratic candidates said a word about re-criminalizing all the janky Wall Street stunts?

  6. Minnie Van Horne December 27, 2019 at 10:10 am #

    To Mr. Kunstler’s excellent essay, Ayn Rand would be wont to add:

    “You can ignore reality. But you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”

    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:16 am #

      She was very good at ignoring reality. Too bad she has so much competition now. Ayn lived the American dream. She died alone.

      • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 10:35 am #

        I never read her books. What was she like?

        • Minnie Van Horne December 27, 2019 at 10:37 am #

          She was a fierce individualist.

          • TiredOfTheTreadmill December 27, 2019 at 11:00 am #

            Most indicators point to Rand being just another angry, miserable, self-righteous ideologue. As such, her work has done well with connecting to other angry, miserable, self-righteous ideologues of similar mind.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 1:58 pm #

            And of course, an utter fool. A purveyor of a mind poison begun by Adam Smith, John Locke, etc.

          • sophia December 27, 2019 at 8:07 pm #

            She was a psychopath who praised a man who kidnapped and killed and dismembered a young girl and called her father to pretend to maybe return her but he threw her limbs out onto the road for him.

        • Minnie Van Horne December 27, 2019 at 10:43 am #

          She despised Bolshevism — from which she escaped — and of course this made her toxic to the leftists engineering the decline of the West.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:56 am #

            Her family got her out of Russia because they knew she could not keep her mouth shut and her histrionics would have got her killed in a heartbeat. It is all very well documented. She despised Bolshevism as do I. But she praised elitism and I do not.

          • hmuller December 27, 2019 at 11:06 am #

            K-Dog, Ayn Rand glorified the elitists who earned that status by their accomplishments, i.e. adding value to society. She supported a meritocracy.

            The elitism we have is crony capitalism, big money in bed with politicians writing laws and molding society to their benefit. Privileged people borrowing money at zero interest rates to reinvest. This is not a meritocracy in the least.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:25 am #

            When you were walking across campus so long ago and that pretty thing stuck the Fountainhead in your chest and smiled at you.

            Was she really that pretty?

            Perhaps the mists of time have made it so.

            Elitism and meritocracy are inconsistent. You need to check the dictionary.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:25 am #

            That was @ hmuller.

          • TiredOfTheTreadmill December 27, 2019 at 11:27 am #

            I always like how some people feel the need to add “crony” to capitalism as though there’s been some magic past in which capitalism operated any other way.

          • Minnie Van Horne December 27, 2019 at 11:42 am #

            “Elitism and meritocracy are inconsistent.”

            The Founding Fathers of our Republic might have taken issue with that.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:54 am #

            You are wrong

            We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

            They clearly did not. These self evidence truths are inconsistent with elitism and consistent with meritocracy. There is no middle ground here.

            MVH, give it up. You can only lose this argument. You can’t argue with Webster.

          • TiredOfTheTreadmill December 27, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

            I’m not arguing for Minnie here K-dog, but after writing that all men are created equal stuff, some of those guys went back home to have a romp in the barn with one of the slaves they owned. Talking the talk (marketing and the selling of bullshit) has been the #1 business of the USA from the beginning. Walking the walk? Well, that’s always been a matter of convenience.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 12:09 pm #

            TiredOfTheTreadmill, Who are we to judge them?

          • TiredOfTheTreadmill December 27, 2019 at 12:21 pm #

            Judging them? So, they state some words, yet those words appear to not have the meaning they are giving them, and you are arguing that Webster wins? I think I’ll go to a holiday lunch with friends, then a nice massage rather than continue here.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 2:02 pm #

            Jefferson lauded an Aristocracy of Merit. Kdog’s benighted egalitarianism leads to the poison of Communism. People are born unequal, Jefferson’s poor wording not withstanding. He knew better but he got carried away with his own eloquence. But the Left will never stop beating us over the head with that one liner as per Elrond.

            Free Men aren’t equal.
            Equal Men aren’t free – old patriot saying.

          • Minnie Van Horne December 27, 2019 at 3:43 pm #

            Minnie’s bad.

            Clearly, when Thomas Jefferson penned “all men are created equal,” he was envisioning a glorious future when universal suffrage for the Third World’s wretched refuse (albeit often in the country illegally) and the descendants of those inhabiting his slave quarters would lead to a Congress and Senate peopled by an elite new intellectual meritocracy — individuals such as Maxine Waters, Barbara Jackson-Lee, Hank Johnson, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and the Squad.

            Jefferson and Washington and Adams and the others had no idea in their minds, none at all, that they were establishing a new nation for themselves and their posterity. How could I have been so confused?

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 3:44 pm #

            Janos,

            As the pigs of the farm say:

            All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

            And the very next day pigs were breeding with humans. I know you and I can both agree that’s not good.

          • sophia December 27, 2019 at 8:11 pm #

            For heaven’s sake people, saying that we are all born equal does not mean we have equal talents or abilities or health or looks. It means the human person is equal in dignity and rights. (Not the kind of dignity you have to earn.)

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 8:57 pm #

            sophia, dignity is a right and it never does it have to be earned.

            By your logic deserving people have the right to make undeserving people pay for air. Charge each according to their ability to pay and punish each according to their basic needs. Your capitalist credo.

            I’m sure you consider yourself eminently deserving.

          • GreenAlba December 28, 2019 at 8:39 am #

            sophia

            I am taking the liberty of directing you to a very full response to a complaint of yours, which you will find on the previous thread.

            Christmas Day and Boxing Day intervened between your complaint and my response, hence my responding a few hours after the start of the current instalment of the verbal adventures of Clusterfuck Nation.

            You said this:

            “Meanwhile, 31,000 scientists have signed their disagreement. No acknowledgement. None.”

            You will find I have given it a full acknowledgement. I would add now, having looked into it properly, that the ‘31,000 scientists’ meme is such a daft one that you could almost judge a person’s understanding of the overall issue by their choice to use it as an ‘argument’. So I now know exactly where to place you. (If you doubt this, think about how you’d have reacted if someone had said ‘31,000 scientists have signed a petition to back AGW.’ It would have been just as meaningless if presented by ‘the other side’.)

            I hope I’ve dealt with it to your satisfaction. My personal view is that a person gifted the name of ‘sophia’ should consider such bunkum beneath them.

            However, as I have also explained in my thorough reply, when a person sinks so low as to respond to reasoned posts with ‘Guys, it seems to me that GreenAlba is not a real, sincere person. She must be paid to be here…, then that person has no further claim on my time or my consideration, and any consideration they might be given in future will be because I choose to give it and not because their playground-bully tactics merit it.

            https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/christmas-in-flyover-land/#comment-459572

          • Elrond Hubbard December 29, 2019 at 10:13 am #

            A spectre is haunting CFN… the spectre of some rando on the Internet, who has nonetheless clearly gotten under Eyesore McGee‘s skin.

            *smooch*

  7. Epicur December 27, 2019 at 10:13 am #

    “…until she decides to use it. ”

    They are playing their hand the only way they can – holding out and hoping for a victory in 2020 that will allow them to sweep everything under the rug.

    They have a good chance of succeeding.

    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:17 am #

      Until the bulge under the rug starts to move!

      • Ishabaka December 27, 2019 at 10:26 am #

        Hillary is the bulge under the rug – and she’s starting to move!

        • Walter B December 27, 2019 at 10:31 am #

          The fear and disgust at another attempt by the Rotting Bag of Garbage would probably be made up for by the sheer joy of watching her lose yet again. However I don’t know if my nerves could take the stress.

          • Ron Anselmo December 27, 2019 at 11:39 am #

            Yes Walter, let her have one more swing. Only one condition. After another swing and a miss, she can’t just go back to the dugout. She has to take the tunnel all the way to the clubhouse, out the back door, and disappear into the woods. Forever.

        • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 10:39 am #

          I fear ‘hairy legs‘ Biden is a bait and switch. People will be HAPPY they switched out Biden for Hillary at the last minute. What really pisses me off is this strategy could work and then we could have four years of a flying reptile.

          • Beryl of Oyl December 27, 2019 at 11:51 am #

            I still think Andrew Cuomo intends to have a go at it.

          • Ron Anselmo December 27, 2019 at 12:10 pm #

            May be far-fetched, maybe not. She gets the nomination, and being expendable at this point, takes a bullet in a false flag assassination. There’s a full-court press for the guns. Can you imagine the turmoil? Welcome to Civil War 2.0.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 3:54 pm #

            Ron, I think we have a novel!

    • abbybwood December 27, 2019 at 12:47 pm #

      Especially if part of their scheme is tampering with the corporately owned computerized machines that “count the votes”.

      Paper ballots with solid chains of custody and national exit polling data will be the only way to fight the Diebold machines (and others) and the fake news MSM.

      Stalin made a great point when he said, “I care not who votes. It is who “counts” the votes that concerns me.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 2:04 pm #

        Another thing Trump talked about but never got to.

        • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:21 am #

          Himself talks a good game, but does nothing, but golf on the taxpayer’s dime.

          Remember when he dissed Obama for all his golfing? That he wouldn’t have TIME because he’d be busy working for YOU? Draining the Seamp apparently… Ha!

      • Bill7 December 27, 2019 at 11:58 pm #

        >Especially if part of their scheme is tampering with the corporately owned computerized machines that “count the votes”.

        Oddly, for all the MSM’s shrieking about “eebil Rooskies are gonna
        hack our elekshuns!!!”, you’ll never, ever hear the corporate media
        mention the obvious, sturdy, low-tech solution; well-used by our
        fine neighbors to the North:

        Hand-marked effing ballots, hand-effing counted by citizens, in
        effing public. This is how we know the corporatist concern-trolling
        about the “sanctity of our eleckshuns” is utter bullshit: the solution
        is in plain sight, but they don’t want to hear about it.

        “Not enough complexity!” “Not hackable; ergo, no good!”

  8. malthuss December 27, 2019 at 10:30 am #

    Janos

    20th elderly woman revealed to have been murdered by the ‘Kenyan Killer’ in Texas.
    So much for diversity being beautiful!
    The mainstream media is ignoring the story about the man who may be the most prolific serial killer in Texas history.
    I think you can guess why the national news is sweeping the story under the rug.

    fraudscrookscriminals.com/…/texas-20th-murder-of-a…/
    Reply

  9. RaymondR December 27, 2019 at 10:39 am #

    The USA is running out of options to address the deep seated problems in the Republic. Deep seated corruption and a leadership class lost in cloud cuckoo land cannot be easily cured. Harsh measures will be necessary.

    Sortez la guillotine!

    • Epicur December 27, 2019 at 10:54 am #

      “Harsh measures will be necessary.”

      The future is hard to predict, but that seems unavoidable.

      “Sortez la guillotine!”

      My favorite depiction of that escapade is “Marat de Sade”.* It (the Peter Brook production) was available on YOUTUBE for a while, but has been taken down – what a shame. The world needs to learn from that little bit of history to avoid repeating.

      *”The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum at Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade”

  10. volodya December 27, 2019 at 10:58 am #

    Traditional parties like the US Democrats and the Brit Labor Party and the NDP and Liberals in Canada, all of which purport to work for the “little guy”, can howl all they want about the rise of anti-democratic populism because it was the aforementioned that made populism a necessity by making peace with the globalist agenda for their own benefit and to the detriment of the people they no longer serve.

    Anti- democratic? In a pig’s eye, they held elections. And up in Canada the NDP got wasted and surfer boy lost the popular vote forcing him to sit in a queasy state of uncertainty in a minority government. And those two supposed fascists, forces for darkness both of them according to expert opinion – Boris and Trump – having won, found their opposition railing about the system’s unfairness, as if “first-past-the-post” was something sprung on an unsuspecting polity and likewise the Electoral College. And it was the US Deep State doing everything short of rifle shots to up-end Trump.

    So if you want to find “anti-democratic”, it’s coming from those making the accusations, who bloody well lost and who work on behalf of a handful of billionaires. The Deep State is entrenched and monied and well-armed, with its snout deep in government coffers. But the economy they rule over doesn’t work and can’t work and is unreformable so invested are they in its maintenance. 

    And, absurdly, it’s those soldier boys, carrying all those guns, that come from the very social strata that gets pissed-on by the high and mighty as being under-educated and toothless and sister-chasing. These same soldier boys are the ones supposedly guaranteeing the privileges of the high and mighty. I wouldn’t put a lot of money on this arrangement actually working as intended.  

