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Who said the global economy was a permanent installation in the human condition? The head cheerleader was The New York Times’s Tom Friedman, with his 1999 book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, the trumpet blast for the new order of things. Since then, we partied like it was 1999, with a few grand mal seizures of the banking system along the way, some experiments in creating failed states abroad, and the descent of America’s middle-class into a Disney version of Hieronymus Bosch’s Last Judgment — which is kind of what you see on the streets of Los Angeles these days.

Guess what: the global economy is winding down, and pretty rapidly. Trade wars are the most obvious symptom. The tensions underlying that spring from human population overshoot with its punishing externalities, resource depletion, and the perversities of money in accelerated motion, generating friction and heat. They also come from the fact that techno-industrialism was a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end — and we’re closer to the end than we are to the middle. There will be no going back to the prior party, whatever way we pretend to negotiate our way around or through these quandaries.

The USA-China romance was bound to end in divorce, which Mr. Trump is surreptitiously suing for now under the guise of a negotiated trade rebalancing. The US has got a chronic financial disease known as Triffin’s Dilemma, a set of disorders endemic to any world reserve currency. The disease initially expressed itself in President Nixon’s ditching the US dollar’s gold backing in 1971. By then, the world had noticed the dollar’s declining value trend-line, and threatened to drain Fort Knox to counter the effects of holding those dollars. Since then, all world currencies have been based on nothing but the idea that national economies would forever and always pump out more wealth.

It turns out that they pump out more debt in the pursuit of that chimerical wealth until the economic viziers and banking poohbahs begin to declare that debt itself is wealth — and now all the major players around the world are choking to death on that debt, especially the USA and China, but also Japan and the dolorous commune known as the EU. Everybody’s broke, one way or another, even though they are up to their eyeballs in products designed to fall apart in a few years. Better learn how to fix stuff, especially machines, because a lot of it won’t be replaced going forward.

Notice that Mr. Nixon’s escape from the dollar gold standard coincided with America’s first oil production peak. It was actually more than a coincidence, though it is unclear that anyone but James Schlesinger (then head of the Atomic Energy Commission, and later Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy, and CIA Director) understood what that signified. Now America is back at a second and even higher production peak thanks to the illusory boom of shale oil. The difference now is that only 10 percent of the companies producing it make a red cent. For the rest, the main result is just more and more debt, contributing to the larger global debt fiasco. It’s now down to a race between the sensational depletion rate of the shale oil wells and the country’s flagging capacity to generate more debt with a dim prospect of it ever being paid back.

Who knows whether the Golden Golem of Greatness and the people advising him in the White House get where all this is taking us in the history of the future. One might suppose it’s behind Mr. Trump’s wish to Make America Great Again, the vision of a return to the economy of 1955, of men toting lunchboxes through the factory gates, and seventy million boomer schoolchildren dreaming of trips to the moon, and the hard-fought, transient blessings of Pax Americana. All that is a comfort to simpletons, no doubt, but not wholly consistent with what can be observed actually going on — which is a culture and a political system seemingly bent on suicide.

The zeitgeist knows something that we don’t. The arc of this story follows the breakup of old arrangements, including trade relations, alliances, nation-states, and widespread expectations about what ought to be. Some observers claim the US will be the “last man standing” in this journey to the post global economy. (We surely would want to avoid a situation where nobody is left standing.) But all the participants in the orgy now ending will be left at least cross-eyed and flummoxed in the new cold dawn of a world without the old mojo. If the center is not holding, better look for a place on the margins as far from the emerging economic black hole as possible.


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977 Responses to “The Zeitgeist Knows”

  1. venuspluto67 June 3, 2019 at 10:11 am #

    It occurred to me recently that there’s a weird parallelism between the Republicans and the Democrats: The Republicans seem to care a lot more about ever-increasing sovereign debt when they’re out of power than when they’re in power. Correspondingly, Democrats seem to care a lot more about worsening global warming when they’re out of power than when they’re in power. But both increasing amounts of unpayable debt and increasing amounts of fossil-fuel burning are indispensably necessary to keep industrial society in its current form chugging along.

    • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 10:23 am #

      Twixt a rock and a hard place, they are. There simply are no answers if they are to continue to serve their globalist masters (and serve them they must!), therefore they make up nonsense answers and hope the rubes won’t notice their fibbing. Mostly, we don’t, but we’re gradually catching on now.

    • fugeguy June 3, 2019 at 10:59 am #

      The gap between the 2 parties is so narrow that light can barely wiggle through.

      I’m basing that on actions, yea sure the rhetoric sounds vastly different but the actions, meh not so much…

      • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 12:45 pm #

        Yes, different historical origins and different marketing to their differing bases. But the Deep State is the Deep State. And many of them are friends back in the locker room regardless of their performances on stage, as in professional wrestling.

        • cbeard June 3, 2019 at 2:56 pm #

          The professional wrestling comparison is apt.

      • libertysghost June 4, 2019 at 1:36 pm #

        The similarities between the D and R governments in the modern era are much more important (and effectual) that any supposed differences “partisans’ want to highlight.

        More government…more debt…more war…less individual freedom (not always in that order).

        Their ends culminate much the same, but they use the “ways of getting” there to fuel rhetorical differences they conflate into a “important choices” you and I are simply “blessed as Americans with the right to make”.

    • Walter B June 3, 2019 at 11:00 am #

      That is correct venus, the jackasses and the Dumbo’s simply spew lines of crap to distract the masses and get re-elected. Once they are in all they do is line their pockets with payoffs and bribes. Neither the spiraling debt nor the planetary degradation can be repaired by any means that we here possess. Those in power serve only their masters and themselves, we are what’s for dinner.

      • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 11:23 am #

        I see that we share a taste in literature.

      • messianicdruid June 3, 2019 at 11:23 am #

        http://wallstreetonparade.com/2019/04/after-a-354-billion-u-s-bailout-germanys-deutsche-bank-still-has-49-trillion-in-derivatives/

        Headline:

        After a $350 billion U.S. bailout, Germany’s Deutsche Bank still has $49 Trillion in derivatives

        “On July 21, 2011, when the GAO released its audit of the Federal Reserve’s secret $16.1 trillion in bank loans during the financial crisis, a foreign bank ranked number 9 on the list of the largest borrowers. The loans went not just to the largest banks on Wall Street but to foreign derivative counterparties to the Wall Street banks. The foreign bank that ranked 9 on the list of the largest borrowers was Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank, which took $354 billion in revolving loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve….

        In 2011 when the GAO released the list of the banks that had received the $16.1 trillion in secret loans from the Fed during the financial crisis, two other foreign banks ranked in the top ten of those receiving this strange largesse from the U.S. central bank: the U.K. mega bank, Barclays, ranked number 5 with $868 billion in cumulative borrowings and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, also of the U.K., ranked number 8 with $541 billion in revolving loans from the Fed.”

        Notice that this $16.1 trillion loan was “secret.” Of course, some of us read about it back then, so it was not a secret. At the time, this figure was more than the US federal debt. What did all that money do? Supposedly it was to keep the European banks solvent, especially Deutsche Bank. How successful was that? Was $350 billion just a stop-gap measure?

    • CancelMyCard June 3, 2019 at 11:08 am #

      “. . . better look for a place on the margins as far from the emerging economic black hole as possible.”

      And where do you suggest that place would be, Jim?

      Upstate New York, maybe?

      • James Howard Kunstler June 3, 2019 at 11:17 am #

        That’d be a good start… — JHK

        • Mountain gal June 6, 2019 at 3:15 am #

          What do you think about the mountains of Western North Carolina? I hate snow and cold!

      • Jeremy June 3, 2019 at 11:55 am #

        A quiet corner of Devon is even better ;-))

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 6:59 pm #

        Deepest, darkest New Zealand…and you don’t HAVE to be a billionaire…the whole country is a ‘bunker’ against the future shitstorm.

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

    • TraffickingInDivinity June 3, 2019 at 11:46 am #

      Venuspluto76,

      Excellent point! Both sides complain when they are out of power.

    • Epicur June 4, 2019 at 7:52 am #

      “It occurred to me recently that there’s a weird parallelism between the Republicans and the Democrats:…”

      Most of the difference is in who’s nest gets feathered.

      The Dems want to lavish money on urban doo-dads like public transport and white elephantine school systems while the Repubs want vast exurban “growth” that flows to a wide range of contractors and developers.

      “Everybody” knows we “need” infrastructure spending, the fight is about who gets to dip into the sluice while the money flows by.

      Le Chatelier’s law is for me Holy Writ: “A system under stress reacts in a direction to relieve the stress.” Eventually the only way for the system to react will be by lowering the population – and it’s obvious that we don’t have the ability to do that voluntarily.

      • Epicur June 4, 2019 at 7:53 am #

        “who’s” – gee whiz

  2. Elrond Hubbard June 3, 2019 at 10:12 am #

    Hillary Clinton Testing Hollywood Waters With Planned Production Company & Studio Deal

    https://deadline.com/2019/05/hillary-clinton-hollywood-production-deal-chelsea-1202624556/

    “Former senator, U.S. Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump, has now turned her ambitions toward Hollywood.

    “Clinton is taking a page out of both ex-Celebrity Apprentice host Trump and her old boss Barack Obama’s respective books and attempting to partner up with Tinseltown, Deadline has confirmed. She and her daughter Chelsea Clinton are looking to put together a production company and a deal similar to what Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions inked with Netflix last year.

    “‘Hillary is still very popular out here and there’s been conversations with several studios and streamers about working on projects together,’ a top-tier executive said Thursday of the situation, emphasizing that nothing had been cast in stone at this point.

    “As interest on the other side of the table has already shown, it shouldn’t be that hard for Murphy Brown and Madam Secretary cameo-ing Hillary Clinton to pull this off. With strong connections to CEOs and executives through decades on the Hollywood fundraising circuit, the two-time Oval Office seeker is said to be thinking big picture in a financed slate that would spotlight female-centric stories and projects.”

    Anyone for advance tickets?

    • venuspluto67 June 3, 2019 at 10:15 am #

      I am so fucking glad I don’t live in sunny California!

      • Elrond Hubbard June 3, 2019 at 10:33 am #

        I’m told it never rains there… but it pours, man, it pours.

      • debt June 4, 2019 at 2:29 am #

        It’s a big place. Best to stay away from big metro areas.

    • malthuss June 3, 2019 at 10:21 am #

      She is very ill.
      The coughing, the spasms, falling down indicate this fact.

      • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 10:45 am #

        Yes, she looks like death warmed over of late.

        No worries. Her reservation in Hell’s Half Acres is paid in full. She’ll make a fine addition to the neighborhood. Probably even a stellar ward chief.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 12:47 pm #

          Yes, she’ll be inducted into the Hell’s Angels – the real ones.

    • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 10:24 am #

      Tickets hell!!! I wanna write the freakin’ scripts!!!

    • Q. Shtik June 3, 2019 at 11:46 am #

      nothing had been cast in stone – Elrond

      ========

      This reminds me of a mixed metaphor I love, namely, rocket surgery. Metals, like iron, are cast. Stone is carved.

      • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 1:01 pm #

        LOL! I catch myself almost using that one A LOT!

      • nkonyaman June 3, 2019 at 4:07 pm #

        Hmm, rocket science — OK; brain surgery — OK; brain science — OK; rocket surgery — mixed metaphor

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 7:01 pm #

        ..or ‘set in stone’ is more common…

      • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 10:57 am #

        I believe even the dumb @$$ retards can figure that 1 out – iron – forged, stone – carved. COME ON MAN!!!

    • lbs June 3, 2019 at 12:50 pm #

      I’d advise Hillary not to quit her day job, but I don’t believe she has one.

    • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 3:37 pm #

      Hey Hillary: cankles.com is yours for the taking…

  3. Neon Vincent June 3, 2019 at 10:13 am #

    The trade wars are having economic effects on all levels. On the macro level, experts on CNBC say tariffs on Chinese goods will reduce GDP and cause inflation. That didn’t animate my readers much. Instead, they were more concerned that
    tariffs on Chinese imports will prompt Dollar Tree to raise prices. That hit them directly in their wallets and they were upset!

  4. KarlDehrmann June 3, 2019 at 10:15 am #

    The signs are all starting to point to recession. With the current debt levels and ongoing trade wars, I’m not sure the Fed’s hot money is going to keep the party going this time. I doubt it all comes down at once, but I expect the next economic downturn to be the first significant “step down” in living standards on our way to collapse. Long Emergency, indeed.

    • malthuss June 3, 2019 at 10:21 am #

      Hot $
      fake $
      whatever.

  5. Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 10:17 am #

    Yet another great summation of the current state of affairs, Jim. Not sure “last man standing” is a title anyone will want to hold this time around, since it will also equate to the moniker “last greatest fool.”

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  6. thenuttyneutron June 3, 2019 at 10:22 am #

    The debt is only part of the problem. I am looking at Deutsche Bank’s price right now at $6.66 USD per share. Their derivative exposure is larger than the German economy! Will this be the spark that triggers a series of events that lead to bail-ins?

    I am debt free with a lot of cash after selling my house last March. I am scared that my money may become worthless as the next rounds of QE begin. I sure as hell can’t afford a house outright so I only have the choice of loosing it all if I can’t make the payment on a new house or losing it all to inflation. I might be better off betting it all at a roulette table!

    • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 10:30 am #

      As you correctly noted, better to be long in hard assets right now. Realizing that even those can certainly be stolen easily enough as well. But carrying a mortgage might not be all that risky either, as if the dollar collapses altogether repossession will be pointless, especially if the bank holding the note is out of business as well. Certainly won’t have to worry about your phony “credit rating” either way.

    • lateStarter June 3, 2019 at 10:46 am #

      Have you considered moving and buying a cheaper house with property that would still leave you with some cash on hand for day to day needs? Consider yourself lucky that you sold your current house before the next crash. Rather than sit and wait for upcoming bargains in your current area, try to move to someplace simpler with a possible future.

      Granted, I don’t know where you are now. Don’t wait too long though. I suspect people with money in the bank are going to be in for a surprise soon. As Scratch suggested, hard -assets. But good to have 6 months of expenses covered if possible. I try to keep 1 or 2 months worth of cash at home just to avoid any short-term panic.

    • malthuss June 3, 2019 at 10:59 am #

      666

      coincidence?

      cohen cidence?

      Like the price of the first ‘apple’

    • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

      “I am debt free with a lot of cash after selling my house last March. I am scared that my money may become worthless as the next rounds of QE begin. ”

      TNN,
      You are correct in your concern.

      I would suggest rural property…New York State perhaps.

      The Pacific Northwest is a virtual hell hole…avoid it…

      Just kidding…but don’t tell your friends.

      • thenuttyneutron June 3, 2019 at 2:19 pm #

        I interviewed for Nuscale in 2011. I liked western Oregon.

        The sad part about selling my house is how much I liked it and the area it was in. It was 200 yards from Lake Erie in NW Ohio. I had to jump from my old job at a nuke power plant that was losing money. Ironically the State of Ohio pushed a bill through the house giving the two nukes in Ogio a lifeline to the tune of about $200 million a year. The $200 million will be split between the only two nuke plants in Ohio. I may have been spooked to easily!

        I am glad that I left when I did because my current employer has had a hiring freeze in place since 2015. I made it in with only weeks to spare.

        The nuke industry is in a contraction in part because of the “cheap gas” being sold by the frackers. In a way it is not such a bad thing. I never liked LWR technology. The Gen 4 designs are almost complete. I just hope we have enough capital to actually build them because we are going to need them.

        I am not in a position to relocate to a better place now because I currently have a job that I like and pays a decent wage. The money is not as good as it used to be in Ohio but I no longer work a god awful rotating shift work schedule.

    • Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 12:45 pm #

      Get yourself a good RV, a 12 gauge, and safe stuffed with gold.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 12:50 pm #

        And bury the Safe, getting the Treasure Map tatooed on your chest. Buy a parrot and give it clues as well.

      • Urinthe Village June 4, 2019 at 1:49 pm #

        The RV, the shotgun and the safe are all toast when the local warlords (likely the remnant of the local constabulary) decide they need them more than you do. They will still have stores of full auto carbines, shotguns, pistols, flash-bangs, tear gas, tire strips and unlimited ammo as well as APC’s. Preparing as an individual is a pipe dream.

    • SpeedyBB June 3, 2019 at 10:55 pm #

      Nuttsy:

      If any of my Indonesian students ask me I suggest holding cash assets in Norwegian krona. Extremely stable nation / society of under 10 million, nearly a trillion dollars in the bank. I don’t see any downside.

      Except one would have to deal with the morose Norwegians and maybe spend time in that dank, gloomy environment.

      (I kid, Sid.)

      • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 10:51 am #

        “If any of my Indonesian students ask me I suggest holding cash assets in Norwegian krona”

        Speedy,
        I got ya covered…I am currently waiting for a BIG check from a Nigerian I have been corresponding with….

  7. Robert White June 3, 2019 at 10:33 am #

    I watched Nixon close the gold window with my Chartered Accountant father in 1971. After questioning the logic of moving from a gold backed dollar to an oil-backed dollar my CA father assured me that when the oil ran out the USA imprimatur and sovereign assets would guarantee the soundness of money in the future. I remember looking at my CA father and wondering how he and Nixon could be so sure of themselves on the calculus over my lifetime of existence?

    I knew that Nixon was not thinking of my future and I knew that my father was just going along with the industry recommendation at the time. In brief, at the age of 11 in 1971 August I realized that finance experts like my father had no real understanding of engineering proper or assets if they backstopped fiat with a commodity that would most assuredly run out of peak supply somewhere along the timeline of my life but certainly not their lives.

    Suffice to say that at the ripe old age of 11 I, for one, realized that Tricky Dick was sure selling a global boondoggle that would have to be addressed somewhere along the timeline of my life.

    And at the ripe young age of just under 60 I can now assert with certainty that the problems with the world reserve currency is that it is not backed by the age old standard of precious metal backing that made money universally trusted. Today money is merely a short-term vehicle for asset accumulation other than fiat USD as it is worthless as a savings tool given bank rates of interest on savings accounts.

    Today, short-termism reigns supreme and long term planning has been replaced by new deals that are really just the same as the old deals but with a different label & date affixed.

    It’s like the end game on Monopoly where the utilities are collecting all the rentier income for the private investor class that the utilities were not built for as they were all built for public use at not-for-profit prices. Only after Nixon commoditized fiat by backing USD with oil did we evidence a full commoditization of the public utilities industries.

    ENRON & Jeffrey Skilling were essentially the canaries in the coal mine. And Skilling was just released from prison a number of months back.

    RW

    • robert magill June 3, 2019 at 11:09 am #

      AS I recall Nixon promised that the dollar would be backed by “the full faith and confidence of the United States Government”. So much for that.

    • fugeguy June 3, 2019 at 11:16 am #

      This is a good observation about why the current culture is so short term. Hard to find anything well made now. If one of my tools made in 50’s or before finally breaks, lucky if the replacement makes if a year or 2 and my usage is down now and way down from father or grandfather. Yea, the technology is better and much more flashy but the craftsmanship is very lacking. Also the thinking and reasoning today is, well, best to not point out to the nit wits than there wits are lacking.

      CTD (cheaper than china) might be behind the current scuffle.

      • fugeguy June 3, 2019 at 11:19 am #

        CTC (cheaper than china) darn typos

      • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 12:13 pm #

        I’m a Tool & Die Maker [Mechanical Engineering Technician] and can assure you that high speed precision machining and System International Measurement Standards are providing top notch engineering for the current tool making industry all over the world.
        China produces some very fine craftsmanship these days and American made Snap-On tools are every bit as good or better than they were in the 50s.

        The best tools out of the 50s were German. Second best was the USA made stuff but even that was excellent. The mythology that China produces garbage mass production is factually wrong today. China’s mass production capability & quality control is world class today.

        When people advocate for repatriation of America’s manufacturing base & sector it is mostly for infrastructure purposes and employment purposes as that relates to middle class standards of living. Since Wall Street micromanaged America’s manufacturing sector to the netherworld of China we have seen wages stagnate & decline YoY.

        Repatriation of the whole manufacturing employment sector is necessary for all of us and our supporting infrastructure of government.

        A government without a strong unified manufacturing sector is a government in decline that is headed for obscurity.

        China will blow the doors off of the USA if the War Measures Act is ever redeployed in society following incidents that might lead to hot war. At this juncture in time it is now obvious to most that America must bring back a healthy & prosperous manufacturing industry unless the powers that be want to buy all of their manufactured goods from China amidst a cold war environment or a hot war environment.

        Trump spells hot war with his precursor trade wars which is really nothing qualitatively different from Smoot-Hawley Act of the dirty thirties.

        P.S. If you want vintage well made tools just start hitting the Flea Markets on weekends as they are jam packed with the vintage tools of the 50s & 60s now that the boomer generation is hitting retirement phase and their parents have mostly all taken dirt naps collectively.

        After I graduated from Tool & Die Making in college I realized that North American manufacturing was defunct given Wall Street’s wholesale slaughter of US manufacturing during the Reagan Revolution of Neoliberalism & Greenspan Put era of asset inflation along with debt accumulation. I then enrolled in university and eventually graduated with a B.A. Honours in Experimental Psychology only to find that without a PhD I would always be indentured into servitude of intractable debt.

        Not is all bad though. I make wooden Mason’s hammers on my wood lathe in spare time and the odd jigs & fixtures too. Working with metal was pretty dangerous anyways so at least I saved my hands & fingers from high production manufacturing environment.

        RW

        • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 12:54 pm #

          You’re missing the point(s). America should strive to be independent as much as possible, making all of our essentials. Beyond self sufficiency, it helps with the Unemployment problem. And if you believe in the Long Emergency, then you should consider the distances involved. We don’t want to be caught with a lessened capacity if all this was to collapse quickly.

          • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 1:03 pm #

            I’m suggesting that it would be best if America repatriated the whole manufacturing industry that they allowed Wall Street to offshore in the 80s under Reagan’s Trickledown Economic devolution.

            Thermodynamic efficiency is the only way to make a buck with the least inefficiency being the bang for the buck that gets us from point A to point B.

            Additionally, we have already collapsed outright and we are only running on fumes now.

            Trump does not produce enough gas to propel the Western Empire of Banking or enough to even fire up the global engines of business that run economies.

            RW

          • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 3:26 pm #

            Thanks. Marxism is against Nation though. That’s why they hate the tariff. But good on you if you kick that shit to the curb.

          • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 3:37 pm #

            I am a Grump Marxist for life, Janos. I will only kick Capitalism to the curb and not Marxism or Communism.
            As resident pinko Commie bastard I reserve the right to advocate for the pinkos in China & Russian Federation.

            Thank you, thank you very much.

            RW

          • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 12:10 am #

            You’re a Globalist then – and the Enemy of the People of any and all Nations.

            No Thanks.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 8:14 am #

            Janos

            “And if you believe in the Long Emergency, then you should consider the distances involved. ”

            Ah, at last, someone who understands that the UK cultivating trading arrangements with the US and countries even further away, rather than trading with countries on its doorstep is a foolish, regrettable and entirely predictable consequence of Brexit. Thank you.

        • Q. Shtik June 3, 2019 at 4:26 pm #

          graduated with a B.A. Honours in Experimental Psychology – R. White

          ===========

          No offence but, you don’t often see signs in store windows along Main Street that say Wanted: Experimental Psychologist. It’s just like my daughter’s degree: You never see an ad for an expert in Women’s Studies.

          • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 4:55 pm #

            I was asked to attend graduate school by the director of Clinical Studies at the University of Hawaii but I had to decline due to the $200,000.00 USD attending costs associated with specialization for a very marketable PhD in Clinical Studies plus a Counselling designation in Clinical Psychology.

            If I had approached a bank for a $200k loan to attend UofH I might have made it to the wealth transferring class of .01%.

            My degree is utilitarian and can be farmed out in various areas of real use to government & business/finance.

            I’m just not a successful individual, yet.

            I figure I still have 25 years to succeed in life and then it’s pretty much dirt nap time because Rock & Roll would not want me to live much past that age, methinks.

            RW

          • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 12:11 am #

            You try and find Obama’s academic records. That would be a true service to humanity. No one remembers him. The Conspiracy was so deep that he hardly ever had to even show up for classes.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 11:04 am #

            I got nothing against your daughter, but a worthless degree that cost $XX,XXX++ is just that – a worthless degree (accredited?). Let me also state I know someone who got a sociology degree that is basically no different than doing volunteer work. No money in worthless degrees *UNLESS* you get tenured. Otherwise, well – minimum wage as an adjunct (If’n yer lucky)!!!

        • fugeguy June 5, 2019 at 1:14 pm #

          So I would agree that China has some areas that are as a good as anyone. No doubt.

          But they still manufacture a lot of junk and even dangerous products.

          There still are cultural issues that result in large quality variances.

          And this is not an opinion. I have seen the empirical and statistical evidence/ data.

    • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 12:21 pm #

      “my CA father assured me that when the oil ran out the USA imprimatur and sovereign assets would guarantee the soundness of money in the future.”

      RW,
      And damned if he wasn’t right. Intelligent man.

      • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 12:37 pm #

        Dear old dad was intelligent but not in terms of engineering or Empiricism proper. Sovereign nations cannot utilize their own imprimatur to print money like the drunken sailors at the Federal Reserve do so that deficits don’t matter and everyone is supposed to be a religious Unitarian when it comes to America and reserve currency status. When America was gold-backed currency it was nothing special compared to other sovereign nations that were gold-backed but when America stole world reserve currency status with the petro-dollar USD it because hegemonic totalitarianism and pitted America against every other country in the entire world for scarce resources & diminishing returns on investment that were not protected by USD supremacy as the world reserve currency.

        My father failed to see that good engineers don’t build structures upon shifting substrates of financial sand. I never failed to notice that good engineering was never part of the Western Banking Empire as it can be fully characterized as a fraud & money-pump charade of little men that hide behind curtains.

        RW

        • SpeedyBB June 3, 2019 at 11:18 pm #

          Mr. White: “My father failed to see that good engineers don’t build structures upon shifting substrates of financial sand.”

          Now how about that Millennium Tower in San Fran, with its multi-million-dollar view condos? They didn’t bother to go down to bedrock. Now she leans.

  8. sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 10:36 am #

    Mr. Nixon’s escape from the dollar gold standard

    That was a DEFAULT on US debt. Nothing else. To everyone but the Murkin public.

    • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 10:38 am #

      Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

      • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 10:45 am #

        My prize! My prize! I want my prize!

        • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 10:52 am #

          Go ahead and get you a couple of them fine plump German brats off the grill and plop a big pile of sauerkraut, mustard, and mayo on ’em. Brötchen’s and light beer optional of course, but keep an eye on them carbs so they don’t get ya!

          • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 11:05 am #

            Yes Yes!

          • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 11:18 am #

            Autocannibalism? For shame, O’Scratch.

          • Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 1:03 pm #

            I’ll take a curry wurst and an ice cold Bischoff Bier bitte. I’d give my left nut for a decent brochen. NYC or other large metro areas may have specialty bakeries that serve fresh brotchen but here in the hinterlands “Wonder Bread” is all there is.

          • Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 1:09 pm #

            Damn forgot who I was talking to. Forget that bit about trading my left nut. Just a joke. Besides the dangling pair aren’t what they were 40 years ago so just one wouldn’t be worth anything to anyone. Guess I’m stuck with Wonder Bread.

          • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 3:49 pm #

            Bischoff Bier? Sounds like you’ve been down Rheinland-Pfalz way sometime in your travels. Good stuff! True to my Deutsche heritage, I tried my best to drink them dry a few decades back. Couldn’t quite git ‘er done, though.

          • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 4:38 am #

            There is no good beer in Rheinland-Pfalz and the Brötchen here are largely pumped out by Backwerk and other chains these days.

            If you want good beer and bread, you need to be south of Franken at the least. IMO of course 🙂

  9. sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 10:43 am #

    Given that the world economy is a bit dicky at present, what with peak oil and global warming and all, I wonder how smart it is to start trade and tariff wars?

    As a governor pointed out, Trump has a history of playing with fire, but this is diddling a live hand grenade.

    • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 11:03 am #

      It depends on how long negotiations go on and how many diplomats stay overnight on Trump properties. By low sell high or own the store.

      • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 11:16 am #

        Thank you, K-dog. Not used to thinking that way. I’ll try to correct that.

        • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 11:41 am #

          If you own hotels you make money by renting rooms to people who attend conferences and such things. Promotion of such events is part of your business. The Trumpster was never sure he would win the election despite all his bluster; so in no way was he prepared to be national top dog. He thinks he is running a hotel so he promotes spectacle to bring in business and he will rent a room to anybody.

          • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 12:07 pm #

            Duly noted.

  10. messianicdruid June 3, 2019 at 10:44 am #

    “Thou shalt not steal.” Too simple.

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    • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 12:57 pm #

      Nor covet as coveting leads to stealing. And tempt not thy brother by keeping your goods in plain sight. Lock them up in barns and warehouses. And keep your Maidservant hidden and if she must go out, make sure she covers herself well.

  11. FincaInTheMountains June 3, 2019 at 10:52 am #

    Why nobody is asking a simple question: which companies in the United States are benefiting most from the huge trade deficit with China and what is their political and ideological affiliation?

    That’s when you need to start to understand the question of “Trade War with China”.

    Like the former NAFTA agreement, the most of the money flow from trade with China is currently diverted to the businesses, associated with the Deep State of Hillary Clinton, bypassing the budget of the American Official State (in form of tariffs, for example)

    Trump can’t tolerate supplying his worst enemies with resources, necessary to wage war against him and the American people.

  12. volodya June 3, 2019 at 11:06 am #

    The difference now is that only 10 percent of the companies producing it make a red cent. For the rest, the main result is just more and more debt, contributing to the larger global debt fiasco. – JHK

    This is an example of more calories expended in the planting than calories collected in the harvesting. The calories are denominated in dollars, dollars just a book-keeping device for tracking effort spent in sucking oil out of rock.

    Any peasant farmer would know the concept in his bones because for him the consequence is starvation. But high finance types on Wall Street have no real clue.

    “Learn to code” is the sneer delivered by the – cough – creative class to America’s Deplorables. But this comes from people practiced in defying reality and you can defy reality for only so long.

    Thrift is no longer a behavior practiced by the post-modern hedonist and pretty much gets laughed at as something only for grannies in thread-bare sweaters that bore anyone within earshot with recollections of the the drone of the Heinkels and that nice young uniformed man that promised to marry her on his return. If I was a betting man I would bet that laughter will become the attitude to the idea of promptness in paying interest on government or corporate bonds. Like the nice young man that never came back, promptness will go missing in action.

    And why not? Defiance of reality is what Wall Street does. But not only Wall Street. It’s a mental illness that’s wide-spread. How many times have we heard that debt doesn’t matter, and that deficits are irrelevant?

    Learn to code? Learn to code my ass. When the wheels come off because of these excursions into stark lunacy it’ll be the self-admiring “creative class” learning to farm, at which 90% of them will fail. Miserably.

    • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 11:15 am #

      Asceticism used to be the finance rule only to be replaced by a zeitgeist of Hedonism which tends to follow the free market hypothesis of Cocaine & Hookers on Wall Street.

      There is more to life than Cocaine & Hookers, methinks.

      RW

      • fugeguy June 5, 2019 at 1:23 pm #

        I agree again but with another caveat.

        Everybody should snort the stuff off a hookers behind at least once. One must live a little, especially while young.

        Please forgive me 😉

    • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 11:39 am #

      It’s illustrative that for all or at least most of the major auto makers now, financing is far and away their major profit center. Honest “work” no longer pays the bills in almost any field of endeavor.

      • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 11:51 am #

        Wealth no longer represents man hours of labor.

        Only faith in the system.

    • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 11:49 am #

      Faith in the societal ability to pay debt is what keeps it going.

      Oil specifically is a good example. We are willing to write off the oil debt to keep getting our gas tanks filled. Faith is derived from necessity. What will change this? Supply shocks as supply sources get hit with diminishing returns.

      Oil has already risen fro less than $10 a barrel to $50-70 in the last forty years. It will continue. Is there a breaking point or does the frog slowly boil to death?

      • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 12:58 pm #

        As Gail Tverberg harps on constantly over on her blog Our Finite World, oil can only be produced within a fairly narrow price range, as it has to be both cheap enough to be affordable for consumers and industry alike, while still being priced high enough to to be profitable to discover and produce, keeping in mind that accumulating debt overhangs from previous production efforts, absent additional government subsidies, bailouts, or debt reorganization through bankruptcy, must be accounted for as well. The pattern in which this plays out over the long term is as a periodic whipsawing between the two price/demand/production extremes, with the frequency of those intervals generally indicating the current stress levels on the system. We’ve been in a rather long period of relative stability for the past ten years or so, but of course we also know that government interventions in oil price markets are now the rule of the day. Such seeming stability is usually bought at a heavy price in later instability – often marked by wars! (Iran anyone?) – so we’ll have to see how that turns out.

        • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 1:33 pm #

          Nice summary. Where Gail and I differ is that she seems to believe in markets, while I believe in government interference.

          • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 3:18 pm #

            Yep, governments like to have it both ways: preach free markets, while practicing intervention at every turn. Gail bends over backwards – often at the expense of credibility – to be strictly academic and neutral. But I think her intended audience is largely academic, although I doubt she’s reaching many of them either.

    • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 12:30 pm #

      “anyone within earshot with recollections of the the drone of the Heinkels …”

      Volodya,
      Nice

      • volodya June 3, 2019 at 12:43 pm #

        Half the nit-wits that finish high school think that the WW2 dust-up was the US allied with Germany against Russia.

        On college campuses they say “fascist” and “nazi” having no clue what either actually was.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 1:03 pm #

          Yes, but that’s no more crazy than what actually did happen. You folks are running into the negative side or Law of Diminishing Returns now on your program to dumb down America. It obviously worked, but how can you work with people this dumb?

          Since everyone’s a Nazi, no one is a Nazi or the sheeple even have the temerity to call Bibi and the Gang, Nazis since they fit the all encompassing criterion, the dragon’s teeth that you sowed with such gleeful abandon.

        • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 3:29 pm #

          Actually, that’s not all that far from the truth. There were significant elements in the US – certainly Dulles and all of his minions – and GB camps who viewed the USSR and Stalin as the far greater threat. Unfortunately young Master Adolph went completely off the reservation and had to be spanked hard, especially after he committed the massive PR faux pas of getting caught with all those nasty extermination camps, which completely upset their immediate plans for implementing the Western New World Order in the wake of WWI. To their great surprise, debt peonage – of countries, of institutions, and of people – didn’t work any better then than it’s working out now. I wonder how much carnage we’ll have to endure this time to relearn that lesson once more?

          • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 4:27 pm #

            That’s what I’m wondering too. How much worse will World War Three be in comparison with WW2 when it comes to wrecking everything in sight and destroying much beloved historically significant architecture all over Europe where most of the historically significant buildings are?

            We have already evidenced what America did with the twin towers so we know all that NYC stuff must be expendable in the eyes of the US MIC, eh.

            Martial Law will be declared before any war breaks out.

            RW

          • SpeedyBB June 3, 2019 at 11:35 pm #

            Twin Towers = aluminum siding joint. No one seems to remember all the hatred generated toward those monstrous monuments to the New Brutalism around 1969, particularly the citizens of lower Manhattan who would lose hours of sunlight every winter morning.

            Not to mention the fact they were ucking fugly.

            (Curious as well that when a B-25 ran into the 1930s-built Empire State Building it barely rattled the windows, while the WTC did what Dan Rather blurted out was “…almost like a controlled demolition…” when those [admittedly heavier and quicker] jetliners ran into them.)

          • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:46 am #

            More than a few serious writers have contended that we’ve been fighting WWIII since the end of WWII, and at the very least since 9-11. The US GWoT is basically an open-ended US Declaration of War on anything and everything, so there’s no doubt whatsoever who the primary antagonist is this time, official DC’s feeble protestations of “we was attacked” notwithstanding.

            Personally, I’d date the beginning of hostilities to the fall of the Berlin Wall, as the US became completely mentally unhinged with the fall of its sole “mortal enemy” in which it had invested so much blood, treasure, and mental and psychological energy in vilifying during the post-war period. There’s good historical evidence that nation states who aspire to become global hegemonic empires simply go mad from the effort, and the US is currently providing a text book example of that theory.

    • abbybwood June 3, 2019 at 2:45 pm #

      Saw this film recently about a young city couple buying a farm near Moorpark, California. “The Biggest Little Farm”:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfDTM4JxHl8

      Loved it!!!

      • Farmer McGregor June 3, 2019 at 4:29 pm #

        Gotta comment here, Abby. Also saw the movie; it is a fun, heartwarming visual spectacle (the dude was a wildlife photographer, you know) with a lot of simplistic explanations of the roles of biodiversity and natural systems harmonized with agricultural productivity. It is also a contrived story that required some millions of dollars to put together — building a pond, large irrigation infrastructure, thousands of fruit trees, massive labor inputs not possible with just a handful of volunteers or interns…

        It’s a nice feel-good story with some honest portrayals of hardships like livestock losses due to predators, though it was obvious to me that some of those losses were as much a product of bad management as they were to the presence of coyotes. Very enjoyable flick, just not realistic for anyone actually doing this stuff.

  13. wm5135 June 3, 2019 at 11:07 am #

    “The USA-China romance was bound to end in divorce,…….” JHK

    ” Everybody’s broke, one way or another, even though they are up to their eyeballs in products designed to fall apart in a few years.” JHK

    1. China is busy filing their papers with the court of international opinion and compromise is not on the table. China has also noticed that a carrier group is a target and not a threat. There will be no shared custody either, Taiwan is Chinese and that is the end of the discussion.

    2. The project on my desk at the moment is the modification of a building- Business General- into a self-storage facility. The owner has no hopes of another tenant and is expanding into a growth market.
    “All that is a comfort to simpletons” JHK – those paying rent to store possesions that have no value and no use.

  14. Pucker June 3, 2019 at 11:07 am #

    What is this about?: “…while growing numbers of Christians compare our times to that of the late Roman Empire and ponder a fundamental withdrawal from wider American society into updated forms of Benedictine monastic communities. ”

    “Today, some 70 percent of Americans believe that their country is moving in the wrong direction, and half the country thinks its best days are behind it. Most believe that their children will be less prosperous and have fewer opportunities than previous generations. Every institution of government shows declining levels of public trust by the citizenry, and deep cynicism toward politics is reflected in an uprising on all sides of the political spectrum against political and economic elites. Elections, once regarded as well-orchestrated performances meant to convey legitimacy to liberal democracy, are increasingly regarded as evidence of an impregnably rigged and corrupt system. It is evident to all that the political system is broken and social fabric is fraying, particularly as a growing gap increases between wealthy haves and left-behind have-nots, a hostile divide widens between faithful and secular peoples, and deep disagreement persists over America’s role in the world. Wealthy Americans continue to gravitate to gated enclaves in and around select cities, while growing numbers of Christians compare our times to that of the late Roman Empire and ponder a fundamental withdrawal from wider American society into updated forms of Benedictine monastic communities. The signs of the times suggest that much is wrong with America. A growing chorus of voices even warn that we may be witnessing the end of the Republic unfolding before our eyes, with some yet-unnamed regime in the midst of taking its place. Nearly every one of the promises that were made by the architects and creators of liberalism has been shattered. The liberal state expands to control nearly every aspect of life while citizens regard government as a distant and uncontrollable power, one that only extends their sense of powerlessness by relentlessly advancing the project of “globalization.” The only rights that seem secure today belong to those with sufficient wealth and position to protect them, and their autonomy—including rights of property, the franchise and its concomitant control over representative institutions, religious liberty, free speech, and security in one’s papers and abode—is increasingly compromised by legal intent or technological fait accompli. The economy favors a new “meritocracy” that perpetuates its advantages through generational succession, shored up by an educational system that relentlessly sifts winners from losers. A growing distance between liberalism’s claims and its actuality increasingly spurs doubts about those claims rather than engendering trust that the gap will be narrowed. Liberalism has failed—not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself. It has failed because it has succeeded. As liberalism has “become more fully itself,” as its inner logic has become more evident and its self-contradictions manifest, it has generated pathologies that are at once deformations of its claims yet realizations of liberal ideology. A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and, of course, expand liberty, in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom. Its success can be measured by its achievement of the opposite of what we have believed it would achieve. Rather than seeing the accumulating catastrophe as evidence of our failure to live up to liberalism’s ideals, we need rather to see clearly that the ruins it has produced are the signs of its very success. To call for the cures of liberalism’s ills by applying more liberal measures is tantamount to throwing gas on a raging fire. It will only deepen our political, social, economic, and moral crisis.“

    Patrick J. Deneen
    Why Liberalism Failed

    • FincaInTheMountains June 3, 2019 at 11:16 am #

      Which Roman Empire are you talking about?

      State called Byzantium never existed, from the word at all.

      The Eastern Roman Empire was called Byzantium by a German monk in the 17th century, so that everything connected with the Eastern Roman Empire, and this was a huge territory all the way to the Dniester plus Crimea, would not be connected with Rome.

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 7:40 pm #

        Wikipedia:

        “Byzantium (/b??zænti?m, -??m/ or Byzantion; Ancient Greek: ?????????, Byzántion) was an ancient Greek colony in early antiquity that later became Constantinople, and then Istanbul. The Greek term Byzantium (or Byzantion) continued to be used as a name of Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire, even though it only referred to the empire’s capital.[1][2] Byzantium was colonized by the Greeks from Megara in 657 BC, and remained primarily Greek-speaking until its fall in 1453 AD.[3]”

    • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 12:31 pm #

      Looks like a great book. The first two Amazon reviews were even better.

      “Libralism has become laser focused on ending oppression. But how was this to be achieved? Classical liberalism envisioned a world run by markets where our only limitations were of our own making. Progressive liberals saw a powerful benevolent state ready to cripple the enslavers and deliver everybody to themselves. Family, propriety, dignity, anatomy, environment, faith – all these were simply tools of oppression to be overcome by the means of market or state; at least that is Deenan’s contention.

      This book could be called “In Defense of Culture”. That might even be better – a full throated clamoring for us all to remember that we are not place-less, sex-less, past-less, future-less entities. We did not arrive to planet earth, grown in a plastic bag by scientists for use of the elites, as is so often portrayed in the new post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies; our brains empty though our bodies are fully formed.”

      ………………..

      “By “liberalism,” Deneen means the philosophy of the Enlightenment, built on the core idea of maximizing human liberty, with its ultimate philosophical roots in Francis Bacon, adapted by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and mediated through John Stuart Mill. Deneen begins with his central claim—that liberalism is reaching its end, because it was a beautiful-seeming thing, built on lies. Liberalism is like the Queen in Snow White, a mortal who over time has become ugly, but who retains the outward form of beauty through a blend of careful management and acts of evil. But as with other ideologies, such as communism, it must fail, because it denies human nature, and it loses legitimacy as the resulting gaps between its claims and the reality of lived human experience become ever more visible. In the end, the Queen, and all ideologies, are exposed for what they are, and die.

      The failure of this liberalism is not the failure of today’s political liberals, or what might generally be called progressives. Deneen ascribes blame for the rise and fall of liberalism equally to both progressives and to most American conservatives, what are sometimes called classical liberals. Both liberals and such conservatives pursue autonomic individualism while ignoring the deeper reality that such overemphasis on individualism is anti-human and doomed to failure. The failures of liberalism are failures of the state and the market, which are intertwined, not opposed, and the resulting plant is watered equally by conservatives and liberals. There is no Jack cutting at the base of this beanstalk; when it falls, it will be because it has rotted from within.”

      https://www.amazon.com/Why-Liberalism-Failed-Politics-Culture/dp/0300223447

      • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 12:16 am #

        Yes, important. Even “conservatives” are Liberals. Only the very earliest ones like Burke were anything different. And only a powerful morality and a deep knowledge of human nature can protect the good aspects of Liberalism against itself. All the more needed in a post Christian society – and all the less likely to occur. Basically a Culture needs a religion. Profound soul searching apart from any Tradition is only for the very, very few.

        • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:33 am #

          Agreed. A culture must believe in something larger than itself and that thing must be unifying, not atomizing, as modern Liberalism aspires to be. Individual wealth accumulation and personal glorification are leading to the downfall of the west. Decadence is our highest aspiration these days. Even the dirt poor aspire to it now.

  15. K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 11:08 am #

    If is not a no-fault divorce ‘constructive abandonment‘ or a failure to perform marital relations should fill in the blank.

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  16. volodya June 3, 2019 at 11:20 am #

    SoftStarLight, regarding your reply to me last week, that’s just it, what we’ve got isn’t education but rather its opposite. People who have a high school diploma have gone to school for thirteen years including kindergarten and yet are considered uneducated. How can that possibly be? It’s largely true given rampant underachievement, but given the vast expenditure of time and money, how is such a result possible? What we have here is a colossal failure by not only the educational establishment but also parents. How can so many people have failed so miserably? Given the gigantic sums pissed away on college, how can it be that grads are such knowledge-less, clueless, witless ninnies, especially in the arts and humanities? And you ask, what good is it to write a great essay and have no idea as to live in the real world? The answer is none whatsoever.

    • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 11:35 am #

      College has morphed into a rather expensive, extended baby sitting service, as the kids are no longer grown up by the end of high school, assuming they even make it that far. On the bright side, they’ve got social media to fall back on these days, so why worry about anything else? With any luck, they’ll either fall victim to or be an active participant in a mass shooting, thus giving their short, pitiful lives some semblance of meaning.

      • malthuss June 3, 2019 at 1:26 pm #

        196—college in USA.
        Mostly white males.
        IQ–averaged 110, from what I read.

        then the 60s-70s and’studies’ and ‘remedial’ [as in cant keep up].

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 7:42 pm #

        Quick! Insure you kids while they’re still cheap!

    • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 1:09 pm #

      Americans love the “light” state of mind with a passion. The realization was forced on me again watching people go a Sports even dressed in the jerseys of “their” team. This uniformity or participation mystique takes the place of real civil society and getting along with others when it comes to serious business.

      No serious thoughts can be retained by people who loves distraction and silliness this much. Such things are downers and are deleted from consciousness or only retained long enough to get a “grade” or a promotion or whatever.

      • malthuss June 3, 2019 at 1:27 pm #

        sports and watching them are about ADRENALINE.
        The rush of it. winning. fighting.
        modern day gladiators.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 3:29 pm #

          That I could get into. I’d much rather watch people kill each other, then feel guilty and sordid, and then reject the whole thing. These people are lukewarm and will be spewed out (Christ). Since it’s so “harmless” they never get that precious psychic correction. So they go to perdition skipping, painting their faces, and wearing the names and numbers of other men on their bloated bodies.

  17. Pucker June 3, 2019 at 11:22 am #

    “….a culture and a political system seemingly bent on suicide.”

    During my recent flight to Chicago, I flew first class. In the first class cabin was a gay black male steward who had a curious name that sounded like “Cleetus” which was bizarre because I had always thought that only white rednecks had names like “Cleetus” and “Cooter” or “Billy Bob”.

    In any case, the gay black steward evinced an obvious antipathy towards serving the white passengers. After eating some salty almonds, I asked Clietus to make me some hot English breakfast tea to quench my first. Begrudgingly, Clietus went to prepare my cup of tea during which I saw him sneeze into his hands and then without washing his hands he put his hands all over the tea bag and the cup. Clietus placed the cup of tea on my tray, but I didn’t touch the cup. Lots of angst in the society.

    https://nypost.com/2019/06/02/dewayne-craddock-had-been-getting-violent-with-co-workers-before-virginia-beach-shooting-report/

    • Pucker June 3, 2019 at 12:00 pm #

      In one of the “Harold Head” 1970’s hippie comic book series, Harold got a service job as a bartender. Harold resented having to serve the customers. One customer who Harold particularly resented came to the bar one day, and Harold mixed the bloke’s drink using Harold’s penis as a “Swizzle Stick”. One frame of the comic strip showed Harold’s cock in the high ball glass being shaken vigorously. Too bad that Hollywood can’t make Harold Head movies rather than those crappy super Hero movies.

      • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 12:36 pm #

        Puck,
        When eating a meal on duty and in Uniform, especially in a “diverse” setting, we would not eat where we could not view the meal being prepared.

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 11:35 pm #

        Ah, “Harold Head”..!

        I also just recently found a solitary “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” in the dark recesses of the basement. What a blast.

        Does anyone recall the one-page gag about the drunk with the false teeth and one false eye, bumming drinks from a pretty thick barman? (And if you do, was it HH or FFFB?)

    • Tate June 3, 2019 at 12:41 pm #

      If you flew 1st class & received that level of service, you should lodge a complaint against Cleatus. Even though this comment section is all about the end of the world, nevertheless, standards must be preserved.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 1:14 pm #

      Gay Sex Guru Dan Savage told of going to the Republican Convention with a bad cold and licking as many door knobs as he could so as to spread it. His fans adore such anecdotes. Normies, Straights, Red Necks, Republicans, Whites – they deserve no mercy. They even think people who lick doorknobs are low lifes!

      • malthuss June 3, 2019 at 1:25 pm #

        maybe it made them stronger?

        funny aside..I was on youtube last night.
        there was a talk from his? ‘it gets better’ channel or theme.

        the guy in talk…mulatto with a coal burner mama.

    • Majella June 3, 2019 at 7:48 pm #

      Pucker

      It reads as if you didn’t make a complaint, either about his egregiously non-professional behavior, not the more subjective sense of ‘begrudging’ service.

      Why not?

      It also implies that there were lots of ‘non-white’ passengers with you in first class. Were there?

  18. FincaInTheMountains June 3, 2019 at 11:23 am #

    This is an example of more calories expended in the planting than calories collected in the harvesting. The calories are denominated in dollars, dollars just a book-keeping device for tracking effort spent in sucking oil out of rock.

    Bad example, because dollars are bad faith device for tracking effort spent in oil pumping, since they are subject to political manipulation, calories are hardly that way.

    • Majella June 3, 2019 at 7:51 pm #

      Right, and it is quite simple to measure the actual calories (energy expended) to get that oil from the reluctant rock. ROEI.

  19. JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 11:28 am #

    The Elite are deserting the US. And taking their capital with them. Problem is there is no place to put their “wealth”. Wealth is faith. Faith in the financial sector. Faith in the goodness of corporations, faith in the goodness of the value of precious metals, faith in the durability of oil production.

    We are losing faith in all the above. The derivatives market rides the stock market, rides the bond market, rides the money market, rides industry and oil, that rides hard currency that rides gold and silver.

    One very difficult thing to “stomach” is that you cannot eat gold and silver. Faith in all the above CAN collapse. The slow erosion of the wealth vs. debt ratio is a measure of the deterioration of faith. Debt itself needs faith that it does not matter. Faith keeps creditors holding off on calling in their debt. Destroy faith and the house of cards instantaneously falls down.

    Try to visualize society without money. Without a way to reserve wealth. If enough income inequality occurs, around the world, the collapse may occur as bond holders, pension holders, 401k holders, foreign countries start to call in the cards try to to keep up their life styles.

    As far as trade wars go, moot. The world is so intertwined that is one country goes, they all go. Trump is using tariffs as the only tool that exists to sway other country’s attitudes on issues critical to US interests. Cowardly presidents of the past fifty years have created the trade imbalances that exist today. Trade imbalances equals debt. Who creates trade imbalances, we do. The Elite just benefit from our insistence in buying overseas products.

    It will cease, and there will be no where to hide as the world economic pyramid goes down.

    • volodya June 3, 2019 at 11:52 am #

      Like many other things, individual rights among them, wealth only has meaning inside the context of a nation state that has got functioning institutions like legislatures, regulatory agencies, impartial law courts, etc.

      So, the wealthy are leaving the US. Where they gonna go? China? Wealthy Chinese are abandoning China to avoid a capricious government that doesn’t hesitate to deprive people of life and liberty and property without even the fig-leaf of due process.

      The EU? Makes me laugh, an organization founded in the ashes of two wars to give shape to the neo-liberal project and to recognize the pre-emptive surrender of France to Germany. Given that neo-liberalism in its essence is to make the world safe for people with money, I’m sitting here scratching my head wondering how that’s possible when national leaders go out of their way to deride their own working class.

      The Cayman Islands?

      Cowardly presidents? And how. And idiotic too.

      Trade imbalances equal debt. A cigar to you sir.

    • KarlDehrmann June 3, 2019 at 11:59 am #

      It took me a long time to see that fiat currencies, all financial instruments, and even gold/silver are not truly “wealth” at all. All are merely calls on future wealth. And that future wealth doesn’t exist without fossil energy. The only real wealth in this world are land, the constantly decaying stock of tangible stuff in the built environment, and food stores.

      The trouble is, titles to land only exist if governments exist to enforce title, and/or don’t tax away your title. Most of the current built environment is non functional/useless without fossil fuels, and the food stores are going to be consumed pretty quickly once the trucks stop rolling. There really is no way to carry wealth through the collapse/bottleneck. Your wealth will be composed of those physical possessions you can keep hold of, your health, and your social connections. That their 401k, social security, and dollar denominated savings just “vanished” is going to be as incomprehensible to the average american as “land ownership” was to the native americans.

      They should have killed the first person that planted a seed in the ground. The move from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists has led us to this place…….

      • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 1:26 pm #

        And such Societies are weak and will be conquered by the Agriculturalists. Just as Liberal Societies are weak and will be conquered by the Muslims.

        The Indians Tribes had territories which the defended against other Tribes. They were too weak to hold them against Us – just as we are too weak to hold America against the incomers now. The moral? Strength is Virtue (from the Latin root, “vir” meaning strength) and Weakness is Vice.

        • KarlDehrmann June 3, 2019 at 3:30 pm #

          Oh, I don’t know, the Khan did okay for a while.

      • Jeremy June 3, 2019 at 1:35 pm #

        “All are calls on future wealth”.

        And that, my friend, is precisely where you are wrong.

        They are all calls on wealth – except Gold and silver, which are infact wealth precisely because they are NOT calls on future wealth. The energy and effort has ALREADY been expended in extracting and purifying them. Any idea how many tons of ore and KJoules of energy are needed to refine a 100 oz. bar of .999 Silver?

        Hold one and you’ll get to appreciate it.

        • KarlDehrmann June 3, 2019 at 3:28 pm #

          I made the mistake of dumping a years salary (pre-tax) into them on Chris Martenson’s recommendation back when gold was over $1500/oz and silver over $30.00/oz. They are still just tokens w/o any practical use. Houses are wealth because you can live in them, tools are wealth because you can use them in productive activities, food is wealth because you can eat it. All gold and silver can do is be exchanged for real wealth, just like the fiats. They are still just tokens, shiny rocks. In a world of starvation, who would trade food for gold? No one.

          Perhaps gold and silver will have some value on the other side of the bottleneck, but during collapse, I expect them to be worth little. Food, liquor, tools and women….those will be wealth!

          • Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 3:52 pm #

            Gold and silver coins are markers. They represent commodities. With a pocket full of gold and silver you can shop. You can easily store your wealth with gold and silver coins. It’s kinda hard to go shopping if your wealth is all liquor bottles, a Craftsmen tool kit and corn on the cob.

            Yes you did buy at a bad time but hopefully you kept that gold and silver. When shtf that $1500 oz of gold could be worth a year of food or a horse and cart or a case of single malt.

          • KarlDehrmann June 3, 2019 at 4:13 pm #

            We will see. I think all of you gold bugs are going to be sorely disappointed once collapse really gets rolling. I’m expecting it to be worse than most people though. Once the natural decline rates of the conventional fields (approx. 4-7% per annum) overtake the shale producers, the world economy is going to crash hard.

          • Farmer McGregor June 3, 2019 at 4:39 pm #

            Much agreed, Karl.
            When things go south, I simply cannot see me taking gold or silver in exchange for my food products. Gasoline or diesel fuel, firewood, hay, etc., totally yes. Good work boots, HELL yes!

            Pieces of useless metal, not so much.

          • Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 6:39 pm #

            Farmer M, Of course you will take gold and silver for your goods. You’d be a fool not too. How do I know this? Cause right now you are accepting green colored pieces paper for your goods. You also went to town recently and bought supplies using green pieces of paper. Yes you may have used plastic as a substitute for those green pieces of paper but the bottom line is you used the currently accepted mode of transacting business.

            Maybe not. Maybe you went to the fast food drive in and tossed a bale of hay up on the counter for your burgers? No you used green paper. Gold and silver is just a convenient way to transact business. At least it has been for most of history and will be again if the lights go out. You might get lucky and have someone come in willing to trade his boots for your food but most will probably have small handfuls of silver.

            I don’t deal in precious metals but owning some is just as smart as having a stockpile of food, fuel, ammo, etc. Read up on the history of money. Know how and why precious metals are so important now and in times past.

          • Majella June 3, 2019 at 8:12 pm #

            It’s more likely that the precious metals will be of little use in the ‘bottleneck’ for sure, when people’s priorities will be quite different to now.

            However, afterward, assuming there IS a viable ‘afterward’, these will have retained their value.

            Consider this:

            In ancient Rome, an ounce of gold could buy a person a high-quality toga, undergarment, belt & sandals.

            In 2019, an ounce of gold (around $1200 to $1300) will buy you a very nice suit, a few shirts, a belt and classy shoes.

            The ‘value’ is the same as 2,000 years ago.

      • messianicdruid June 4, 2019 at 12:54 pm #

        GreenAlba said, “I don’t have absolute faith in anything. That would be foolish.”

        I’m satisfied with a growing faith. This indicates life – things that are alive are growing. Any time stasis is achieved, death begins. When Christ reveals himself He imparts life [ knowledge leading to growth ] aided by simple instructions.

    • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 12:03 pm #

      “The world is so intertwined that is one country goes, they all go.”
      Do you really think so, John? What about Greece? Ukraine? Venezuela? They’ve gone. Didn’t take anything with them at all.

      “Trump is using tariffs as the only tool that exists to sway other country’s attitudes … ”
      Really? What about bargaining in good faith? That’s been known to work.

      As for gold and silver – true – but they’ve got a lot better history than paper. Oil is not a matter of faith, it’s today’s real currency. As for permanence, sic transit gloria mundi.

      As for cowardly presidents, you also state, “The Elite just benefit from our insistence in buying overseas products.” I think you’ve just identified the problem with the cowardly president hypothesis.

      • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 12:14 pm #

        Do you not think that the collapsing economies are dragging down the world’s global situation, and that more countries will approach the abyss which will start the snowball rolling?

        Bargaining in good faith is what has gotten us to this point. Where has it worked? The only times where societal conversion has worked, is Japan and Germany following WW2. That is because we shoved it down their Throat!

        Are you saying that President’s are owned by the Elite? Uh, yeah!

        • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 1:16 pm #

          1. Yes, I think that MANY collapsing economies will matter. You said ONE.

          2. Bargaining in good faith got us NATO, NORAD, SEATO, victory in WW2, NAFTA, an American Century that lasted at least until Nixon defaulted on the national debt. For starters.

          3. You seem to think that ‘President’s are owned by the Elite”. I simply note that this sentence constitutes an hypothesis which is quite different from the ‘cowardly presidents’ hypothesis.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 1:38 pm #

            The Global Empire of Evil, also known as Globo-Homo. Any War America fights is for Globo-Homo – as was World War Two. The Elite loved Weimar, with its child prostitutes and starving German masses. The Internationalists invited their kinsmen in to feast, revel, rape, and buy up Germany while the natives froze to death on the streets. But a Man arose….

          • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 1:48 pm #

            “Any War America fights is for Globo-Homo – as was World War Two.”

            I’m not so sure, Janos. The USA had been isolationist for a very long time (WW1 was an aberration, which was duly paid for). Remember that it was Germany that declared war on the USA, not vice versa. Perhaps Hitler’s greatest mistake.

            It was after WW2 that the benefits of empire beckoned. Power vacuum, and all.

      • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 12:42 pm #

        “As for gold and silver – true – but they’ve got a lot better history than paper.”

        Sauerkraut,

        Yes, but be prepared not to, as generals are said to do, fight the last war…. Historical accounts always provided for safe havens…somewhere. This may not be the case in a truly global conflagration.

        Think outside the box…the jewelry box, in this case.

        • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 1:18 pm #

          Agreed. Benr says it succinctly. And don’t forget, gold makes such wonderful bullets.

    • benr June 3, 2019 at 12:15 pm #

      @JohnAZ

      When the crap hits the fan true wealth is measured in Lead, water, fire and shelter.

      • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 2:38 pm #

        And food. You cannot eat gold.

        • benr June 3, 2019 at 2:51 pm #

          With the lead comes the food one way or another.

    • Tate June 3, 2019 at 12:19 pm #

      Indian squatters taking over land is a big problem now in the Southern Cone region of South America. The owner rides in on horseback or takes a 4-wheeler in for several rugged hours over washed-out roads & hands them a piece of paper telling them to move off. But they are illiterate peasants so the paper doesn’t mean anything to them.

  20. sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 11:46 am #

    Emergency! Guardian reports that Trump arrives in the UK and complains that he can’t get Fox News!

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    • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 11:56 am #

      Wouldn’t you like to have a friendly voice in a sea of antagonistic BS?

      • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

        I couldn’t make that up.

    • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 1:30 pm #

      “Emergency! Guardian reports that Trump arrives in the UK and complains that he can’t get Fox News!”

      I looked. It was buried among a whole lot of other stuff, in a live news column full of tweets, which I wouldn’t normally even bother to read.

      Much more important was the discussion about opening up the NHS to corporate America as part of a trade deal. Much, much more important.

      I don’t care where Trump goes or who entertains him. I don’t care if people clap him enthusiastically until his ego has an orgasm in full public view. It’s all theatre and those who make a fuss give him, as a personality rather than as the President, far too much attention. He thrives on this stuff. Feed him Fox News intravenously if he wants it – who cares?

      I’m far more concerned that the UK is going to ‘take back control’ and hand it straight to the US corporatocracy who are going to dictate our food safety, animal welfare and environmental laws as part of a trade deal and a race to the bottom.

      I’ve said this multiple times and not a single person on this site has explained to me how it comes under the rubrik of ‘taking back control’. At least the EU rules benefit our food quality, our health, our farmers AND their animals. America’s rules will just benefit burger sellers and chicken joints (not the ones belonging to the chickens, which will have a heck of a lot more work to do once they’re pumped full of US-approved growth hormones).

      Why aren’t we going to see US standards pulled up by the bootlaces to match ours instead? Stupid question… Big boy, small boy. Big boys’ rules.

      • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 1:41 pm #

        In essence, agreed. I simply noted an amusing anecdote.

        While the Deep State has spent generations trying to convince the world that the USA does not consist solely of bozos, along comes a president who undermines them at every turn. Some, I suppose, think that this is a fair price to pay to damage the Deep State, but I’m not so sure.

        • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 1:52 pm #

          Well, thank you, sauerkraut. That’s the first time someone has bothered to consider that there’s a difference between opposing Brexit as a concept, and opposing the (planned) consequences, which will to a large extent be just a different kind of stitch up by a different set of people. But with fries.

          • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 1:56 pm #

            Freedom fries?

          • Q. Shtik June 3, 2019 at 6:28 pm #

            kind of stitch up = GA

            ==============

            Second time for stitch up in a matter of days.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 7:33 pm #

            It’s extremely common idiom, Q.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 7:40 pm #

            sauerkraut

            Re freedom fries (sort of), I have for some time viewed with wry amusement how keen British governments seem to be to suck up to their former colony, hang onto its coat tails, fight its wars and now invite it to meddle with our domestic legislation. It must be some kind of unacknowledged guilt complex or another phenomenon I can’t quite put my finger on. I’m not aware of any other ex-colonial power that has this sort of psychological relationship with its any of its erstwhile colonies. 🙂

          • Elrond Hubbard June 4, 2019 at 1:34 pm #

            GreenAlba, Canada is a former colony too! Can we get in on this?

            We’ve recently been dealing with complaints coming from the Philippines, about a barge full of stinking garbage shipped there from Canada. This came as news to most Canadians, even though, well, it’s been there for six years at least. It’s hard to think well of yourself when you have to concede that Rodrigo Duterte of all people has a point. Anyway, it seems now we’ll have to take it back. But now I’m thinking, hey… maybe mom can help us out? What do you think, wanna do us a solid? A solid waste, that is.

            Sorry to pile on… I just couldn’t resist. 🙂

          • Q. Shtik June 4, 2019 at 5:06 pm #

            It’s extremely common idiom, Q. – GA

            =============

            Where you live perhaps but not by me.

          • Q. Shtik June 4, 2019 at 5:21 pm #

            wanna do us a solid? – Elrond

            ================

            An expression that really grates on my language nerve. It was made fun of in a Seinfeld episode.

            Another expression in the same mold is “have a good one.” I was with my wife at Costco today. After each customer a particular clerk checked out he directed them to have a good one. After I’d heard this perfunctory pleasantry a half dozen times in succession I had to bite my lip from asking a good WHAT?

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 6:39 pm #

            Q-Shtik

            “Where you live perhaps but not by me.”

            I was merely explaining why my using it more than once was not strange.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 5:32 am #

            Elrond

            Hmmm…sending your rubbish back to Mama…

            I think your back yard is bigger, so we’ll have to leave you to deal with your own detritus, like a big boy 🙂 .

            I read, rather more than seven years ago, that the UK had only seven more years of landfill capacity left. I periodically wonder how that’s going. I suppose I should google it.

            I believe China started refusing our rubbish and recycling some time ago too. There’s something really tawdry about sending your crap to someone else to deal with anyway, don’t you think? If it’s not OK to send your excess populations to other countries to accommodate, I’m not sure why it’s OK to send other countries the detritus you can’t be bothered to deal with at home. That includes us, obviously.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 11:25 am #

            Yeah alba definitely soker.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 12:25 pm #

            ZrCrypDiK

            I have tried to find out what ‘soker’ means, but you’ll have to help me out.

          • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 12:51 pm #

            I have tried to find out what ‘soker’ means, but you’ll have to help me out. – GA

            ============

            Back in the day there was a poster who, for many years, went by the handle Asoka (who, interestingly, claimed to be black). Asoka got banned and reappeared as Carol, Janet and recently as pkrugman. There were probably several other handles but I have forgotten them all and the order in which they appeared. Soker became shorthand for Asoka. Anyway, ZrCrypDiK is obviously wrong about you being “soker.” There is nothing in your belief system or writing style that resembles Asoka/soker.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 1:39 pm #

            Ah, thank you, Q. I know about the Asoka entity, but didn’t realise ‘soker’ related to it.]

            Now I’m doubly confused, because it seems suggesting responsible adult countries should sort out their own detritus – rather than sending it somewhere else, like an irresponsible teenage country might, makes me a government troll.

            But it’s definitely not worth losing sleep over.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 2:43 pm #

            “I know about the Asoka”

            Well, at least not every word out that mouth is a lie…

          • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 2:54 pm #

            And, do you (GA apparently) really think I attacked? you because you pointed out the obvious for 2 decades – that we outsource our garbage, just like we offshore/outsource our jobs? Why do you think there’s nothing left but min wage service.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 4:23 pm #

            Quote me a lie I’ve told you, CripDick.

      • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 2:37 pm #

        Interesting input, GA.

        Consider these:

        What you call the US Corporatocracy is actually international globalism. The big supposed US Corporations have just about destroyed the US economy in favor of globalism. Your comment on
        NHS is huge, I have heard financial problems are affecting NHS, but letting anyone from outside in to regulate or change it can only be negative.

        I think I hear you asking for nationalism and localization of regulation to solve the local problems. The E.U. is certainly not going to do that as they are part of the global bureaucracy.

        • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 4:59 pm #

          JohnAZ

          “I have heard financial problems are affecting NHS, but letting anyone from outside in to regulate or change it can only be negative.”

          Letting anyone outside in to regulate it? Americans ‘regulating’ our health service? What? I thought we were taking back control. I’m talking about American companies looking at a pile of fresh assets they haven’t previously been able to get their mitts on. That will be followed by your medical insurance companies moving in to make a killing.

          One of the reasons the NHS is failing is the amount of money paid to PFI (Private Finance Initiative) contractors who provide the equity for building new hospitals and are fleecing the NHS to the tune of seven times the initial investment over a period of 30 years, after which the hospital and facilities still don’t even belong to the NHS. It is a predatory transfer of massive amounts of public wealth to the private sector. There are other reasons, but that’s a biggie. You can’t pay a sufficient number of doctors and nurses if an equity fund are screwing you.

          https://www.european-services-strategy.org.uk/news/2017/new-evidence-of-the-scale-of-uk-pfippp-equity-offshoring-and-tax-avoidance

          “New evidence of the scale of UK PFI/PPP equity offshoring and tax avoidance”

          ” I think I hear you asking for nationalism and localization of regulation to solve the local problems. The E.U. is certainly not going to do that as they are part of the global bureaucracy.”

          It’s not up to the EU to solve the problem of the NHS – nobody asked them to. It was useful having doctors and nurses able to work here, though – we now have a staffing crisis which will be mitigated by using doctors from India. How sensible is that? It takes 10 years to train a doctor and there will now be less money to do it.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 5:00 pm #

            Anyway, that’s enough of Brexit and the NHS for one week 🙂 .

        • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 7:46 pm #

          JohnAZ

          “I think I hear you asking for nationalism and localization of regulation to solve the local problems. The E.U. is certainly not going to do that as they are part of the global bureaucracy.”

          I forgot to mention (again) that the UK Tory governments and UK financial lobbyists have fought tooth and nail for decades against the EU’s attempts at financial regulation. This is one of the main reasons why people like Rees-Mogg (investment banker) and John Redwood (investment banker) have pushed to leave the EU.

      • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 3:47 pm #

        >>> I’ve said this multiple times and not a single person on this site has explained to me how it comes under the rubrik of ‘taking back control’.

        Do the burgers and chickens come with immigration quotas?

        If the UK didn’t want all these food dependencies, then it should have kept its population growth under control. Once it’s free of the EU, it will have the means to do so.

        • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 4:46 pm #

          I only looked briefly at your article, Exscotticus, but it seems to be referring to refugees. The UK is not in Schengen (so they can’t just arrive here and get in) and it has an exemption, like many of the other exemptions it has, from the obligation to take refugees from outside the EU under EU regulations. I have explained this before. It is why we have a very small number of Syrian refugees and the government has mostly aided their compatriots in situ. We have of course contributed, along with the other EU members, to the funds being paid for several years now to Turkey to host millions of Syrian refugees who would otherwise be trying to get into the EU. Which I also mentioned already. A good use of funds, I’d have thought.

          The UK makes its own decisions about external refugees. You seem to be confusing the matter with the internal migration of EU workers, who are citizens of the EU. And the UK government didn’t even make use of the limits it was entitled to put on the presence of EU workers in the UK. And, much more importantly, the number of non-EU immigrants hugely outnumbers those coming from the EU. As I have also explained before. It would have made more sense to start there.

          The UK didn’t even produce all its own food at the time of either world war, so current issues with the EU have no connection.

          My mother’s parents had 8 children – 7 of their own and one adopted before that following a miscarriage or two. There was no real contraception – and a significant amount of social approval to have big families.

          “Once it’s free of the EU, it will have the means to do so.”

          Not necessarily. Some of the countries it wants (needs) a trade deal with, e.g. India, insist on extra work visas in exchange for a trade deal, just as the US insists on getting its teeth into the NHS and on influencing our domestic legislation.

          BTW, I’ve just watched the Dispatches documentary (filming done by an undercover reporter working there) on a massive chicken processing plant in Texas owned by an outfit called ‘Titan’ which apparently produces a fifth of the chickens, pork and I forget what else in the US.

          It was an utter disgrace. I don’t know how you allow that to happen – I doubt they’d get away with that level of lack of hygiene in Thailand. I guess it’s good enough for your ‘deplorables’ and is considered to be good enough for ours too.

          • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 5:41 pm #

            >>> You seem to be confusing the matter with the internal migration of EU workers, who are citizens of the EU

            You miss the point. If Germany lets in millions of Syrians and declares them German citizens, then they’re eligible to live and work in the UK. That will end with Brexit.

            In 2015, Angela Merkel UNILATERALLY decided to let in one million Syrian refugees. According to German law, these refugees can be eligible for German citizenship in as little as 6 years (so, 2 years to go). At that point, they can travel and work freely in the EU.

            You can play semantic games, but at the end of the day, it’s Germany deciding the future of the EU’s demographics.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 7:23 pm #

            You specifically asked if the trade deals came with immigration quotas. I have confirmed that in some cases they will, certainly in the case of India, as the Prime Minister told the PM when she first visited to discuss such a deal. One can assume it won’t only be India.

        • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 5:57 pm #

          U.K.’s Self-Sufficiency in Food Is at Lowest in Decades

          The U.K. is leaving the European Union at a time when it needs foreign food more than anytime in the past five decades. Self-sufficiency has been in decline since the 1980s, with the country producing 60 percent of its own food in 2016, according to data from the National Farmers’ Union.

          So… population up, self-sufficiency down.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 7:21 pm #

            “If Germany lets in millions of Syrians and declares them German citizens, then they’re eligible to live and work in the UK.”

            It was you who mentioned immigration quotas, which are irrelevant to the context you now describe. We had this discussion before. You seem to be suggesting that Syrians who have taken the time and considerable effort to become German citizens and learn reasonably fluent German, presumably by that time with jobs, are then going to decide, in considerable numbers…to take themselves off to the less favourable UK. I don’t buy it.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 7:28 pm #

            “So… population up, self-sufficiency down.”

            I’m not disagreeing with that. It doesn’t change the fact that having the US dictate UK domestic legislation isn’t ‘taking back control’.

          • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 7:46 pm #

            Do you have links that suggest the USA’s trade deal (food imports) are tied to UK refugee and/or immigration quotas? I would find that hard to believe under Trump.

            Do you have links that suggest the USA’s trade deal goes beyond matters of commerce?

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 8:41 pm #

            “Do you have links that suggest the USA’s trade deal (food imports) are tied to UK refugee and/or immigration quotas? I would find that hard to believe under Trump.”

            So would I. I don’t recall ever suggesting such an arrangement. You are aware of the conditions of a trade deal with the US to which I object. They relate to sovereignty in terms of domestic legislation, and American insistence on the lowering of standards to match America’s. And their insistence on the doors of the NHS being opened to them.

            Currently Michael Gove maintains that ‘no British Prime Minister’ will allow food safety, environmental etc. regulations to be dumbed down to get a trade deal. And both he and Jeremy Hunt insist that the NHS will not be up for grabs as part of such a deal.

            And yet, Trump’s ambassador insisted on the Andrew Marr show just a couple of nights ago that the health sector had to be part of the deal. I didn’t hear the whole thing, so I don’t know what he said about the agricultural sector, but it has long been the American position that our standards have to fall in line with yours.

            Do I trust the likely candidate, Boris Johnson, not to be the PM who will give the US what it wants? Not for five seconds.

            It is also Trump’s way of making it difficult or impossible for us to have a trade deal with the EU. Our regulations are obviously already aligned with theirs, so a trade deal with them would be infinitely easier without the interference of the US in our domestic legislation. It would also be infinitely more sane, as I’ve said before, because they are on our doorstep and not across an ocean, a fact that will increasingly matter for the reasons around which this blog is based.

            Do you have links that suggest the USA’s trade deal goes beyond matters of commerce?”

            Of course I don’t have links. You think such discussions are published? But maybe consider the matter again when we know whether Julian Assange is going to be extradited to the US or not. And the closer we get to the US generally, the more likely we are again to be drawn into your wars.

            Any trade deal with be secret. I have no right to see what is signed up to on my behalf just because I’m a British citizen. It may not even be the case that Parliament will have any say, despite current efforts to make sure that we are not sold down the river and our sovereignty infringed, without parliamentary scrutiny.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 8:43 pm #

            And the trade deal will not just concern ‘food imports’.

            Your ambassador said to Andrew Marr that it would necessarily include ‘everything that can normally be traded’, hence also health services.

          • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 8:52 pm #

            >>>> and American insistence on the lowering of standards to match America’s

            Ah OK. Hard to follow you since you mentioned deals with India involving immigration quotas. Perhaps India is a special case as a former colony? But then America was a former colony as well. Heck half the world was a former colony…

            So your concern is primarily a lowering of food quality standards. I think your concerns are justified. Like I said, reduce your need to import necessities. Imports should be limited to luxury goods like scotch. Although in my case, scotch is also necessity…

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 9:12 pm #

            It’s not just about the lowering of food standards – it’s about the implications for national sovereignty of having US standards imposed on us and domestic legislation interfered with.

            Sovereignty being the reason for Brexit an’ all. Not to mention the effect on farmers (although I will mention it, obviously) who cannot compete without lowering the standards in which they justly take pride.

            And I haven’t even mentioned that our producers – and not just agricultural – incur fuel costs that are more than twice those of your producers, but that’s a by the by.

          • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 9:36 pm #

            No one is imposing anything. The UK can decline American trade overtures. I don’t have to tell you your own history with regard to food shortages; you’ve weathered hard times before. Question is: can you do it now? With so many new people and new cultures inhabiting your isles, do you have enough cohesion to keep it together under adversity? Or have you all become fat and lazy and ready to cut a deal just like many wanted to with Hitler (before Churchill consolidated his power and put an end to appeasement).

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 2:46 pm #

            “No one is imposing anything. The UK can decline American trade overtures.”

            Yes, that’s like saying if you’re hanging off a cliff edge by your fingernails you can decline to accept the help of the guys with the ropes who intend to pick your pockets once they’ve hauled you up.

            You are forgetting the most important points:

            (1) This was planned from years ago by Tory Atlanticists, like John Redwood, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Daniel Hannan.

            (2) Trade deals will be negotiated in secret. The average British punter can quite simply f*** off, mind his own, and leave the negotiations to his elders and betters.

            While at least some information is getting into the public arena, finally, with e.g. programmes like the one I described, and Parliament is finally becoming more informed, thanks to TTIP, about the dangers of secret deals negotiated with the US, the UK will be vulnerable and desperate and will not remotely be able to replace the trade it currently does with EU (60% of it’s trade I think) with trade deals with other countries even if it gets the holy grail of a deal with the US.

            ‘The UK’, to all intents and purposes, in these matters, is a Tory elite who don’t need to give a flying one about Joe Public and the effects of anything they negotiate.

            And it’s not the US making the overtures – it’s a desperate UK. You’ve forgotten Theresa May’s desperate attempt to be the first head of government to visit Trump after his election to suck up to him, knowing how we’d put ourselves in a ridiculously vulnerable situation. What the US is doing is saying ‘my way or the highway’. America First.

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 8:28 pm #

        Re: Trade Deals with the USA

        So right, GA.

        The TTP, from which Trump withdrew (because he thought China was in it – it wasn’t), was EXACTLY what you describe – a lay-down misere to US Corporate Interests, including

        > allowing international corporations to sue Sovereign Governments if their local regulations hurt US corporate profits in ANY WAY

        > extending copyright on all entertainment assets (drugs and movies, in the main, plus books & music) to infinity though renewal rights prior to what had always been the traditional expiry

        > shutting off the ability of sovereign governments to negotiate drug prices with the Big Pharma cartel

        and so on…it got so byzantine it was almost impossible to understand.

        The irony of Trump pulling out was that the TTP was actually most advantageous to the US, which could STILL impose quotas & tariffs on imports from ‘Partner” countries.

        The protests in places like New Zealand & Australia were virulent and extremely vocal.

        https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/controversial-tpp-pact-signed-zealand-protests-160204031601547.html

        • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 9:02 pm #

          Exactly, Majella.

          My massive concerns about Brexit grew straight out of my earlier discovery of what was in the proposed TTIP deal between the US and the EU. I followed the anti-TTIP campaign closely, wrote to my MP, signed every possible public petition and supported the campaign financially. It is and was the absolute antithesis to the sovereignty we were told we were reclaiming.

          It was negotiated in secret and classified so that we wouldn’t know what was in it. And the uproar among the EU population was enormous when details were leaked.

          I knew perfectly well that (a) this was exactly what was in store for us post-Brexit and (b) that we would have no clout whatsoever compared to our combined clout as part of the EU.

          We are now going to be over a barrel, stuck with WTO tariffs, if we don’t agree an exit deal now with the EU.

          Apart from the utter idiocy of cultivating trading arrangements with countries across oceans and on the other side of the world at this particular juncture, I would be more than happy to trade with the US if it raises its game and meets OUR standards. But hands off the NHS. We need to sort that out one way or another without US corporate interference.

          And you’re right about the drugs too – it’s already been mentioned that a deal with the US will result in higher prices to the NHS, as if it didn’t have enough problems.

          • Majella June 3, 2019 at 10:28 pm #

            As I understand it (and please correct me if I’m wrong) the NHS is a cornerstone of the post-war Social Contract, is it not?

            Along with social housing and benefits/pensions, that Social Contract has been responsible for elevating millions out of the direct & nastiest effects of poverty, as seen as recently as 1945.

            Interestingly, the finer of the British ex-colonies – Canada, Australia & New Zealand – all have similar social contracts and a general level of social equity and harmony that should be the envy of the US.

            That these places were willing to give up so much of the elements of that social cohesion for a f&%$#ing ‘trade deal’ (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) was disgraceful.

            The revamped Treaty – excluding USA – is a lot less toxic by all accounts, simply because the ‘drunken gorilla’ is no longer in the room, throwing its weight about and trashing the furniture.

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 1:19 pm #

            “As I understand it (and please correct me if I’m wrong) the NHS is a cornerstone of the post-war Social Contract, is it not?”

            I think that’s fair. I’ll come back to that but the only thing I’ll say about housing, which is a whole other topic, is that there’s something very wrong in a situation where someone (Maggie Thatcher) could force Councils and Housing Associations to sell off properties at a ridiculous discount (60% off the market value of your house as a reward for…paying a subsidised rent for decades!!) and all to manufacture Tory voters.

            And now you can find a whole lot of ex-council flats in London that were bought for a pittance from the taxpayer, basically, and resold after the stipulated five years or whatever, so that they can now be rented out privately for insane rents by a new breed of greedy landlords to the same kind of young families who needed the public housing in the first place. That is obscene, whatever one thinks about public housing.

            Anyway, back to the NHS. I think the NHS, for decades, has been a wonder, given how little of GDP it has been allowed. But I’m not a blind believer and I do think that free services have innate problems because demand is literally unlimited.

            Previously, with people of my generation, we were automatically careful and not over demanding, because we valued what we had. But I think later generations are more entitlement oriented and will waste doctors’ time (or miss appointments) because they have no clue or interest in how much a quality medical service costs to run. And as a society we’ve created problems for ourselves because treatments are available that cost tens of thousands of pounds just to add another two or three months to the life of a terminal cancer patient and people will demand it even if it means you haven’t got enough money for e.g. maternity services or something with a lower profile, like mental health services.

            I think it is inevitable that the system will transform itself gradually to at least a partially private system in due course. Private companies are offering services to the young and fit but a system like the NHS relies on the young and fit subsidising the old and ill, which is about as fair a social contract as you can get because the young and fit will one day be old and at least frail.

            GP practices get on average a mere £140/patient on their list per year from the Department of Health.. That’s about the cost of a single consultation in the private sector. Many of those people will never go the doctor for years on end (I used to go about once every five years, once I wasn’t going for my children) which helps subsidise the older and sicker ‘frequent fliers’.

            If the young and fit are cherry picked by the private services, or even by some of the newer, sexier NHS set-ups where you can Skype a doctor at any time but only see one if they then think you need one (the current Health Secretary, Matt Hancock is known by doctors, who think he’s clueless, as Matt the App!), then they take their £140 allocation with them and the established practices have to do more with less for the remaining more challenging patients, and many are going under and being taken over by the local health trusts.

            So we will probably, very gradually, end up with a two-tier system, similar to your own but hopefully without the insane levels of insurance, with the easy and sexy stuff (sports physio, for example) cherry picked by the private sector while the NHS is left with the intractable stuff – geriatric medicine, chronic care, and mental healthcare, as an underfunded Cinderella service.

            There are no easy answers, but you can’t trust Tory pols with the health service, as far as I’m concerned. Or anyone else who can afford private healthcare themselves!

            Books have been written on it. Professor Allyson Pollock is an expert on public health policy and the NHS and a contributor to this film, made by doctors themselves, about how the NHS has been gradually softened up over a long period for privatisation, including, critically, by being bled dry through PFI/PPP contracts feeding private equity funds. It has been set up to fail.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ultKvnw2h3Q

            It’s an hour of your life, so I know most people wouldn’t give it the time if they’re not British, but you might find it informative, since you are interested. And it’s an insight into a system you’re not familiar with.

            I’d be interested to know what you think if you do watch it.

        • Majella June 5, 2019 at 10:32 pm #

          Green Alba

          (Third attempt at answering – I keep accidentally deleting the post…grrr.)

          Wow – what a nasty, sneaky process to steal (yet another) p[ublic asset. I see that was made om 2014, so, given I’ve just seen His Trumpetness on the box today stating in no uncertain terms that the NHS is ‘on the table’, it seems the plotters may prevail. I was interested in the comment towards the end that the Health Select Committee was roundly critical of all these shenanigans, yet it proceeds?

          As I’ve said several times, I’m not a Brit. I’m actually a Kiwi living in the eastern ‘burbs of San Francisco Bay (Walnut Creek). I married a ‘Yank’ and have lived here for nearly 20 years, so I have my own experience of life in the US. (Being an immigrant – even a legal one – can be dangerous around here, within posting-shot of the likes of SSL. We’ll see…could be some fun.)

          However, I keep a keen interest in NZ affairs and our public health system and how it’s also been degraded over the last 35 years by successive governments with particular ideological agendas.

          It was started in 1938 by the First Labour Government under a feisty Irish immigrant, Michael Joseph Savage (a revered figure to this day. It has always been funded from general taxation rather than o a specific levy, such as your National Insurance.

          Things were awesome til the 80s & Thatcher, Reagan & The Chicago School (under Milton Friedman) arrived. Our neo-con stealth revolution was delivered by a faux Labour government in 1984. All public institutions were suddenly pilloried as inefficient & wasteful.

          Granted, the previous National govt had not weathered the inflation spikes & the second oil crises of the late 70s very well, and then the 23% interest rates on a first mortgage were killing the working family, so something had to give.

          But the Health sector, specifically, was deliberately underfunded in a drive to create ‘efficiencies’. The ‘philosophy’ of the time was that everything had to run on a ‘business model’ and so the management component of cost rose from around 5% to 15% of the budget in a matter of just a few years. It was appalling, and at one stage got to the point of imposing a ‘user pays’ charge for going to the hospital – regardless that we’d already paid for it through taxes. (This was abandoned pretty quickly when no-one would pay the posted invoices and they were deemed to be unenforceable by wiser heads – a court would likely have decided that anyway, but it never got that far).

          So, it’s been through the wringer of constant ‘reform’. My family lives in the southern part of the South Island (Dunedin, och, aye…my own mothers family is all Burgesses, Flemings & Brockies arriving here in 1848 on the first settlement ships – they were steerage though, come to break in the land and chop the firewood for their new ‘lairds’ ).

          This is a large area – greater than Scotland – with a spread population of only 330,000. It has to maintain & run 3 major hospitals, 5 secondary level facilities and around 20 part-time staff clinics.

          The most recent insult, from a right-wing government, ousted in 2017, is ‘population-based funding’. The result is that the Southern District Health Board has run at a deficit of around $30 million over the last couple of years.

          The result is that services suffer. Non-acute treatment needs have to meet a points-based system for priority, so a hip or knee replacement could mean a wait of a year or more unless it’s work-disabling or excruciatingly painful.

          It also means that, currently, the SDHB has NO BUDGET for non-urgent hernias, at all. It’s either write a cheque/claim on a private insurance policy or so whistle.

          But at least medical insurance in NZ is affordable. My brother, his wife, their children in their 20s and the first granddaughter (aged 1) are all covered on a top-of-the-line policy that provides the following:
          > Cover for any condition
          > Up to $600,000 for any single claim (which is actually a TRUCKLOAD of cover there, even though it sounds like a joke to most Americans)
          > It covers all major diagnostic tests
          > The cover resets each year, so there’s no lifetime exhaustion of the fund
          > The deductible (called ‘excess) is only $250 per claim year)
          > It will also cover any recommended treatment not covered by the NZ government drug-buying agency, Pharmac. For example, those expensive breakthrough chemo drugs that cost $20,000 per month but only 3 people in the whole country need it – Pharmac won’t fund it, so tough cheese if you can’t write the cheque.

          There’s a heap of other benefits included and it costs my brother the outrageous sum of $NZD 7,200 per year yes $600 per month), which is about STG 4,000 and $USD 4,820. Our plan here is supposedly a ‘very good’ one (with Kaiser Permanente) but all the same, it’s got a very convoluted policy wording, to the point we really don’t know whether something is covered until we try to use it. It costs the TWO of us almost $USD 28,800.

          Anyway…God Forbid that the US corporate monster gets its teeth REALLY into the NHS. I lived in the UK between 1989 & 1992. Working at a pub in a small village in Devon (Chardstock) I got to know the TWO local GPs and so got an understanding of how the primary care under the NHS worked, and how it differed from NZ’s system. In NZ, a GP is self-employed and not an employee of the government. The practices (which might be owned by a partnership of doctors) charge a fee for consultation(currently around $40) which is subsidized per consultation by the Health budget currently around $140), rather than a per capita “cash bag” attached to each patient.

          But all is not lost! The recent election of a Labour-led Coalition (of Greens & an outfit of grumpy old men called NZ First) actually give a shite, under ‘Jacinderella’ Ardern’s leadership.

          The recent ‘Wellbeing” Budget has just increased funding for basic health services by $1 billion including a doubling of mental health initiative funding (about fecking time too).

          Still, this is only keeping the GDP send at around 9% (about where the UK is, I think.)

          I guess the one possible advantage of being so small is that large US corporate rape-n-pillagers wouldn’t find anything very attractive here so we’ll be left alone.

  21. K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 11:48 am #

    In the divorce China is going to get the house.

    • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 11:54 am #

      If the past is any indicator, the house, the cars, the kids and the bank accounts.

      • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 12:44 pm #

        “If the past is any indicator, the house, the cars, the kids and the bank accounts.”

        John,
        And if the divorce is truly acrimonious, they will send the family dog to the pound for destruction….

        • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 3:28 pm #

          I never thought being taken to a State Park and being kicked out of the car would be a good thing, but given the choice I’ll take it over the trip to the pound. No destruction please, I want to hang around and see what happens.

          • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 7:28 pm #

            Dog,
            True story.

            I once rented some commercial property to a guy who’s business was machining contact lenses to prescription. Had dozens of little jewelry lathes that did the trick.

            His wife…began giving nude massages to neighbors, etc. and he, of course, protested. They fought. She grabbed a lamp and began swinging…he had a hammer and defended himself. He apparently didn’t hit her hard or often enough, however. She had him arrested. She then absconded with all his wealth, and before she left, she took his beloved dog, a black lab, to the pound and had it immediately put down.

            He was later convicted and served a bit over a year in the pen. If he would have killed her, at least the dog would have lived…maybe a happier ending?

            His side of the story, of course….

          • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 8:04 pm #

            Please don’t ever let me find out who this bitch really is.

  22. Pucker June 3, 2019 at 11:56 am #

    Weird

    In the Cold War with the Soviet Union, said Kiron Skinner, the State Department’s director of policy planning, Washington at least faced fellow Caucasians, whereas with Beijing, Washington faces a nonwhite culture.
    “In China we have an economic competitor, we have an ideological competitor, one that really does seek a kind of global reach, that many of us didn’t expect a couple of decades ago,” Skinner said. “And I think it’s also striking that this is the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian.”

    • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 12:00 pm #

      The Chinese have been paralleling Europe forever. Treating them as a developing country is a mistake, they are developed. Right now, thanks to American cowardice, they are tougher than we are. And we are feeling the competition.

      • benr June 3, 2019 at 12:24 pm #

        Tougher hell no.
        Their children are more spoiled and entitled then even our own.
        Been hosting Chinese kids for over a decade and they have all been helpless almost incapable of the simplest things.
        Granted they are the new rich Chinese but as a matter of who will do what in the next twenty years I am not worried at all about the next crop of Chinese kids taking over.
        The worst of the bunch was a liar, cheat, and plagiarist who’s father was a big executive at some Chinese oil company.
        I honestly thought it impossible for a culture to be more obsessed with the inane until the but it’s true they are even more tied to their un-smart phone than American kids.

        • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 1:20 pm #

          Thanks for the insight.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 2:03 pm #

          That is only the Elite. One assumes that there are still plenty of normal Chinese. They haven’t been “leavened” and hollowed out yet like us. Of course they would in time. Capitalism is simply a torrent of destruction after all.

          • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 3:10 pm #

            Non-elite may not matter much. The incompetent elite will direct the competent masses to do incompetent things. There as here.

        • Pucker June 3, 2019 at 4:04 pm #

          Rock ‘N Roll!!!!!

        • Majella June 3, 2019 at 8:41 pm #

          benr:
          “Granted they are the new rich Chinese but as a matter of who will do what in the next twenty years I am not worried at all about the next crop of Chinese kids taking over.
          The worst of the bunch was a liar, cheat, and plagiarist who’s father was a big executive at some Chinese oil company.”

          Sheesh! These sound like EXACTLY the reasons one should be worried…

  23. Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 12:23 pm #

    Another good one Mr.Kunstler. Is it really time? I simply don’t know how we have made it this far. Everytime I think the economy and the world as we have come to know it is over, another rabbit is pulled from the hat and the can gets kicked another mile down the road. Being incredibly naive as I am on today’s economics the fact that we are trillions in debt and still functioning as the world’s priemer super power simply doesn’t compute in my tiny brain. Time and Time again I thought the can had finally gone over the cliff only to see it miraculously levitate in midair and land back on the road ready for another go.

    Maybe we have finally reached the end of the line. Could be time to tighten ones seat belt and hope for a soft landing. Though how that is possible is beyond my reckoning. My own opinion is that war is in our very near future. If the “can” can no longer be kicked what other options do our “leaders” have?

    Go long rice and beans and keep a low profile. Hope to see y’all on the other side. Ciao for now!

    • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 2:06 pm #

      Because we have a legacy of centuries of real Christianity behind us, that’s how. Even after people stopped really believing, the legacy lingered, keeping people honest and neighborly for a long time. Now that the state religion is Liberalism and Minority worship one can’t expect the same benefits.

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 8:48 pm #

        Oh, please, Janos.

        That’s quite a stretch, even for you.

        The self-aggrandizing, self-proclaimed ‘Christian’ is the person LEAST likely to behave towards his fellow ‘honestly’, viz The Big Buck tele-evangelists over the decades…Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, Cryin’ Jimmy Swaggert, Ted Haggard et al…

        And even on a personal level, I’ve met many lying fraudsters wearing a cross on their lapel. If this faux-Christianity could be eliminated, we’d all be the better for it.

        • DrGonzo June 3, 2019 at 10:56 pm #

          Amen.

          And let’s not forget about white ‘Christianity’s’ unforgivable original sin in the Americas: rationalizing slavery, excusing it, and growing rich off of practicing it, for several hundred years.

          Not a good basis upon which to claim the historic moral high ground.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 12:21 am #

            The corruption or misuse of something says nothing about the thing itself.

            Aquinas

          • Epicur June 4, 2019 at 9:47 am #

            Little known factoid: there were more abolitionists and abolitionist societies in the South until the 1840s when it had grown into a “sectional” issue.

            Humans are curious animals.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 12:20 am #

          Without religion, a Culture dies just like Europe is dying and being taken over by new Peoples, very religious Peoples….

  24. davidreese2 June 3, 2019 at 12:37 pm #

    As for Nixon going off the gold standard. For those of us old enough to remember Nixon’s statement at the time of this decision, Nixon stated unequivocally the measure was temporary.

    It was anything but.

    • Robert White June 3, 2019 at 12:46 pm #

      I watched him close the window and he was not talking temporary when he did it so I don’t understand how you can say Nixon was saying the measure was temporary?

      Show me the statement that he made with regard to the switch being temporary?

      RW

    • RocketDoc June 3, 2019 at 3:25 pm #

      I was hitch-hiking in Italy and the youth hostel wouldn’t let me pay in traveler’s checks denominated in dollars. For 2 days no one would cash dollars…. I happened to have marks but it is an instructive experience to check in to a place and not be able to pay the bill to check out. ….. Made the Eagles Hotel California have a slightly different meaning….

      • elysianfield June 3, 2019 at 7:32 pm #

        RDoc,
        When was this?

  25. RB June 3, 2019 at 12:43 pm #

    What do we do? What?

    A. Join hands for a round of kumbaya?

    B. Work on our yoga so we can reach our asses for a goodbye kiss?

    C. Vote for Bernie so everyone gets free shit?

    D. Go to war and declare debt null and void?

    E. Vote for Trump and rate his tweets?

    I’m leaning toward B.

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • Majella June 3, 2019 at 8:58 pm #

      …”….declare debt null and void”

      A debt jubilee would be a useful first move in restoring some level of equanimity.

      Steve Keen is an insightful Australian economist –

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

      and he has a few interesting youtube presentations too.

  26. Beryl of Oyl June 3, 2019 at 12:58 pm #

    Speaking of simpletons, it should be obvious to anyone, even them, by now, that the Mexican government is under orders not to do anything about the situation at the US border.
    If you take out a map, and look at Mexico’s southern border, and understand that they have strict laws dealing with people from the other side of that border, and have had those laws for quite some time, well before Donald Trump even thought of being president, the idea that hundreds upon hundreds of Guatemalans, etc. just up and decided, at the same time, to take a trip through Mexico, unimpeded, is hysterically ridiculous.
    Yes that’s a terrible run-on sentence, but this is a run-on manufactured crisis, isn’t it?
    Do Mexican citizens really want all these people passing through, and congregating in their communities?
    Mexico does have citizens. Mexico has jobs and resources and isn’t even a Third World country anymore, but for some reason Americans who could not give a damn for the situation of strangers in their own communities, believe that crying for grown men trying to get around our immigration laws makes them better people, holy even.

    Another thing that should be obvious, Chuck and Nancy, who certainly have enough to worry about in their own hometowns, but instead neglect Californians and New Yorkers in favor of the inhabitants of countries far, far from their districts, are under orders to keep the Racket we call the border going just like it is.
    Why should this be?

    Even Cher, who hasn’t even a high school education, noticed it wasn’t smart to keep bringing hordes of men into the so-called sanctuary cities, when there are already so many desperate Americans living on the sidewalk.

    That’s why Chuck and Nancy look so sick in their speeches lately.
    They are between a rock and a hard place.
    People wonder why New Yorkers and Californians keep electing people like Chuck and Nancy.
    The short answer is, we don’t.
    At least from my perspective, my state is always losing population. We try to get away from the Cuomos and the Schumers.
    They keep importing replacement citizens faster than we can vote with our feet.
    There’s more, I could go on and on, but I think you can get the picture.

    When you look at the support for that really cute little Cortez girl, because she can push the agenda without the baggage that Chuck and Nancy carry, there is another reason Chuck and Nancy are freaking out.
    They can’t run their own party, their own districts, but they want to be in charge of the entire US of A and more.
    Nancy was sticking her nose in Northern Ireland’s business recently.
    You can read about how well that turned out.

    Quite a ramble on my part, sorry, I’m getting ready to go out and select flowers for a young man’s funeral service. He’s another suicide, the last one (within my circle) was a few months ago. I saw Nancy banging her gavel and declaring the mental health situation fixed, but the reality is that since Obamacare, it has gotten much, much worse, and it was already deplorable.
    There won’t be any dipshit fading actresses, excuse me, female actors, tweeting about these casualties.