    What currently goes on in Washington is about as relevant to the exigencies facing the republic as the finer points of Chinese opera or the intricacies of Etruscan religion. Did you know that the word “ceremony” comes from an Etruscan city named “Cere” where religious devotions were held? Does it matter? Does anyone give a shit? 

    Americans form five percent of the world’s population. This is more than rounding error, but not much more, and what the highly self-regarding shot-callers in Manhattan will find out is that the fellas in Beijing and elsewhere have their own resources and agendas and they do what suits them and the Pelosi pips and Shumer squeaks count for not much in the wider flow of events. 

    Did they notice that the US lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq? These dusty backwaters proved to be too much for the richest and most powerful country on Earth.

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    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 11:17 am #

      Did they notice that the US lost in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq? These dusty backwaters proved to be too much for the richest and most powerful country on Earth.

      No the Dow Jones Industrial Average made 28673 and height of mount Everest is 29,029 (feet). The ratio of these numbers make the observation of all dusty backwaters very hard to see. It makes homeless people in broad daylight hard to see.

      The Deep State is entrenched and monied and well-armed, with its snout deep in government coffers. But the economy they rule over doesn’t work and can’t work and is unreformable so invested are they in its maintenance.

      Deep State investment in media manipulation and more sophisticated propaganda, like a ratchet on a bolt, clicks away in the direction of increase. And holding all the cards as they do, I think we can both agree. This will not end well.

      • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:26 pm #

        You are right!

      • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 1:11 pm #

        when does DJIA COLLAPSE, or does it bound up like superman, faster than a speeding bullet?

        • volodya December 27, 2019 at 1:34 pm #

          If past behavior is any good as a predictor of future behavior, you can count on the Feds to pull out the stops. I mean we can’t have billionaires losing money can we? So count on QE until the sun burns out, the Treasury doing TARP until the Second Coming, the vaunted 17 intel agencies doing surveillance on doubters and nay-sayers until they know what time you shit.

          As for non-billionaires, fuck ’em. Pieces of meat with eyes.

          • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 3:47 pm #

            They already know what time I shit.

        • toktomi December 27, 2019 at 2:33 pm #

          @malthus

          when the Fed quits feeding it

          omg! i swear they are like recalcitrant pedo’s, fearless in their blinded ways.

          ~toktomi~

        • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:24 am #

          I think it’s ‘leaping tall buildings’.

    • cc rider December 27, 2019 at 11:24 am #

      Well, I’m thinking that a military victory is really not what the powers that be desired or needed in all of those, uh, wars.

      I’m thinking that the PTBs got just what they wanted out of those, uh, wars. They’re not big on pledging allegiance to the flag like Pelosi is.

      • Majella December 28, 2019 at 7:06 am #

        Right, ccrider. The recent ME ‘wars’ were little more than a great opportunity to expend all that “Made in the USA” ordnance, turning large rocks into small rocks.

        The allocated DoD billions are spent and stockholders get richer. Simple.

        • cc rider December 28, 2019 at 1:32 pm #

          Don’t forget about the poppy fields in Cambodia and now Afghanistan.

          And while turning those large rocks into small rocks in the ME we’ve left a lot of “depleted” uranium dust behind. Our little gift to Mesopotamia. They’re welcome.

      • volodya December 28, 2019 at 9:35 am #

        I agree, corporate profits and CEO bonuses are the number one thing. Maybe all they noticed was that defense contractors got fat and happy.

        But when the world’s most advanced military – equipped with fighter jets – loses to skinny, half-starved farmers riding donkeys it puts into question the character of Americans and the efficacy of its fighting forces. Maybe the Manhattan-Washington Axis should give a thought to that because as sure as the day you were born the boys in Beijing take the measure of their adversaries. And yes, realistically, for the Chinese billionaire communists it’s about money but for those guys it’s not ONLY about money. A wider and longer term perspective IOW.  

    • toktomi December 27, 2019 at 2:43 pm #

      @volody

      “lost in Vietnam and…”

      Geez Louise, Louise, do you sincerely believe that these imperialist invasions had anything to do with winning and losing in a traditional military sense?

      How do you categorize nearly a $Trillion/year in poppy profits as a loss?

      ~toktomi~

  11. Bill7 December 27, 2019 at 11:11 am #

    I thought today’s essay was quite even-handed, and I appreciate that;
    however, I see the continued faith in the DC justice-theatre
    as naive. Mr. Barr is as swampy as they come, has been for
    many, many years (do some digging), and his Job One is to
    cover for that entity, not expose it.

    Will be very glad, and exceedingly surprised, if I’m wrong.

    • Walter B December 27, 2019 at 11:20 am #

      Yes Bill, if the wheels of justice indeed still turn, they rotate so slowly that their movement is not only imperceptible, but the only thing they can grind up is tax dollars, not crime or criminals. Even common street crime is unaffected by a system that stopped functioning a decade ago. Welfare for lawyers is all it is now.

    • abbybwood December 27, 2019 at 2:33 pm #

      According to Terry Reed in his book “Compromised: Bush, Clinton and the CIA”, Barr was in it deep down in Mena, Arkansas with the drug running, arms smuggling and Contra training. Google it.

      Now he is supposedly squeaky clean and riding in on a white horse to save the Republic??

  12. Beryl of Oyl December 27, 2019 at 11:42 am #

    About Obama and those fines – I believe it was a comment I saw here, someone pointed out that Barack rose suspiciously fast for an outsider, in the corrupt world of Chicago politics.
    It isn’t a mystery at all that he did nothing for eight years. That’s why he was substituted for Hillary Clinton, and the primary was rigged against her. Nobody was going to say a word against The First Black President.

    Fines aren’t really fines as we know them, when you are allowed to pay them with a fraction of the money you stole; and then on top of that, President Obama re-stole that money, which should have gone into the US Treasury. He handed it out to various Leftist groups of his own choosing.
    Jeff Sessions didn’t do enough as AG, but at least he put an end to that practice.

  13. elysianfield December 27, 2019 at 11:59 am #

    A note to Janos,
    Last night, as I was lying in bed, I thought about you (Well, actually, I was thinking about Salma Hayek…), and it occurred to me that you might find amusing a ditty that I’ve heard a thousand times, and I thought I would introduce it to you.

    Enjoy.

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

    • Janos Skorenzy December 27, 2019 at 4:24 pm #

      As Blake said, the pride of the peacock is the glory of God. And the lust of the goat is the bounty of God.

      How on Earth have you heard this a thousand times? Do you live on a commune? I thought you lived in a compound.

      We’ll have Roy come speak at the Club before the girls go on stage. Are you satisfied now? I understand Roy perfectly now. He was always right and at some level I knew that. A bit extreme and puritanical, but who can blame him given the world as it is? That’s why we’ll need him at the Club – to balance us out.

      • elysianfield December 27, 2019 at 10:05 pm #

        Janos,
        I taped it off of NPR back in the late ’80’s (as I recall)…it appears on many of my playlists…and you KNOW I live in the past….

    • tvwillie December 27, 2019 at 9:04 pm #

      Thank you so much for bringing this beautiful song to my attention. All should take a listen. Thanks again.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 5:06 pm #

        Try this too:

        https://krishnadas.com/blog/gate-of-sweet-nectar/

        Krishna Das puts Dogen (I think, or at least Bernie Glassman’s rendition) to the melody of the Hanuman Chalisa.

        • elysianfield December 28, 2019 at 6:52 pm #

          Permit me. It was a nice piece…reminiscent, to me, of some of the contemporary folk music I listen to.

          As an honest but soon-to-be-discarded piece of advice, I would back away from the intense study of Eastern Mysticism….

          Those Eastern cultures lend little to it’s study…Few Ghandi-esque leaders come to mind. They, like our religious leaders, politicians and would-be heroes all have feet of clay.

          Bring ’em to the states and they start driving Rolls Royces and screwing the more comely of the flock.

          I would suggest that you are better than the lot of them…Bhagwans, indeed.

          Bhagwans…BHAGWANS? …We don’t need no stinkin’ Bhagwans….

          • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2019 at 11:53 am #

            Study? Try practice, Sport. Think I haven’t gotten results? Think again. Is it real? Do Mexicans make a mess wherever they go?
            God IS. We’re merely “accidents” in Thomist sense. We need not have been. But He planned us from all Eternity. Nothing accidental in that sense. Hope you can “dig” the paradox. If not you are merely digging your own grave deeper into matter – which barely exists at all in terms of the Hierarchy of Existence.

          • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 1:18 pm #

            Janos,
            Well, I don’t know what to say. I do not, perhaps cannot, “dig” the paradox. I would celebrate your “results”, were they real or imagined….

            You have renounced your Catholic upbringing? Your posts seem to suggest otherwise. Perhaps you’ve melded Eastern Mystic dogma with that of the Mother Church…a minor apostacy at best( I would imagine your Jesuit mentors suggesting).

            What has the Eastern perspective gained for their society? A nation of Calcuttas? A caste system every bit as egregious as our post Civil War slavery? I may be wrong, but I do not see the random East Indian as enlightened…where is the benefit?

            Random bits of wisdom can be found in any religious tome, including the various writings of Aleister Crowley. Pick one…pick a half dozen.

            It is a common human trait to seek wisdom from a God-Head of one form or another. Those of healing hands, snake charming…those that twitter with God…and get a response! Why pick one of the mystics? Because they are exotic, and perhaps do not suffer the scrutiny that would expose their own personal humanity? No Jimmy Swaggarts there, yes?

            What is wrong with the dogma of the Catholic Church? Do they not offer solutions? Insights? Is the Pope not the equal of every Fakir of the East…or are there multiple truths?

          • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 11:13 pm #

            Janos,
            And not to put too fine a point on the argument…The Pope has the best hats. Have you seen them? Can you imagine what one of them would bring on Ebay?

            The various Bhagwans of the East have nothing to compare. They are by comparison( metaphorically) up the Ganges without an air freshener….

  14. sprawlcapital December 27, 2019 at 12:20 pm #

    Two thoughts:

    Jim provides wise counsel in noting we will need a season of patience, following a summary dismissal by the Senate of charges against Trump, to see how Barr and Durham deal with charges that could be brought against alleged perpetrators like Comey.

    Also, they say you learn something every day, and I just learned that evidence gathered in a Senate trial following impeachment can not be used in a later criminal trial. At least that’s how I read today’s CFN post.

  15. JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 12:32 pm #

    I am watching Fox right now, Outnumbered specifically, and they are talking about how AOC is going to be President in the future. Can you imagine, no brains, no rational ideas, anti America, Bernie Communism supporter.

    If it would ever happen, it would be the official end of America as a republic.

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    • Walter B December 27, 2019 at 12:56 pm #

      No it wouldn’t JAZ. Obama already did it and we survived.

      • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 1:01 pm #

        survived, barely. and for how long?

      • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 9:47 pm #

        Obama was not a Communist!

    • toktomi December 27, 2019 at 2:29 pm #

      @JohnAZ

      You are “watching [television]” and admitting to it.

      Of course you are.

      ~toktomi~

      • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 9:47 pm #

        Yup!

  16. malthuss December 27, 2019 at 1:10 pm #

    How Ayn Rand ruined my childhood

    https://www.salon.com/2011/04/05/my_father_the_objectivist/

    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 4:22 pm #

      Thanks for the read. Alyssa was able to make sense of it. Rand’s philosophy is justification for selfishness and defines human nature to be only what she wants it to be. The force was not with her. She walked on the dark side.

      I get my ideas of human nature from history and psychology and sociology tying it in with experience. My ideas are science based and not self-serving because I like or dislike an answer. Good for me but that is not the point. When truth is re-defined to be serving disaster results. That is the point. Objectivism is a philosophy of mediocre people.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 1:28 pm #

        People with extra-ordinary abilities exist – such as the ability to make money. If done fairly, they have the right to it. But they do not have the right to run the Nation. That requires a different skill set. They must be shown their their place or shown the door. If they stay in their place, it can be made into a place of honor since they are serving well. If they are on board with the Plan, and know their industry better than anyone, they may also have a place among the new Elite as one of the Planners.

        • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:32 am #

          …and only retain what they need for a ‘good life’ The Ridiculous Bank Balance doesn’t not add to their life.