    Border= corruption, racket(s), money for the 1%, aided and abetted by many, but not in the least, the drug cartels. They are real, they didn’t go away.
    Yes, American elected officials are on the same side as the cartels. Your guess why is as good as mine.
    Yes, the Mexican government could have stopped all this if it wanted to, before it started. Except they don’t want to, and even if they did, they won’t, because they are afraid to.
    The more President Trump puts the squeeze on them, the more they will pretend that yup, they are fixing to do something about it, any minute now. They may even appear to do something about it, for a period of time.

    • benr June 3, 2019 at 2:08 pm #

      There are videos from Tijuana where the local populace supports Trump on IMMIGRATION and is out protesting the immigration problems.

      https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/protesters-tijuana-mexico-want-migrant-caravan-leave-n937761

      That was actually on NBC for petes sake!

      • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 3:32 pm #

        Columbia has a million Venezuelan refugees now. The Colombian attitude to the refugees has been welcoming and hospitable. Colombians are putting up Venezuelans up in their homes for free.

        Jesus Christ, what is up with that?

        • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 3:35 pm #

          https://youtu.be/NU0RqwweuWY

        • benr June 3, 2019 at 4:34 pm #

          Because Venezuelans really are starving as a result of supporting and voting in terrible people.
          Now they reap the whirlwind.
          Venezuela is a veritable gold mine on how to destroy a country.

          • James Hansen June 3, 2019 at 4:58 pm #

            You discount years of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela that has had a huge impact on their economy.

            http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50072.htm

            If we had treated Venezuela the same as we have been treating Israel they would be living the good life.

          • Exscotticus June 3, 2019 at 5:15 pm #

            >>> You discount years of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela

            You discount that the USA has had decades of sanctions on some nations—and none ended up like Venezuela.

          • Majella June 3, 2019 at 9:07 pm #

            Exscotticus

            the US STILL has crippling sanctions on Venezuela.

            The only point of such treatment is to CRUSH the economy (ipso facto, impoverish the populace, so maybe they’ll rise up against the Government. So far, no joy!).

            The current list of countries under US economic sanctions is:

            Belarus, Central African Republic, Congo, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine/Russia, (Venezuela), Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

            You say NONE of the others have turned out like Venezuela? maybe not yet, but you could hardly call them raging economic success stories either, could you. Nothing very attractive in terms of generating inward immigration!

          • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 10:13 pm #

            Nothing very attractive in terms of generating inward immigration!

            A good barometer. That a country can lose an average of 11 kilos per person in three years is another. That tidbit also helps separate propaganda from facts. No ‘ism’ works that fast. Pushing oil prices down so brown oil can’t be refined profitably has had more than a little to do with the situation.

            American fracking got Venezuela all fracked up.

          • Exscotticus June 4, 2019 at 12:20 pm #

            >>> the US STILL has crippling sanctions on Venezuela.

            @Majella, if you want a comparable case, a fair comparison, then use either Iran or Iraq. Both are oil-producing nations. Both were under USA sanctions for decades. Iran is STILL under USA sanctions, with a brief respite during the Obama “let’s-fly-a-secret-cargo-plane-full-of-cash-to-Iran” administration.

            Are people eating zoo animals in Iran? No they are not. So for you to claim that sanctions and not socialism are destroying Venezuela ignores the fact that Iran is not imploding.

            No one told Venezuela to nationalize (steal) corporate assets and break contracts and agreements. They did that all on their own. Now no one trusts them. If it wasn’t for their oil wealth, it would be anarchy already. It’s what happens when governments steal wealth and don’t adhere to rule of law.

          • benr June 4, 2019 at 4:47 pm #

            @james Hansen
            As someone else pointed out other countries are doing fine it really is a function of piss poor management.

            @kdog

            American fracking has little to do with the fact Venezuela nationalized the oil industry and kicked all the talent out.
            Once done the oil industry imploded when the maintenance was all differed and no one knew how to fix anything properly or even get the parts to do so if they knew how.

            Venezuela is imploding because they supported people that promised everything and delivered nothing but misery.

          • K-Dog June 5, 2019 at 2:59 am #

            Dec 4 2014


            On Nov. 27, as the OPEC oil cartel gathered in Vienna to discuss falling oil prices, the front page of Venezuela’s anti-government Tal Cual newspaper ran a cartoon showing President Nicolás Maduro and his former oil and economic tzar Rafael Ramírez praying before a barrel of oil. With the oil and gas sector accounting for a quarter of the Venezuelan economy and oil sales the source for around 95% of export earnings, the country has been hammered by the recent drop in prices. OPEC’s decision last week to hold off on production cuts to arrest the decline promises to sharpen the pain for oil-dependent nations like Venezuela. It is also a political challenge for Maduro who has grown increasingly unpopular since being elected after the death of his political mentor Hugo Chávez last year

            Falling prices fracked Venezuela in the ass.

        • Majella June 3, 2019 at 9:00 pm #

          ah! Christians…you know, people who GIVE a fuck.

        • Epicur June 4, 2019 at 9:10 am #

          “Jesus Christ, what is up with that?”

          Altruism, which at some point becomes pathological. Since (probably) we are already in overshoot, it is already so to some degree.

          Nationalism is not very strong in Latin America (except when it comes to soccer teams), the Mestizo populations feel a fair amount of kinship to each other and not so much to their more European derived rulers.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 2:09 pm #

      Mary Robinson, while PM of Ireland (or shortly thereafter), chastised the people of the American Southwest for their racism for wanting the border enforced. What a cunt.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 2:13 pm #

      I once worked in a Catholic Center, in the bookstore/reception area. They forced themselves to have a ministry to the Poor even though there hearts weren’t in it at all. One time one of the nuns broke an appointment she had with a homeless guy so she could go to a meeting of refugees from El Salvador (back when all the Liberals were competing on who could say it the best). They mattered more, were cooler and more glamorous than our street people, you see. And she wanted to associate with that glam and get some for herself.

      • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 10:16 pm #

        Good to know, if I ever want some Catholic Nun pillow talk I know who to ask.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 2:16 pm #

          In other words, you would have done the same thing if you were the Nun. Or even if you were still just a Dog. And you used to try to sound all native and genuine when he said “El Salvador”. And compete with other liberals as to who could roll their r’s better when you said Nicaragua.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 7:22 pm #

            Every time you say ‘in other words’, which is rather a lot, I get ‘Fly me to the moon’ as an earworm. It’s really annoying.

      • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 2:30 pm #

        It’s obviously best not to postpone the joined-up thinking for too many decades, though, as unfortunately appears to have happened.

  27. Beryl of Oyl June 3, 2019 at 1:06 pm #

    Is see my man, President Trump has even managed to fix Climate Change or Global Warming or whatever it’s called.
    Even without sending billions of dollars (would it have been on pallets?) to “Africa”.
    Does Africa have a P.O. box?
    It is downright chilly in my house this morning.

    Oh wait, I must be confused. Temperature isn’t climate isn’t weather, or something.

    I’m not as confused as those who think we’re all gonna die, because this country’s taxpayers (the “marks”) didn’t fork over cash we don’t even have.
    New York isn’t under water.

    • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 1:47 pm #

      “Oh wait, I must be confused. Temperature isn’t climate isn’t weather, or something.”

      Mostly you’re just confused about the difference between local and global, Beryl. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

      • Beryl of Oyl June 3, 2019 at 1:54 pm #

        My friends in Queensland are confused too.
        Wait, no they aren’t.

        • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm #

          Queensland is local too.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 2:15 pm #

      If everyone would just open their fridges for an hour a day we could get a handle on this Lobal Warming.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 2:19 pm #

        But people are selfish and want to keep all the Cool for themselves. Like the Nun? Like the nuN. Now Nuns are all getting into running Marathons. Praying isn’t cool anymore. Nor are habits. I liked the big floppy ones with wings. Remember Sally Field, the flying Nun? She didn’t have to run cuz she could fly and she was so fly too. Then she left and became Norma Rae. No more flying just working and romance with Burt Reynolds.

        • K-Dog June 4, 2019 at 8:45 am #

          So you rang her chimes and she didn’t let you finish. It can happen. Used you up and threw you away like a crumpled paper bag. An object to quell her burning desire is all you were to her, You wanted more, you wanted to feel special but turnabout is fair play, you know it is. But you also know it hurts. You rang her bell and she did not get your jam. Isn’t that special.

      • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 2:32 pm #

        Air conditioning, which is basically what you’re suggesting, drives climate change too. Your fridge doesn’t run on fairy dust.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 3, 2019 at 3:32 pm #

          No fairy would ever share its dust with you. Cast not thy dust before fairyphobes.

          • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 6:46 pm #

            I’ve mentioned the fairies at the bottom of my garden before. They keep all their dust for me, since visitors tend to be too sceptical and will not just have faith.

        • Ol' Scratch June 3, 2019 at 3:39 pm #

          He was free associating.

          • Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 4:15 pm #

            Is that (free associating) what is now called riffing? I liked the old meaning of riffing better. A melodic phrase like the guitar in “Satisfaction”, “Louie Louie”, or “Smoke on The Water.”

          • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:22 am #

            Sometimes he riffs, sometimes he just associates freely. But always he’s provocative.

  28. SW June 3, 2019 at 1:13 pm #

    “the last man standing….” holding the bag.

  29. malthuss June 3, 2019 at 1:23 pm #

    Ebola

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiM9KW6bcfU

    • Epicur June 4, 2019 at 8:52 am #

      The plagues will come, but they won’t be like Ebola. Ebola is too easy to contain with simple sanitation. You’ve got to be in a real s#!thole for Ebola to spread.

      The big one (or “big ones”) will be easily spread, deadly, and have a long period without symptoms when it can be transmitted. I would bet on a Superpox or Super-influenza for the naturally evolved ones. For the man-made possibilities the sky is the limit.

      • elysianfield June 4, 2019 at 11:16 am #

        “The plagues will come, but they won’t be like Ebola. Ebola is too easy to contain with simple sanitation. You’ve got to be in a real s#!thole for Ebola to spread.”

        Epicur,
        Thank God we have no shitholes in the USA….

      • Exscotticus June 4, 2019 at 12:32 pm #

        >>> Ebola is too easy to contain with simple sanitation.

        Yes in theory all you need is lots of bleach. But if we go by American medical standards, a mere hundred cases of Ebola could overwhelm and bankrupt our system.

        West Africa’s Ebola outbreak cost $53 billion – study

  30. Slugoon June 3, 2019 at 1:34 pm #

    I’ll plumb for D.

    Animals generally avoid unnecessary conflict since it requires a large expenditure of energy and carries the risk of injury or death but when competition for a resource becomes an existential matter then surely the choice is between fighting or watching someone else take it?

    I cannot see how cooperation and self-restraint will win the day. I’m not aware of many such precedents. It’s easier to demonise an opponent and rile up your constituents. Russia being a prime example.

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  31. BuckP June 3, 2019 at 4:26 pm #

    The fiat dollar’s hegemony is maintained by the ominous presence of the world’s largest military tirelessly on guard for any nation that steps out of line, such as Iraq, Libya, etc. Since no one knows how much of the world’s reserve currency has actually been created, extortion works much better than explanation.

    Unfortunately, some alaming news has popped up from the Rand Corporation. Specifically, RAND Senior Defense Analyst David Ochmanek discussed the simulations at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington D.C. last week. “In our games, where we fight China or Russia … blue gets its a** handed to it, not to put too fine a point on it,” he said, during a panel discussion. Blue denotes U.S. forces in the simulations. Pompeo and Bolton better rethink those Iran invasion plans.

    Last week, an unneeded, overpriced, unreliable, defective F-35 was able to escape the repair hanger and using contrails, draw the facsimile of a penis in the Arizona skies. Our hard earned tax dollars at work. With these hijinks going on, I wonder if the kiddies will be allowed to attend the next Nellis Air Show here in Vegas in November. The Thunderbirds never disappoint, however.

    What the hell! It’s summer! We need to eat, drink be merry, dance, swim, enjoy the sunshine, go to or play in a ball game, the future be damned!

    • tucsonspur June 3, 2019 at 7:08 pm #

      Remember, the future will damn you. It’s a good attitude though, enjoy before we’re engulfed. Those naughty fly boys! We could use the moxie at the right time.

      But yes, saw them at the “Thunder and Lightning Over Arizona” air show a few months ago. Saw it close up, right off the runways.

      Hueys that were in Nam, Avengers, Warthogs, transports, the Gau 30mm cannon, drones, and bombers, including the B-52 Stratofortress. It’s a wonder that thing can even fly.

      A lot to see and it was great!

      • BuckP June 3, 2019 at 8:16 pm #

        tucsonspur

        You describe a terrific air show down south there in Arizona. The Nellis Air Show is really impressive also. For as much grief and criticism as the F35 gets, it is pretty cool to see it in action flying in a demonstration. Always impressed by our young men and women in uniform serving our country. They are always patient, polite, and very willing to answer our questions about their aircraft and equipmnet. Can’t wait.

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 9:14 pm #

        ” …it was great!”

        It was great to see the flying harbingers of death to (mostly) defenseless women & children?

        Nice.

        Is this the US Federal Government’s 2nd Amendment Rights being displayed?

        • BackRowHeckler June 3, 2019 at 10:17 pm #

          Sure, the US is the only country with an air force.

          • Majella June 3, 2019 at 10:32 pm #

            Of course not, but most of those other air forces fly US equipment, don’t they.

  32. DEFCON1 June 3, 2019 at 4:28 pm #

    Great fun whenever they let trump out of his rabbit warren. This time of course he could not help but embarrass both himself, that idiot family of his and the entire US of God-fearing A with his moronic blustering about the Mayor of London. Haven’t heard someone poke fun at a fellow’s height since kindergarten.

    However, that is the Leader of the Free World. Soon not to be so free anymore as the price for installing this load will quickly come to bear. God knows who is running the show now – probably a Magic 8-Ball deep in the caverns of 1600 Penn.

    What a fucking disaster.

    • benr June 3, 2019 at 4:39 pm #

      As if it would have been any better with she who should not be named we shall call her miss bleachbit and phone smasher.
      The obstructionestiester of all hildabeast.
      Queen of the bovine and chief architect of river rapids negotiating.

      • sauerkraut June 3, 2019 at 5:50 pm #

        I tend to agree. At least we have avoided WW3. So far.

        But that bar is a little low, isn’t it? Perhaps, next time, one of the alternatives vomited forth by the oligarchs could be an almond tree?

        • DEFCON1 June 3, 2019 at 5:55 pm #

          Talk about the Age of Diminished Expectations.

    • Slugoon June 3, 2019 at 6:10 pm #

      Please don’t be embarrassed. Trump’s popularity in the UK likely mirrors that of Nigel Farage whose party just won a national election (again).

      Sure, the usual banner-waving hair-dyed mob gathered outside Bucky Palace are running around shouting the only two words they know (“fascist” and “racist”)* but I for one welcome him more than the last shill you sent over here.

      *When the Russian hysteria was in full swing the “meddling” trope was on repeat without anyone ever actually saying what the meddling constituted. Perhaps someone can educate me here, what “racist” or “fascist” behaviour has DJT actually engaged in?

      • benr June 3, 2019 at 6:44 pm #

        He has tried to stem the flow of illegal aliens most of who are brown.
        Other then that most of the hysteria is just that idiots being idiots because someone is telling them to be idiots.

        • BackRowHeckler June 3, 2019 at 7:47 pm #

          Im curious about that too.

          Apparently anybody who isn’t ‘down with the struggle’, didn’t march at Selma, wasn’t at the ‘Stonewall Rebellion’, or wasn’t in the Weathermen trying to blow up the Pentagon back in the day, is a fascist, a racist, a Nazi.

          That seems to be about the size of it.

          Bth

          • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 12:15 am #

            Occidental Observer.com

            the articles there about weathermen, sds,, check it outtttt.

      • FincaInTheMountains June 3, 2019 at 7:08 pm #

        During his 2016 visit to London, Obama managed to make so many mistakes and protocol violations as if he had specially picked them up so as not to do anything bad, but to offend the British as much as possible with their love of tradition.

        When I personally learned (and saw) the details, I just rolled on the floor laughing – one attempt to get into the car next to the Queen’s husband was worth something! And what was she to do – ride next to the driver?!

        And how did he beat it later in a welcoming speech? And the punishment for leaving the EU? And how did he embrace the old lady? But she declared that she would not meet with the US President if he comes! As if she anticipated it!

        Apparently in Obama the Kennedy Irish genes are playing the wicked games!

        I would even say dominant Irish genes!

        • benr June 3, 2019 at 10:05 pm #

          Worse for the Queens gift the pompous fool gave the queen and Ipod loaded with his ridiculous speeches.

      • GreenAlba June 3, 2019 at 7:10 pm #

        Slugoon

        “Nigel Farage whose party just won a national election (again).”

        Except that it wasn’t a national election and they got 31.6% of the vote – in a national election they’d have had to form a coalition 🙂 .

        No party of Nigel Farage’s has ever won a national election and Nigel hasn’t even managed to get a seat in Parliament once after trying several times while with his first party.

        UKIP have managed to get one seat in Parliament ever. They have two members in the Welsh Assembly, including brown-envelope man, Neil Hamilton.

        We’ll have to see how his new party do – hopefully we’ll be out of the EU before an election so there won’t be any point in voting for them, as they’re currently a one-trick pony. They don’t have any policies at the moment so it would be odd to bet on how many seats they might get in an actual national election. They also had PR on their side – under FPTP they’ll have much less clout.

        • Majella June 3, 2019 at 9:20 pm #

          Slugoon – you already knew this, but to further clarify for the rest of the cohort here, Farage’s Brexit Party’s win was in an election for the EU Parliament, not the British one.

          As well, the Brexit Party’s (or UKIPs) only policy is to get out of Europe and they don’t give a flying fart about anything else.

          • Slugoon June 4, 2019 at 1:58 am #

            Sorry, yes, it wasn’t a national election in that sense and I didn’t mean to mislead, I meant that it was an election conducted nationally.

            My point is that people such as Sadiq Khan shout “ist” and “ism” at everything they disagree with and I was merely curious whether DJT actually deserved the moniker.

          • Slugoon June 4, 2019 at 2:20 am #

            If the ‘left’ wants a hope in hell of countering antagonists such as DJT they need to starts forming some coherent counter-arguments instead of carelessly throwing around emotionally-charged insults that seem to have lost all meaning.

            Flying a blimp across London seems to epitomise the infantile level of discourse. No wonder the ‘populists’ are just silently moving on.

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 4:25 am #

            Slugoon

            “Flying a blimp across London seems to epitomise the infantile level of discourse. ”

            I totally agree and said so the first time. DJT is one of those personalities for whom, in many ways, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. If the Labour party wasn’t stuck in a sclerotic time warp because of Jeremy Corbyn they should have been able to wipe out the Tories when May stupidly (for her and her party) called an unnecessary election.

            By my reckoning Corbyn is a not-especially-bright narcissist who’s more interested in being ‘head boy’ after decades of basically student-union-level politics than in what is genuinely good for the country.

          • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 5:00 am #

            It isn’t that Trump just thrives on controversy, it is that he understands human nature.

            Trump never attacks first, he knows his enemies and he waits for them to make a silly statement (fueled by emotion), then he responds. Then the masks drop and we have big-name celebs and politicians publicly proclaiming his “kids should be thrown in cages with pedophiles.”

            Trump is effective because he knows that, particularly in politics and business, which tend to draw certain types of personalities, civility is just window dressing.

          • Slugoon June 4, 2019 at 9:41 am #

            I think between us, GA, we’ve got it covered. What shall we call the new Party?

            But seriously, I think it matters not who leads the Labour Party because the old left or right labels no longer seem to hold. Brexit has exposed a new paradigm of nationalism versus globalism and the old parties haven’t got a clue what to do about it.

            A group of them thought they were down with the kids and formed the hilarious Change UK until it turned out to be Change Nothing UK and they had merely self-selected themselves into irrelevancy. Delicious. I understand resignations are due later today.

            Nigel Farage may be a one-trick pony but boy, what a trick! He nails his colours to the mast and speaks his mind without fear of offence. Imagine that! Such novelty seems to be a common trait amongst Trump, Salvini, Orban, Le Pen etc. It’s why I like John McDonnell. At least you know what he stands for.

            A bloody civil war would be the time-honoured way to sort things out. Until then I think we’re set for an ideological tug-o’-war. A third of Brits at one end of the rope behind Nige, another third at the other (I nominate Emily Thornberry as Team Captain) and the remainder stood dazed somewhere in the middle struggling to understand the aim of the game.

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 12:16 pm #

            Nightowl

            “Trump never attacks first, he knows his enemies and he waits for them to make a silly statement (fueled by emotion), then he responds. “

            I’m not sure that’s entirely true. Re the ongoing spat with Sadiq Khan, from what I recall that started with Trump trying to besmirch him by taking what he said after the terrorist attack entirely out of context. And I think he did that because Khan is Muslim – no other reason.

            Having said that the way to deal with him after that was to meet him and show him up by being totally civil but with a totally impenetrable facial expression. Show him you’re better.

            He also forwarded a tweet by Britain First without bothering to check that the incident they were tweeting about was accurate, when it was actually a lie. Theresa May upbraided him about it and he basically told her to f*** off, but not in so many words. Not OK.

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 12:20 pm #

            That’s funny, Slugoon – I quite like John McDonnell too, even though I’m not a fan of his policies. I think he’s straight and very reasonable – and miles better than Corbyn.

            But as you say the Labour Party are now ‘ungovernable’, as are the Tories.

          • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 4:45 pm #

            GA,

            The context of the Khan tweet didn’t matter much, IMO. There was clearly still reason to be alarmed despite police being deployed, and Trumpi’s tweet wasn’t offensive.

            Compare to Khan claiming Britain should refuse to host a US president on a diplomatic visit (among other comments) and regurgitating the “fine people” lie is about as sad as it gets, but par for the course these days.

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 6:28 pm #

            Nightowl

            “There was clearly still reason to be alarmed despite police being deployed, and Trumpi’s tweet wasn’t offensive.”

            Trump’s tweet was utterly offensive. He quoted Khan out of context to claim that he said Londoners shouldn’t be alarmed about the continued risk of terrorism.

            Khan said they shouldn’t be alarmed by the sight of extra police officers, including armed police officers on the street, not because of the continued risk of terrorism.

            The man is a manipulative liar, whatever other virtues you see in him.

            I saw seriously armed police officers in Paris when I got off the train from one of the towns from which one of the terrorists hailed, after the Bataclan attack. They were alarming, on the platform, their massive weapons trained at my feet an’ all as I got off the train.

          • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 6:33 pm #

            I’m not defending Khan in that he should have risen about it, but Trump is the president of the United States and he should be above behaving like a lying pr!ck to score a point against the mayor of London because he doesn’t like Muslims.

            Trump has a higher office to live up to. It would be nice if he didn’t disgrace it out of petty vindictiveness.

            And I say very, very little on here about your president, compared to what I have to listen to about UK and European affairs, but some things are not acceptable.

          • Nightowl June 5, 2019 at 3:36 am #

            GA,

            No, his point was clear, particularly when contextutalized with some of his past statements on the crime in London. Despite what Khan might want us to think, there was cause for alarm.

            I recall Khan also stating that in a metro area one just has to get used to that sort of thing, as terror attacks are “part and parcel of life in a big city.”

            Quite happy I don’t live in London, to be honest.

            Merkel tried that approach after the Cologne sex attacks, and many here were shocked.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 5:20 am #

            Nightowl

            Khan did not say there was no cause for alarm about terrorism. I repeat, he said the presence of armed police officers on the street should be no cause for alarm (as in it should be reassuring, which is is, as I can personally confirm – from experience in both Paris and Brussels – even if it is initially alarming) I just don’t get how you don’t see the difference.

            “I recall Khan also stating that in a metro area one just has to get used to that sort of thing, as terror attacks are “part and parcel of life in a big city.””

            He said the fear of terrorism is part and parcel of life in a big city. And so it is. It was cities that the IRA attacked. It is in cities that many or most of the non-Muslim terrorist attacks in the US occur. The fear of terrorist attacks is part and parcel of living in a big city, including in the US, but the main threat isn’t from Muslims in the US.

            If Tory ministers who were his political opponents (and who’d rather have had Boris again) could see the difference I don’t understand why you can’t, but we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

          • Nightowl June 5, 2019 at 5:30 pm #

            GA,

            He did not say fear. He said it is “part and parcel of living in a big city and that “you have to be prepared.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03IKr2TWDM

            And he is clearly referring to terrorist attacks.

            As mentioned, the piece he authored for the Guardian adds some further context regarding his mindset, and the piece was inexcusable, IMO. He openly lies about the Charlottesville quote, and stokes the flames of fear about the “far right,” and trots out the usual talking points about being on the right side of history.

            A person in his position so openly lying tells me, for the most part, all I need to know about his character. It’s so easy to check, yet he still lies.

            He’s a globalist and is pushing every policy the corporate MSM and their financiers are pushing.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 7:30 pm #

            Nightowl

            I have no particular interest in Sadiq Khan one way or the other. I’m not from London and he’s not my buddy. But I know that most people on here – and Donald Trump – specifically don’t like him because he’s a (British) Muslim. That’s why he’s referred to as the Muzzie Mayor of Londonistan.

            But this:

            “A person in his position so openly lying tells me, for the most part, all I need to know about his character. It’s so easy to check, yet he still lies.”

            You could say those exact words about Trump but you don’t care, which is odd.

            And a businessman who gets his products made in countries that include Mexico, China, Indonesia and Bangladesh (the cheapest: 30 cents/hour, so he took the contract away from one of the others) is a globalist, to my mind.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 7:57 pm #

            Sorry, I couldn’t listen to your clip as I don’t have sound.

            And being prepared for terrorist attacks is part and parcel of living in a big city. As I mentioned regarding the IRA.

            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-terrorism-attacks-part-and-parcel-major-cities-new-york-bombing-a7322846.html

            https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/trump-sadiq-khan-uk-visit-london-mayor-twitter-protests-death-threats-us-president-racism-a8941581.html

            Since SSL wouldn’t tell me if the UK should have refused entry to all Irish people during the time we were being bombed by the IRA, perhaps you could tell me if you think they should have been.

            And since we still have the Real IRA or whatever they call themselves now showing their fangs again, should we refuse them all entry now?

          • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:06 pm #

            Slugoon:
            “Nigel Farage may be a one-trick pony but boy, what a trick! He nails his colours to the mast and speaks his mind without fear of offence. Imagine that! Such novelty seems to be a common trait amongst Trump, Salvini, Orban, Le Pen etc. It’s why I like John McDonnell. At least you know what he stands for.”

            Yes, Farage is at least entertaining, with an eloquent wit.. to the EU Parliament…” I know that virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives…” and attributing van Rompuy with the “charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of low grade bank clerk”

            (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF8Ab3kqprg)

            but just like the rest of your list of right-wing arseholes and wannabe dictators, he’d end up letting you down, because eventually, it would become clear that the only person he cares about is himself and his cohort of fat rich bastards. He’s globalist and an elitist and made his money not in ‘work’ but in ‘trade’ and the lowest of them all, in trade in money

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:09 am #

            You couldn’t make it up, Majella. The people’s saviours, Trump and Farage – a globalist businessman offshoring US jobs to every underdeveloped country he can think of, culminating in taking $1/hour contracts from Indonesians and giving them to the lowest common denominator in Bangladesh, for $0.30/hour – and a former commodities broker who’s just been investigated about almost half million of personal slush money from Arron Banks that he ‘forgot’ to declare because he was about to leave politics. And then ‘forgot’ to declare again when he re-entered.

            And that’s before you start on the Brexit investment bankers whose motivation is to turn Britain into Singapore-on-Thames to benefit their own businesses.

            Talk about Cloud Cuckoo Land… It’s what you get from seeing life in black and white. They can’t cope with the idea of two competing options with negatives and the difficult human dilemma of choosing between them. Black and white makes it easier to metaphorically shout at people and to virtue signal, to use their own term right back at them.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:10 am #

            ‘being investigated’, I should have said – they’re not done yet.

          • Nightowl June 6, 2019 at 8:19 am #

            GA,

            I don’t care about Khan’s ethnicity, skin color, or religion.

            RE Trump: Manufacturing some products overseas as a result of globalism is hardly the same as openly supporting globalism and pursuing neoliberal policies in line with globalism.

            Trump’s rhetoric and policies are almost entirely counter to globalism at every level. There is a reason he is attacked 24/7 by the corporate media and our very own Uniparty. Why doesn’t he just join them if he is pro globalism? Why take the slings and arrows, the attempts to destroy him and his family, the attempts to destroy the movement?

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 8:52 am #

            Nightowl

            “I don’t care about Khan’s ethnicity, skin color, or religion.”

            Nor do I. But I care that Trump does.

            “RE Trump: Manufacturing some products overseas as a result of globalism is hardly the same as openly supporting globalism and pursuing neoliberal policies in line with globalism.”

            Well I’ll have to leave you with your opportunistic, duplicitous and hypocritical president. I don’t normally bother talking about him, but I felt the other side of the childish spat deserved some air too.

            He’s not pro-globalism or pro-nationalism. He’s pro-Trump. Just like Boris isn’t for or against the EU (hence the two conflicting Telegraph articles), he’s pro-Boris.

            And Trump has destroyed his own family twice all by himself. That’s why he’s on to his third.

          • Nightowl June 6, 2019 at 2:53 pm #

            GA,

            You’ve demonstrated neither that Trump is a hypocrite nor that he is concerned about the color of Khan’s skin or what sky person he prays to.

            Toys, pram … you know the drill.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:05 pm #

            “You’ve demonstrated neither that Trump is a hypocrite…”

            Neither your analytical skills nor your Weltanschauung are my responsibility. Do what you like with your toys.

    • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 5:02 am #

      The Mayor of London had plenty to say about Trump long before Trump ever uttered a word.

      Reap the whirlwind I guess.

  33. BackRowHeckler June 3, 2019 at 4:36 pm #

    James Schlesinger. About 10 years ago we stopped at a used book sale in Newfane, Vt being held in this converted little Baptist church. I spotted a book about the Cambridge 5, Brits who spied for Russia in the years during and after WW2. The inside cover was stamped ‘Property of James Schlesinger’, and then his signature. Looking around I found 4 other books that once belonged to Schlesinger, all having to do with Cold War espionage. I kept them around and still have them to this day.

    Brh

    • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 12:17 am #

      who is he?

      • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:20 am #

        Google is your friend.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Schlesinger

      • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 8:50 pm #

        Amongst a lot of other things, Schlesinger was a prominent peak oil guy for awhile about 10 years ago.

        brh

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 11:38 am #

          Learned something new there. Probably influenced the Pentagon heavily then, as they certainly believe in it too.

  34. BackRowHeckler June 3, 2019 at 4:51 pm #

    Don’t worry about LA, in Chicago this past weekend 52 wounded, 10 dead. Safe to say the ‘warm glow’ cast by the newly elected black, lesbian, one legged mayor has worn off already, and its only been a few weeks.

    Speaking of Los Angeles, it seemed a little odd hearing the mayor, Eric Garcetti, speak a few words about the environment, when the environment he himself controls and actually has jurisdiction over, the city of Los Angeles, is a filthy disease ridden medieval sh#thole. He should try to do something about cleaning that up instead of worrying about the Pacific Ocean sea level rising up a few inches in the next 250 years. Bubonic Plague, Typhus, emerging Meningitis, Hep A, B, &C, Dysentery and so on is what Mayor Garcetti should be focused on, not long term weather patterns.

    Brh

    • benr June 3, 2019 at 4:58 pm #

      Ah come on the above is the new California normal.
      I could take some pictures of areas in San Diego that look worse than some of the third world countries I visited while in the Navy.

      • BackRowHeckler June 3, 2019 at 5:28 pm #

        If that’s the case, it a tragedy, Ben.

        It just that these big lefty pols are always talking about the environment, the environment, the environment, but the environment they have actual control over is foul, polluted, filthy and disease ridden.

        Do you see the delicious irony in that?

        Brh

      • Majella June 3, 2019 at 9:38 pm #

        Yeah, sure, but you can do the same exercise in cherry picking in any city in any country anywhere.

        I have to say, when I was in San Deigo (La Jolla to be exact) in July 2014, the whole area and next door Ocean Beach were just deliciously lovely…nothing like a sunshin-y climate! No doubt, benr could head to some small, discrete areas in the likes of Chula Vista, for example, and get some pretty compelling evidence of shitholiness. But even then, a microscopic view is a distorted one.

        While in Philadelphia & Chicago, way, WAY back in 1989/90, I found shithole suburbs that you felt unsafe driving through and were reluctant to stop at red lights, while in contrast, leafy idylls in the outer ‘burbs were much greater in number & area.

        So, I say, this is nothing new and is not a direct result of immigration, ‘liberals’, Hillary Clinton, or any other current political ‘demon-of-the-day’. “It was ever thus.”

        • benr June 3, 2019 at 10:09 pm #

          Oh no you are just flat out wrong just outside the gas lamp has turned into a huge homeless camp.
          The exit just before the Coronado bridge looks like a scene from escape from LA!
          The sAN dIEGO pd chase them all around the city and OB is now sick of them as well.
          This trend sky rocketed under Obamaniable and has not slowed down at all. A true travesty in the horrible Democrat pervert mayor kicked out of office and the equally obnoxious Republicant mayor in office now.

  35. Pucker June 3, 2019 at 5:06 pm #

    Have you ever noticed that there are no Negro illegal immigrants? There are African illegal immigrants, but there are no mixed blood 75% African blood, 25% European or Je…wi,,,ish blood people trying to sneak into the country to make money. The Negroes basically shout about their “Rights” and vilify poor white downtrodden crackers for their “White Privilege” while the politicians that the Negroes vote for flood the country with cheap labor that outcompetes black people for jobs. Right? Totally insane….

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  36. Pucker June 3, 2019 at 5:23 pm #

    Given that sexual promiscuity ruins young girls, rather than looking for the “perfect soulmate” in a soulless sexual culture, shouldn’t I be looking for the Perfect App? What I really need is a good “Sexbot”?

  37. JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 5:44 pm #

    Seems to me that the failure of capitalism occurs when governmental lobbying, socialism, regulation, good ol’ boys clubs, narrow the competitive field for goods and services down to 1 or 2 participants. Capitalism regulates prices by competition, the free market. Our system today destroys competition, when it should be encouraging it.

    The low prices of oil through the years shows what a market with a lot of competitors in it can do. Rockefeller fixed the prices when it started out, but Standard Oil was busted up and the monopoly was gone.

    Medicine is a perfect example, there is no competition. How can you run a free market with a monopolistic marketplace? Either the medical industry, including pharma, has to be de-monopolized and made competitive or like every other service that has to be a monopoly, such as public service, it must be regulated in a non-political manner to protect the public.

    • FincaInTheMountains June 3, 2019 at 7:17 pm #

      Capitalism regulates prices by competition, the free market

      No shit?!

      Not by cartels, monopolies, tariffs, taxes and political favors?

      • Pucker June 3, 2019 at 7:22 pm #

        Noam Chomsky says that in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa that the Americans assumed that Hi Tyler would win and that the World would eventually be divided between the Germans and the Yanks. Weird….

      • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 8:26 pm #

        Note my next sentence. Capitalism, the way it is supposed to work, is almost nonexistent.

        America has turned socialist.

        • Majella June 3, 2019 at 10:00 pm #

          Not socialist, but crony-capitalist.

    • tucsonspur June 3, 2019 at 7:45 pm #

      It’s not just competition, it’s control. Control over the CFPB, for example. Capitalism can, and often does, crush the average consumer.

      https://www.npr.org/2018/12/06/673222706/senate-confirms-kathy-kraninger-as-cfpb-director

      Larry Kudlow, former chief economist at Bear Stearns, is now Trump’s top economics adviser. One time alcoholic and cocaine addict. Loved the tax cuts. What was his benefit? Hundreds of thousands, millions?

      Kudlow’s curve, the Laffer curve, lower tax rates will grow the economy. Just what we need. Something to shorten the Long Emergency and take us more quickly to chaos.

    • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 8:45 am #

      Capitalism in anything near a pure form would fail, largely for one of the reasons you list: monopolies.

      There is no competition left when one or two companies develop a quality product, become large enough to take over the market, and squelch the competition to maintain their status. Soon they may even venture into other areas and cóntinue to destroy the competitive landscape (see Amazon).

      This is why we need a mixed economy with some regulation.

  38. HowardBeale June 3, 2019 at 8:18 pm #

    Jim,
    Google showing your sight as “unsafe.” These organizations are SO BIG there is no way to monitor all the little wanna be Nazi’s that are sitting in their 8×8 Kingdoms, deciding who shall and shall not be heard.

    • JohnAZ June 3, 2019 at 8:32 pm #

      The idiots are worried about Russia and others influencing election.

      Hey, social media’s algorithms are the future decider of elections. Voters are going to be eliminated from the process, in effect.

    • Sam Stone June 3, 2019 at 9:23 pm #

      Google calling a site unsafe is like putting up a yuge Las Vegas style neon sign saying GO HERE!

      • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 10:35 pm #

        No, people don’t react that way because there is too much they don’t know. They think unsafe means unsafe. They don’t know a browser can’t change the internals of their computer so they really do stay away as big daddy intended.

    • K-Dog June 3, 2019 at 10:26 pm #

      All you have to do is host a You-Tube on a blog and you are ‘unsafe’. That is all I do and I’m unsafe too. There is serious irony in that considering who owns You-Tube. But if Google says it is true, then it must be true. And after nobody questions it; the ‘it’ becomes true.

  39. pkrugman June 3, 2019 at 9:43 pm #

    Mexico is not playing along with the US zeitgeist. Mexican officials behind the scenes are warning Trump that they’re prepared to announce targeted counter-tariffs if the United States carries out threats of new tariffs on Mexican imports. Mexico is the U.S.’s third-largest trading partner. As they say in Spanish, if Trump is not careful “le va a salir el tiro por la culata”

    • FincaInTheMountains June 3, 2019 at 10:12 pm #

      Just watch it when American Deplorables with their genetic memory will finally recall that they are actually the descendents of the English Yeomen and how they under the command of Robin of Locksley burned down the castle of the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert and you get such a tiro por la culata that you’ll be looking for your culata on other side of the border.

  40. 100th Avatar June 3, 2019 at 10:09 pm #

    “Mr. Trump’s wish to Make America Great Again, the vision of a return to the economy of 1955, of men toting lunchboxes through the factory gates…”

    This is a little rich coming from someone with visions of a return to river barges and canal bateaux cheerfully trading the produce and product from yeomen farmers and artisans in a post-energy/financial collapse America.

    Wishful thinking both.

    No factories and no merchant traders
    Mobs and gangs don’t play that way. Be it street thug or local government leaders in a civilization deprived future.

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    • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 1:12 am #

      So you don’t think there is any other option than an anarchic future controlled by gangs and thugs? I can understand the pessimism. But would it not be possible for some pockets of semblances of civilization to remain or even regroup?

      • 100th Avatar June 4, 2019 at 7:16 am #

        I don’t believe in any of that fanciful BS.

        Save for some planetary disastrous event like nuclear war, the future is one of more automation and AI.

        Less need for people… everywhere.
        Factories, farms, barges, taxis, long haul trucks, accountants and medical offices.
        Besides, they use exponentially less energy and are better stewards of the planet.

        It’s not techno-narcissism. It’s evolution.

        • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 9:23 am #

          Ah ok, that is very interesting. I hadn’t picked up on that before that you were a transhumanist. It is a bit curious though that you suggest that machines use exponentially less energy than people. I get that we have made progress in using somewhat less energy/resources in some things compared to the past. Both man and machine require energy to work, but machines require much more resources including non-renewable ones (and rare minerals/metals) to operate. Don’t you think? Modern humans clearly use massive amounts of energy, but Stone Age humans did not.

          • 100th Avatar June 4, 2019 at 10:19 am #

            The near future will not ask for less people. It will dictate.

            As far as AI and robotics. Genie is pushing on the cork of the bottle. That, or the hand has begun its rub of the bottle. Choose your metaphor.

            From then on, our fate is in Roko Basilisk’s figurative hands.

          • elysianfield June 4, 2019 at 11:24 am #

            “. Choose your metaphor”

            Uhh, Man proposes, Nature disposes?

        • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:17 am #

          It’s not techno-narcissism. It’s evolution.

          More like devolution. The future is fewer people – possibly none at all – and MUCH less tech. Tech is what created our current mess in the first place. It damn sure ain’t going to save us. Pure cornucopian thinking.

          • 100th Avatar June 4, 2019 at 10:53 am #

            So much assumption on this site.

            I’m not trans- anything.

            Posthumanist?

            Tech save humanity? Says who?

          • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 12:22 pm #

            You’re right and I apologize for making that leap. I did assume you were referring to a mix of man and machine. But you are talking about the elimination of humanity altogether.

          • 100th Avatar June 4, 2019 at 2:13 pm #

            Not elimination.
            Supplanting.

  41. “The Moral Courage to rise above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy”…

    A moment of silence. For all of us.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRy8M2aiMIc

    RIP, the Climate

  42. SpeedyBB June 3, 2019 at 11:10 pm #

    Jim Kunstler wrote:

    “By then, the world had noticed the dollar’s declining value trend-line, and threatened to drain Fort Knox to counter the effects of holding those dollars. Since then, all world currencies have been based on nothing but the idea that national economies would forever and always pump out more wealth.”

    I eagerly follow any news along the gold trail as it has turned into quite a curious game of cat-and-mouse, with Fort Knox declining to be inventoried (as the US Congress has pressed them to do) and all the monkeying around with German gold bullion (I recall the Bank of New York not only refusing to return their ingots but not even wanting them to look at their own metal). I have not read that Berlin has had it all shipped back to them.

    I sure bet the French were glad they never asked Uncle for his kind protection (the story of the French reserves stashed in Africa during the German invasion, then repatriated practically intact, is also fascinating).

    The NATO bandits who stole the ~150 tons of Libya’s gold (thereby torpedoing the not impractical plan for a pan-African bank) likely let it rest a few moments in Fort Knox… before seeing it spirited away to Beijing.

    If the timid, corrupt Congress ever forces the issue all they might find in the bullion repository is Mother Hubbard with a shit-eating grin on her face.

  43. BackRowHeckler June 3, 2019 at 11:15 pm #

    President Trump is in London to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D Day landing, representing the United States, probably the final time this will happen (the last Gettysburg celebration was in 1938, 75 years after the battle) You’d think the little pissant Muslim mayor of London would show some respect, at least for the event, but apparently, Normandy had nothing to do with him or his people in Pakistan, why should he give a sh#t? He represents the new, Islamic, Africanized London, so he starts a pissing contest with the President of the United States, still Britain’s best ally. The thing I like about Trump is that he just doesn’t bend over and take it like Bush II did, but gives it right back. Apparently the British govt has banned carrying all sharp instruments but the knife attacks carried out by black gangs on the streets of London go on daily, along with the charming activity of throwing cups of sulfuric acid into unsuspecting pedestrians faces. Ponder that for a moment, CFners. Good thing guns are banned too! Quite a multi cultural utopia they built for themselves in merry old England. I’m looking forward to some of that here, ‘specially the acid attacks which would be novel on the streets of NY and Chicago.

    brh

    • pkrugman June 3, 2019 at 11:48 pm #

      brh: I’m looking forward to some of that here, ‘specially the acid attacks which would be novel on the streets of NY and Chicago.

      You are sick. As sick as the people who throw acid.

      • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 12:26 am #

        how rude.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 12:27 am #

        Yes Trump should get down on his knees and beg forgiveness from Me Gain Markle for pointing out her nastiness. How dare he!

        • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 4:56 pm #

          That is a great name. Did you ever see all the soft core porn she did that they had to pull down?

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 4:54 am #

            Have you never watched porn, Nightowl?

          • Nightowl June 5, 2019 at 5:42 pm #

            Oh, come on. It’s hilarious. She’s proper and respectable now!

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 7:44 pm #

            I didn’t say she wasn’t. What’s that got to do with anything?

            If you use porn at all, why do you even think there’s anything out of order about what she did? Surely you’re not a…you know…hypocrite.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 8:00 pm #

            If you use porn at all, you’re exactly as ‘respectable’ as the women you use. Or they’re exactly as ‘respectable’ as you. Whichever way you want to look at it. It’s the great leveller.

          • Nightowl June 6, 2019 at 8:23 am #

            Why does she hide her past?

            I know why.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 8:58 am #

            I know why too. Same reason the er White House would prefer not to have these all over the place:

            https://socialnewsdaily.com/71572/13-photos-of-the-first-lady-she-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

            (What the heck happened to her eyes and mouth?).

            My point wasn’t about her hypocrisy, it was about yours, thinking it entitles you to smirk. If you’ve never used porn, then you are entitled to smirk at her ‘soft porn’. If you have, you aren’t. Simples.

          • Q. Shtik June 6, 2019 at 10:33 am #

            all the soft core porn she did – Nightowl

            ==============

            It’s amazing the lengths women will go to in the pursuit of beauty.

            Thank God I’m a man. I would never be able to keep up with it all.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 12:29 pm #

            Q

            #notallwomen

          • Nightowl June 6, 2019 at 2:55 pm #

            But your logic is false. I have never done porn, nor would I. Nor would I ever marry a chick who had.

            I have standards.

          • Q. Shtik June 6, 2019 at 3:11 pm #

            #notallwomen – GA

            ============

            It is close enough to ‘all women’ that I am comfortable generalizing.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:07 pm #

            #inyourexperience 🙂

            I’m beginning to think American women may be unusual.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:11 pm #

            “But your logic is false. I have never done porn, nor would I.”

            I said ‘watched’ porn. Are you being devious?

            I don’t know anyone who has ‘done’ porn, but I know that 70% of men watch it.

            “nor would I ever marry a chick…”

            I would never have married a man who called women ‘chicks’.

      • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 1:05 am #

        It’s sarcasm. I’m sure you will get past the outrage rather quickly.

        • Epicur June 4, 2019 at 3:11 pm #

          There’s some internet Law that says no matter how obvious one thinks his sarcasm may be, someone will take it literally, therefore the /sarc tag.

          • Epicur June 4, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

            Poe’s Law:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

          • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 3:30 pm #

            Very interesting! Thank you for sharing this as I didn’t know there was an actual rule :-). I knew he was being sarcastic just based on history. But I can see what you mean. I’ll try to be more careful in the future myself.

    • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 12:26 am #

      WW1
      WW2
      Two wars USA should have passed on.
      even if it meant we would be sprechen Sie Deutsch…..

      • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 12:28 am #

        Korea
        Vietnam

        Two more

        • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 10:11 am #

          Chicago,

          Black females aren’t afraid of a confrontation or a fight.

          Don’t underestimate them.

          Little Brittany squared off jut-jawed against that car and was ready to throw down even armed only with a toddler. Her mistake was to rely on her men to back her up.

      • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 1:02 am #

        I would be totally ok if we had to sprechen sie Deutsch. But instead we have Ebonics and Spanglish. Even though we are moving into the future it seems like we are devolving into a babbling mongrel horde.

    • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 2:04 pm #

      brh

      You’d think the little pissant Muslim mayor of London would show some respect, at least for the event, but apparently, Normandy had nothing to do with him or his people in Pakistan, why should he give a sh#t? He represents the new, Islamic, Africanized London, so he starts a pissing contest with the President of the United States,

      Regarding who started the pissing contest:

      https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/brief-history-trump-khan-feud_uk_5cf4eb61e4b0e346ce811848

      Regarding the contribution of Indian and future Pakistani combat units to the British war effort in WWII:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Pakistan#The_World_Wars

      During World War I the British Indian Army fought in Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, and France and suffered very heavy casualties.

      “The British Indian Army’s strength was about 189,000 in 1939. There were about 3,000 British officers and 1,115 Indian officers. The army was expanded greatly to fight in World War II. By 1945, the strength of the Army had risen to about two-and-a-half million.

      “There were about 34,500 British officers and 15,740 Indian officers. The Army took part in campaigns in France, East Africa, North Africa, Syria, Tunisia, Malaya, Burma, Greece, Sicily and Italy. It suffered 179,935 casualties in the war (including 24,338 killed, 64,354 wounded, 11,762 missing and 79,481 POW soldiers). Many future military officers and leaders of Pakistan fought in these wars.

      • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:23 pm #

        Oh, GA… there go again, getting all smart & ‘facty’.

        You’re just SPOILING the internet for the likes of BRH.

        • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:22 am #

          The thing is, Majella, that I’ve never supported mass immigration on here or anywhere else (I reserve the right to feel compassion for genuine refugees) but (a) I don’t blame immigrants for being here or (b) think that it’s morally OK for a small previously powerful nation to take over two thirds of the world, steal its stuff through the barrel of a gun (and murder a whole lot of innocent people in the process), then say, ‘thanks, now fuck off’ when the moral dilemmas of colonialism come home to roost.

          You only need to look at the shoddy way the British Government behaved over a small number of Ghurkas living in the UK – and they’re a group for whom the British people (of a certain age, like me!) have a historical respect and affection, given their unstinting service and loyalty to said British people.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha#Treatment_of_Gurkhas_in_the_United_Kingdom

          • Q. Shtik June 6, 2019 at 9:55 am #

            Ghurkas – GA

            ==========

            Do Ghurkas wear burqas?

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 12:35 pm #

            The ones in question are disqualified, being male.

            And I gather their religion is a hodge-podge of Hinduism, Buddhism, and some smatterings of incorporated animism and ancestor worship.

            They’re very good fighters – burquas would probably be unhelpful 🙂 .

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 3:23 pm #

            Hey! I’m with you – I LIKE ‘facty’…there’s no other way! You have a particular skill and patience too, when delivering it. In the process, you ‘spoil’ the ignorant ‘fun’ of many here, who would prefer a Star Chamber & infinitely re-informing feedback loop.

            (Seriously, you DID my sarcasm in that remark, right?)

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:14 pm #

            Of course 🙂

  44. SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 12:49 am #

    Perhaps its not so much that our culture and political system are bent on committing suicide. But rather, an increasing lack of shared values and norms in the age of anything goes and nothing matters that has killed our culture and is now taking the political system with it. Whether or not it was intentionally brought on or is due to sheer negligence? Seems to be both. Either way, it doesn’t seem like a society can go forward for very long without a consensus on identity and purpose. And unfortunately we don’t have this now and as each day passes it seems even more distant.

    • Slugoon June 4, 2019 at 2:37 am #

      In the UK it was intentionally brought on, starting in 1997 under Tony Blair. Tom Bower’s Broken Vows provides details. Or check out Figure 2 in the following Office of National Statistics report: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/may2016

      • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 9:36 am #

        It was intentionally brought on here in the states as well Slugoon. Lower level politicians who may be somewhat opposed to this have been negligent to do much of anything about it. The Elite and corporations profit massively from it. It is also very difficult if not impossible to change anything when all major institutions, mainstream forms of media, churches, etc., advocate for population replacement incessantly while at least half of the population also supports and believes that population replacement is sacrosanct.

      • Slugoon June 4, 2019 at 12:10 pm #

        When I campaigned with Vote Leave the majority of ‘Leavers’ just wanted a sensible immigration policy: what is his or her contribution to British society, what skills do they offer, what is their health like, can they support themselves or their families etc.

        Migration is only natural but left unchecked it can (and has) led to rapid demographic change. In many places the UK has simply balkanised with little to no real integration. You might as well have taken 30 square miles of Karachi and dropped it straight into a Birmingham suburb.

        I don’t blame anyone for wanting to come to the UK to try and improve their lot. The tragedy for me is that it was done for all the wrong reasons:

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

        • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 12:40 pm #

          Well migration is natural when their is easy access into the migrant destinations. Sure humans have been moving around since the beginning of time. However, society was ultimately built by settled peoples who had a deep connection to land/location. Certainly today, East Asian countries do not value immigration to any large extent. I can’t say there have never been benefits from immigration but the negatives at this point far outweigh any benefits in Western countries. And like you shared here, it is clear that current Western immigration and migration policies are specifically oriented toward population replacement. I say this because the desire for “multiculturalism” is primarily a Western pathology.

          • Slugoon June 4, 2019 at 4:19 pm #

            “I say this because the desire for “multiculturalism” is primarily a Western pathology.”

            That’s an excellent observation. I hadn’t really thought about it in reverse. What a peculiar phenomenon.

          • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 5:01 pm #

            The desire is not the West’s, it is the desire of multinational corporations with no allegiance to any country who want cheap labor.

            It is being sold to us with warm fuzzies; those who resist are called Nazis.

        • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:28 pm #

          ” …if left unchecked, can lead to rapid demographic change.”

          Too right! Just ask the North American natives, the Southern American natives, the Maori, the indigenous Dreamtime People of Australia and the Indians, among others!

  45. FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 6:10 am #

    A stunning photo of an eagle blew the internet away

    Canadian photographer Steve Biro was in the right place at the right time. The result was a stunning image of a bald eagle, sliding on the surface of the pond at the Canadian Conservatory of Predators.

    https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2019/05/steve_biro_eagle_mirro_image.jpg

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    • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 9:37 am #

      Beautiful photo and eagle! Thanks for sharing.

    • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:13 am #

      I dunno. Looks photoshopped to me. What are the chances?

      • elysianfield June 4, 2019 at 6:52 pm #

        Nick O Demus,
        If someone can photoshop the reflection of the eagle on the water with that degree of accuracy and realism, well, I’ll believe in anything…Bigfoot, Area 51 Aliens, female orgasms….

        • elysianfield June 4, 2019 at 6:55 pm #

          …And the photographer is probably Canadian, and you KNOW that they don’t lie….

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 11:36 am #

          Reverse the image top to bottom and add ripple effects. Not hard at all. Looks suspiciously artificially symmetrical to me.

  46. FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 6:14 am #

    Dead and alive: why it’s time to rethink quantum physics

    https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/4/2019/05/GettyImages-116641374-312ffb0.jpg

    Quantum physics is strange and confusing. John Gribbin argues in his book Six Impossible Things that it doesn’t have to be quite so bad.

    https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/dead-and-alive-why-its-time-to-rethink-quantum-physics/?fbclid=IwAR0U4DjCF6u7pqQsVYSklFWLsTGF7uwPvge4C49kFfoYqagsjSb_W0_atIE

    Some hope at revitalisation of fundamental science after half a century of stagnation?

    • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 9:43 am #

      I could never make more than a D in physics and that was with lots of hand holding and no doubt my physics teacher had lots of patience. My main question was always, “Why do we have to learn this?”.

      • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:12 am #

        Agreed. Given pour current predicament, maybe it’s just time to junk quantum physics altogether, and focus on something more close to the earth, like say, permaculture, or maybe even just plain old agriculture?

        • FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 10:23 am #

          How about we junk all devils advocates?

          • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:54 am #

            No, just quantum physics for now. Maybe we’ll get to old grouchy Russians later after they’ve fired up their first bong hit for the day.

          • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 12:17 pm #

            LOL Grouchy Russians need bong hits to start the day off right? Hmmm I can think of some Americans who are the same way ;-).

          • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 12:42 pm #

            I think that the Finc is a Russian-American, so he probably needs at least two. Probably better make that four, since he’s also old and grouchy.

        • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 12:20 pm #

          Yep Ol’ Scratch. Good ole fashioned 4H, home economics and shop. Some of the public schools in my area still actually have these programs going and a lot of participation!

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 1:01 pm #

            What’s ‘shop’?

  47. FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 6:31 am #

    Yesterday was a day of Our Lady of Vladimir

    Perhaps none of the icons has played such a role in the history of Russia as Our Lady of Vladimir.

    She saved Russia countless times, but on June 3 the sudden departure of the Crimean Khan Mehmet Giray in 1521 from the walls of Moscow was celebrated.

    This year was not only the hardest year under Vasily III, but also one of the hardest years in Russian history, and it seemed that the just born Russian Empire was over.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Vladimirskaya.jpg

    But the brainchild of the son of Sophia Palaiologina and Ivan III the Great – and Vasily III was the first of the Moscow princes, called the emperor of the Rus in the treaty of 1514 with the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Maximilian I – turned out to be quite viable.

    And even the ripening rift, triggered by a dispute between Joseph Volotsky and Nil Sorsky because of his attitude to the “Judaizers”, could not stop the growth of the newborn Empire, the heiress to a thousand-year-old Byzantium, first proclaimed in 1492 in the Easter of Metropolitan Zosimus.

    Sophia Palaiologina brought the icon from her homeland – Byzantium.

    • Majella June 6, 2019 at 5:21 am #

      Finca, didn’t you recently assert that the name ‘Byzantium’ was coined by a German monk in the 17th century? Doesn’t this more recent post contradict you?

  48. FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 7:42 am #

    Why nobody is asking a simple question: which companies in the United States are benefiting most from the huge trade deficit with China and what is their political and ideological affiliation? == Finca

    More links emerge between China and Joe Biden’s family

    The Former vice president’s son Hunter Biden is reportedly linked to surveillance system in China.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5F9a5dc-R0

    • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 8:38 am #

      Finca you’re not supposed to be talking about Biden’s family and links to Chinese Intellligence or the Ukranian Army. On those subjects there is media silence, strictly enforced.

      What you are permitted to talk about — encouraged to talk about — is the Trump family’s links to Russia, involvement with Putin, Hotel in Moscow, Trumps are criminals and so on.

      Get it?

      Brh

      • K-Dog June 4, 2019 at 8:47 am #

        Piss on that.

      • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 9:47 am #

        I am wondering where the wall to wall coverage of Biden’s deep China ties is? I bet you anything there never will be any wall to wall coverage of it. In the meantime I can tune in to any station to find out what the latest Trump story is. They really do elevate him more than anybody I have ever heard of. Some people just don’t get that any coverage is good coverage for someone trying to live in everyone’s head rent free.

    • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 8:59 am #

      At any rate Joe Biden is laying low. At age 80 there’s not a lot of energy left for a major political campaign, it has to be conserved for the main event in 2020.

      Brh

      • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 10:10 am #

        OT in Chicongo: The propaganda machine here is on high alert after someone in the CPD leaked the surveillance video of a black mother getting shot and killed while holding her 1-year old daughter and dealing drugs with her boyfriend (standing next to their black $50000 Mercedes Benz) on Chicago’s west side. This overturns the narrative that Brittany Hill was an innocent bystander and she “shielded” her daughter from gunfire. Now whoever leaked that video is facing more severe criminal penalties and punitive damages than Jussie Smollett.
        Are there other lessons learned from that video?
        1.) Once blacks have decided to pull the trigger they will kill anyone and everyone. Females and children will not be spared. Don’t underestimate the ruthlessness of your adversary.
        2.) The driver’s gun clearly malfunctioned but he quickly went into Tap-Rack-Bang mode. Don’t underestimate the competency of your adversary…even ones of low I.Q.
        3.) Tactical first aid really is a great asset. The second shot hit Brittany in her left femoral artery and she died within 70 seconds.
        4.) Black females aren’t afraid of a confrontation or a fight. Don’t underestimate them. Little Brittany squared off jut-jawed against that car and was ready to throw down even armed only with a toddler. Her mistake was to rely on her men to back her up.
        5.) A lot of shootouts in this city revolve around vehicles and multiple shooters. I’m guessing any urban combat in your area will too. The 9mm may not be enough. I like .40, .357 Sig and 10mm for the ability to punch through window glass and car metal. 9mm is a competent cartridge but I feel more comfortable carrying 9mm+P bonded rounds. Better yet, a quick-handling long gun is a must in the urban setting. 12-gauge slugs, 5.56mm 7.62mm and .30-30 are very effective against vehicles and are a force multiplier against the Savage.
        6.) The Left installed surveillance cameras in a naive belief that it would prevent crime. They made the police wear body-cameras to handcuff them and prove that police are racist. This plan backfired. Black criminals don’t really care that there are cameras around and frequently verbally and physically assault police with the cameras on. Now there are tons of videos showing black behavior and black racism in America and it’s making the Left very very nervous. They will stop at nothing to make sure millions of hours of video (which are the property of the taxpayers) are NEVER shown to the public.

        Brittany Hill May 28, 2019 video (probably has been deleted by now):

        https://mtonews.com/chicago-woman-shot-while-carrying-baby-graphic-vide

        • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 10:58 am #

          Criminals in the drug trade want their violence broadcast to intimidate their base. Also, MS 13 is right in there duking it out with the black gangs.

          What will fix Chicago? Not the Left with its false promises. Not the right with its concentration on big business.

          Themselves, rejecting the politicians and creating their own future. And Hope that is possible. Refusal to allow the drug vampires to be in control. Al Capone’s hold on Chicago was broken, or at least minimized, it can happen.

          But not by electing black apologists as mayor.

          Same in Baltimore.

        • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 12:28 pm #

          Well, in Chicago, 52 shot, 7 dead last weekend alone. That’s the casualties from a small war, say, the Philippines in 1900, or Afghanistan in 2004.

          This might be a record setting summer. All the ingredients are there, and not only in Chicago either, the new history making black lesbian mayor not withstanding. Baltimore, St Louis (with its new chief prosecuter who won election on the platform he would not fight crime), Cory Bookers Newark, Cleveland, they could all be in the mix for record mayhem and stupidity.

          Just wait til summer comes and the weather heats up.

          Brh

      • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 11:01 am #

        Think about it. This is the best the Dems have to offer to counter Trump. Another Trump. But it is true, he is the best they have to offer.

  49. Elrond Hubbard June 4, 2019 at 8:27 am #

    Everyone’s winning the US-China trade war except the US and China

    https://qz.com/1629735/everyones-winning-the-us-china-trade-war-except-china-and-the-us/

    “The tariffs imposed on goods traded between the United States and China are re-shaping the global economy, but not the way the chief antagonist in that battle, US president Donald Trump, has predicted.

    “While trade with China has fallen slightly, the statistics also show that imports to the United States from other developing economies are fast increasing. In other words, the White House’s nationalist trade policy is changing where the United States sources its imports, not growing production at home. …

    “The overall trade deficit hasn’t gone away, with US government data from 2018 showing a record high US trade deficit of $891 billion. The reason is simple—US businesses looking to import cheap goods abroad are simply turning to different markets. One obvious choice is Mexico, where the United States had a record high trade deficit in March 2019, and from other advanced economies—imports from Germany and Japan hit record-high levels in March as well.

    “As the Council on Foreign Relations’ Brad Setser pointed out, one of the biggest winners is Vietnam, which has seen its trade with the United States increase dramatically. While some at the US Treasury are examining the situation for signs that Vietnam is artificially devaluing its currency to be more competitive in global markets, Setser concluded that ‘the recent jump in its surplus (and the surplus of many other East Asian economies) is almost certainly the consequence of Trump’s tariffs on China.'”

    So is Trump secretly an agent of Ho Chi Minh from beyond the grave?

    • FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 9:25 am #

      Trump is just cutting off the income streams to the Flying Monkeys.

      If Vietnamese are not shilling for Hillary and the Dems, they are OK to trade with and show China that US has a choice of suppliers!

  50. Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 8:50 am #

    By all means provide us with your insider info. on wall funding. Show us how funds from Mexico will or will not pay for a wall.

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    • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 9:50 am #

      If all remittances were taxed heavily enough the Wall could be paid for very quickly. Despite all of the rhetoric and bloviating though there will be no real Wall. That has been made perfectly clear.

      • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 10:47 am #

        Hold on. Didn’t I just hear that a federal judge just threw out the House’s attempt to stop the funding of the wall with Defense dollars. The wall is being built! And will accelerate. The dictatorship of the Left through the courts is grinding to a halt.

        • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 12:21 pm #

          You did hear that! John believe me. I want you to be right and I really want to be wrong in my pessimism.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 1:33 pm #

          And remember, Trump said he wanted “these people” here because the economy is so good. Just a version of Bush’s make all the illegals legal and the problem is solved.

          Legal immigration alone will destroy us, John.

          • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 3:35 pm #

            Yes thank you for the reminder about the problem with legal immigration too! There is far too much of it. I personally don’t want any at all but that is not very popular. So the most we could hope for it looks like is at least a big decrease in the number of legal immigrants allowed access to the country. Trump actually talked about reducing legal numbers a great deal. He floated the idea of a moratorium didn’t he? So he backed away from this promise and did a total 180 because now he wants more people legally to enter the country than at any other time in the past. And they are not European.

        • Nightowl June 4, 2019 at 4:36 pm #

          Yep. There is also a private contractor who just completed a section.

          • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:33 pm #

            yeah…half a mile for $20 million of “Go Fund Me” beggings.

          • Nightowl June 6, 2019 at 3:09 pm #

            The section was a showcase, to demonstrate their ability to contribute.

            They raised 20+ million to date (quite impressive), and they are eyeing 10 additional sites for building in addition to what Trump is planning at the federal level with the ACoE.

      • Majella June 6, 2019 at 5:35 am #

        SSL – as I understand it (and I stand to be corrected) a ‘remittance’ is funds funds earned (I.e. Savings) from labour in one jurisdiction and sent (remitted) back to family in another. Do we agree on that?

        Therefore, if the remittance has been earned and tax paid on those earnings, it’s now free Capital, right?

        What I’m getting from you here is that you would tax it AGAIN (if you could effectively identify it), simply because you resent immigrants/want your frigging ‘wall’ and don’t give a toss about the recipients who are probably relying on that remittance to keep body & soul together.

        Where are you Christian values in all that?

  51. K-Dog June 4, 2019 at 9:05 am #

    American mass media propaganda. The queen shows the Trump the highest state honors she can give. I had to endure that nonsense on the car radio yesterday. I imagined Trump walking by a line of Beefeaters. One in three falls as he walks by.

    This live-stream video now more than four hours long is closer to the truth.

    https://youtu.be/lYO5goEJOmo

    And congress could impeach his ass in five minutes if they wanted to.

    “We don’t despise trump the man. We despise what he stands for………………

    That just came off the feed.

    • FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 9:54 am #

      The all-America favourite Jew Alan Dershowitz says that Trump could take it up with the Supreme Court:

      https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-intervene-trump-office-dershowitz

      If that fails, than American people could take it all the way to the Rolling Thunder and may be even to Night Wolves!

      • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 10:34 am #

        Thomas Jefferson documented this route in the Declaration of Independence.

        When a government becomes oppressive to the people, it is the responsibility of those people to rise up and change that government.

        We have had enough of government loving idiots in this country.

    • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 10:45 am #

      You anti-Trumpers always act like the vast majority of this country just hates Trump. The MSM just feeds on this.

      A reminder, the country elected this guy as a rebellion against the status quo that has evolved in DC over the past 30 years.

      And the most popular media site by far is Fox News. CNN is being clobbered by its own hand, and MSNBC’s cadre of “journalists” are a joke.

      Neo- Liberals are far from in control in this country, thank God. And thank God, the political focus in DC and the federal system is finally moving right.