  17. wpa_ccc December 27, 2019 at 1:59 pm #

    “They plan on taking care of themselves,…”

    Brave words of individualists. Even Ayn Rand got her monthly “bolshevik” social security checks from the government which cared for her in her old age.

  18. toktomi December 27, 2019 at 2:27 pm #

    “What is most perilous for our country now…[?]”

    I’m going with grid down. Everything else barely qualifies as unhealthy. Humans can do Warsaw Ghetto and worse after an afternoon nap.

    But Oh, My God!, they have stolen Stalin’s limo!
    https://www.rt.com/russia/476958-moscow-stalin-limo-stolen/

    ~toktomi~

    • sprawlcapital December 27, 2019 at 3:50 pm #

      That car looks a lot like a Packard, circa 1940. it’s also similar in appearance to a 1940 Buick I once owned. Straight-8 engine, 3-on-the- tree manual transmission.

      • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 4:03 pm #

        “Straight-8 engine, 3 on the tree manual transmission”

        Ah, now you’re talking, SC.

        Brh

    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 10:12 pm #

      That car is going to be pretty hard to hide. I wonder if it runs?

  19. Quatermain December 27, 2019 at 2:47 pm #

    “Perhaps getting the first black president into the White House”

    We still have not had one of those yet, Jim. With your ability to use words precisely I am amazed that you and so many others continue to peddle this fantasy. We have had a HALF black , or to be precise a mulatto, President. What happened to the other half?? Why not call him for what he is?

    • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 5:16 pm #

      LIBS –have their own one drop rule.

      Eric Holder
      Kamala Harris

      or perhaps a no drop rule [looks sorta african].

  20. toktomi December 27, 2019 at 3:04 pm #

    @JHK

    James, I would offer that you have some serious sicknesses wandering your halls hereabouts.

    To wit…

    “Kdog refuses to believe that Blacks are violent dummies by nature (on average!). Sure it’s culture – but because it’s genetics first.”

    I am 100% First Amendment, but that codified right is not a license to smear shit on other people’s establishments.

    But my opinion could be wrong, of course.

    ~toktomi~

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    • K-Dog December 27, 2019 at 3:51 pm #

      I’m not liking the kind of math that is in your head.

      I should be able to charge you 25 cents for using my name that way. If you use it to sell soap or anything else we will have issues.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 2:06 am #

      So people’s First Amendment rights have to meet your approval? Utterly fatuous. Such rights are no rights at all. Truth is hate to those who hate Truth. And in this case, the statistics tell the tale. Crime and IQ stats to be exact.

  21. NoLongerHuman December 27, 2019 at 3:11 pm #

    Another piece of the puzzle, why would the NY Mets be worth $2.6 billion and why would a billionaire want to buy the Mets ?

    Hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen is in talks to acquire a majority ownership stake in Major League Baseball’s New York Mets – and while he may be looking for a winner on the field, he may also win big beyond the white lines with a potential for massive tax savings.

    While the Mets did not publicly disclose the size of the stake Cohen was in discussions for, it has been widely reported that he is after 80 percent of the franchise.

    The deal could value the team, which had an operating income of $30 million in 2018, at $2.6 billion.

    But regardless of how the team performs, Cohen is likely to come out a champ.

    “Buying a sports team is [considered] the last great tax shelter out there,” Michael Breit, partner-in-charge of EisnerAmper’s Sports and Entertainment Group, told FOX Business, adding that billionaires are often able to write off the billion-dollar team purchase values over the course of 15 years.

    As noted by the IRS, typically 90 percent – sometimes even more – of the assets of a sports franchise are considered intangibles, including player contracts, media rights and the franchise itself.

    The value of intangible assets can be lowered through amortization over a period of 15 years per a 2004 law (the American Jobs Creation Act).

    Ha ha and this tax law passed by George W Bush former owner of the Texas Rangers.

    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 4:16 pm #

      NLH

      Tax issues aside, I’m glad Wilpongs will be gone and the Mets will have new ownership. Last season the Mets were as good as the Nationals and would’ve been right in the mix if only they spent some cash on a closer. I know your post was not about the Mets per se but about favorable tax deals for the wealthy, but its gonna take about $25 million to bring in a decent relief pitcher for a few seasons. Then watch out for the Mets.

      Brh

  22. KappaJoe December 27, 2019 at 3:43 pm #

    I hate to be cynical on such a serious topic, but l’m not holding my breath. The multiple, obvious crimes of the Bush and Obama administrations were pretty much ignored, while they’ve pulled all the stops to find or concoct something to pin on President Trump. After all this time and their miserable failures to date, it’s starting to look like Donald J. Trump may well be the most honest man to hold that office in modern history. And THIS, apparently, is what so infuriates them.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 1:38 pm #

      Well said. If only Trump was White Nationalist that they say he is.

    • volodya December 28, 2019 at 3:17 pm #

      Honest?

      This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this and I think there’s something to it. You can’t tell the truth because the truth isn’t wanted. People structure their lives around howling lies, assertions they know can’t possibly be true but nonetheless feel compelled to accept as if they are. And why? Because their livelihoods and social standing depend on their public acquiescence. 

      How many times have you heard some respectable matron whisper that she wishes that Trump hadn’t said something or other the way he said it, but then goes on to say that somebody had to say something? 

      Borders? Are illegal Mexican immigrants as bad as Trump paints them? No, but somebody had to say something, and you can guarantee that whoever said it would be vilified as racist regardless of how it was said. I mean, come on now, you don’t step on the toes of Big Businesses that rely on the work of illegals. Do you believe that illegal immigration doesn’t matter because they only do the work that Americans won’t? Do you believe that lie? This is the Big Business taking point, and it’s been parroted by every liberal and “progressive” who purport to represent everything good, plus academics that do this make-believe routine of dispassionate research. Never mind exploitation of desperate people, and it doesn’t matter if you believe the talking point or not, you must talk and act as if it was the god’s honest truth. Trade? Same shit, you repeat the lies you are taught by your betters, that open borders, whether in terms of trade or investment or migration, are GOOD, and if you’re not on board with that, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. You mouth the required words or else. 

      Then came Trump and suddenly every issue unworthy of polite society came sprinting out into the open, like streakers on the White House lawn, and there’s Trump talking about stuff that maybe you’d been thinking but were too afraid to say.  

      You can say what you want about Trump’s unfitness for the august position he’s been occupying, but on a lot of issues that matter to huge swathes of the populace, he’s speaking truth to power. 

  23. beantownbill. December 27, 2019 at 3:57 pm #

    Evidence of absence is not the same as absence of evidence.

    • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 5:17 pm #

      Who or what is this in response to?

      • malthuss December 27, 2019 at 5:22 pm #

        the title of todays post?

        • beantownbill. December 27, 2019 at 6:50 pm #

          Yes.

  24. restless94110 December 27, 2019 at 4:59 pm #

    I take exception to your otherwise correct analyses in regard to the following passages:]

    : a New York real estate grifter” What the devil are you talking about, man? He grifted exactly what? Are you attempting (lamely) to display your bona fides as a never Trumper? I simply do not understand why you would name call in this way.

    “a 23-word vocabulary” Again, what an elitist you are. It’s his ability to communicate not his aristocratic vocabulary which only you and other elites can effectively speak and use. What’s wrong with you, man? He has more than a 23-word vocabulary. Prove that he doesn’t! Produce the 23 words that you have convoluted from within your bathroom. What are the words, man? If you give them? You’ll be proved a fraud in 10 seconds.

    “an impulse control problem” James? What the devil are you referring to? What impulse is he having a problem controlling? It’s just nonsense. It feels like you are pandering to TDS lunatics.

    “a mystifying hair-doo” Not only is it “hairdo,” what exactly is “mystifying” about it? He went on late night 2 years ago and was playful about it. It’s just a style, James. Like any other person on Earth. We have our hair styles.

    James are you pandering to a base that you know in your soul does not like you? The TDS lunatics? That is the only reason I can conclude that you are writing such nonsense.

    Cut it out!

    Your analyses are deeply correct,. Why do you cheapen them and denigrate yourself with these foolish inaccurate libels?

    Bust a move, James. Cut the chaff. Edit yourself and resist the urge to Trump bash.

    • Majella December 28, 2019 at 7:23 am #

      Wow. Triggered?

      It appears that when JHK name-calls (& otherwise slanders) political figures you don’t like, there’s no objection about a lack of objectivity.

      Your high-horse will buck you.

      • RIB December 28, 2019 at 8:44 am #

        Triggered? High Horse? You must be a Roy Rogers/Dale Evans fan

        • GreenAlba December 28, 2019 at 9:56 am #

          Why didn’t you say that when Nightowl used ‘triggered’? More than once…

          It couldn’t be that… Nah, couldn’t be.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 2:11 pm #

          Her high horse is a miniature one. Her feet drag on the ground….

          • Majella December 28, 2019 at 7:52 pm #

            Non-sequitur, our resident Nazi Troll…the high horse was Restless94110’s and s/he leapt aboard it like there was gorse in the chaps.

          • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 5:05 pm #

            Maj using my phrasing again.

            LOL

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 1:03 am #

            Nightowl – seriously?

            You now claim a user’s licence on the English language? Your peculiarly intense arrogance factor is going exponential. Are you perhaps developing a ‘thing’ for me…?

            Oh! And have you confirmed the plural is ‘analyses’ yet?

    • Nightowl December 28, 2019 at 5:46 pm #

      I would have to agree. It is quite easy to go back and listen to old tapes of Trump speaking quite normally — even eloquently — on politics and world affairs.

      He uses simple rhetoric as Pres. because it is effective. I also fail to see why eloquent speech translates into quality leadership. Some of the biggest snakes I have come across in life were quite well-spoken.

      Hitting Trump with progster snark is pointless, as one can snark on anyone. What is the point of including it, other than to appeal to a group for whom the superficial is above average in importance.

      It is tiresome. Even Jimmy Dore falls into the trap; and he is a straight shooter otherwise.

      • Majella December 28, 2019 at 9:06 pm #

        I’d appreciate him finishing the odd sentence. Also, EXPLAIN his ranting accusations. He’s often simply incoherent, and repetitive to the point of boring.

        That’s the Roy Cohn Method – keep saying it, double down, never admit when you’re wrong -even when it’s blindingly obvious – and trash-mouth everyone who argues with you. Very simple…suitable tactics for an idiot.

        Last thread I posted a link to “HowTrump Answers a Question”

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aFo_BV-UzI&feature=youtu.be

        & “How Trump Tweets”.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geEVwslL-YY

        These are both non-partisan analyses and show how effective he is. Nightowl, you took that to mean he’s ‘smart’, but I demurred, with the Roy Cohn point above – even an idiot can learn a simple methodology.

        • Majella December 28, 2019 at 9:17 pm #

          Then there’s this too…

          ‘How to correct Trump’
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBweUnkfQ2E

        • Majella December 29, 2019 at 10:24 am #

          Oh, and here he displays his prompter reading skills…

          It’s a Daily Show looking at the last Dem debate for the first 15 minutes, so if you’re not interested in that, kick forward to about minute 15.

          https://youtu.be/TtUld2FZoAg

        • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 5:02 pm #

          “Analyses”

          I would point out the obvious again, but you know …

          • Majella December 29, 2019 at 5:53 pm #

            ‘Analyses’ – sorry, is there an error of language there? Do tell, what IS the plural of ‘analysis’?

            If ‘the obvious’ is just another snarky ad hom relating to your assessment of my IQ, feel free to express yourself. However, if you’ve decided that your opinion on that matter is well broadcast already, then your ‘restraint’ is logical.

          • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 6:13 pm #

            LOL.

          • Majella December 29, 2019 at 9:36 pm #

            Did you even watch the videos?

            I suspect not , given your disdain for my description as analytical.

            No doubt in your arrogance, you felt no need to, because a ‘stoopid person’ linked them.

  25. SpeedyBB December 27, 2019 at 6:40 pm #

    Sir,

    When I read “The result will be a people turned utterly cynical, with no faith in their institutions or the rule of law, and no way to imagine a restoration of their lost faith within the bounds of law” I flashed strongly on my work and travel experience in Latinoamerica – mostly Mexico (when I lived in Texas) and Colombia (working for the Rockefeller Foundation – “Don Rocky” they called it – in 1964-65).

    I frequently met and entered into deep discussions with eloquent, intelligent, thoroughly-educated individuals, and to a turn they were despairingly cynical about their system of governance, legal framework, police and military – and hopes for the future.