      And by the way, if you would get out from behind your anti-Trump fog, you would see he has been a gracious guest through the last couple of days.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 1:38 pm #

        Well we were wrong. Trump is Deep State/Swamp, Zionist division.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 1:41 pm #

          Trump’s win was a Hail Mary in the Fourth Quarter, 3rd down, twenty yards to go at the fifty yard line. The Receiver caught the ball and turned around and sprinted for his own end zonel way down field. The opposing team blocked for him against his own team mates who tried to bring him down.

          • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 1:50 pm #

            He’s the best you’re gonna get.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 5:52 pm #

            Yes, thus TINVOWOOT: There is no voting our way out of this.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 4:46 am #

            “There is no voting our way out of this.”

            Will there be a way of voting their way out of your system if der Volk don’t like it and want their freedom back. You know, a sort of Article 50. Or is it just one big concentration camp?

    • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 1:48 pm #

      We’re hoping for impeachment proceedings too, KDog.

      I can’t wait to see distinguished NY Congressman Gerald Nadler in the role of Grand Inquisitor, your own Tomas Torquemada, with shrill Maxine Waters standing behind him on the prosecuters podium, pulling faces. (You yourself stated last week Waters had the goods on Trump, irrefutably.) Belly laughs all summer, dampened a little when the casualty figures start rolling in from Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit, and the stirrings of Bubonic Plague and Ebola Fever from the fetid streets of LA.

      Its gonna be a great summer, made better by impeachment proceedings, which I’ll listen to on my little portable radio, sitting in a shady spot by the river, drinking a cold beer and fishing for trout.

      Brh

      • K-Dog June 5, 2019 at 3:08 am #

        And after it is all over perhaps we can have a former TV evangelist and country movie star run the show. Perhaps ‘Loving Marrow’ would be an appropriate name. And a good bone too.

  52. wwg1wga June 4, 2019 at 9:13 am #

    Initial it with loving care.
    http://www.got-truth.com/docs/Initial%20it%20with%20loving%20care.pdf

    #oathkeepers

    Q.

  53. 450.org June 4, 2019 at 9:35 am #

    Majella and GreenAlba, thanks for providing a modicum of sanity & balance & intelligence to a place, this comment section, that is otherwise bereft of those virtues.

    • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 8:23 pm #

      Sanity & balance & intelligence should be my middle names.
      YOU KNOW THAT.

  54. 450.org June 4, 2019 at 9:50 am #

    I finished watching HBO’s Chernobyl. It’s superb in every way.

    I didn’t realize Gorbachev considered Chernobyl as the catalyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union. I think that’s a bit simplistic. It’s more like Chernobyl, and Afghanistan too, were two of several straws that broke the Soviet camel’s back. Certainly, Chernobyl is excellent metaphor for the collapse of the Soviet Union while also, quite literally, serving as one of several catalysts that ultimately kicked out the last remaining supports that kept the Soviet system intact far past its expiration date.

    Did Chernobyl Cause the Soviet Union To Explode?

    Chernobyl, then, represented a fundamental shift in the relationship between the Soviet citizenry and the state. Before the explosion, most Soviets were not discontented dissidents; they believed in the Soviet system, forgave its flaws, and hoped for a better future within its confines. But after Chernobyl, the system seemed potentially unredeemable—and actively dangerous. In the early days of glasnost, stories of Stalin’s mass murders decades earlier slowly bubbled to the fore, but those generally receded, so far removed were they from everyday life. After Chernobyl, though, every citizen’s safety was at stake.

    • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 9:53 am #

      Or perhaps a system that had resulted in the slaughter of millions upon millions of people was just not that popular.

      • 450.org June 4, 2019 at 10:01 am #

        Read and learn, you ignoramus. Most of the citizenry still believed in & supported the Soviet system up until the point of the Chernobyl incident in 1986. The Chernobyl tragedy coupled with Gorbachev’s Glasnost (openness & transparency) created the perfect storm, it conjured the zeitgeist, for the final collapse of a system perpetuated by lies.

        What was never expected but has manifested nonetheless is that Red America, including & especially you as a shining example, would become the new & improved Soviets and embrace Vlad Putin as their leader.

        • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 10:15 am #

          Vlad Putin is a good leader in some instances and in others is a big failure. Your sweeping generalizations weaken your argument.

          • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 10:29 am #

            America and Russia have a common enemy, the global neo-Liberals. These folks are out to destroy both powers to achieve their power goals. My questions are, is China involved with these folks and two, what is the influence of Islam and the Middle East? Who is the ultimate leader?

          • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 12:30 pm #

            From my understanding the Western Globalists are essentially in two camps. The Anti-God UN/Communists camp and the Zionists Hyper Capitalists camp. Organized political Islam is outside of these as is China for the most part. However I am sure they will all work with one another when it benefits their long term strategies and goals. It’s a multipolar world in other words with competing factions. The idea that there is one superpower is misleading beyond the surface appearances. The problem is from my perspective that the average American is not represented by any.

          • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 2:00 pm #

            SSL, you are no ignoramus.

            On the contrary, your posts are well thought out and intelligently written.

            Dow up 450!!!

          • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 3:38 pm #

            Awww thanks Brh. That’s a really nice thing for you to say and I appreciate it :-). Dow’s up 459 right now!!!

        • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 10:23 am #

          Populations put up with just about anything from the idiots in their governments. It always take a major occurrence of some sort to shake things up enough to make change. A societal emotional barrier must be passed over to effect change.

          Our Constitution is designed to take advantage of this fact.

          Good post, 450.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 1:18 pm #

          In the West there are those two factions. But one theorist named Joel (I think) Skousen has a theory that both China and Russia each have their own versions of Globalism. And of course a Nation expanding beyond its borders is another name for EMPIRE. America went in this direction but took another tack and began to cannibalize itself. The Neo-Cons and Zionists still pretend to be like this, but their concept of a multi-cultural nation negates it at a cultural level. But even without the ideology, the same thing happened to old Rome – immigrants became the majority and very few Romans were left in the City towards the end.

          And of course Islam is Globalist and Anti-Nation, seeking a Global Caliphate as its end goal. So that’s five big players right there: the UN, the Zionists/Neo-Cons, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Muslims. There may be more or more may develop. Salvini of Italy just dedicated Italy to the Sacred Heart of Mary and/or Jesus. The Pope – a hardened UN Atheist Commie type, won’t even meet with him.

          • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 3:40 pm #

            I am beginning to wonder if Salvini is the one, or perhaps the precursor we thought Trump was?

        • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:36 pm #

          Yes…the zeitgeist of the USSR was one of ‘pretense’.

          If you asked citizen how things worked, you’d likely get the reply “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”.

          Putin is a kleptocrat and don’t ever forget it.

    • 450.org June 4, 2019 at 9:54 am #

      I’ve noted the resident Russian expert, StinkaInTheLoo, is mute on this most important topic, which is odd considering how outspoken this AI bot is about everything else.

      Surely he has an opinion like, say, it’s Hillary’s fault or the Clintons did it considering the Hillary Derangement Syndrome from which he suffers.

    • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 10:08 am #

      I sensed a generous helping of anti-Soviet propaganda in it, but given that this was a western production, it was overall pretty fair and balanced. For those a little smarter than that and willing to read between the lines, I sensed a thinly veiled commentary on current events in the west, vis-a-vis top down authoritarian management and control systems, who only hear what they want to hear, something the west now shares with it’s Soviet predecessors in spades.

      • FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 10:12 am #

        Chernobyl was a Gorbachev’s sabotage, plain and simple.

        Somebody high-up signed an order to disconnect ALL THREE LEVELS OF PROTECTION to conduct some experiment, necessary for someone’s doctoral degree.

        I saw an article in printed Russian publication about that, which since disappeared.

        • Majella June 6, 2019 at 4:50 am #

          Crap. Not EVERYTHING is a conspiracy. Sometimes it’s just the ‘someone fucked up’ rule. Occam’ Razor.
          No one – and certainly not someone as aware & empathic as Gorbachev – would have deliberately caused such an eternal catastrophe. Stop making shit up.

  55. SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 10:09 am #

    Here is just one small and simple example of how academic “Progressives” are destroying childhood and fun. Wouldn’t such energy be better used for other things. Oh I don’t know, maybe like to find a cure for cancer?

    https://humanevents.com/2019/06/03/dodgeball-is-an-unethical-tool-of-oppression-say-academics/?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fthelibertydaily.com%2F

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    • benr June 4, 2019 at 12:40 pm #

      I see its the thirty year anniversary of the Tiananmen square massacre and the freedom loving Chinese government has allowed the free flow of information about the event to blossom all over China!
      Oh wait no it has not who am I kidding the technocrats jail anyone that tries to openly talk about it in China.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests

      What is the google doodle for the day nonsense?
      Another distraction from the reality of oppression.

      • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 3:42 pm #

        And Google supports the oppression and censorship of any non-mainstream right of center voice ya know.

    • Exscotticus June 4, 2019 at 12:40 pm #

      I have a better example.

      • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 3:50 pm #

        Oh there was a big blowup in the city of Lafayette here in Louisiana because they tried to do a drag queen story hour there but it got squashed due to so much opposition. The drag queen who was running this thing in Lafayette said that the whole point was to “groom” kids to be open to all LGBTQ people and lifestyles. Excuse me! WTF does a four year old need to know this for???????? They don’t even know about the birds and the bees and have no business knowing that for heaven’s sake!!!!

  56. BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 12:38 pm #

    Last nite in Hartford, 5 fatal ODs. I did sense restless activity in the city overnight, lot of police activity and ambulance sirens headed toward St Francis hospital. Looks like a bad batch of fentanyl.

    Brh

    • benr June 4, 2019 at 12:43 pm #

      I just saw a well done video from Judicialwatch.org with a court order to investigate the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal again which also ties neatly into the Benghazi affair.
      It could get real warm in the Clinton household soon.
      Very interesting times how much more shrill will the political divide get in the next 18 months?

    • benr June 4, 2019 at 12:44 pm #

      There is no good batch of fentanyl or even worse car-fentanyl a microgram of the stuff can be lethal.

      • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 1:08 pm #

        Facebook post this morning said:

        Make sure you wipe off the shopping carts at the store not just because of the germs, but for drug residue, especially fentanyl as a tiny residue can kill.

        When I was a nurse, fentanyl was put into the hospital as a more potent pain reliever than morphine, I believe fifty times stronger. It had to be administered with a PCA, no IV injection. It was too powerful and lost favor quickly in the hospital environment.

      • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 1:54 pm #

        Ya I worded that wrong Ben. Any batch of fentanyl is a bad batch, ha!

    • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 8:33 pm #

      A man was just shot dead in the middle of the day in Back Bay in downtown Boston.

      Boston’s less liberal paper, The Herald, actually said the suspect who was taken into custody was a black man:

      The suspect, described as a black male, was caught by police on Ring Road just minutes after the shooting.

      https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/06/04/man-shot-killed-in-shooting-near-prudential-center/.

      All the other media sites in Boston have omitted this tidbit, of course. It will be interesting to see how Boston’s outspoken black DA, Rachel Rollins, who has previously been featured by PK when she said she would stop persecuting low level crimes due to “disparate impact” a few months back, will handle this case.

      I would guess that this was just a dispute over drugs that happens all the time elsewhere in Boston without fanfare. Being that this took place in one of the nicest parts of the city, I expect to hear cries for “gun control” no matter who the victim and suspect turn out to be. Stay tuned.

  57. 450.org June 4, 2019 at 1:15 pm #

    From the Washington Post about HBO’s Chernobyl.

    Depressing as it may be, “Chernobyl,” created and written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck, is a fine study in the uses of sanctioned obfuscation — and how much easier that becomes in a country where media and scientific leadership are tightly restricted. There was a time when that sort of thing might have seemed entirely foreign to an American audience; now, it’s another resonant alarm sounding uncomfortably close.

    America pretends it’s an exception because it has not one party, but two parties. I contend it’s one party pretending to be two. Despite what appears to be a ubiquity of expression in America unlike the Soviet Union before it collapsed, it’s mostly, if not all, noise. Obfuscation. So much of it in fact, you can’t effectively separate the wheat from the chaff — whatever little wheat there is if any. This comment section is a great example. It serves to offer propaganda as a viable substitute for propaganda.

  58. Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 1:30 pm #

    Review of Lauren Southern’s new documentary, Borderless, about illegal immigration and trafficking into Europe. See the actual movie on Amren. Review by John Jackson.

    Independent journalist and documentary filmmaker Lauren Southern has released a new film with the help of director Caolan Robertson and producer George Llewelyn-John. Borderless shows convincingly that the migrant crisis in Europe is not at all as the mainstream media have presented it.

    Miss Southern’s team infiltrated Advocates Abroad, a major non-governmental organization based in Greece. It operates in 17 countries and in 2017 alone helped more than 15,000 migrants get into Europe. Thus we hear Ariel Ricker, the head of the organization, admitting that the group coaches migrants to lie in order to get into Europe as refugees. This includes teaching them how to pretend to be part of a persecuted Christian minority, and even advising them to manipulate a European interviewers’ sympathy by claiming to need a break from telling their tales of woe. Advocates Abroad shut down its accounts on Facebook and Twitter after this recording was released.

    In March, Miss Southern reported that members of her team had posed as sympathetic activists to get incriminating information on another Greece-based NGO, Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI). An executive, Panos Moraitis, described the scale of the group. He estimated that at least 600 or 700 volunteers had helped them rescue 55,000 migrants at sea. On video, Mr. Moraitis claimed that ECRI was interested only in saving lives, but Greek authorities explained that the organization takes €2,000 from each of the 70,000 illegal immigrants it has trafficked since 2015. Mr. Moraitis also admitted that his organization had been involved in laundering €500,000 and implied that other NGOs had handled much greater sums.

    Miss Southern was evidently the first journalist to interview human traffickers. In order to do this, she and her team had to smuggle recording equipment through Morocco, where severe restrictions on journalism can lead to jail time for reporters. Miss Southern met with a Senegalese smuggler who explained that he charges between €2,000 and €4,000 per person for passage from Morocco into Spain. Miss Southern notes that many of the migrants were homeowners who sold their houses to raise the money to come to Europe.

    Miss Southern concludes that the migrant crisis is “almost entirely a business.” It is organized internationally by criminal syndicates including the Italian Mafia. Executives of some NGOs have been charged with human trafficking and Miss Southern found evidence that smugglers bribe the Moroccan Coast Guard to ignore their activities.

    Migrants are a problem at either end of the Mediterranean. An olive farmer named Melvut Soner estimated that thousands of migrants pass through his village every day on the way to Europe. Some villagers are afraid to go outside because traffickers control of the area. “These people are dangerous,” he explained, and says they have killed villagers as well as migrants.

    Once they get to Europe, it is the migrants who are violent. Between 100 and 300 people a day arrive at a refugee camp called Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos. Moria was built for between 2,500 and 3,100 people, but now holds an estimated 10 to 11,000. Migrants complain that the camp does not have guards and that they fear for their lives. ISIS fanatics assault and even kill non-Muslims. One migrant pleads for surveillance cameras in the camp to record the attacks.

    A doctor with Doctors Without Borders also talks about the violence, but seems deliberately to avoid mentioning that there are groups in the camp who despise each other and are bringing their tribal conflicts to Europe. Instead she focuses on overcrowding and the despair of people with no clear future. Violence does not stop at the camps. Miss Southern notes that 2015 brought a wave of terrorist attacks as well as increases in rape, stabbings, and murder throughout the EU.

    One European Parliament member estimates that migrants cost Europe €150 to €200 billion a year, and notes that greater demand for housing and social services makes life harder for poor Europeans. MEP Steven Woolfe notes that a rapid and massive influx inevitably leads to segregated communities and hostility between newcomers and their hosts. Another independent MEP explains that the NGOs that smuggle migrants into Europe are opposed to all borders. An undercover recording shows that NGO workers see smugglers as heroes.

    In Wicklow, Ireland, the town’s hotel was turned into a center for migrants. Locals complain that they were never consulted or even told about the change. There has been a huge increase in homelessness in the area, with an estimated 4,000 people waiting for housing. A county councilor worries about the housing crisis but flatly refuses to consider whether migrants have anything to do with it.

    There is an interesting interview with Gemma O’Doherty, an investigative journalist with the Irish Independent. She has a history of campaigning for the rights of asylum seekers, but sympathizes with locals. She concludes that “Ireland primarily should be for the Irish people,” and is baffled that after 100 years of national independence, the Irish are giving away their sovereignty. “If you speak out in any way, shape or form against migration in this country you are immediately called a racist, a fascist, a neo-Nazi,” she says. “It’s disgusting.”

    Miss O’Doherty agrees with Miss Southern: “This is all being done because there’s big money behind mass immigration into Ireland, as there is across Europe. This is all about money, because these people don’t care about the migrants who come here and end up homeless.”

    Miss Southern is well known as a conservative activist, but this film avoids taking an ideological stance, thus making it palatable for many viewers. It never mentions conflict between right and left nor tensions between whites and the Third World. Miss Southern does not call the crisis an invasion, and shows concern about the migrants as well as about Europeans. She interviews several migrants who say that many are given false hopes for an easy life in Europe. After they arrive, many find themselves on the streets and unemployable. Traffickers encourage them to destroy their passports. This makes it hard to deport them, but without papers they can’t get legitimate jobs. Some admit it was a mistake to come to Europe, but without a passport and no income, they are stranded.

    Miss Southern’s work has already influenced government action. In 2018, German members of parliament with the AfD party brought criminal charges against NGOs for facilitating illegal immigration, partly crediting her reporting with making them aware of the issue.

    Borderless is an excellent documentary. Miss Southern’s team finished filming in February, but chose to release the film “just in time for the European elections in May.” Let us hope that Borderless will inspire further action to crack down on the exploitation of both migrants and Europeans.

    JS: It’s profitable so it’s Capitalist? But why did the Socialist State make it profitable? The two work together as they always do and must – only this time in a horrible direction. They could work together as they did in the past to build Cathedrals, win Wars, or go to the moon. But the Public and Private will work together one way or the other. If you try to bolster one at the expense of the other, you then have just a one winged bird flopping around. To get rid of the Government or just radically minimize it is even more foolish because then the Banks and Corporations would just become the Government – as they already are secretly and indirectly via the funding of the political process.

    No friends: the Public must dominate the Private for the good of all. And that good includes the economic elite themselves. We don’t want them going Galt and leaving America. No, if they play ball with us they will be honored and be allowed to keep most of their profits. If they don’t, they will be allowed to leave with their wealth or to stay and sell out to others who will work with us. But stay and work against us? You know, like they do now? What rubbish.

    • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm #

      Very interesting post. The explanation of how the public and private must work together with the public dominating the private for the general welfare makes total sense. As does the fact that migration is largely a for profit industry. And this European story is closely mirrored right here in our own country.

    • Q. Shtik June 4, 2019 at 5:44 pm #

      if they play ball with us they will be honored – Janos

      =============

      There’s us and we. In either case Janos places himself in the group runnin’ the show.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 5:59 pm #

        Yes, the Will to Power, fatuous if I was trying to do it on my own or expecting to be the Dictator Himself. But terrifying in that I am just one cell in the Body – one of the Brain Cells. You would honor us with your trembling. But again Q, don’t worry. You know (add italians) me. Just mention my name I’ll make sure you’re assigned to an easy Camp and we’ll make it fun at times. The carrot and the stick. What kind ice cream do you like?

        • Q. Shtik June 4, 2019 at 6:23 pm #

          I thought you were in or near Seattle, WA but somebody said Idaho. Which, if either, is correct.

          BTW, given that we’re all headed for oblivion ultimately, I find the Will to Power revolting.

          • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 8:16 pm #

            I recall Idaho, with a business he runs and children.
            His wisdom is that of a centenarian.

  59. JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 1:39 pm #

    This is not popular in this country, but

    Drugs are our number one problem in our society, period.

    Mexico has stated many times that the cartels and the drugs are OUR problem as our demand is what is driving the market.

    Why aren’t Emergency orders and big government efforts being made to stem the tide?

    Easy, because a big percentage of DC are users, plus huge usage in all the cities, plus Hollywood glorifying drug usage in the movies and music. The mess on the West Coast is drug caused. People lose jobs and cannot find another because they cannot pass drug tests. The number of people on drugs keeps getting bigger. Gang warfare is on the increase as more and more folks are making big bucks from drugs.

    Why doesn’t DC go to war against drugs legally like they did cigarettes? Why aren’t the carcinogenic, COPD effects of marijuana being investigated? It has been shown that the CBD component of weed takes care of the medical effects, why is the recreational use tolerated. Why don’t marijuana sales have warning labels about their health effects? Because DC is a user district!

    The human spirit is destroyed by drugs. Mental sharpness is altered. That is why corporate America fights drugs with testing.

    Fox News MD Marc Siegel states over and over that the cause of the opiate crisis is the doctors and nurses. I agree with him. Two things, patient controlled pain meds in the hospitals, post surgery, and a lack of a withdrawal therapy before or after discharge. People are sent home with pain prescriptions by MDs that have no clue about the effects. Collusion between the MDs and the pharma industry has hooked the US. Everyone thinks that a pill is the answer for all of life’s problems. Why? Because their MD told them so.

    I would ask, how much influence do the cartels have on the lawmakers in this country, especially the Left. Drives to legalize drugs is insane. Hooking more folks is certainly not the answer to this situation. I remember how addicted the Soviet Union was on alcohol and it destroying their society, the US is approaching the same level of intoxication. Just like socialism, we are approaching everything we considered evil fifty years ago.

    Egged on by the Left.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 1:44 pm #

      People like you are our number one problem. Your misunderstanding of Reality lead to a political and economic Order that destroys humanity. The profiteers must serve the People not the other way around. The subsequent despair leads to massive drug abuse, homelessness, suicide, etc.

      • Exscotticus June 4, 2019 at 2:06 pm #

        National socialism’s “the People” is a tiny political elite—possibly only a psycho with a funny mustache.

        Janos are there any limits to your desired polity? Should the government fix prices? Determine wages? Assign jobs? Arrange marriages? Are there any choices beyond their purview? Got anything like individual rights and personal responsibility?

        • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 6:03 pm #

          Don’t be ridiculous. We will have a robust private sector and even some free market activity. Obviously the higher one goes in key industries, the less of that there can be. But again, we need the people who know about such things and would have no desire to drive them out, humiliate, or impoverish them. Not for us putting them out to work in the fields or on stands with dunce hats and signs the way the Red Chinese did. Franco did not such thing, nor Mussolini, nor Hitler.

      • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 2:24 pm #

        Baloney!

        The people are the problem. Our gimme society are the problem. Your attempt to shift the blame to institutions is just a symptom of the problem. It is up to each of us to make our own way through life, not some groups of people in institutions you call profiteers.

        You are right about one thing, generations of children not being given coping and life skills instructions by parents and the education system are giving up and turning into gimme people as a consequence. Stupidification at its best.

        Financed by our friends in the Deep State.

      • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 4:01 pm #

        But we already have a good deal of Socialism built into our system John and ExScott. If the institutions do not bear the full brunt of the blame do you feel that half of the blame should be foisted upon the institutions? Yes, culturally we have given up many of the good traits as individuals that helped us build this country. But I think blame can actually spread around pretty nicely. There is still room for individual choices and a level of control of those choices so that society does not become imbalanced. And the biggest problem with our education system is that it is not educating. It is in many instances now indoctrinating. As I said above there are still some good things the schools are doing but those things are getting to be fewer and farther between.

        • Exscotticus June 4, 2019 at 5:07 pm #

          >>> But we already have a good deal of Socialism built into our system John and ExScott.

          Agreed. And some of it is a failure, such as…

          >>> the biggest problem with our education system is that it is not educating

          The solution to our failed socialism is not more government and more socialism. It’s to fix what’s broken, or dump what can’t be fixed.

          Question: Why is the national minimum wage a single figure—$7.25 per hour—regardless of where one lives or the cost of living in that region? Yes states add to this but that’s not my point. We have a simplistic national minimum wage—socialism—that doesn’t address the economic realities of the area in which one resides. We could easily improve this by pegging it to regional COL. We have the computers. We have the stats. We have the technology.

          This is what I mean by improving the socialism we have without adding more. But for progressives the answer is always more. More socialism. More government. More control over YOU.

          • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 10:38 am #

            Well I agree that there is always room for improvement. Government could be run efficiently but it would require a great deal of clean up in our current system. The level of corruption now makes a third rate country and no doubt this is also another reason why government has become inefficient and unresponsive.

          • Exscotticus June 5, 2019 at 11:49 am #

            >>> but it would require a great deal of clean up in our current system.

            Right. We can’t even manage some rather obvious tweaks to existing law, let alone fundamentally alter every aspect of our nation to address all the things that socialists like AOC are demanding. It would require nothing less than some 1984-style totalitarian government. And believe me they’re all down for that. There’s no aspect of your life that the Left believes is beyond the purview of government.

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 5:48 am #

            ” It would require nothing less than some 1984-style totalitarian government. ”

            Oh, the irony. That’s precisely what SoftintheHead Starlight has been calling for endlessly! She SEEKS a ‘big boss’ who will ‘make people do ‘ what she deems to be right and patriotic. Hah! ‘Careful what you wish for’ sure applies right her, SSL

      • Ol' Scratch June 4, 2019 at 4:06 pm #

        I’m giving Janos the slight edge on this one. Yes, our people are certainly depraved, but they almost have to be to survive in this current shit show. But it’s a tough call and there’s certainly more than enough blame to go around.

        • JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 5:31 pm #

          The cart and the horse.

          How do you resolve the situation of individual dependence?

          The millennials are a well known microcosm of the problem with 70% of them still dependent to some degree on their parents.

          For one thing, slow and stop the support, an anathema to our socialist country. Allow people to fail, then help. Do not help them fail.

          Stop student loans at reduced rates and reduced credit requirements. Let young people and their parents consider alternatives to college. Stop overeducating people. Or at least stop doing to kids what they call higher education. Half of the last thirty years college grads are unnecessary in our society.

          Stop socialized medicine, pay as you go. The insurance industry is such a scam. MDs et al need an attitude adjustment about their economic place in society. Availability of medical care is a right, but medicine must take a smaller bite on our society.

          As the Long Emergency takes hold, the dependent folks are going to be the first to suffer as their ability to cope is compromised. So maybe the problem will resolve itself.

          • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 7:09 am #

            Agreed on medicine, although it would take a long while for prices to come back down to where they should be.

            Agree BIG TIME on “higher education.” TOTAL waste of time and resources. We need trade schools in lieu of high schools for many if not most, with paid apprenticeships starting as early as age 13. Basic readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic only for the masses. Time to roll up our sleeves, get back to work again, and take ownership back from the fucking globalists!

      • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 8:18 pm #

        Sacklers

    • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 8:17 pm #

      Vaping? I was listening to a guy saying, in the 18-20s its up 16x over [16x..thats like 10 goes to 160] recently.

  60. FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 2:17 pm #

    Yankee at the Court of Queen Elizabeth

    The most important thing to know about Trump’s visit to UK is that this is the so-called State Visit to the United Kingdom, the highest in status, as it means joining the club of the rulers of the Western World and Trump’s official recognition by the host.

    And if this does not prove the existence of Color World Projects based on the theory of dividing people into two kinds, then I really do not know what can prove it.

    Naturally, such a visit can be only one, since such a club cannot be entered twice, and Trump should have arrived in early 2018, but in November 2017 Theresa May behaved in such a fashion, that the press, not too crazy on antitrumpism, suggested that Trump’s state visit, the president of the Britain’s main ally, may not take place at all.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/donald-trump-tweets-britain-first-state-visit-theresa-may-queen-a8085296.html

    And all because Theresa May in 2014-2016 was the main opponent of Brexit, which from the bird’s-eye view of the so-called Anglo-Saxon world was inseparable from Trump’s election as president of the United States and from the point of view of the theory of world projects these two phenomena were different manifestations of the same process that after the funeral of George H. W. Bush could be called the Big Bargain.

    After this speech of Queen Elizabeth, there is no doubt that she is now heading the Big Bargain, and Trump arrived because the acting Gingema – Theresa May – resigned and silver shoes are already on the feet of Queen Elizabeth.

    Of course, Bastinda is unlikely to make her wash the floors in these shoes, but I think she already has a bucket of water in addition to the silver shoes.

    And no chairs!

    Just a bucket of water, although I think that two milligrams of Holy water in the fang of the Skripal’s cat, which recently received another title and the medal “For Merit”, will suffice.

    https://europediplomatic.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/skripal-black-cat.jpg?w=860&h=280&crop=1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shuN6ESiolU

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    • Exscotticus June 4, 2019 at 3:30 pm #

      The optics were not good. Trump and Melania were like these towering monsters trying not to crush the diminutive Queen underfoot.

      Trump’s tailor managed to accentuate Trump’s misadventurous waist with a jacket that looked like it was stolen from the set of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, like what you imagine might happen if you threw a tux into a commercial dryer and set it to max—possibly as some sort of sartorial conspiracy to denude, debase and dethrone.

      • FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 4:35 pm #

        Why do you think I titled the post in a way I did?

        https://i.pinimg.com/originals/42/49/e0/4249e0383e574a643e8fb7257a737736.jpg

      • Q. Shtik June 4, 2019 at 6:04 pm #

        Trump and Melania were like these towering monsters trying not to crush the diminutive Queen underfoot. – Exsc

        =======

        hahaha. I got the same impression.

        • GreenAlba June 4, 2019 at 6:51 pm #

          How good do you think Trump and Melania will look, respectively, when they’re 93?

          • Exscotticus June 4, 2019 at 7:42 pm #

            The Queen should not have been shown walking within the penumbra of the American goliaths. Not just in terms of the optics but also from a national security concern. What if Trump had tripped and fallen on her?!

            Heck she shouldn’t be shown walking at all! She should be conveyed from one location to the next via mysterious and royal means. One moment she’s in the garden; the next moment she’s seated at the grand dining table. Poof!

          • malthuss June 4, 2019 at 8:19 pm #

            does she get injections of blood?

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 6:52 am #

            “What if Trump had tripped and fallen on her?!”

            Well he didn’t do too well the first time 🙂 .

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlnlWgTfG-8

            A wrong step and she could have been in A & E!

            “Heck she shouldn’t be shown walking at all! ”

            Second Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor trained and worked as a mechanic and military truck driver during WWII. She can do even more than walking!

            And she still likes a bit of excitement:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AS-dCdYZbo

            Sometimes even over your way:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbAW9xyWSTA

          • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 11:07 pm #

            How about Melania’s cocky hat(e?)! A beautiful, glamorous women well past her prime, not handling it well, and thus wearing huge amounts of make up – as she must I guess in her position. A strong Catholic, apparently.

            It’s not easy being married to President Donald J Kushner. And what if they had stepped on her? Remember her Nazi salute as a girl! And that she is in fact a giant carnivorous reptile as David Icke says. We used to have Ike, now we have Icke.

          • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:41 pm #

            Malthuss
            “does she get injections of blood?”

            Yeah, Malthuss. No doubt, she & Hillary are on a healthcare plan that provides it (along with the fictional full-term abortions).

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:35 am #

            “A beautiful, glamorous women … A strong Catholic, apparently.”

            A strong Catholic woman who shagged Donald Trump while he was married to someone else?

            Oh, it’s that repentance thing, isn’t it. You say sorry then shag him again the next day, then say sorry again, ad infinitum.

            Or rather ad nauseam and until you get the gold ring and the public forgets. Which, since many of them have the attention span of a goldfish, gets you a posh hat and a seat beside the Queen in no time. R-e-s-p-e-c-t-a-b-l-i-t-y.

            Or morality laundering to go with the money laundering.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:37 am #

            Majella

            ““does she get injections of blood?””

            According to Finca she’s running the world – and the underworld – through her privy council. Even though she’s 93 and looks like Donald Trump’s next meal.

    • Majella June 6, 2019 at 4:52 am #

      Still just making shit up!!!

  61. JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

    Ha. Joe Biden has been in government for fifty years. He says that he is going to solve all of our problems. Maybe considering the mess in DC, we should consider him a part of the problem, not the solution.

    • James Hansen June 4, 2019 at 7:47 pm #

      Biden is in dire need of a taxidermist, I say we start a Go Fund Me account to help him pay for the treatment he needs.

  62. PeteAtomic June 4, 2019 at 3:26 pm #

    State Media & the agitprop officers which were for it this morning was all about trashing Trump in the UK– Brexit all bad, Trump all bad, interview with London Mayor (not Nigel Farage or anybody of any consequence) about how “bad” Trump is. Anti-globalists bad, nationalism in any form bad..
    .. and then diversity diversity diversity above all else..

    • SoftStarLight June 4, 2019 at 4:02 pm #

      Which means that Nationalism is becoming a major threat to the Elite’s security and comfort IMHO.

      • PeteAtomic June 4, 2019 at 5:24 pm #

        yep it would appear so SSL.

        All the kings horses and all the kings men can’t put the EU back together again LOL

  63. capt spaulding June 4, 2019 at 4:34 pm #

    I see that Biden is once again being accused of plagiarism. Didn’t he learn his lesson the first time?

  64. FincaInTheMountains June 4, 2019 at 5:05 pm #

    Dow up 450!!! == brh

    You could pretty much track the success of Trump by the pair DOW/Bitcoin: Dow for Trump, Bitcoin for the Deep State (Hillary Clinton)

    Dow up +512.40
    Bitcoin Down -434.55

    Happy betting!