    The operative phrase I heard on more than one occasion in Colombia was “La ley es para los pendejos” roughly “The law is for losers”. This was in an era of quietude between waves of what was referred to (systemically) as “La Violencia”.

    I found it instructional to learn that at the turn of the Twentieth Century the GDP of Argentina and that of the USA were roughly on par. The mammoth tragedy of misalignments throughout Latinoamerica in subsequent years is the lesson I took away from that statistic. Apply that as you will to our “…flawed Republic, turned murderous Empire…” (pace Gore Vidal).

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Bill7 December 28, 2019 at 12:09 am #

      Please say more. You write well, and are pointing toward something, I think, but I’m not sharp enough to discern the apparent lesson..

    • volodya December 28, 2019 at 11:58 am #

      SpeedyBB, Fucking brilliant.

      What this one guy said in History Today is that the lesson he’s drawn from studying history is that nobody ever learned from history and nobody ever will. 

      There’s a banquet of lessons from those people you refer to, that started on a par with folk north of the Rio Grande. Just look at where it all ended up. And I too have heard from people that were there, that Argentina as late as the 1950s was about the same as the US and Canada in terms of living standards. And look at where it’s at now. But, if history is any guide, and it usually is, we won’t learn from it. 

      Evidently we’re not not taking heed. How can this be given modern-day travel and the torrents of money poured into education? Incredible isn’t it? 

      • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 2:31 pm #

        Yes, the Elite love the “Latin American System” of not having to share wealth with a middle class. They want it here, there, and everywhere!

        We learned nothing from Black Slavery, as we have imported another hostile nation into our midst, namely the Mexican and now reinforcements and from the rest of Latin America, especially gang muscle from El Salvador.

        There are thousands of hardened Jihadis in Europe? Oh, but there are hundreds of thousands of Latino gangsters here in America.

        Anyone who preaches disarmament and pacifism for White Americans simply doesn’t have a clue. That is simply a sentence of dhimmitude as conditions stand.

  26. Pucker December 27, 2019 at 6:53 pm #

    “Jingle Bells…
    Jingle Bells…
    Jingle all the way….
    Muther Fucker….”

    HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) – Hong Kong braced for more disruption over the holidays following protests over Christmas that led to clashes between demonstrators and riot police.

    Gatherings are scheduled on Friday (Dec 27) at the New Town Plaza shopping mall in Sha Tin and over the weekend in Sheung Shui, an area near the Chinese border.

    Those will lead up to a major rally on Jan 1 organised by the Civil Human Rights Front, which has helmed some of the biggest peaceful protests since the demonstrations against China’s tightening grip over Hong Kong began in June. The organiser is still waiting for a police permit.

  27. malthuss December 27, 2019 at 8:13 pm #

    USA

    We crashed in 2008 we are now 23 trillion in debt

    50% of Americans have zero savings

    7million people 90days plus delinquent on auto loans

    most pensions unfunded

    80% of Americans living pay Check to paycheck

    real inflation running at 10%

    800 trucking companies wipes out in 2019

    160 million people on govt subsidies

    9300 stores closed this year household debt at all time highs

    the collapse has already begun it started in 2008 it’s been propped up with massive injections like the trillion dollars they have injected in the repo market the last few months

    • capt spaulding December 27, 2019 at 8:34 pm #

      What we need is more tax givebacks to the wealthy, and way less laws and regulations, especially regarding finance . All I can say is thank God the Republicans took over in 2000 under GW Bush. If the Republicans hadn’t been in charge for those 8 years, and running the country according to Republican principles of government, one can only imagine how much worse the collapse of 2008 would have been. Unfortunately at the time, they didn’t quite have enough time to accomplish their goals. Luckily, it appears they have been in charge again, to help soften the blow of the next one that’s coming too. Bless you, GOP, whatever would we do without you?

      • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 9:09 pm #

        The sad part is you are right. Also, that the other side does not have any ideas either.

      • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 11:48 pm #

        What givebacks, Captain. The top 10% of earners in the US pay nearly 90% of total income tax.

        The bottom 50% pay nearly nothing.

        • capt spaulding December 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm #

          That’s right BRH, somebody needs to give those poor suffering people a break. How long will we hold those billionaires to the grinding wheel while that bottom 50% parties like there’s no tomorrow? 2 for 1 food stamps & stuff like that.

          It’s good to see someone stand up for the wealthy for a change. You can’t imagine how some of those nasty articles can spoil an otherwise pleasant jaunt flying to the Bahamas. Glad to see you’re keeping your eyes on this. It’s just like all that fake global warming i guess, nothing gets by you.

          • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 4:51 pm #

            What break? High earners are paying most of the taxes. Also, a new law backed by Trump disallows rich people from getting a huge deduction from their expensive real estate in places like Cal and NY. So it’s just the opposite of what you say. The rich lefties don’t like it. Your people, apparently.

            Why the appeals to class conflict and resentment, Captain? As an educated person you know where that’s led, in Cambodia, the Soviet Union, China. Or perhaps a river of blood is an acceptable outcome so long as you get even with people who are more successful than you?

            And what does income tax have to do with the Climate Change hoax?

            Brh

          • Nightowl December 28, 2019 at 6:04 pm #

            This is no particular defense of any posts in this discussion, but make an argument.

            What point are you even making? Vague generalities capped off with snark are a dime a dozen.

          • capt spaulding December 28, 2019 at 10:13 pm #

            Well BRH, I mentioned income tax and climate change together, because you demonstrate your lack of knowledge in both areas. Is there anything else I said that you don’t understand?

        • Majella December 28, 2019 at 8:46 pm #

          The bottom 50% HAVE nearly nothing…in fact probably in a negative net worth position.

          • capt spaulding December 28, 2019 at 10:30 pm #

            About half of the posters here don’t believe this kind of stuff, or climate change, or anything else that might detract from their chosen world view. They do not seek out the facts about things, but instead read only things that they already know agree with their opinion. It’s like writing a book about climate change being a hoax, and then quoting parts of the book as proof of what you say. They live in the Bozone layer.

          • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 6:20 pm #

            Now explain how globalization is good for the bottom “50%,” and why Trump’s effort to bring blue-collar jobs back to America (the first President in decades to do so) is not positive.

            Come on Capt.; don’t run away again.

          • capt spaulding December 29, 2019 at 8:14 pm #

            I’ve never said that globalism benefited the bottom 50%. Quite the opposite. And Trump’s attempts to to rework the trade agreements with China, has resulted in extreme hardships for most of the smaller farmers. In the meantime, making an end run around Trump, China is inking new deals with other countries and setting up long term contracts with them, to the detriment of our farmers, most of whom voted for Trump.

            It’s ironic that the old saying, “You reap what you sow,” can be applied to the farmers in this instance. I have no sympathy for them. In the real world, you pay for your stupidity.

            Run away from you? Don’t make me laugh.

          • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 5:59 am #

            “Now explain how globalization is good for the bottom “50%,” and why Trump’s effort to bring blue-collar jobs back to America (the first President in decades to do so) is not positive.”

            Odd that he put out Trump International’s labour contracts to Indonesia, Guatemala, Mexico, China and Bangladesh (30 cents an hour in Bangladesh, so they actually moved a contract from somewhere like Indonesia because it was too expensive!). And that’s for shirts and silk ties that only ‘very comfortable’ people could afford in the first place.

          • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 6:10 am #

            “It’s ironic that the old saying, “You reap what you sow,” can be applied to the farmers in this instance.”

            Lots of farmers voted for Brexit too. If Boris doesn’t get a deal with the EU, which Volodya, Farage and Rees-Mogg are hoping he doesn’t (environmental, food safety and workplace regulation bonfire – yay!) the farmers will be looking at 40% tariffs on livestock exports to their main (and most logical) market. Or, in other words, extinction for quite a few of them.

            And if we get a trade deal with the US, extinction for even more of them and a shameful food security situation for the UK as a whole.

            But they were promised the easiest deal in history, so, as you suggest, captain, it’s a case of caveat emptor. Although I still feel for them.

            Never believe people who tell you you can have the best of both worlds, even if it’s written on the side of a red bus.

          • Nightowl December 30, 2019 at 5:09 pm #

            “And Trump’s attempts to to rework the trade agreements with China, has resulted in extreme hardships for most of the smaller farmers”

            Back with concrete evidence.

            Or run away again. Back to square one, I suppose.

    • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 9:07 pm #

      Interesting post!

      I notice that the reduction of available capital is happening from the bottom up. More and more folks fall down the economic curve with time, it seems.

      The problem is over and over, how to fix it. Dems want to steal capital from where it is accumulating, the GOP want to let market forces take care of the problem, ie, do nothing and hope it goes away.

      Neither side works, that is why it keeps getting worse, It is proof that the government has little control over the evil side of capitalism.

      The barometer of the decline is the condition of the homeless in all parts of the country. Capitalism makes poverty, it is part of the formula of survival of the fittest.

      If the country does not find a way to push “rugged individualism” down the social ranks, the end is near. Just taking money away from one sector and handing it to another just does not work. It breeds dependency and increased decline.

      How to recycle wealth down into society without wasting it. That is what needs to happen. That is what the progressive income tax did in the 50s and 60’s. ??? What will work today.

      It does not help that the Deep State spends about twice as much as it receives in taxes. The government is a net waster of capital, so giving them more dollars just makes the situation worse. The more we are taxed, the worse it gets.

      An example, higher education. Bernie wants to have the government give it away. Right now, the millennials are discovering that they have too many degrees out there, especially worthless ones, and getting a job is tough as a consequence. So what is Bernie going to do? Create more worthless degrees.

      Solutions? I have not heard a single one from either party in the Deep State on what to do. Just typical mumbo jumbo. Hint. The government is not the answer.

      • beantownbill. December 27, 2019 at 9:34 pm #

        Unfortunately, the government is both the problem and the solution. Simply end deficit spending and all the economic problems start going away. Sadly, that’s almost impossible now. The government could do it, but they’re on the take. The only other solution is that the people have to take the battle to the streets – like that’s gonna happen!

        • JohnAZ December 27, 2019 at 9:45 pm #

          The problem is the “votes for sale” mentality. If tomorrow Trump said, we are not spending any more money than we take in in taxes, wow, what an impact. Everything would be cut by 20-30%, including SS, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare payments, defense, corporate welfare, ACA subsidies,

          Ie. Another not Great, but Yuge Depression. Oh , I forgot interest payments on the National debt.

          Hey, guess what? If we decrease all the wealth payments above, then there will be reduced tax receipts. A major snowball effect.

          A primary lesson that JHK has espoused, capitalism only works with growth. Non-growth economies have not even been explored yet in the US.

          • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 11:42 pm #

            JAZ

            With 2 million immigrants entering the country every year, and millions more young people graduating from college and High School, there has to be growth. These people need something to do and must be accommodated.

          • malthuss December 28, 2019 at 6:33 pm #

            BRH— growth versus the happiness index. Bhutan won that one.

          • Majella December 28, 2019 at 10:38 pm #

            Or, he could say, ‘We’ll take in enough taxes so everything is paid for’ Makes a lot more sense…

            If slashing spending, why not start with the DoD, the farm subsidies, the oil subsidies…you know – all the CORPORATE Welfare programmes.

          • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 5:14 pm #

            IMO, the question of economic growth is the real issue going forward.

            As you state, endless econonomic growth is not possible in a world of finite resources.

            Humanity does have a collective need to push forward, and, IMO, this need will have to be fulfilled ulitmately by getting off this planet.

            Whatever thing or creator that designed the earth must certainly be enjoying the show.

          • GreenAlba December 29, 2019 at 6:18 pm #

            “Humanity does have a collective need to push forward”

            I’m not sure how true that is. The idea of ‘progress’ is relatively recent in the evolution of mankind’s thinking, isn’t it?

            I’m guessing once you have a generation that knows it’s going to be materially and environmentally poorer, and less secure, than its parents, ‘pushing forward’ is going to be the least of its concerns. Survival, a roof over your head, and some prospect of day-to-day security would possibly satisfy a lot of people.

            But maybe I’m misunderstanding your notion of ‘pushing forward’.

            Once you know that society can no longer give you expensive treatments for your cancer, you’re going to be happy with a decent supply of diamorphine, I’d have thought, which is getting down to the essentials. That will happen in a lot of areas.

            Good luck with the ‘getting of this planet’ option. 🙂

            “Whatever thing or creator that designed the earth…”

            If a supposedly all-knowing, all-powerful entity designed the earth they must have known exactly what would happen. If they’d wanted it to end differently, they’d have designed it differently. If you’re a creator you get to create the laws of physics and biology. Otherwise what are you?

          • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 6:22 pm #

            If progress were a new idea, we’d all still be living in mud huts.

          • GreenAlba December 29, 2019 at 7:31 pm #

            I think you’re missing the point, Nightowl, but no matter.

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

            I said ‘the idea of progress’.

          • Nightowl December 30, 2019 at 5:10 pm #

            Playing with words when backed in a corner.

            Weak tactic, IMO.

  28. zone45 December 27, 2019 at 9:56 pm #

    The future is now. We have a few things that still work. The post office delivers the mail. The transportation system finds a way to plow along. The sun also rises. Same as it ever was. As long as the birds have not abandoned us, we still have a chance. Football on sunday, work on monday. Just move along, nothing to see here.

    • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 10:06 pm #

      And gas at the pump still pretty cheap.

      Most important of all at your local supermarket 20 aisles of every delicacy known to man, restocked daily.

      Brh

      • Walter B December 27, 2019 at 10:37 pm #

        Yes it is and I will always be convinced that the US government back doors profits into the oil company coffers to keep it that way and to keep the commuters commuting. The same with the food supply. The government will feed the people until they no longer can if that ever even become a possibility because there is absolutely no civilization in human history that revolted when they were kept well (over) fed. Fat and happy is the way to go.

        “Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed-men, and such as sleep o’nights; Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much; such men are dangerous.”

        • BackRowHeckler December 27, 2019 at 11:37 pm #

          Nice Shakespeare quote, Walter. Good points too.

      • malthuss December 28, 2019 at 6:33 pm #

        not in LA gas is not cheap.

        • Majella December 28, 2019 at 8:36 pm #

          Yes, LA average around $3, while in NY it’s closer to $2.

          FYI, gas in NZ is the equivalent of US$5.90 a gallon. ‘Cheap’ is definitely relative.

  29. beantownbill. December 27, 2019 at 10:16 pm #

    A depression, although bad for the average person, would be great for the country. Much of the bad debt would be blown away and the country would eventually return to economic health, albeit having experienced great suffering. It’s really simple mathematics of exponential functions. If interest piles on interest faster than real income, then mathematically there economic collapse is inevitable.

    • beantownbill. December 27, 2019 at 10:17 pm #

      Meant for JAZ.

      • SoftStarLight December 28, 2019 at 2:55 am #

        The debt doesn’t mean anything anymore anyway since it is all just pixels on screens and nobody really believes it can all be paid back. Instead of a depression why not just cancel all of the debt? Would that not serve the same purpose? Why have a depression over printed, make believe money?

        • malthuss December 28, 2019 at 10:31 am #

          tell that to those w student loans. tell that to the chinese
          over lords.

          • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 11:01 am #

            Study who the creditors are that own those QE treasury notes. You are talking 401ks, pension plans, individuals, foreign governments.

            Bill, ask a few of the remaining folks from the Depression era if a Depression would be a good thing. 25% of our countrymen were on what there was of welfare. John Steinbeck writes Grapes of Wrath, a hideous picture of the plight of farmers.

            If the US goes down, the poor areas of the world will collapse, starvation will become omnipresent. If China, the powerhouse that is dependent on US consumers for their ascent, goes down, the disaster goes world wide.

            All the GOP economists before the Depression were telling Hoover that a recession would not be a bad thing.

            Hmmm.

        • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 11:19 am #

          Why have a depression over printed, make believe money?

          Because if we withdraw the debt from national and world money supply, it will not be a depression, it will be a collapse.

          • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 11:21 am #

            Our current budget is hovering around 1trillion dollars. The debt is 23 years of our budget.

            Hey, a potential good thing. The end of the Deep State?

        • Majella December 29, 2019 at 5:43 pm #

          A Debt Jubilee is what you’re talking about. It’s doable, and there’s an Australian economist who promotes the idea:

          https://moneyweek.com/445572/steve-keen-interview-debt-jubilee/

          Pity – the right time for it was 2008/09, but instead of bailing out the PEOPLE, the banisters got it all.

          • Majella December 29, 2019 at 5:57 pm #

            Banksters …not banisters

          • SoftStarLight December 29, 2019 at 9:37 pm #

            Yes exactly! Everyone gets a payout. If you don’t have debt then its like getting a bonus. Otherwise your payout all goes to reducing your debt. And banks and corporations won’t get bailouts. Or they shouldn’t at least like Keen says.

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 5:26 am #

            Exactly. I’m pleased you read it.

            You might also like this book by Englishman John Lanchesterpublished 2010:

            ‘ I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay ‘

            https://www.amazon.com/I-U-Why-Everyone-Owes/dp/1439169861/ref=nodl_

          • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 7:53 am #

            John Lanchester is good. His book ‘Whoops!’ is an excellent and entertaining layman’s guide to the crash.

            His dad was a banker back when bankers were boring and prudent.

          • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 7:56 am #

            His mum had been a nun and none of them knew until after she died. That’s in the first half of ‘A Family Romance’. The other half is about the prudent banker, which I must get back to some time (it seemed dryer!). You’d enjoy the half about his mum – fascinating insight into Irish Catholic family life of the time, with semi-obligatory ‘vocations’.

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 4:27 pm #

            Thanks GA. I’ve read ‘Capital’, ‘Whoops’ and his most recent ‘The Wall’ (which is post climate apocalypse). I’m off to grab the ‘Family Romance’ right away!

    • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 11:15 am #

      Bill

      How many people are going to die world wide? The economic elites are putting on band aids all over the monetary structure trying to keep it afloat. I feel, though, that political incompetence in DC and Beijing is going to bring the glory days to a halt. Or maybe there is no solution short of economic disaster. TLE?

      • beantownbill. December 28, 2019 at 11:42 am #

        When I say a depression is a good thing, I don’t mean I want it to happen, just that when it does happen it will probably, ultimately end up resolving a lot of our issues. That billions may die is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

        I may sound pretty negative, but I’m actually very optimistic about the future, although I may not be alive to see it.

        Doesn’t it seem that humans don’t plan until the SHTF, and then we ferociously act?

        • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 2:19 pm #

          Yep on your last. The Deep State thrives on doing nothing!

        • Majella December 29, 2019 at 8:46 am #

          After the 2008/09 cock-up, it wasn’t so much that the banisters got away scot-free (which is damnable in and of itself) but the ‘cure’ imposed is untenable.

          It’s been fed to the global economies ever since – ZIRP being the nastiest with the long-term damage still awaiting exposure.

          I know Iceland is tiny, but they – the people themselves – said “screw you and your loans…take a haircut : we’re not paying”.

          Almost a decade on, Iceland has recovered

          ‘ After years of harsh austerity, Iceland returned to economic growth in 2011, registering a whopping 7.2 percent in 2016, the highest in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).’

          • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 11:34 am #

            So it took conservative austerity across the population to pull them out of the stupidity of a spend spend spend government.

            And I will guarantee you that they were not 23 trillion in debt when they started.

          • Majella December 29, 2019 at 3:22 pm #

            JohnAZ – given the population and GDP of Iceland in 2008 the debt was 7 x GDP.

            The US GDP IS just over $20 trillion, Sotheby’s $23 T represents 1.15 times.

            It’s not a very ‘conservative’ strategy to default on your external debts, and the government didn’t want to, but through public pressure, they did it.

            So while the Icelanders suffered serous shit for a year or so, they’re no longer in the same situation as Greece (and the other PIGS).

          • Majella December 29, 2019 at 3:23 pm #

            Sotheby’s …? I meant ‘so that is by comparison’

          • GreenAlba December 29, 2019 at 7:24 pm #

            The British taxpayer copped a whole chunk of Icelandic debt as over 100 local authorities, plus the police, charities, universities etc. had invested in Icelandic banks. But the biggest losses were to the local authorities, which led to a funding crisis.

            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-chiefs-firm-faces-questions-1419272.html

            An update of the cod wars. 🙂

          • Majella December 29, 2019 at 8:40 pm #

            Sounds like they gotcha back, good!

            Pity the local elected luminaries were so sucked by their reach for ‘yield’ and local ratepayers copped it.

            Still, I suspect the ‘City’ took much bigger hits. Yay.

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 4:31 am #

            Or were they bailed out like the banks?

          • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 5:35 am #

            The government refused to bail out the public bodies, like local authorities, so the plebs lost out…again.

            From the article, though, many of the public bodies were ‘advised’ by imprudent investment gurus.

            I don’t blame the LAs too much for trying to maximise their funds. Keeping a local authority’s head above water is a thankless task (ask Walter!). I can’t remember when it was, but the central government put caps on council tax increases for years, effectively muzzling them financially (most LA spending is in fact covered by central government grants).

            Not saying it’s good or bad – you have to keep spending under control. But my daughter works as a Council nursery nurse (‘early years learning assistant’ or something they’re called now), attached to a Council primary school, and their pay isn’t great.

            LAs in the UK also have a statutory duty to house the homeless, which, in the absence of rational solutions like council houses, is an expensive business, which, yet again, funnels public money to private landlords.

          • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 7:51 am #

            Sotheby’s is a good one, Majella.

            Damned Autocarrot. 🙂

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 4:45 pm #

            GA

            Right…thanks for the details on the quandary that is the LA system in the UK. (My bail out question actually related to the merchant banks and I’m sure they were…’it was ever thus’)

            We lived there (Pomgolia, as some Kiwis affectionately refer to it) in 1989-1992 down south (Devon & Surrey), just as the reviled “Poll Tax” was being implemented. The volume of council housing I found staggering.

            In the Devon village (Chardstock) all the native Devonians (at least those who were blue collar and drank at the pub in which we worked) lived in the Council estate at one end of the village, while the old houses – thatched, hamstone, solid – were worth millions and housed professional refugees from London & Bristol.

            Here’s the pub, dating originally from 14th century, which some Americans hereabouts might appreciate.

            https://www.facebook.com/GeorgeInnChardstock/

  30. SoftStarLight December 28, 2019 at 2:47 am #

    In this day and age of click and swipe a season of patience seems so painful and arbitrary. Even for the slow spinning wheels of justice (we pray they actually still spin). I’m so ready for this show to get on the road! When are the heads going to roll!? If they are’t going to roll over this clear and evident treason then the jails should be emptied and all prisoners should be released. How dare they force a tiered justice system down our throat in addition to the lie that we are all equal under the law. It’s all too much to bear.

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 11:03 am #

      Right on, SSL.

      If the Barr/Durham investigation does not put people in the slammer, it will be the end of any credibility of the DOJ and the rest of the judicial system.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 1:32 pm #

      The real game of Polo is done with human heads. And the old Maya used to play their ballgame for keeps – the losers being sacrificed. Why can’t our “ball games” be serious like this? I’d become a fan again.

      • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 5:10 pm #

        The first game of soccer was with human heads too, after the Battle of Hastings. Is an image of it woven into that famous 12th century tapestry?

        • Nightowl December 28, 2019 at 5:55 pm #

          The first game of footy/soccer ever played was in China in the 2nd or 3rd century BC, if you believe that historians have any real way whatsoever to verify such a thing.

          • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 10:53 pm #

            Yeah, heads have been kicked around after the battle for a long time.

          • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 6:24 pm #

            😀

      • BackRowHeckler December 29, 2019 at 11:28 am #

        The Bayeux Tapestry if I’m not mistaken.

        Remember the movie Ivanhoe?

      • SoftStarLight December 29, 2019 at 3:17 pm #

        Ah, then I bet nobody would say that losing is a learning opportunity anymore. More like, if you lose, say goodnight.

    • Majella December 29, 2019 at 3:26 pm #

      Yeah!

      Personally I can’t wait for John Bolton to testify in the Senate trial. I’m guessing we’ll learn about all the OTHER crimes stashed on the high-level secure server.

  31. Pucker December 28, 2019 at 3:11 am #

    According to Catherine Austin Fitts, US$21 trillion is missing.

    • malthuss December 28, 2019 at 10:31 am #

      and she is still alive?

    • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 11:07 am #

      Pucker

      Maybe it is because the basis for the 21 trillion never really existed.

      We keep hearing how 50% of the public have no real savings, live paycheck to paycheck, and have no plan for retirement.