    • PeteAtomic June 4, 2019 at 5:24 pm #

      ha ha

      happy betting indeed

    • BackRowHeckler June 4, 2019 at 9:09 pm #

      I picked up this book about motorcycle gangs in the US and Canada, goes into their earliest incarnations in San Bernadio, Cal., the Boozefighters, the Hells Angels, Mongols and so on., these dudes were definitely Hostis Humani Generis — enemies of the human race similar to pirates in the 17th century. But finca, the Night Wolves in Moscow ride with Putin, and the Collecteveros MC club in Caracas run flak for Mudaro (and beat prople up) MC clubs have come a long way since the days of Terry the Tramp stomping hippies at Altamont. Now they provide muscle for the man in charge whoo MiC!.

      brh

      • Janos Skorenzy June 4, 2019 at 11:51 pm #

        Teddy Roosevelt and his party saw a small bear. Someone asked Teddy if he was going to shoot it. Teddy said, I’d never kill a baby bear. Thus the “Teddy Bear” was born. Maduro is a Teddy Bear with Teeth and this time Uncle Samuel does want to shoot him. But luckily for Maduro, this time the Mother Russian Bear is around to protect him.

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 7:01 am #

      The DOW is meaningless.

  65. ZrCrypDiK June 4, 2019 at 7:09 pm #

    I’m not sure why you never bother to talk about the exponential assault on our ecosystem – That’s why we die. I just don’t get why you *NEVER* talk about it.

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  66. JohnAZ June 4, 2019 at 8:22 pm #

    Why is it that the Left can name call, write op-Ed’s, riot, act like jerks and you do not hear any criticism. The mayor of London calls out Trump with a bunch of name calling BS.

    Trump tweets a response utilizing the same technique and what happens? The press et al jumps all over him. What a double standard. And yes, the Left is guilty of this exclusively, the only Right person that has the cojones to counterpunch the Leftist jerks is Trump.

    Look at the current state of affairs in Congress. The Leftists have spent two years waiting for the coup d’etat from Mueller. Nada! Not good enough, now Nancy Pelosi says he is covering things up with no substantiation, then Adam Schiff says they cannot impeach him but he is guilty of crimes that should impeach him. When is this debacle going to end?

    For all you Trumpers out there, consider this possibility.

    Every jerk in Washington, DC May be firing shots at Trump, lies, innuendo, exaggerations when the real story may be that he is doing a great job for us in spite of the jerks. His family may be a loving unit instead of all the names they have been called. His tweets may be the most transparent a president has been with his constituents instead of being a con man for the Deep State. His escapades as a rich young man parallel just about every other rich young man at the time.

    Try an experiment, watch him in action and turn down the sound on the channel you are watching so you do not hear the Leftist BS. See what you think.

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 6:59 am #

      It’s funny as hell though. Trump brings out the same childish responses from the alleged “adults in the room” that he himself elicits, proving that they’re not nearly as “adult” as they like to pretend they are. No statesman remaining in the world these days, for sure.

      • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 10:38 am #

        Is it childishness?

        Or is it the manifestation of the stupidification of the public.

        One thing that amazes and appalls me is the man in the street interviews on the college campuses. The lack of education by these kids is unbelievable. Makes you wonder what exactly they had been doing during the past four years.

        The man in the street interviews in England have been worse. These people are brainwashed by a corrupt media.

        • benr June 5, 2019 at 11:28 am #

          Un-smart phones of course most everyone has their faces in them non-stop.

    • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 12:04 pm #

      “His family may be a loving unit instead of all the names they have been called. ”

      Hardly a unit – he has three families.

  67. KesaAnna June 4, 2019 at 9:24 pm #

    @ Elysianfield

    ” Where is the “Sturm und Drang”? ”

    I should have thought , ” Head Cheerleaders and Prom Kings don’t want to marry Burger King floor – moppers . ” was sufficiently emotive ?

    Anyway —

    Hmm …….maybe where the sturm and drang went was …… there never really was any sturm and drang ?

    A value I have always prized , or tried to prize , is that you should strive to explain things , whether it is instructions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich , or trying to convey what you think the meaning of life is ,

    as if you were talking to a rather dull ten year old.

    And not because your audience is necessarily stupid , or because I think children should be talked down to .

    ( I believe , on the contrary , that you should talk to a ten year old the same way you would to a forty year old , because , among other considerations , the ten year old will soon be a forty year old. )

    But because even the very brightest of people are not omniscient , and even obvious things ….. are not obvious.

    As a rule of thumb then , I try to avoid abstract , dispassionate , neutral arguments.

    Unfortunately , it seems to me , abstract , dispassionate , neutral arguments are primarily being used today to obfuscate.

    But , then again , 5,000 years ago Lao Tze complained that the primary outcome of refined education was to turn out better liars.

    so maybe that is nothing new.

    As a rule of thumb then , I try to prefer arguments that are direct , personal , individual , and emotional.

    Who does not understand the direct , personal , individual , and emotional ?

    So much for theory , so much for the best laid plans of mice and men.

    I’m afraid however that when addressing an audience which is , in fact , primarily partisan and emotive ,

    such an approach actually appears emotional , rather , HYSTERICAL ?

    After all , such things are not their second , third , forth or fifth , principle , but the very core , and wider world too , of their context.

    oh well. *shrug*

    Robert Penn Warren once wrote , ” The friend of your youth is the only real friend you ever have. ”

    That’s pretty fancy , and pretty oblique , so , yes , I’ll try to simplify it a bit.

    The love of a five , or ten year old , is unlike any love one ever knows , not least because it is uncritical and un – self-conscious , and not transiently either , but permanently . Forever.

    Apparently though , in many ways good fortune can be a curse , and one of those ways might be in this ;

    Many people who apparently know little but good fortune , apparently know nothing of what I just wrote above.

    To cut to the point ; Generally , the people I looked up to , admired , liked , LOVED , AS A CHILD —

    — BAM ! At eleven years old , and not softly , not gently , not with any sort of dumbing – down or sugar – coating ,

    I’m told these people were not just a little lacking , or less than perfect , but evil incarnate.

    And , well , true enough , we are talking about the love of a child , and nostalgia.

    But that’s also a God damned lie too , no less than any of the shit Pravda turned out.

    And worse , told that my loving them is a FAULT.

    So , there I am , and at Eleven years old too , confronted with questions like , ” What is a friend or an enemy ? ”

    And , for that matter , ” Do such words even have any meaning in this context ? ”

    So many things …….

    Like ; ” If you don’t love this country ; Leave it. ”

    Uh …… my country doesn’t exist anymore.

    And , by the way , your country , at least incrementally , had something to do with why my country doesn’t exist anymore.

    By the way , while Erich Honecker was certainly something of a weasel , I don’t doubt him at all when he claimed that the Russians didn’t tell him a God damned thing.

    So even our friends the Russians fucked us good.

    I guess the “cuckoo ” North Koreans were right all along about that ;

    ” Allies ” doesn’t mean shit. ” ( paraphrasing of course. )

    Westerners seem pretty damn hysterical TO ME.

    For example :

    Should we , or should we not , legalize cocaine?

    Hmm , here’s an idea ;

    How about we de -stigmatize cigarettes ?

    Nope ! = I’m a naive extremist for entertaining such an idea !

    Actually , believe it or not , I don’t really mind ….. that much …. that people make jokes about me , and don’t give me any credit ,

    because —

    ” A culture must believe in something larger than itself and that thing must be unifying, not atomizing, as modern Liberalism aspires to be. Individual wealth accumulation and personal glorification are leading to the downfall of the west. Decadence is our highest aspiration these days. Even the dirt poor aspire to it now. ”

    — people wind up adopting my ideas anyway more often than you might think.

    Except , of course , they are not my ideas.

    And since I don’t really have a side anyway , it doesn’t really bother me much that to a large extent many of these ideas come from a sheep – fucking lower class Jewish guy who was so stupid as to get his ass nailed to a cross for your sake.

    lol.

    • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 10:15 am #

      KesAn sure seems liek a Soker alias – a lil’ too long in teh tooth tho, catch my drift?!…

    • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 6:37 pm #

      “Should we , or should we not , legalize cocaine?

      Hmm , here’s an idea ;

      How about we de -stigmatize cigarettes ? ”

      Kesa,

      The idea is to abandon the failed attempts to control drugs…recognize that “users gonna use”, legalize drugs, make them cheap and available, and then stigmatize the living hell out of them…users, cigarettes, drugs.

      It just may bring about the concept of “personal responsibility”…”You want to kill yourself? OK….”

      If the war on drugs continues, I would recommend that part of the punishment be that the dealer must use every bit of the drugs he is found with, and within a respectable period, while in jail…administered by competent authority.

  68. Pucker June 5, 2019 at 12:11 am #

    “You gotta be very cynical.”

    The Mexicans bring their fat women dragging 20 kids to the amusement park where Beto tells them that we should give them the “respect and dignity that they deserve.”

    • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 12:37 am #

      In the new theatrical version of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the Black Maid, Calpurnia, is the moral force and big mouth behind Atticus Finch. He’s just a fucking white male after all.

      • KesaAnna June 5, 2019 at 3:06 am #

        Let me guess , I would bet they also altered the bit where the guy is convicted for —-actually , the terrible sin of feeling sorry for his presumed social better ?

        Even though the guy in question happened to be black. :/

      • benr June 5, 2019 at 9:55 am #

        Just a fcking white male…Just a fcking white male…Just a fcking white male!
        Amazing video showing insanity at its finest err worst.

    • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 10:21 am #

      you know when I hear stories of 10+ children, it *NEVER* leads to immigrants – it leads to CULTS (LDS/FLDS/etc). Utah, BaYb33!!!

      • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

        Yep, Mormons have taken over the mantel from Catholics. They breed like rabbits into a world increasingly bereft of O2 and increasingly abundant in CO2. Makes sense if you know you’re getting your own planet in the next life for being a good procreator in this life.

      • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 6:45 pm #

        “it leads to CULTS ”

        Zr,
        One of the grandkids, 18 years old soon, found this foodie-based cult on the internets, being run by this guy who insists that vegetables feel pain, and should be handled with respect…he also stated that it was OK to eat chicken, but that the chicken had to acquiesce to its own slaughter…and the leader of this group was the one that could divine this information.

        I suggested that it would be OK for him to become a member of the cult, if he was the one that talked to the chicken….

        • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 11:52 pm #

          Ahaha! You mean, if he could chop its head off and defeather the poor soul. I get it – I *ONLY* eat what I know I can kill – and that’s fish and birds. I can’t do it to mammals.

          • elysianfield June 6, 2019 at 5:31 pm #

            Zr,
            No!…If you are going to enjoy a cult, you had better be the one that calls the shots…talks to God, hands out the Kool-Aid, and services the women.

            I can’t put too fine a point on this concept….

          • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 6:31 pm #

            Wowzerz, that sounds like a strange sort of believe in Cults. I get it – orchestrate. But rLy?

        • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 1:32 pm #

          EF

          “this guy who insists that vegetables feel pain, and should be handled with respect…”

          Roger McGough got there before him, but he was taking the piss out of vegetarians.

          Vegetarians are cruel, unthinking people.
          Everybody knows that a carrot screams when grated.
          That a peach bleeds when torn apart.
          Do you believe an orange insensitive
          to thumbs gouging out its flesh?
          The tomatoes spill their brains painlessly?
          Potatoes, skinned alive and boiled,
          the soil’s little lobsters.
          Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt
          when peas are ripped from the scrotum,
          the hide flayed off sprouts,
          cabbage shredded, onions beheaded.

          Throw in the trowel
          and lay down the hoe.
          Mow no more
          let my people go!

          • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 3:01 pm #

            OMFG that’s exactly what I thought Soker would say 😉 Screaming plants!

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:19 pm #

            It’s a humorous poem by the Liverpudlian poet, Roger McGough, ThickCripDick.

            I’m not a vegetarian, so he wasn’t having a go at me.

    • elysianfield June 6, 2019 at 5:27 pm #

      ” Beto tells them that we should give them the “respect and dignity that they deserve.””

      Puck,
      This would beg the question as to whether they are currently getting what they deserve….”

  69. Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 12:40 am #

    The words of Lord Edward Snowden, first of his name.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-01/edward-snowden-most-effective-means-social-control-history-our-species-place

    A silicon curtain is descending over humanity. They have exploited one of our deepest needs, the need for human a connection, and use it against us. And Trump does nothing.

    • KesaAnna June 5, 2019 at 3:30 am #

      I don’t know …..

      Do you remember , or are you familiar with , the Jon Bennet Ramsey case ?

      I have consistently found that people consider THE critical , damning , unambiguous factor pointing to the parents guilt is that the parents called their lawyer , before they called the police.

      ( And never mind that John Ramsay was a long time successful business man , consequently might very well have known how the legal system actually works , not on paper, or on TV , but in reality. )

      The logic being ; If you are innocent , then what do you have to hide ?

      Two possibilities ; A lot of people really are that stupidly , self -flatteringly , pompously , naive.

      And some people really are that deceptively malicious .

      I’m afraid that CIA guy was right ; Mr. Snowden will never be returning to the United States.

      • malthuss June 5, 2019 at 8:06 am #

        The rumor is her brother killed her. I do not know.

      • benr June 5, 2019 at 9:58 am #

        Yes I remember it my coworker knew the parents socially.

    • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 3:11 pm #

      Where’s your hero now? I mean, this Trump carnival barker is your KKklan’s best friend. He’s a white racist wet dream. So what went wrong.

  70. “A red alert severe heat warning has been issued in the capital New Delhi as temperatures passed 46 Celsius, and residents were advised not to go out during the hottest hours of the day.”

    “Raghunath Tonde, a farmer with a family of seven, said the area has suffered worsening shortages for five years.

    “There is no drinking water available for days on end and we get one tanker every three days for the entire village,” Tonde told AFP.

    “We are scared for our lives and livelihood,” he added.”

    “The Indian peninsula has seen a drastic change in rainfall patterns over the past decade, marked by frequent droughts, floods and sudden storms.”

    This message was brought to you by why the hell are you not evacuating? Do you think the appropriate time is during the crisis? What the hell is the matter with you? Do you need to be poked with a stick? Now, back to our regularly scheduled interlude of Modern living with Electricity….

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    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 6:56 am #

      Where would they go? Have you been to India lately. Not like dirt poor peasants have a lot of options in that part of the world. Or many others either. Climate change will exacerbate the shit out of overpopulation. Too many people, too little livable space.

    • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 7:40 am #

      “This message was brought to you by why the hell are you not evacuating?”

      The Guatemalans are evacuating.

      nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/drought-climate-change-force-guatemalans-migrate-to-us/

      It’s not really a solution, is it?

      Now, back to our regularly scheduled interlude of Modern Living with patio heaters, flights to the Maldives, boxes to tick off Petra and Machu Picchu from the bucket list, driving to the gym and 17-year-olds with their own pick-up.

      • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 10:27 am #

        I get the impression , GA, if you became Commissar, you’d make alot of changes on how people live their lives. But that’s the whole point of the Global Warming Hoax, isn’t it, the elite getting to boss people around in order to save Mother Earth? Like in Orwell’s novel ‘Animal Farm’. You had the Bolshevik model for a long time but that fell apart in 1990, about the same time I began hearing about this GW BS.

        Brh

        • benr June 5, 2019 at 10:38 am #

          Indeed but you are pontificating to someone who has allowed the AGW hoax to seep into her very soul no point the polar ice caps could return at full speed and we could all freeze to death and they would say see we where right.
          Anything can be used to further the Climate disruption cults agenda.
          Money
          power
          control

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 11:06 am #

            “Indeed but you are pontificating to someone who has allowed the AGW hoax to seep into her very soul ”

            There are some levels of stupid that simply don’t merit the dignity of a reply.

          • benr June 5, 2019 at 11:35 am #

            @ga

            “There are some levels of stupid that simply don’t merit the dignity of a reply.” -ga

            Or it is an bovious truth and no point in attempting a response since the only response you could really make to refute it would be a lie.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 11:56 am #

            Nope, benr, that’s not it. First option.

            But if you have scientific evidence to back your case, do feel free to have it published and I promise to read it. Every word.

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 11:58 am #

            Actually now I think about, a ‘bovious’ truth has a certain ring to it. It sounds like a good amalgamation of bovine and bogus.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 6:43 pm #

            You know, your hoax poast reminded me of a beach boys song. You prolly knew that.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y44BJgkdZs

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:07 pm #

            My name isn’t Prolly or even Polly.

            Sorry, I’ll pass on your link – I have no sound.

        • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 11:05 am #

          brh, I am no aspiring commissar and have no wish to force anyone to do anything, so I don’t know who ‘you’ is in this scenario.

          You express wishes and preferences all the time on here and point out facts as well – are you forcing anyone to do anything? No, you’re expressing an opinion, same as me. The science is not my opinion, BTW – the science can stand by itself. My opinion is merely that we should observe the science and act upon it. Your opinion – that we should not – is the one that will win out, so I don’t know why you’re so threatened by my opinion, but threatened you seem to be.

          Your paranoia is yours to play with. But your children and grandchildren will not thank you.

          You keep producing more climate migrants if you want to and continue to make a stick for your own back as well as theirs. It is outwith my powers to influence anyone’s behaviour other than my own.

          And has been pointed out many a time, ‘Mother Earth’ will be fine for a good long time and doesn’t require to be saved, either now or when those ‘intelligent’ morons she hosts have effected their own extinction.

        • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 3:39 pm #

          “Global Warming Hoax” In 3 years, when you and I will still be here, You’ll *FLOUNDER* . And I’m not quite sure if you outlive me or vice-versa… But mother earth/ecosystem will be gone, and even if you do outlive me, you got *NO CHANCE*. Get it yet?!?

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:24 pm #

            ThickCripDick, please try to take your meds before you come on here. It’s only polite.

            I don’t expect to have *ANY CHANCE* in any future scenario. I’m not sure why you think that is an issue to argue about. Or why you’d imagine it has any connection to your ignorance about global warming.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 6:46 pm #

            SH! I found out today they got drugs that you take once a month. Sounds like sRs withdrawal, or *SUMPTIN* Like I said we all got 3 years left. And they gunna *SUXOR* .

    • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 11:02 am #

      “Raghunath Tonde, a farmer with a family of seven,”

      SnakPak,
      Teach the bastard to code….

    • Exscotticus June 5, 2019 at 11:38 am #

      “The Indian peninsula has seen a drastic change in rainfall patterns over the past decade, marked by frequent droughts, floods and sudden storms.”

      And yet the population continues to grow, expand and consume.

      A drastic change in rainfall patterns, eh? India has always had a wet season and a dry season. During the wet season, there are frequent floods and sudden storms. During the dry season, there are droughts. Nothing new, folks.

      “Drought in India has resulted in tens of millions of deaths over the course of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.”

      Droughts in the 1700s? How is that possible? CO2 levels were a fraction of what they are now (which is still a mere 0.04% of our atmosphere). No significant anthropogenic climate change back then.

      Similar records exist for flooding. Is it due to rising CO2 or poor land management…?

      Did Kerala’s dams exacerbate India’s once-in-century floods?

      Here’s a quote from a scholarly study…

      “An examination of the diagrams for India reveal that there have been greater frequencies of ‘Droughts’ and ‘Floods’ during the period 1875 to 1920 than either before or after.

      Emphasis mine. Proving of course that all this is nothing new. Nor is it culminating in recent decades. All we have here are the usual biased journalists pushing their usual agendas with their usual hyperbole.

  71. “Loss of Arctic sea ice stokes summer heat waves in southern U.S.
    Over the last 40 years, Arctic sea ice thickness, extent and volume have declined dramatically. Now, a new study finds a link between declining sea ice coverage in parts of the Canadian Arctic and an increasing incidence …”

    • FincaInTheMountains June 5, 2019 at 5:51 am #

      Well, at least after the appointment of John Durham as Prosecutor in the case of the beginning of the Mueller’s investigation, there always is Climate Change to talk about!

  72. FincaInTheMountains June 5, 2019 at 3:50 am #

    Finca’s ideas about Hillary Clinton get a major “endorsement” from Rush Limbaugh

    Hillary Clinton: Architect of the Coup

    RUSH: Speaking of Hillary Clinton, folks, we had this piece yesterday from the Federalist by Mr. H. A. Goodman, and it was one of those pieces that you read it, and you say, “Yeah, yeah.” You know it all, but you get kind of frustrated that you didn’t think of it all yourself. His point basically was (without rehashing the whole thing) that every bit of everything we know or think we know — every news item, every little bit of information that fed this narrative the past two years or three now, that Trump colluded with Russia — came not from American intelligence, not from British intelligence. It didn’t come from FBI intelligence.

    It came from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

    https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2019/06/04/hillary-clinton-architect-of-the-coup/

    Of course, Rush is being cunning – he knew all about it for a long time, it is just now OK to talk about it.

    I think, after Trump’s State Visit to Great Britain, things are going to accelerate quite a bit.

    Christopher Steele to be interviewed by US investigators

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB6f5mWDvkg

    • benr June 5, 2019 at 10:01 am #

      I have news for you many people on the political right have been talking about this for at least two years now.

      • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 10:27 am #

        No duh. Moron, we’ve all heard this since her loss 3 years ago.

        • benr June 5, 2019 at 10:34 am #

          I was helping our Russian friend out not speaking to you.
          Do you have some unresolved crisis you need to speak about?
          Dr. Ben is in the house.
          Pobrecita.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 1:32 pm #

            First off wtf you talkin about? Finca ain’t russian – he’s south american IIRC.

            Second off – heh! RIIIght.

        • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 11:58 am #

          They’ll still be talking about Hillary in 20 years when their crops fail and they’re starving. The last thing they will do before they take their last breath is put on their MAGA hats, kiss their picture of Trump and salute the flag as they pass from this mortal coil. The women, in addition to kissing their picture of Trump, will put their pussies in his hand so he can grab it one last time before they push off.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 3:00 pm #

            They just can’t let go of hitlary, or killer hillary, or whatever they’ve been misinformed. It’s bad – they’re not just uninformed, they’re *MIS* informed. And they usually collect automatic weapons.

          • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:54 pm #

            yes…and they talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome? These bozos suffer the same loss of sensibility at the invocation of “Her” name.

            I contend that Trump’s loyal followers are as deranged with their love & admiration of him as I am in my constant and unsatiable loathing.

            I can’t hear him spilling his usual word salad of bullshit & jellybeans (to the Irish Press ” your Prime Minister is doing a great job”) without saying – if not aloud, then muttered under my breath ‘STFU you total fool.’

      • Nightowl June 6, 2019 at 3:24 pm #

        Not a “righty” but: It was John “Pedo” Podesta and Robby Mook.

        What do I win?

    • Exscotticus June 5, 2019 at 1:29 pm #

      It’s absolutely true that Team Hillary originated the Russia collusion theory. She did so right after the DNC email leak to deflect from what the leak revealed: her own collusion with the DNC to thwart Bernie Sanders and undermine the election process.

      You have to remember that the DNC email fiasco came right on the heels of Hillary’s other email fiasco—a new pimple on top of an existing boil. At the time, even the mainstream media recognized this deflection and didn’t seriously entertain the idea that Trump was somehow coordinating with Russia against Hillary. And if he was, he certainly wasn’t hiding anything.

      That all changed when Trump won the election. Now Russia collusion was seen as a means to impeachment, and was collectively embraced by those who opposed Trump.

      And Hillary’s collusion? The one for which we actually have email evidence? Buried. Forgetten. Tossed like the tinsel on last year’s Christmas tree. No criminal investigations. No indictments. Nothing.

      • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 10:01 am #

        Good points, all. She’s a dead story tho, and to continue flaming those fires seems moot at best. But tinsel – I remember we’d take the ~1′ long pieces between our hands, carpet-walk until that thang pointed straight out, and *ZAP* each other! Haha, static electricity at work!

    • Majella June 5, 2019 at 11:49 pm #

      Limbaugh is a blowhard and a dry-0drunk. Shit-stirring is EASY and he excels at it now, in the age of ‘Fake News’ and ‘truth’ is a ‘lie’.

  73. tucsonspur June 5, 2019 at 4:34 am #

    Most of us are aware that consumer surveillance is pretty much the business model of the Internet.

    It’s an ongoing battle between privacy and security, between government and corporations, with citizens caught in the middle.

    It goes way back. In 1994, CALEA(Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) was passed. Wiretapping capabilities had to be built into phone switches so the FBI could eavesdrop. And today, the FBI wants backdoors into phones and computers, etc.. Its use of IMSI catchers was a closely guarded secret.

    One shudders to think of what the NSA is doing. It’s a battle between more encryption and less encryption. Even in this country, law enforcement and the government often want to weaken encryption.

    Europe may be getting ahead of the game with its GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), mainly protecting data and privacy but it also has regulations for network and computer security.

    So it goes round and round. Is encryption good or bad?

    It’s both, isn’t it?

    I say no to Face Shnook.

    • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 10:30 am #

      You watch a little ID network programming, and you see all recent crime is captured on video. NOT ENCRYPTED.

      • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 11:05 am #

        Zy,
        If it is encrypted, the terrorists win….

        • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 3:04 pm #

          if it is encrypted, the nsa wins. Think they don’t have keys to all up to 1024?!?

          I get cha tho – terrorists win nonetheless.

  74. Pucker June 5, 2019 at 7:46 am #

    Are you a “Progressive”? If you are, then you may be the problem.

    “Among the greatest challenges facing humanity is the ability to survive progress.”

    Patrick J. Deneen
    Why Liberalism Failed

    • James Hansen June 5, 2019 at 9:11 am #

      These photos show without a doubt that Republicans are the worst traitors in American history.

      https://publicintelligence.net/911-pentagon-damage-high-resolution-aerial-photos/

      • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 9:59 am #

        Link’s not working for me.

        • James Hansen June 5, 2019 at 10:53 am #

          That is odd as it works for me. Too bad as the pictures are really astounding and would of knocked your socks off.

          • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 11:09 am #

            I’ll try again on a different computer later.

          • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 11:33 am #

            …and would of knocked your socks off. – J. Hansen

            ==============

            Please God, make him stop!

          • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 11:56 am #

            I thought you didn’t believe in God?

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 1:32 pm #

            “I thought you didn’t believe in God?”

            I expect he believes in metaphor, like many of us 🙂 .

          • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 5:51 pm #

            Are you trafficking in metaphors :-)? I was actually going to say, hey you should call on someone you know. But I wanted to be nicer to Q. I am making up for not being so nice in the past and I fully plan to come full circle because I feel bad about what I said.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:51 am #

            “Are you trafficking in metaphors :-)? ”

            No, but they’re a big part of the English language, so people use them all the time.

            So all those people who shout ‘oh God’ in those very personal moments aren’t actually calling on him to witness. 🙂

      • benr June 5, 2019 at 10:02 am #

        Yes they are right behind all Democrats that is.

      • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 1:58 pm #

        RE 9-11 photos. Nice! Notice NO AIRCRAFT WRECKAGE whatsoever – nevermind the outline of same in the wreckage – and relatively inconsequential burn scarring. The Pentagon was hit by a missile and/or an internal explosion (probably both). THERE WAS NO HIJACKED AIRCRAFT INVOLVED WHATSOEVER. The US Government is LYING! Watched a video on NetFlix last night on TWA 800 – TWA Flight 800 (2013) – in ’96. Same story. It appears that the USN shot it down, possibly by mistake. Either way, they’re (mostly the FBI, which was charged with whitewashing the investigation) covering it up.

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 1:59 pm #

          By the way, that’s a really good find! Photos of that incident are really hard to find – on purpose.

          • James Hansen June 5, 2019 at 7:48 pm #

            Yes, I was shocked that photos like these exists and taken by the government for anybody to see.

            A little context: the original impact resulted in a perfectly round hole with the roof line still intact, then it either fell or was taken down. These photos was taken maybe a week after the incident.
            Oddly enough the first thing that was done was to spread 6″ of sand for thousands of square feet to cover the grass,

            Notice the wooden window frames are still intact as is a 40 foot pine tree 35 feet from the impact, 14,000 gallons of jet fuel did not damage either of them!

            There is no damage to the walls from the 160 foot wingspan or the engines that would of hit the walls at 500 mph.

            And most amazing of all is that nobody has commented on visual proof that

            9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB!

          • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 9:42 pm #

            or the engines that would of hit the walls – J. Hansen

            ==============

            Oh My Freakin’ God, there it is again! I think I’m gonna get on my bike and aim for a bridge abutment at 100 mph if that’s the only thing that will make it stop. The added benefit will be the end of the infernal ringing in my ears.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 9:07 am #

            Think of it as flooding therapy, Q.

            https://www.tutor2u.net/psychology/reference/treating-phobias-flooding

            Soon you won’t even blink when when your b-i-l says ‘prostrate’ instead of ‘prostate’. And your life will be more serene. 🙂

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 3:15 pm #

          The TWA 800 explanation was always suspicious as well. Aircraft instrumentation, which included the Fuel Quantity Indicating System, was part of my specialty in the USAF, and I’ve NEVER heard of an aircraft blowing up due to internal fuel tank wiring issues. It just doesn’t happen. The only wiring that ever goes inside the tanks is for the fuel quantity probes, which use a milliamp signal, and the probes – giant electrical capacitors – are constructed in such a way that it would take a tremendous voltage to short across them for what are obvious reasons and easily ignitable fuel vapors are constant in all fuel tanks as they empty.

          The boys at Langely also released this laughably hysteric video during the investigation as well, which prematurely and repeatedly proclaimed “NOT A MISSILE”. Yeah right. Eye witnesses and investigators themselves asserted loudly otherwise. DEFINITELY A MISSILE!

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMN5nJ0OVJ4

        • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 10:16 am #

          You guys do have a good point – where are the wing/tail remnants? However, the whole thing happened due to Cheney ordering STAND DOWN. I highly doubt anything got shot out of the sky that day. I mean, since the late 50’s/early 60’s, nothing would have ever been able to penetrate DC (white house/pentagon/congress) – yet?!? I think that’s what bother me the most, having lived/worked in the 80’s in DC for Mil Ind Complex. And the fact that the pentagon hit area had been recently reinforced (that just rubs me wrong – how many did they kill/allow to die). Reminds me of what the Russians did to their soldiers after WW2, the ones that apparently saw/knew too much (Siberia/Gorky).

  75. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 8:55 am #

    “Raghunath Tonde, a farmer with a family of seven, said the area has suffered worsening shortages for five years.

    Abortion is merciful but the Christian God, and the Hindu Gods too I guess, require maximum suffering.

    Baby Fetus.

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    • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 11:14 am #

      “Baby Fetus”

      450,
      I like the meme. How about a reference to the old Avalon Ballroom posters, quoting the Family Dog; “May the baby Jesus (fetus) shut yer mouth and open your mind?”

      • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 11:54 am #

        I was Baby Fetus for Halloween one year. Didn’t go over to well, or, maybe it did, because people ran from me in horror. I think it was the vacuum cleaner I stuck to my head.

        • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:08 pm #

          too

    • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 10:17 am #

      Well, at least it wasn’t 10 !!! HAHAH!!!

  76. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 9:03 am #

    I’m not sure why you never bother to talk about the exponential assault on our ecosystem – That’s why we die. I just don’t get why you *NEVER* talk about it.

    Because business would dry up if he did. Immigrants bringing the Black Death, sells. Environmental degradation, not so much. It really is that simple.

    He’d clear the goons/thugs out of this comment section in no time flat if he focused on the root of the systemic issues versus the symptoms. The goons/thugs like the weeds. It’s their camouflage.

    • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 10:51 am #

      450? what happened to 350?!? hah!

      Yeah 3 years, and inherited money retards now all hold the nuclear triggers.

      Ecosystem – what ecosystem – the one that dies when we mine? when we pollute? When we frack?!? When we clearcut?

      Yeah, best to play the dupes divide/conquer style – it has worked for millenia, literally.

      • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 11:52 am #

        450? what happened to 350?!? hah!

        Exactly. You’re the only one who got it, or the government agents who monitor this site and post to it got it too but pretend they don’t.

        • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 3:09 pm #

          Here’s something you should know, before *THEY* censor it. I’ve been carless for 25+ years. I’ve had a motorcycle for the past decade, but 600 miles first year, and barely 1000 miles since. I am disgusted by the american people, day after day, guzzling 1.5 gallons PER CAPITA. That’s more than the water they drink. It’s just absurd.

          • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 3:43 pm #

            I agree, it’s absurd. Insanity, actually. And they believe the answer is more growth. Seriously, the New Green Deal advocates are quick to point out that their plan is completely compatible with growth and in fact will be more growth promoting than not implementing it. Too funny. It’s growth that got us here so naturally the answer to what ails us, i.e. growth, is more of the same growth dog that bit us.

    • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 11:07 am #

      450, you’re apparently the smartest guy here. Ivy League? Trust Fund?

      Not like us peasants who went to State U on the GI Bill.

      Carry on my friend, enlighten us ‘ignoranumus’ and goon/thugs.

      Brh

      • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 11:17 am #

        I would much rather be a peasant than a soulless aristocrat any day.

      • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 12:01 pm #

        ignorami?

        • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:05 pm #

          Yes, it’s the Japanese art of using rhetorical flourish to reactively twist an ignoramus into various, imaginative shapes.

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 5:57 am #

            Brilliant!?

          • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 10:26 am #

            Yeah, I’m getting the same impression – 450 is that *ALIEN* who’s try to save us from our 3 year demise. I got no problem with that, whatsoever.