      These are the folks that are going to “break the bank” when the find out that SS, 401s and pensions are grossly underfunded. How underfunded? Maybe about 21 trillion dollars.

      • beantownbill. December 28, 2019 at 12:15 pm #

        Reminds me of the scam that is the lottery. Someone wins a million dollars and the state lottery applauds the latest lottery “millionaire”. The winner thinks they are wealthy, but the reality is that in order to collect all the available money up front, the take is discounted. The state only collected around 400 or $600k, took out expenses and profit, and bought an annuity with what’s left that pays out $1 million total over 20 or 30 years. If one wants all the cash now, they get the state’s initial total instead of the annuity.

        To make matters worse, the lump sum option is subject to income taxes. Even if you have no other income, the government would put you in an upper tax bracket, which would further reduce your net take.

        If you take the annuity, your annual payout would be the same over the 20 years, regardless of inflation. If inflation is say, 6% per year for 4 or 5 years, that $50k annual check means less and less. No wonder many winners go broke.

        • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 5:06 pm #

          A friend of mine, for example.

          Won $2 million, ended up broke and owing the IRS tens of thousands within about 7 years.

          The first thing he did was quit his job because he thought he was rich. And this was a pretty bright guy who’d gone to Yale, an actor who appeared in a few movies and sitcoms. I can imagine how bad it can get when Joe Sixpack wins a big chunk of money and begins buying junk like quads, RVs, 4 wheel drive trucks, and Harleys.

          Brh

          • malthuss December 28, 2019 at 6:36 pm #

            the worst 2 tales of mega winners [20 – 0 million and 300 million] were the junkie in Tennessee and the southern guy w the addict grand daughter.

          • Nightowl December 29, 2019 at 6:27 pm #

            This is where the sort of intelligence that does not translate to an SAT comes in.

            Few have it.

      • CancelMyCard December 28, 2019 at 12:17 pm #

        Not only do half of Americans have no savings to fall back on in an emergency — 81% have less than $5,000. stashed away.

        $5K is not much of a cushion at al, especially considering that one trip to the ER for a relatively small injury would wipe that buffer out in a New York minute.

        Think about that — more that 4 out of 5 of US citizens can be wiped completely out by a single, minor accident.

        We have become a nation so dependent on government bailouts, at all levels of society, that most people have lost any real financial security whatsoever.

        https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/i-find-it-very-troubling-most-americans-lack-savings

        • capt spaulding December 28, 2019 at 2:22 pm #

          Remember a few years back, when the Republican started to call millionaires the “Job Creators?” For a while that’s all you heard when people were being interviewed regarding tax cuts for the wealthy. The justification for giving them money was that they were the “job creators.” Heck, without them, the job picture would really look bad. That was shown to be bullshit, but it didn’t stop the true believers from cheering on the tax cuts.

          I’d say you have a pretty clear picture of the reality facing the majority of people in this country. Reality can be a real bitch sometimes, kinda like when they opened the boxcar doors and the people inside got their first look at Auschwitz.

        • JohnAZ December 28, 2019 at 2:25 pm #

          People spend their salaries. The spend beyond their salaries, consumer debt is enormous. Maybe they are just following their political examples in DC.

          No one fears bankruptcy and they live for today. They are taught to do it by parents doing the same thing and by liberal teachers telling them that the government will bail them out.

          • CancelMyCard December 28, 2019 at 6:44 pm #

            John,

            True that is.

            The children of today are NOT EDUCATED on the value of money management. At all.

            They are led to believe that somehow, some way, there will always be a Mommy/Daddy/Government that will step in and bail them out, no matter what the circumstances.

            Pathetic. Really.

            For themselves, and for those of us who will be taxed to death to pay for their ignorance.

    • ellipsis December 28, 2019 at 9:36 pm #

      As Ol’ BillyJeff himself might have replied, “Depends on what the definition of missing is.”

  32. Janos Skorenzy December 28, 2019 at 3:48 pm #

    Kdog on top of a tall building: I am at War against the Law of Gravity, he shouts. I will fly! He spreads his “wings” and step off. He drops, crushing some of his followers far below.

    Don’t be offended, Dog. I am like unto Ishmael, a wild ass of a man, every hand against me and my hand against all. The next statement is general, not directed at you.

    Btw, don’t force us to unite with Islam. That’s the nuclear option. You won’t like the results….

    • malthuss December 28, 2019 at 6:36 pm #

      Mussies hate dogs. K dogs or white dogs.

      • CancelMyCard December 28, 2019 at 6:53 pm #

        “Mussies hate dogs. K dogs or white dogs.”

        Muslims hate non-Muslims.
        Black, white, yellow, red . . . it matters not.

        There, fixed it for you.

        • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 9:03 pm #

          Don’t forget CmC, Muzzies themselves are getting hammered pretty hard in Burma and in China. Muzzies not only dish it out, they’re on the receiving end too.

          Of course in Western and Northern Europe they have free reign.

          Have you noticed the chaos lately in Iraq. Fighting still going on in Syria, Libya a basket case, and ISIS running amok in Central Africa.

          brh

      • SoftStarLight December 29, 2019 at 3:06 pm #

        Yes, dogs are not haram but are unclean enough that they certainly could not be kept in the house. The Prophet Muhammad however loved cats. And he was a White man too. I believe there are hadiths that document his distaste of Blacks.

        • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 7:28 am #

          White like Jesus was white? 🙂

  33. malthuss December 28, 2019 at 6:37 pm #

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsaEUM9xgOY

  34. BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 8:56 pm #

    I doubt anybody in CFNation cares about what Jane Fonda is doing, but she got herself arrested again in her ‘Fire drill friday’ or some such climate change protest. These climate protesters make great virtue about getting arrested, not only Florida but protesters in London and NY as well. Apparently it demonstrates how serious thwe situation is and how committed to the cause they are. Other washed up Hollywood people like Ted Danson and Lily Tomlin got arrested too. The irony here is they’re in DC making speecehes on the cold streets, bundled up in winter jackets, at the same time there’s heavy snow falling just east of where they live in SoCal, haha. Hey Jane, go home and shovel your driveway.I’m not sure how these luminaries are treated in their brief lockup. Rest assured they bail themselves out pretty quick and its off to the Ritz Carlton by stretch limo for their exquisite garden salads and a few bottles of fine wine.

    brh

    • ellipsis December 28, 2019 at 9:34 pm #

      Well she had a nice ass back in the day anyway. Any spawn of Ol’ Henry was almost certainly going to turn out fucked up anyway. Pretty decent actor in his day, but a totally screwed up human being from all the accounts I’ve read.

      The Boomer generation (I are one too) has now officially entered it’s overtly ridiculous phase – inevitable for all generations to some extent or another – so they/we probably deserve some slack. Or maybe some extra abuse? What the hell, every generation eventually takes their turn in the barrel, and god knows we deserve ours.

      Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm will be coming around again in 2020 for yet another season on HBO – as good a sendup of the utter stupidity of Hollywood Boomers as anything out there.

      • BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 10:49 pm #

        Yeah, the Boomers. To begin with, what a label.

        Had all the answers back in ’69, now they don’t even know what the questions are

        • ellipsis December 29, 2019 at 6:28 am #

          We sold out soon after that. The natural reaction to all that misplaced youthful idealism?

        • Majella December 29, 2019 at 9:16 pm #

          I’m a late boomer. In 1969, I was 12, and had watched 3 years of Vietnam on the gogglebox, and had little idea about how the world worked outside my own community.

          Hereabouts, I fell relatively ‘young’

          • Majella December 29, 2019 at 9:28 pm #

            Feel…

    • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 12:01 am #

      “CFNation cares about what Jane Fonda is doing”

      BRH,
      Well, count me as intensely interested. Hardly a day goes by that I do not, in an entirely unhealthy manner, scan the obituaries, hoping against hope that the traitorous bitch has finally met her comeuppance.

      Every day I have been disappointed. I choke down my loathing and then curse whatever deity suffers her continued existence.

  35. wwg1wga December 28, 2019 at 10:09 pm #

    Institutionalized ROT, II.
    http://www.got-truth.com/docs/Institutionalized%20ROT%20II.pdf

    Q.

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  36. BackRowHeckler December 28, 2019 at 11:14 pm #

    Speaking of generations, what generation does Bernie Sandals belong to? He’s not a Boomer because he was born before WW2 ended. A pre Boomer then. These are strange times. Take it back a century and try to imagine a candidate running for president who was born more than half a decade before the Mexican War started, running for president 2 years after the end of WW1. Its almost laughable. In 1920 I believe there was 1 US Senator left who had served in the Civil War, Francis Warren. And he was pretty old.

    brh

    • malthuss December 28, 2019 at 11:48 pm #

      you know so much history.

      I found this, makes me wonder,

      #3 Speaking of Colorado, one group of high school students was recently forced to recite poetry that contained worship of Moloch. Apparently that whole “separation of church and state” thing does not apply to pagan deities: A school in Steamboat Springs is under scrutiny after a parent reported an assignment in which students were required to recite sexually explicit and/or distasteful poetry that includes worship of the pagan deity Moloch as well as conveying the topic of “sexting” in society – which was assigned to eleventh grade students without parental consent.

      • BackRowHeckler December 29, 2019 at 11:18 am #

        Much high strangeness going on in the public schools, Malthus. No longer is it the 3Rs and a little civics and good citizenship training, and it hasn’t been that way for a long time.

        Lefty political indoctrination and introduction to bizarre sexual and gender theories seem to be the order of the day.

        Brh

      • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 11:25 am #

        I wonder if the aberrant teachers are all avid marijuana users. If I was a parent in a school with these beasts, I would ask for their dismissal.

    • Majella December 29, 2019 at 9:27 pm #

      1928-1945 is labelled The Silent Generation, like my parents. Born into the depression or the war, they sort of fell between two stools.

      Bernie at 1941 (and co-incidentally shares my birthdate, along with the great Peter Sellars & Sir Cumference himself [Harry Secombe]) is a very late-era arrival, so could more likely be seen as an early boomer. He certainly got politically involved at a very young age – arrested in 1963 (aged 22) at a Civil Rights rally in the South, before it even became a thing.

      But he didn’t sell out in 1969 as someone severed up-thread. You could not find a more consistent person in the whole body politic.

      • Majella December 29, 2019 at 9:29 pm #

        Severed = avered

  37. Pucker December 29, 2019 at 3:22 am #

    Attorney General Bill Barr worked for the C…IA.

    “But Adnan Khashoggi was not only an arms dealer; he also worked with and for the CIA. During this period, Epstein was known to boast that he was a CIA agent as well. Khashoggi was not his only link. Epstein’s old Dalton connection Donald Barr had worked for the OSS before becoming a headmaster. Barr’s son William Barr would later work for the CIA as well.“

    Dylan Howard and 2 more
    Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales

    • SoftStarLight December 29, 2019 at 2:51 pm #

      That is very disturbing and I don’t like hearing it. You know, a while back in the 2018 midterms I heard that a record number of CIA people were running for Congress. I think a lot of them got elected too.

  38. roccofire December 29, 2019 at 3:23 am #

    Thank JFK, another interesting view on our society. I want to thank the CFN members who talked about Kurt Vonnegut’s book, ” GALAPAGOS”. I read it in one sitting,something I have not done in ages, since the invent of Netflix, and Amazon Prime, Hulu, cable tv I have forgotten to read, but that book sadly reminds me how big media has me dumber!!

  39. Walter B December 29, 2019 at 7:45 am #

    Say or think what you want about Tulsi, but it is clear that she is the only democrat that is capable of actual thinking:

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rep-tulsi-gabbard-says-impeachment-will-only-embolden-trump/ar-BBYqqlY?ocid=spartandhp

    For my money, the entire Trump sucks and “Impeachment” fiascos are probably being run by DJT himself because they are certainly having the effect of drawing people to him rather than from him.

    • Majella December 29, 2019 at 8:56 am #

      Walter

      There may yet be hope for the GOP and some commonsense about the Senate trial;

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/blumenthal-some-gop-have-very-severe-misgivings-about-mcconnell-impeachment-strategy/ar-BBYp9fn?ocid=spartandhp

      • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 11:22 am #

        Democrat dreaming-

        One GOPer having misgivings about McConnell and the “trial” and she was immediately threatened. Any RINO that goes against MCConnell will not be back after 2020, just like Pelosi over her caucus. The Deep State controls large areas of state and local politics.

        Not only have the Democrats not forgiven Trump for having the audacity to beat the Witch in 2016, but so have the RINOS not forgiven him when he took out Bush the third. The Deep State’s two chosen “gods” were taken out by non-politician non-Deep Stater who is threatening their little game.

        CFNers may not like Trump’s 20th century playboy mentality, but voting for anyone else is fatal for this country’s independence from government domination. Same for the Congress, both houses. Latest polls show that the moderate Dems elected in 2018 to the House in reaction to Trump’s attack on ACA are getting hammered, because tada, they voted for impeachment. I smell a Reaganesque landslide coming.

        The best part is that the Dems did it to themselves. Do not mess with Mother Nature and the voters.

        • SoftStarLight December 29, 2019 at 2:25 pm #

          But that’s just it, we live under government domination as it is. It’s the type of government that is at issue. We won’t be able to escape having some type of ruling class. Our ruling class now has and is willing to sell us out. We are expendable to them and on top of that they actually resent us and despise us. Imagine instead if we had a ruling class that was loyal to the country and us first and foremost. It would change the dynamic of everything in society.

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:44 am #

            All governments ‘dominate’ What else could you expect? Anything but a regulator & law enforcer is not a ‘government’?

        • Majella December 29, 2019 at 3:32 pm #

          Here’s a brief bio of Lindsey Graham. It includes the rather incongruous things he had to say during the 2016 campaign.

          https://youtu.be/l9136mhL_xE

        • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:41 am #

          Yes, JohnAZ, but Himself relies on the support of the craven ‘deep state’ GOP. What’s his next move?

      • BackRowHeckler December 29, 2019 at 2:12 pm #

        Majella —

        What trial?

        One way or the other, there isn’t gonna be one,

        You heard it here first

        from your …

        Back Row Heckler

        That annoying sonofabitch in the cheap seats

        “Will somebody remove him please?”

        • Majella December 29, 2019 at 3:34 pm #

          Sounds like Himself at a Hillbilly Nuremberg Rally!

          Who hereabouts has attended one?

          Did you leave thinking differently to when you arrived?

        • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 7:31 am #

          ” “Will somebody remove him please?” ”

          Back in the day, they used to carry them out on stretchers.

          Or so someone said, to motivate the faithful… 🙂

  40. wwg1wga December 29, 2019 at 12:23 pm #

    pleasant valley sunday!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtkkPbErK9E&list=PLl55Zh3U2VW7YD-JKHT0vYIk1ZCrK7c4-&index=27&t=0s

    Q.

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  41. Epicur December 29, 2019 at 12:52 pm #

    For those who ponder the depth of the Deep State, ponder this:

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-hed-take-it-yes-biden-considers-barack-obama-supreme-court-nomination

    • Majella December 30, 2019 at 4:36 am #

      That would need a No McConnell senate with 67 Dems 9or is the ‘nuclear option’ still a thing?)

  42. SoftStarLight December 29, 2019 at 2:05 pm #

    I don’t understand why more people don’t think its strange to believe that everything in the universe ultimately formed by random chance after a cosmic cataclysm that came from nothing and was caused by nothing. And doesn’t it take a leap of faith to believe that?

    • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 2:14 pm #

      SSL

      Think about each of us. Three trillion cells, totally interdependent, and the vast majority of the time it works perfectly for seventy to ninety years.

      Random chance?

      Yeah, right!

      Another random chance. The one fertilized egg cell with DNA that creates a three trillion cell body and “knows” where each cell belongs, what its function is, and hangs them all in space in proper order.

      • tucsonspur December 29, 2019 at 5:48 pm #

        You, we, come from Pikaia. The Universe evolves according to its mysterious, wondrous dictates. And ‘random’ may not be so random. There are trillions and trillions of stars and planets in the Universe.

        “By measuring the number and luminosity of observable galaxies, astronomers put current estimates of the total stellar population at roughly 70 billion trillion (7 x 10^22).”

        Say the chances of you or I forming out of physical law are 1 in ten trillion. That leaves 7 billion chances of coming into existence.

    • ellipsis December 29, 2019 at 2:28 pm #

      Stanger still that anyone would feel the need, much less the capacity to form a definitive belief about but such matters at all. Far better to accept the mystery and realize that whatever belief you form that attempts to “wrap it’s fingers around the matter” in anyway – whether scientific, religious, or otherwise – is inherently flawed, more than likely tragically so, and just leave it at that.

      • Majella December 29, 2019 at 3:43 pm #

        Science seeks to understand what, how & why. It’s a fascinating journey. Whether any individual chooses to ascribe the wonders science has discovered to a creator is pretty much irrelevant.

        I recommend Bill Bryson’s latest -“the Body – a Guide for Occupants”

        https://www.amazon.com/Body-Guide-Occupants-Bill-Bryson-ebook/dp/B07MCVWXDK/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+body+-a+guide+for+occupants&qid=1577652188&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

        Let the mystery be…

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlaoR5m4L80

        • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 6:08 pm #

          Majella,
          Sweet little Iris Dement…I have several of her albums.

      • GreenAlba December 29, 2019 at 5:48 pm #

        Absolutely.

        People who can live with uncertainty (aka mystery) are less likely to want to bump off other people who don’t agree with them, whether militant religious types or militant atheist types. Or tell them they’re going to some ‘Hell’ of their vile imagining.

        This…

        https://www.barnhardt.biz/2019/12/26/this-is-what-happens-when-you-hold-a-false-base-premise-ignorant-scottish-hermits-sever-communion-with-the-holy-see/

        …posted by Janos to me upthread, is what you get when people pursue religious dogma to the point of insanity.

        Better to stick with the Cromwell’s famous plea to the Assembly of the Church of Scotland:

        “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”

        Shame he wasn’t into taking his own advice, but what’s new?

        • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 6:20 pm #

          Each individual is a contest between “me” and a power “bigger than me”. Call it whatever you want God, Karma, the government. When “me” overpowers “BTM”, all kinds of bad things can happen, or not. The job of whatever socialization and morality a person is exposed to is to create the alternative to “me”.

    • Majella December 30, 2019 at 4:44 am #

      …and it’s occurred time & time again…

  43. The Man They Call Zazelle December 29, 2019 at 4:58 pm #

    Just a note to be aware that, at this time of year in some parts here in the Northern Hemisphere, if you make a snowperson and are caught calling it a snowman, you run the risk of having it removed by the authorities.

    Thaaanks!

    • The Man They Call Zazelle December 29, 2019 at 5:50 pm #

      Oh, and no snowflake jokes please.

      Thaaanks!

      • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 6:10 pm #

        “Oh, and no snowflake jokes please. ”

        Zaz,
        But yellow snow jokes are permitted, even encouraged….

        • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 6:22 pm #

          If you cannot call it a snowman, do you have to put breasts and a bra on it?

          How stupid can you get?

          • The Man They Call Zazelle December 29, 2019 at 7:01 pm #

            It is about being gender inclusive!

        • The Man They Call Zazelle December 29, 2019 at 7:04 pm #

          It depends what you are talking about, elysianfield, but please be cautious about potential offence.

          Oh and speaking of which, I prefer to be referred to as The Man They Call Zazelle.

          • capt spaulding December 29, 2019 at 8:22 pm #

            I know just what you mean. They often call me Speedo, but my real name is Mr. Earl.

          • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 10:52 pm #

            Captain,
            …So You’re the one that’s taking other folks’s girls?

          • Majella December 30, 2019 at 8:50 am #

            Seriously? If you plan to hang around here as much as the regulars, you may have to respond something vaguely similar….like ‘Z’.

  44. Pucker December 29, 2019 at 5:57 pm #

    Jeffrey Epstein was a college drop out who was good at Math and “schmoozing” (networking). Epstein dropped out of college twice. Key attributes of Sociopaths are that they are “charming”, “manipulative”, have a dysfunctional front Right Brain Lope that can’t process Empathy, and they can’t finish tasks so they tend to “drop out” of school.

    Epstein’s first job was teaching Math at a private high school prep school in Manhattan. Epstein used to go to the school wearing an artificial fur coat and wearing a big gold necklace on a hairy chest with several buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. Epstein would pick up teenage students at the school. Epstein got a job on Wall Street with Bear Sterns through the parents of one of the students.

    Epstein got in bed with a big Saudi arms dealer and drug runner in the 1980’s during the Iran Contra fiasco during which Epstein linked up with the Clinton’s during the time when Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas when they where flying Cocaine into Arkansas as depicted in the Tom Cruise movie “Made in America”.

    Epstein was boning Ghislaine Maxwell who was the J,.ewish daughter of the J,,,ewish British media tycoon Robert Maxwell who they think was a triple Russian, British, Moss…ad spy. Ghislaine was procuring girls for Epstein’s blackmail operation.

    Epstein transferred his assets to an irrevocable trust 2 days before his death and his trust was never liquidated so they think that Epstein is still alive in hiding. At one point, Epstein was traveling around on real passports with fake names.

    Dylan Howard and 2 more
    Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales

    • Majella December 29, 2019 at 6:09 pm #

      Pucker

      Your ‘…’ between ‘J’ & ‘Wes’, and ‘M’ and ‘ ossad’ continues to fascinate.

      Do you really think that:

      A) the NSA is watching YOU, specifically; and
      B) their systems are so basic as to be beaten by such a simple ruse?

      • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 6:13 pm #

        Majella,
        You are correct regarding the relative sophistication of the NSA…if you wish to confound them use…igpay atinla….

        • Pucker December 29, 2019 at 6:18 pm #

          Algorithms..,,

          • Pucker December 29, 2019 at 6:21 pm #

            Next, we’ll have to endeavor to confound the foreign and domestic Sexbots….. The Chinese and Russians will try to upload their AI software to American Sexbots….

          • elysianfield December 29, 2019 at 10:58 pm #

            “The Chinese and Russians will try to upload their AI software to American Sexbots….”

            Puck,

            This could be a good thing…I hear the hot Russian Bots rarely say “no”. The American models demur with a variety of excuses… FOD, for example…(Or so I’m told)….

            If you do not know what FOD is…ask the Captain.

  45. Pucker December 29, 2019 at 6:18 pm #

    “The Afghanistan Papers” is a weird book. It’s basically a long litany of US soldier field reports of battlefield encounters in Afghanistan written in US military jargon. I’m not sure that it’s worth reading? I perused it. What struck me about the book is reflecting upon my earlier readings of studies of counterinsurgency doctrine. Apparently, guerrilla wars are “winnable”, but you’ve got to obtained an overwhelming preponderance of force so as to provide “security” to the local population and confidence in your authority. That’s not what has been happening in Afghanistan for the last 18 years as is clear from the “Afghanistan Papers”. It looks like the war in Afghanistan may just be a business opportunity for US military contractors to churn fees. Sick….

    Lenny Flank
    The Afghanistan Papers: A Selection of Leaked US Military Field Reports From the Afghan War

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    • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 6:41 pm #

      Don’t you think that part of the internal conflict in DC is between the hawks, who believe the way to maintain peace in the world is through military strength and presence, and those who believe that isolation and minding our own business is the best course.

      I wonder who is right?

      Maybe we should define victory? As a start!

  46. tucsonspur December 29, 2019 at 6:40 pm #

    For years now they’ve put Trump on Death Row. They tried to give him the chair, but couldn’t complete the ‘collusion’ circuit. They then tried to hang him with articles of impeachment but still haven’t tied the noose. Make no mistake. They want this man and his support of the West and Whites executed and erased.

    Who knows what fate the long list of perpetraitors may meet. Will there be justice, and if so, how much will there be? Having none seems almost intolerable. We could only build down, not up.

    Will 2020 be full of good and plenty, or will it be disappointing, hollow and empty, no cup o’ kindness for ‘auld lang syne’?

    • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 6:53 pm #

      It may all depend on if the Whites are significantly outnumbered by Nov. 2020. If so the battle is over. The next election is critical.

      Frustrating, Whites, seeking power, betraying the White heritage and common culture of the US, destroying the country.

      The Progressive Dems should be outlawed, except then we will have lost what makes us unique, freedom of thought.

      • tucsonspur December 29, 2019 at 8:09 pm #

        And that 3 million Dem vote plurality in the last election is worrisome.

        This from the last debate:

        https://www.theepochtimes.com/buttigieg-pushes-reparations-for-illegal-immigrants_3180572.html

        I hope I don’t offend, but to have this cock sucking faggot Booty Gig as leader of the nation makes me cringe and clamor.

        Sure, one could validly ask the question, “would his taking it up the ass affect his decision making at any summit meetings, e.g.?”

        Maybe not, but my wiring just doesn’t like it.

        • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 9:37 pm #

          Can you imagine this?

          Buttigieg in negotiations with Iran, and the Iranian ayatollahs trying to figure out how to behead him?

          Remember, they have no homosexuals in Iran.

          • tucsonspur December 30, 2019 at 1:04 am #

            Jeez, did they get them all?

            Duterte said he cured himself. Maybe he could help Booty.

            Well, to each his own but don’t try to be my president. Effin’ nerve!

          • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 5:46 am #

            “Remember, they have no homosexuals in Iran.”

            They do, in fact – they just have to live their lives in terror.

            They have lots of trans people too, who are approved. They have figured that being homosexual is so evil that you’re better being operated and becoming that which you weren’t before.

            That’s religious ‘logic’ for you.

        • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 9:43 pm #

          Most of that 3 million were in California.

          Thank God that The Electoral College exists or we would be run by the nincompoops in California.

        • BackRowHeckler December 29, 2019 at 10:27 pm #

          When President Buttgieg meets up with Putin in Moscow he’ll be bringing his husband, Chasten, along with him.

          Vlad Putin doesn’t quite what to make of it.

          Chasten will be a special guest at the First Ladies soiree. The next we see of Chasten he’s floating down the Volga in an iceberg. Once you leave the US it’s a tough world out there. Brutal!

          Brh

          • tucsonspur December 30, 2019 at 1:09 am #

            Called chillin’ the fruitcake.

        • Majella December 30, 2019 at 5:15 am #

          You can object to his political positions all you like, TS.

          You can have whatever opinions about his sexuality you choose, as well. Your wiring is your business, as is HIS wiring.

          But to conflate the two is a) pointless (he hasn’t a snowball’s) and b) petty-minded.

          However, pleased you found a forum to vent in, rather than a local bar full of big husky men wearing leather jackets and Nazi Officer – style caps…

          • tucsonspur December 30, 2019 at 7:20 pm #

            His wiring is full of shorted circuits. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have a chance to be elected, he is running and wants to be president.

            It’s not petty minded to not want a twink in the White House.

            Sometimes I go to the local lesbian bars and sometimes I score. I might be raped by those big husky guys.

    • BackRowHeckler December 29, 2019 at 7:46 pm #

      Yale psychiatrist Brandy X Lee has requested Speaker Pelosi use her authority to compel President Trump to submit to a psychological evaluation, and have him committed to St Elizabeth’s Hospital for the criminally insane. That’s the latest.

      IOW lefties don’t have much faith in this impeachment farce, and aren’t confident they will beat him in 2020. Panic is setting in.

      Brh

      • JohnAZ December 29, 2019 at 9:40 pm #

        Who is the crazy here? A psychiatrist that has never even seen or talked to the President calling to have him committed?

        Brandy. Shut your damn mouth!

  47. Pucker December 29, 2019 at 8:12 pm #

    I read that Coca Cola is contemplating making a Weed Coke beverage.
    High Fructose Corn Syrup beverage that gets the subject stoned and gives him the munchies so that he can eat more hamburgers and French fries.

    I guess that this is how we’re going to go out? I’d rather go down swinging like the Je…ws at Masada.

    • capt spaulding December 29, 2019 at 8:28 pm #

      As I recollect, Pucker, the Jews at Masada all committed suicide rather than be captured and enslaved by the Romans. The only way they went down swinging was by swinging razors at their own carotid arteries.

  48. Pucker December 29, 2019 at 10:01 pm #

    This is the private prep school where Jeffrey Epstein taught Math. Epstein used to show up to class wearing a big black artificial fur coat and shirt with 3 buttons undone to expose his hairy chest and his big gold necklace. Epstein used to pick up teenage girls in the school by showing concern for them.

    https://www.dalton.org/

    Dylan Howard and 2 more
    Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales

  49. Pucker December 29, 2019 at 10:22 pm #

    The Chinese billionaire Oligarch, Guo Wengui, likes to show off his flashy clothes and his private yacht and his private jet during his videos espousing Democracy and Rule of Law.

    “What was it that brought these leaders of industry, media, and politics into the inner circle of a college dropout? Maxwell family friend Laura Goldman has a theory, as she explains here: I believe that Jeffrey Epstein was a genius, a savant, at understanding rich people. This is what I know. Rich people are cheap, and rich people love nice things. What I believe that Jeffrey Epstein understood that and he provided people like Bill Gates, Bill Clinton with private planes, luxurious private planes and they just ate it up. It’s a sad commentary on our society. He understood that waving a private plane in front of Bill Clinton would make him a friend for life. He understood that offering a ride on the Lolita Express to Bill Gates and offering to talk to him about philanthropy would entice Bill Gates. He understood your weak point. It may be that he was exceptionally good at it and exceptionally good at understanding rich people, but it is the method of all bullies to do that.“

    Dylan Howard and 2 more
    Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales

    • malthuss December 30, 2019 at 10:26 am #

      go to you tube..jeremiah babes channel.

      he talks of a yacht that needs 65 million dollars a year to be maintained.

  50. BackRowHeckler December 29, 2019 at 11:39 pm #

    What happens if Breadline Bernie wins the nomination, but it’s a hard fight and it wears him down, and late next summer, in brutal August heat in some stifling, airless College auditorium, in front of a crowd of rapturous undergrads, shouting about ‘Revolution!’, he has another heart attack, and keels over stone dead onstage with only 9 weeks left before election day? Who will the last minute replacement be? Talk about making history. Don’t say Uncle Joe Biden because he has his own health problems and has one foot in the rest home too. It’s a gamble, nominating Bernie Sandals. The timeline doesn’t pan out. The halcyon days of the Sandinistas and the Cuban revolution are long gone.

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  51. lbs December 30, 2019 at 1:17 am #

    Actually, the people will not turn utterly cynical, at least not all of them. 40-60% probably.

    The ones who think the people on CNN and its ilk provide something more than pure gibberish won’t be cynical, they will remain in their drunken stupor.

    • Majella December 30, 2019 at 2:57 am #

      IBS

      Sorry, but you’ve got that the wrong way round. The Trumpsters only believe what Himself, Hannity, the Fox Friends, Pirro, and Ingraham says, and really have no clue what Bernie is actually offering. Lose the remote. Read. Think.

  52. Majella December 30, 2019 at 5:04 am #

    Hey, GA

    I just found this gem…it’s from 2016, but seems even more appropriate since Boris’ election win…

    Also, time to introduce this high-class female act to the Americans (et al ) hereabouts, most of whom would probably not have happened upon them – Fascinating Aida, the Brexit Apology to Scotland;

    https://youtu.be/mVy7faNKEtM

    And then the old classic, in the Irish style, ‘Cheap Flights’;

    https://youtu.be/uVASZ2lCY5Y

    And this belated Christmas message for Janos & Nightowl:

    https://youtu.be/JmoG4JY_T58

    • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 7:44 am #

      They’re great, aren’t they, Majella?!

      I’ve already seen the Brexit Apology to Scotland, but I’ll watch the other two shortly (I may have seen Cheap Flights – can’t remember) on something with sound.

      But they’re all worth watching twice anyway. 🙂

      • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 7:46 am #

        They come to the Edinburgh Fringe – I should try to catch them next time if they’re not sold out.

    • SoftStarLight December 30, 2019 at 10:19 am #

      That was fun! United we stand, divided we fall. So then it is official. You do want to be united with people who were idiotic enough to vote for Brexit in the first place?! Aren’t you setting yourself up to get hurt in the future then since you are so pro-Remain?

      • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 11:19 am #

        SSL, please, it’s a song. Have you absolutely NO sense of humour?

        I’m not all that pro-Remain. I voted Remain, but there are Brexits I could get behind, as I’ve clearly said before. But not one designed by neoliberals like Rees-Mogg and Farage who have an agenda that’s closer to the wellbeing of corporate American and its acolytes than that of ordinary British people.

        Remember I don’t support the Scots Nats either. United we stand, for now. At least I’m consistent.

      • GreenAlba December 30, 2019 at 11:23 am #

        SSL, this is Liam Fox, the Brexit Trade Secretary:

        https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/oct/15/liam-fox-atlantic-bridge

        Seriously, you want me to support these people? You think they’ve got the people’s interests at heart?

        For goodness sake, look outside the template.

  53. Majella December 30, 2019 at 6:06 am #

    ‘WHAT IS TRUTH?”

    It’s been said that the Jester was tolerated in otherwise brutal royal courts, as the only one to tell the Boss Guy (king, tsar, emperor, sultan, whatever) The Truth. He would couch it humor – usually song & skit.

    Still true today. In the US there’s the ‘Late Night’ hosts who actually get to TRUTH…It started with Jon Stewart & he’s generated a whole new stable of satirists.

    While Trump will cuss out CNN et al without a blink, he rarely turns his wrath on Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah and the like.

    I find when watching a cable show, the first few minutes is useful, but the 20 minutes of “panel” discussion is a total zero. Hence, Late Night shows are succinct & coincidentally, funny in comparison.

    Watch this 7 minute non-partisan analysis from Vox.

    https://youtu.be/-fUDIucr2eo

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

    • BackRowHeckler December 30, 2019 at 6:31 am #

      Hey Majella, it remains to be seen …

      If a Dem is elected next Nov, if these late night talk show hosts will remain ‘Jesters’, as you call them, speaking ‘truth to power’, but suddenly transform into unabashed sycophants, toeing the party line and sucking presidential ass starting Day 1.

      Brh

    • BackRowHeckler December 30, 2019 at 6:42 am #

      And then we will know whether or not the people you mention — Noah, Meyers, Kimmel — are good faith critics — or paid shills running agit/prop operations for the DNC.

      brh

      • Majella December 30, 2019 at 8:52 am #

        Apply Occam’s Razor….ffs!

      • Majella December 30, 2019 at 12:19 pm #

        Well, they’re already ‘paid’, s o there’s that…how they handle Himself’s successor depends largely on how big a douche bag that person is.

        No-one will ever be the comedy-gold gift like this one has been.

    • SoftStarLight December 30, 2019 at 10:11 am #

      And quite amazingly – none of them are funny.

      • Majella December 30, 2019 at 12:15 pm #

        You might rephrase that to “ I find none of them funny”, which translates to “ I don’t like what they say about Trump”.

        Fair enough.

  54. Pucker December 30, 2019 at 6:35 am #

    Do you support the Progressive Jeffrey Epstein?

    • SoftStarLight December 30, 2019 at 10:08 am #

      No, I do not. 🙂 Lol, you and your questions sometimes.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

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  2. Evidence of Absence « Financial Survival Network - December 27, 2019

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  7. Scribbles On The Wall Of Time… | Not Something Else - December 27, 2019

    […] “Evidence of Absence”, whatever deep meaning that holds, is the title of James Howard Kunstler’s latest blog post.  Sometimes he chooses titles for his pieces that even more befuddle my already befuddled brain.  Nevertheless, the intention is clear, and a finer description of the state of the union that for the time being is America you would be hard pressed to find anywhere, as 2019 gurgles and whimpers its way down the plughole of time and one decade of decadence and destruction splutters to an end while another decade, of what sort we are yet to learn – though the writing I think is already being scribbled on the wall of future history – begins. […]

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  11. Are We About To Return To The Principle That “Actions Have Consequences”? – Patriot Powerline - December 29, 2019

    […] Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, […]

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  12. Evidence of Absence | NCRenegade - December 31, 2019

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  14. “Opposing Interventionism In Nation X Means You Love Nation X’s Government!” – Caitlin Johnstone – DE LA GRANDE VADROUILLE A LA LONGUE MARGE - January 6, 2020

    […] Evidence of Absence by JHK What is most perilous for our country now, would be to journey through a second epic crisis of authority in recent times without anybody facing the consequences of crimes they might have committed. The result will be a people turned utterly cynical, with no faith in their institutions or the rule of law, and no way to imagine a restoration of their lost faith within the bounds of law. It will be a deadly divorce between truth and reality. It will be an invitation to civil violence, a broken social contract, and the end of the framework for American life that was set up in 1788. Read this article here: https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/evidence-of-absence/ […]