          • Nightowl June 6, 2019 at 3:34 pm #

            Gamma males patting each other on the back in praise of snark.

            Somewhere in China, a sack of rice tips over …

          • ZrCrypDiK June 7, 2019 at 10:02 am #

            IIRC (been a while tho) nightowl is a kick@$$ Gerry Rafferty tune. Yah gamma patting!

        • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

          Yes professor!

        • malthuss June 5, 2019 at 3:47 pm #

          I caught that, too. You literati, you.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 8:35 am #

            Technically speaking, he’s a literatus.

      • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 3:11 pm #

        BRH I never seen you so down on yourself. City crime on teh rise?!? Yeah I follow your city crime spew!

  77. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 9:35 am #

    The DOW is meaningless.

    I disagree, it’s not meaningless, but I agree it doesn’t mean what most people think it means.

    It’s the wealth disparity measure. So, if the DJIA is 25,000, it means, on average, for every $1 the peasants manage to possess, the wealthy elite possess $25,000. If a peasant is fortunate enough to hold on to $100 for more than a week without blowing it on groceries or heroin, the wealthy elite counter that with $2,500,000 of their own that they hold onto for not only their own lifetime but the lifetimes of their descendants also.

    There’s nothing more tragic than watching these dead peasants gleefully heralding the DJIA wealth disparity index as it climbs higher & higher. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” I guess.

    • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 11:22 am #

      So, if the DJIA is 25,000, – 450.org

      =============

      When the DOW is at 25,000 it does NOT mean 25,000 DOLLARS. Read up on how this index is constructed.

      However, I do agree with 450 that the DOW is not meaningless. But I haven’t got the time to convincingly explain why.

      • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 11:47 am #

        Really, numbskull? Well, I’ll be. I never knew. In my scenario it equals a measure that can be applied to dollars to measure the wealth disparity. It fits nicely, I believe.

        Have you no clue about the meaning & intent of context? I don’t know why I’m even asking you that question because clearly you don’t.

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 11:54 am #

          Now, now. No need to get shitty with Q. He’s one of the good guys here.

          • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:02 pm #

            I wasn’t getting shitty. That’s just plain talking. There’s no reason to sugar coat it. He’s got thick skin. I can tell.

          • ZrCrypDiK June 5, 2019 at 3:30 pm #

            Yeah he gave Q a good slap of reality. That’s why Q stuttered on his reply (But I haven’t got the time to convincingly explain why.)

            BS Q has all the time in the F*k’n world, and *HE* knows it. He didn’t know how he could explain his actions. not in that *paradym*

      • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:03 am #

        Q-

        When I studied this stuff in the 1990s, I learned that if I decided to buy 1 share of each of the companies listed in the DJIA, it would cost me exactly in dollars whatever the index is at on that day (plus brokerage fees). So, DJIA point is $1.

        Or have the rules been changed?

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 11:30 am #

      It’s a totally manipulated number that only dimly reflects the confidence levels of the corporate investor class in seeing returns on their money (making money for the “privilege” of having money), which is in turn largely reflective of the amount of funny money the Fed is pumping into the economy to keep the current world-wide asset bubble inflated. It has NOTHING to do with what little remains of the real economy of goods and services that people require to live. So I think we basically agree, we’re just saying it different.

      • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 11:57 am #

        I think we basically agree, we’re just saying it different. – Scratch

        ============

        differently

        Now, let’s see if that is enough to get me banned.

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 12:16 pm #

          That’s a pretty minor quibble, Q. But I’ll concede your point.

        • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 10:58 am #

          Trust me JHK will ban me way be4 U. And that’s a gold certificate guarantee!!!

    • ZrCrypDiK June 6, 2019 at 11:04 am #

      Let me put this another way. The index value? whatever

      Dividends, dividends, dividends!!! And interest helps. But it’s *ALL* about those dividends. Right, Q?!?

  78. SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 9:58 am #

    Overt racism and mistreatment of people based on color is apparently not always something to abhor and condemn according to some people in high places. Perhaps this is what we are being prepared for here and thus the college courses we hear about regarding the “Abolition of Whiteness”.

    Synonyms for abolition include: termination, eradication, elimination, extermination, destruction, annihilation, obliteration….

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/06/04/tucker-carlson-according-to-ny-times-murdered-white-farmers-in-south-africa-deserved-it-761503

    • benr June 5, 2019 at 10:10 am #

      Come come now we have told by our British friends this is not happening.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hi6USJZLzo

      It seems it was all done to prepare the way for China.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQV_DKQkT8o

      On a different problem India has the Nipah virus back!
      It eats yer brain mon.

      Can we all just say we wanted a pepsi?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYItTxqTc38

      • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 10:32 am #

        Right that is true. Of course it isn’t happening at all. We’re just making it up to distract from the important issues of the day as some say. China is also colonizing the Western Hemisphere. They are very dedicated. No one can deny that. I wonder why the environmentalists are not more concerned about China devouring Africa?

    • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 10:59 am #

      Oh its happening, and its brutal.

      And as bad as it is, the slaughter is just getting started.

      Article in WSJ today states the SA economy shrinking at a rate faster than any other country in the world save Venezuela. Unemployment rate stands at 27%, the entire infrastructure has collapsed due to lack of maintanance since 1994. The lights, for example, cannot be kept on, the grid is broken down.

      A scapegoat is needed to explain these colossal failures. Guess who that scapegoat is?

      Brh

      • benr June 5, 2019 at 11:13 am #

        Worse the South African water system is failing and it will take a trillion to get it back to the point of supporting everyone.

        • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 11:35 am #

          Worse the South African water system is failing and it will take a trillion to get it back to the point of supporting everyone”

          Benr,
          A Trillion dollars? I know! We’ll put on a show! I will do the song and dance, Janos will recite poetry…Lil’ SnakPak can sell her toothsome wares…Q, the accounting, of course….

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRZ5400UKSc

          …Cry Havoc.

          • benr June 5, 2019 at 12:25 pm #

            Nice trip down memory lane.
            Odd how everything being lamented here and now has already come before.

            I also watched the hello muddah, hello faddah -Alan Sherman video good stuff from a more simple time.

          • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 4:09 pm #

            Cry My Beloved Country

            Cry!

        • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 4:16 pm #

          Lack of water in SA is being blamed on Climate Change.

          Israeli engineers volunteered to help restore the water supply system in South Africa, gratis. SA turned down the offer, at the same time dishing out a few anti semitic slurs.

          F#k em. Let em get thirsty.

          Brh

      • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 11:16 am #

        Is SA the blueprint for the rest of the Western World? Strange that Whites are intentionally being made minorities throughout the West…or not.

        • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 11:40 am #

          In today’s world, where all out war is obsolete, the new battle cry is:

          Breed , outnumber your opponents. Use democracy, the vote, to get your way. Whites are not doing well in this theater. The browning of America through immigration and birth rate goes on.

          Could we see a South Africa in the future in this country?

          The Left says yes. I wonder if Pelosi and Schumer will be willing to give up their holdings to our brown brothers?

          SA is getting close to genocide.

          • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 12:31 pm #

            Good point John. In other words a demographic war. And this is a world war for sure. The Chinese are obviously far ahead of us and the Muslims are quickly catching up. The silliness of all of this is that when Whites do become minorities in their own lands no one will come to their aid. That is clear. Probably not even other Whites to any large extent. But it is interesting how over the past decades Whites have basically ceded their entire existence so that minority populations could flourish and rise to the prominence we see today. The world is a strange place.

        • Majella June 6, 2019 at 4:58 am #

          Poor SSL! A victim, every day, in every way. Much sympathy, Jean.

  79. SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 10:15 am #

    Allegedly some illegal immigrants have been boarding planes in Texas without proper identification while American citizens wait in line for their TSA harassment. Sounds like the government has everything under control and their is absolutely no crisis at the border.

    https://theworldnewstoday.com/report-illegal-immigrants-allowed-to-fly-without-identification-at-el-paso-airport/

  80. JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 10:44 am #

    All the GOP has to do in 2020 is put up a continuous picture show of the homeless situation in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington State. Title it:

    Socialism. Or
    How I learned to love the road!

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    • K-Dog June 5, 2019 at 11:19 am #

      by: Cormac McCarthy

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 11:24 am #

      You’ve lost me here, JAZ. How exactly does socialism equate to homelessness? They’re pretty much the exact opposites. Fascism, maybe, but socialism, no.

      • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 11:33 am #

        Socialism causes a decline in the entrepreneurial vitality of a society. When ambition declines, so does hire-ability for the workplace. Long term unemployment leads to homelessness. The west coast is an attractant to the homeless due to an easy climate and political acceptance. Hawaii has the same problem.

        Careers no longer exist in a culture where things change constantly and technologies flip every ten years. Ambition in keeping up is crucial.

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 11:52 am #

          Ambition in keeping up? Surely you jest. Why would anyone in their right mind do that – no matter how ambitious – knowing that wages and benefits are shit and that the change will continue to be continuous (in the wrong direction) either way? The game is rigged and everyone knows it. Apathy and total withdrawal – even among the employed – are the only sane choices. The remaining employed know that full well and are merely hanging on for dear life. If socialism were such a great deal, I guarantee that half the current workforce would quit their shitty makework jobs today without notice and never look back.

        • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 12:05 pm #

          John also consider that the economy changes constantly and technologies change constantly because of greed at the very core. The desire for something that is better, shinier, brighter and all. When that is combined with the desire to make profits watch out. Our economy produces so much junk. Maintaining an economy that provides actually good jobs that have real purpose besides pushing papers, etc. will require a good deal of external control. If everything is simply left to the whims of profit making then society will be totally deconstructed and sold off.

          • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 12:14 pm #

            If everything is simply left to the whims of profit making then society will be totally deconstructed and sold off.

            As is being done as we speak. Good point!

          • benr June 5, 2019 at 12:26 pm #

            @ol scratch

            As was done to the Argentines!
            Again nothing new now it’s just our turn.

          • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 12:39 pm #

            Agreed. Our turn in the barrel.

        • ozone June 5, 2019 at 1:23 pm #

          John,
          The zeitgeist knows; and you are not reflecting it.
          Although at many instances, the zeitgeist is based in delusions and flights of fancy, your’s happens to be seriously twisted by a hardened ideological bias.

          I found this quite necessary to say in a time of worship of authoritarianism, unrelenting propaganda, and deliberate misinformation.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 1:44 pm #

          John yearns for a vanished world that’s not coming back in our lifetime. Even if we had stayed a lot saner, kept a 90% White population, stabilized at about 220 million people, we would still be headed for deep trouble under Capitalism. Remember, it seeks to maximize profit – period. Thus automation would have put huge numbers of people out on the street sooner or later, with silly fokkers like John explaining why that was a good thing – teach them a lesson and shit.

          But we didn’t stay sane about even the most basic things like borders and identity. Now this disaster is upon us and the fokkers are still clinging to mid-level Capitalism even though late Capitalism is upon us. Even mid-level Capitalism didn’t provide full emplyment btw, but the fokkers never even understood that either. So one misunderstanding gives birth to even greater ones as the fokkers prepare to fight a war that is already lost, bringing aircraft carriers to a submarine and guided missile fight.

          Such clinging is called trishna is Buddhism and is a most potent form of suffering. We must accept the ugliness and dysfunction of the new paradigm. Only by acknowledging it, can we then begin to work to transcend it, not by going backwards but forward into National Socialism – not Marxism. That the fokkers can’t discriminate between the two is meaningless since they get everything else wrong too. They don’t discriminate between Middle and Late Capitalism after all. Nor do they discriminate between the environmental impact of the three million Americans of 1776 and the three hundred plus that we have now.

          But don’t worry: the same people who taught them these Lies will teach them our Truths. The Fox News Talking Heades will flip like pancakes. Tucker is the only real Man amongt them. Hannity does good work sometimes but most of the time is a Republican shill. He actually went to Ecuador to interview Julian Assange. I don’t get his radio show where I am now and have no idea how he squares Assange’s torture with his ongoing devotion to Trump.

          • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 4:28 pm #

            Hannity is not a Republican.

          • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 5:04 pm #

            where I am now – Janos

            ==============

            And where is that, Washington (State of), Idaho, other?

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 5:35 pm #

            A little bird told me it was Boston.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 6:04 pm #

            Wherever White Men yearn for Freedom, there I will be.

          • capt spaulding June 5, 2019 at 9:22 pm #

            Hannity is a right wing radio jock whose lips are permanently welded to Trump’s ass.

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 5:00 am #

            Difficult to interview Assange in Ecuador when he was in London (the Embassy)….

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:55 am #

            “Wherever White Men yearn for Freedom, there I will be.”

            Gawd, it’s like Joe Hill for alt-right chuds.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 11:06 am #

            You love every second of it. Admit it.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 3:53 pm #

            Who loves every second of what?

  81. elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 10:48 am #

    A question.

    …What do Mohammed Ali and Elvis have in common?

    • benr June 5, 2019 at 10:50 am #

      worm food?

    • volodya June 5, 2019 at 11:02 am #

      Melungeon ancestry?

    • capt spaulding June 5, 2019 at 9:23 pm #

      They both had a lot of hits.

  82. JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 11:24 am #

    Ha.

    A story this morning says that the Beverly Hills city council passed a ban of cigarette sales at almost all of public stores in the city. They want to promote a healthy image for the city. Nice thought!

    I wonder if there is a ban of all marijuana sales?

    • benr June 5, 2019 at 11:41 am #

      Case and point I see and smell people smoking dope everywhere now.
      In front of the police in places where NO SMOKING signs are clearly posted.
      Last weekend I watched two 20 somethings smoking a joint next to someone drinking a coors lite and the guy drinking the beer was harassed and cited.
      Not ten minutes later the two young men hopped in a car and sped off.

    • Exscotticus June 5, 2019 at 11:57 am #

      But when are they going to ban their immoral walls?

    • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 12:11 pm #

      Didn’t Rush Limbaugh say something like liberals want to kill you before you are born, but if you are born they want to make life as miserable as it can possibly be?

      If we are moving ahead with legalization of marijuana why are we banning cigarettes? Alcohol is not banned. What about vape? Many people are vaping today rather than smoking old fashioned cigarettes.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 2:36 pm #

        What kind of Ice Cream do you like? You’ll be going to Camp but as a Counselor not an inmate. My Camp that is.

        • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 5:30 pm #

          Wow! Gee if I had to make a choice I would say Cookies N Cream. I hope that Camp includes lots of bonfires and stargazing ;-).

          • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 6:01 pm #

            Bonfires? Nothing purifies like fire, but I hope they don’t melt the ice cream. The Stars burn with their cold beauty – and the Ice Cream is safe even if not our hearts.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 12:28 am #

            Not to get too close to. But there is something about fire. Its elemental but its like there is a spiritual aspect to it as well. Something comforting and peaceful even while its consumes at the same time. Same thing with the starry night sky. So much light and fire out there but yet so far away that you can just safely take in the universe basically.

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:11 am #

            (Yeech…)

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 11:02 am #

            Excuse you! This isn’t your moment.

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 3:05 pm #

            SSL – Have YOUR moment, if you so need to, but this is a public forum, as if I need to point it out, so you’ll get a reaction if I choose to express it.

            Again – yeech.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 11:44 pm #

            Nothing purifies like fire. Water only cleans the surfaces of things, but fire cleanses right down to the molecular level. Someday this land will have to be cleansed, but in the meantime, yes it’s beautiful. The TV of the stone age. We enjoy it and take it for granted, but what IS it? It dances!

    • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 2:32 pm #

      As Leary said, Pot is good for opening the mind. You’re not ready for the heavier psychedelics but Pot would be very good for a hardened ideologue like you. And it goes great with Ice Cream. What flavor do you like? Can’t go wrong with Vanilla, but we are trying to open you up to new things so…..

      The Old Man of the Mountain skillfully combined Pleasure with Pain. So shall We. Our Deep State is very puritanical in this regard, 1984 as opposed to the Brave New (and Old) World. Our Way is better, in this as in all things…..

  83. elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 12:05 pm #

    Today is June 5th. 75 years ago my father was sequestered on some unremarkable airstrip in Britain. You all have seen the news footage of Dwight Eisenhower visiting aircrews on the day prior to the invasion…THAT occurred on Dad’s base.

    His thought at that time was…”why the Hell is Eisenhower visiting us?”

    Well, turns out that Dad’s Group was the first assault wave on D-Day…the first Air Group over. He was a 20 year old Flight Officer, a Glider Pilot. His mission was to capture a bridge at a cross-road in St Mere Eglise, and try to keep a panzer division from accessing what would become Omaha Beach….

    What am I doing on this day? First order of business is to clear a blockage in our septic system line….

    • benr June 5, 2019 at 12:29 pm #

      Yuck septic lines blockage. Sorry.

      Thanks for the look into the past.
      Having perspective always helps.

    • volodya June 5, 2019 at 12:58 pm #

      Shit.

    • volodya June 5, 2019 at 1:10 pm #

      I had relatives over yonder in the US military. All are long deceased. Two were in France, one in the army operating heavy equipment, who sez he was frequently shot at but who returned unharmed, one an infantryman who got wounded by shrapnel but who survived. One was in the Marines as a mechanic in the Pacific theater if I remember right and then later as an instructor. And he too survived the war unscathed. I assume your dad got back?

      • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 6:24 pm #

        Volodya,
        Yes, and thanks for asking. He was one of the very few in his aviation class to survive all the training accidents and the four major Glider Campaigns…D-Day, Southern France, Holland and “Over the Rhine” into Germany.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 1:50 pm #

      He fought so that Europe could be made brown. You will fight to keep the brown underground. Your fight today is nobler, far.

      The Invasion of Normandy was just to tie upon precious German troops while the Russians did the heavy lifting. The Fokkers worship the Normandy Invasion as if was the center piece of all Existence. They must be shot out of the sky on this issue and and on all issues. They are the real Enemy. The Elite could do nothing without the Silly Fokkers.

    • Tate June 5, 2019 at 4:48 pm #

      My Dad operated heavy equipment in Calcutta, India, Army Corps of Engineers, supporting the air supply route over the “Hump” into China.

      My Uncle was a major of infantry & died during that nasty business in the hedgerows at St. Lo.

    • Sean Coleman June 6, 2019 at 12:44 pm #

      My mother rang me yesterday to tell me that she remembers well the first casualties arriving at her London hospital (Charing Cross?) after D Day. What nationality? English.

      I asked her if she saw many Americans. Yes, they had a camp behind the hospital. She used to go to mass there because it was handy (she arrived in London in 1937 as a twenty-one-year-old fresh off a small West of Ireland farm). Did she meet any American soldiers? Yes, there was a Sgt Cochrane, probably from New York. He was a pen friend with President De Valera’s secretary in Dublin. Not his actual ‘Secretary’ but one of the girls in the office? Maybe.

      Sergeant (Paddy?) Cochrane had Irish ancestry. He had a bad leg and made the secretary a handbag in occupational therapy. My mother brought it over to her on a trip ‘home’ (as her generation always called Ireland) and De Valera’s secretary met her off the boat in Dún Laoghaire(Dun Leary, formerly Kingstown, which is why they changed the name). She told her that Dev used to ring his wife every day.

      Didn’t Dev’s wife write children’s books (she asked me)? Probably. Everyone is writing them now. As long as I don’t have to read any of them.

      Then my mother (she is 103) said that everyone she speaks to dislikes Donald Trump. (Trump has dropped by here today.) But, she continues, when she asks them why they can never give a reason. Oh, you have noticed too?

  84. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:10 pm #

    I thought you didn’t believe in God?

    If I didn’t, and I’m not saying I do, it would be because of you I don’t. No God could have created you or no God worthy of praise.

    • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 12:37 pm #

      That comment was directed at me, not you. So, no need to get pissy.

      • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 12:40 pm #

        Thank you Q :-).

      • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:43 pm #

        No one’s getting pissy. Just stating a fact. You are inferring pissy.

      • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:46 pm #

        Every comment here is directed at the wider audience and is therefore fair game for rebuttal. You want a personal conversation between the two of you, take it to email and once there you can exchange photos of your private parts too if you’re so inclined. I’m sure your wife won’t mind.

        • Q. Shtik June 5, 2019 at 1:08 pm #

          This is a perfect example. All of your comments have a pissy edge to them. I have no idea why. Why am I a numbskull?

          • benr June 5, 2019 at 1:29 pm #

            Answer your not.

          • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 1:53 pm #

            Because you felt compelled to school me on the fact the DJIA is not a dollar measure when, in fact, if you had understood the context of my comment, you would have realized that was inherently assumed.

            The point of my comment was that we can take the DJIA as a measurement of whatever we want it to measure within reason. People brag about the DJIA going up, up, up as though it’s a measure of a strong economy. It’s not. What is also going up, up, up is the wealth disparity gap and it appears to be doing so in tandem with the soaring stock market as reflected by among other equity measures, the DJIA.

            I transformed the DJIA number to dollars for purposes of my unorthodox application knowing full well no one would ever take my treatment of the DJIA seriously even though it makes total sense and in fact much more sense than the customary interpretation of the DJIA as an indicator of the strength of the economy.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:06 am #

            “Answer your not.”

            Just for a laugh I put that into Google Translate. It didn’t immediately pick it up as English so I told it. Then I picked French to see what it would make of it. Lo and behold I got:

            “Répondez à votre pas.”

            Which simultaneously showed what an English-speaking person can do to English and what utter verbal porridge you get out of Google Translate if you don’t already know your way around the languages you’re using it for.

            Of course, if you put ‘Repondez à votre pas’ back into Google Translate, it then gives you ‘Answer your steps’ (it seems unaware that ‘pas’ can be either singular or plural, unlike ‘votre’, which clearly can’t.

            GT is hilarious.

          • Q. Shtik June 6, 2019 at 10:19 am #

            “Answer your not.” – GA quoting benr

            ==========

            I assumed benr intended to say:

            Answer: You’re not.

            But I could be wrong.

          • James Hansen June 6, 2019 at 10:30 am #

            I posted something that was pretty damn spectacular and all you could do is point out a grammatical error, the least you could of done was comment on the pictures.

            There is a lot more could of’s coming your way!

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 3:41 pm #

            Of course he did, Q. Although I did have to read it twice. I was just having a bit of fun on Google Translate. It’s not very bright, in a GI-GO kind of way.

  85. wm5135 June 5, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

    Ol Man River “He keeps on rollin’ along”

    Prepper Notice: Get Your Corn, NOW.

    Just weather, changes all the time….

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  86. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 12:30 pm #

    If we are moving ahead with legalization of marijuana why are we banning cigarettes? Alcohol is not banned. What about vape? Many people are vaping today rather than smoking old fashioned cigarettes.

    Jumping the shark. The FBI shilling for the tobacco companies again. It’s time to move on, guys. Keep up. You fools have always been at least twenty years behind. I’m convinced the FBI worked for and with Big Tobacco and was part of the crew that threatened and harassed and intimidated Merrell Williams Jr. when he blew the whistle on the scumbag tobacco executives.

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 12:38 pm #

      If anything, it’s alcohol that should be banned. But banning things never works. An engaged population that had less free time on its hands wouldn’t resort to that kind of shit in the first place.

      • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 12:47 pm #

        Apparently CEOs of alcohol companies are not scumbags even though alcohol kills and creates social havoc each and every day. And then again you would think someone so worried about control would be more interested in leaving people to their own choices. I agree with you though Ol’ Scratch. Much of these problems could be resolved by bringing back purpose to peoples’ lives rather than insisting people are statistics, economic units, consumers, etc.

      • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 1:42 pm #

        Per a prior post

        What we need to do is bring in government control, ie socialism, to take away more of our self determination.

        NOT!

        Drug usage has paralleled the implementation of socialism over the past thirty years.

        We will take care of you because you are too stupid to take care of yourself!

        You know, we ARE almost at that point.

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 3:01 pm #

          Well then, how’s that working out? I’m not seeing anyone actually getting taken care of, unless you’re counting courtesy prison cells, which are always available, albeit severely overcrowded. Corrections has been booming since at least the days of Reagan.

  87. volodya June 5, 2019 at 12:53 pm #

    Way back, when we were young and the world was greener and the sky was bluer, corporations paid dividends, and their stock was judged by investors by its dividend yield.

    But there’s different ways of returning money to investors just as there’s different ways of investing.

    Buying company shares is one way of investing, the method of returning money to shareholders being dividends and share buy-backs.

    And there’s corporate debt. If distribution of profits is the means of rewarding shareholders, interest payments are the means of rewarding bond holders.

    But it’s a funny thing. Dividend payments started to acquire a malodor as Wall Street started to tout capital gains as opposed to periodic cash payments.

    “I hate dividends” said one of the talking-head hedge fund managers on a money-honey show where the sexed-up host shows off masses of hair and perfect teeth and big baby blues and boob and leg to entice viewers.

    Hates dividends? Yes, he HATES dividends, HATES ’em, it means the company has run out of ideas, the execs are buffoons, and so all they can do is cut quarterly checks. Such a company has lost its mojo and isn’t long for this world.

    But of course, not making dividend payments would make life easier for the company wouldn’t it, not having to distribute cash. So, the game was on.

    “Return” was redefined to mean money gotten via sale of a shareholder’s stock or by the increase in price shown by the stock-ticker, as opposed to money distributed by the company to its shareholders. It saves company cash, and makes life easier for the CFO.

    So, my problem is this; as the Fed lured businesses to borrow by means of artificially suppressed interest rates, businesses took the bait and made pigs of themselves, over-indebting themselves, which put a lot of companies at a good deal of risk.

    So when is Wall Street coming out with it?

    They already told us that dividends are for pussies, nervous nellies and little old ladies. The REAL man, the Marlborough Man, the capable, silent, self-sufficient hombre that can rope a steer and gut a moose, the man with the steely gaze, who has steady hands and can sleep at night, waits for capital gains. That’s what he does, he waits for capital gains, he doesn’t sweat and he doesn’t worry and he doesn’t want dividends.

    What Wall Street will say is that bond interest payments are similarly not for real men. No, see, real men scorn interest as an insult to their manhood. There should be something else in place of interest, something more to the tastes of investors with jaws of granite, brows of alabaster, veritable CLIFFS of alabaster.

    Some kind of payment, but NOT cash, no, goodness me, the horror of that. Everyone knows, cash is for wimps. Payment-in-kind maybe, maybe by an issuance of a derivative instrument of some sort, something suited for people with guts and vision, that will make them filthy rich.

    You know, a piece of paper, a contractual concoction that doesn’t require a disbursement of cash that heavily indebted companies don’t fucking have. That’s the ticket, contracts traded on an exchange of some kind with ritual regulatory oversight and maybe a fig-leaf of legislative imprimatur.

    I’m sure Wall Street will come up with something. Goldman Sachs is licking its lips, the lawyers are sharpening their knives. No shortage of suckers out there.

    • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 1:47 pm #

      Let alone the derivatives market which is even riskier and crazier than the regular market. You WILL get burned if you do not know what you are doing.

      • elysianfield June 5, 2019 at 6:02 pm #

        “. You WILL get burned if you do not know what you are doing.”

        John,
        Does this mean that those who know what they are doing will not be burned?

  88. 100th Avatar June 5, 2019 at 12:54 pm #

    “…what can be observed actually going on — which is a culture and a political system seemingly bent on suicide.”

    In geriatric and adult nursing-care parlance this is referred to as “failure to thrive”.

    It’s not suicide per se, but a willful failure to invest energies in prolonging the inevitable.
    The inevitable being deterioration.
    Deterioration leading to death.

    Thus, they are not surrendering to death.
    They know there is no real “life” worth living to go back to.

    Drooling upright in a chair as opposed to drooling flat on your bed-sored back in a bed.

    Just as many Americans understand that there is no idyllic existence to return to.

    If only gets much worse from here.
    They are not killing themselves. They are living in the now, because they know.

    • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 1:48 pm #

      Overpopulation so limits our future.

      Our response? Have more kids!

      Smart.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 1:54 pm #

        Yes, Whites should have more kids. We aren’t the problem in terms of over population.

        • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 2:18 pm #

          True, a sociology teacher once said that the reason undeveloped countries have more kids is ignorance of the cause of pregnancy, and scr—ing was the only source of entertainment the people had.

          Hmmm!

          • 100th Avatar June 5, 2019 at 3:53 pm #

            Sounds like they need more porn, iPhones, and crystal meth.

            By gosh! America can export that in spades.

            Trade balanced. MAGA

          • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 5:45 pm #

            The country with the highest per capita number of porn searches is…Pakistan.

            https://tribune.com.pk/story/823696/pakistan-tops-list-of-most-porn-searching-countries-google/

            Six of the top eight porn-searching countries are Muslim states.

            Pakistan also tops the chart for searches for gay sex.

            So they’re already importing it in spades. Although it might be mostly the free stuff, which won’t help your trade deficit.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 9:14 pm #

            As Richard Burton said, the brown races are hyper-sexual, both in ordinary terms and in terms of the perversions.

          • 100th Avatar June 5, 2019 at 9:37 pm #

            the sotadic zone.

            Ole Richie. Nothing like the pot calling the kettle.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 4:20 am #

            Thank you for knowing that. His wife destroyed much of his erotic writings after his death. Afraid of what the nay bores would think.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:13 am #

            “As Richard Burton said, the brown races are hyper-sexual, both in ordinary terms and in terms of the perversions.”

            I think it just shows what you get if you keep real women covered from head to toe and don’t let young men anywhere near them. Like the hypocritical cesspit that was the underbelly of Victorian Britain, it shows what happens when you put ‘respectability’ above honesty and reason.

            It’s also what happens when parents are uneducated and have no clue what their kids are watching on their phones.

            And finally, it shows that homosexuality exists everywhere naturally, even when you try to pretend it doesn’t.

            Especially since the searches for gay sex came primarily from backward villages and not hot urban centres.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 10:56 am #

            WOW! You finally get the whole problem of the burka?????!!!!!! Why the heck did this take so long? Modesty is great. But moderation is also good in all things. So modesty can allow for beauty as well. Modesty is also not just in dress but also in manners.

          • 100th Avatar June 6, 2019 at 1:43 pm #

            I read Rice’s bio about Burton a dozen years or so ago.

            It’s rather amazing the lives people lived back when people were alive.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 2:51 pm #

            “WOW! You finally get the whole problem of the burka?????!!!!!! ”

            Are you mad or just slow in reading comprehension?

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 2:56 pm #

            “But moderation is also good in all things. So modesty can allow for beauty as well. ”

            You don’t say…

            That’ll be why, when we visited Syria, so many of the young women in Damascas wore a hijab, make-up and tight jeans.

            I could send you a photo I took which includes one such, inside the Ommayad mosque. Although in fairness, she’s got sort of frilly tail to her blouse that covers her arse, because she’s wearing a tight bum-freezer jacket.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 3:02 pm #

            And I’m still waiting for you to tell me if we should have refused entry to all Irish people during the IRA’s bombing campaign on the British mainland.

            You seem shy about that, and yet it has such obvious parallels to the situation regarding Islamic terrorists.

          • 100th Avatar June 6, 2019 at 4:19 pm #

            Sorry to barge into your convo, but why not ban them?

            Let’s be honest, what do the Irish bring to the table?

            Take your time of course.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:32 pm #

            “Let’s be honest, what do the Irish bring to the table?”

            Well, mine brings food to the table, but outside of that, could you give me a bit of context for your question?

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:38 pm #

            But if you agree they should have been banned, we don’t have an argument anyway. That’s fine. All I was looking for was a bit of consistency. I didn’t get it from SSL, so it’s good that some came from you.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 4:40 pm #

            And I’m sure you’ll agree, Avatar, since you think the Irish should have been banned, that we should have broken off diplomatic relations with the US while NORAID were financing the terrorists.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 4:58 pm #

            No we WOULD NOT ban the Irish. We would simply do a great job of screening out undesirables. The Irish (nowadays I have to say the original Irish) or a related tribe and thus can reasonably apply for citizenship. You knew the answer to that question though Alba.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:36 pm #

            You’re way ahead of me – I wasn’t talking about citizenship, just coming into the country for any reason. Like the ban Trump wanted.

            Even though most terrorist acts in the US are committed by non-Muslims.

            I love your idea of screening for violent Republican sentiments, though. Maybe you think you could look into an Irish person’s eyes at customs and see whether he fancied blowing up a bunch of innocent civilians. The British security forces could have done with your amazing insight. They had security personnel embedded with these people and they still managed to murder hundreds of civilians.

            But thanks – I got exactly the inconsistency I was expecting.

          • GreenAlba June 7, 2019 at 7:27 am #

            And why did you make it about *you* and citizenship? The question had nothing to do with Irish people in the US. Why would Irish republicans hurt the US? Irish people in the US were financing the terrorist bombings in Northern Ireland and the UK.

            And they never needed citizenship. Irish-born people in the UK are extended the same rights as UK citizens, including the right to vote and free healthcare. My husband only has an Irish passport and an Irish driving license, but he has exactly the same rights as me.

  89. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 1:01 pm #

    Big Tobacco has a new home in Asia where it’s being implemented as a form of depopulation, I guess. Surely there are quicker ways that involve much less suffering, right?

    Smoking In Asia: A Looming Health Epidemic

    Big Tobacco Targets Women and Youth

    “In many Asian countries like China and India where men already smoke at an incredibly high rate, women and young people are now being targeted by the tobacco industry,” said Edouard Tursan D’Espaignet of the WHO tobacco control program in an interview with German radio broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.

    And why not target women in a region where female smokers are vastly outnumbered by men? In China, only four percent of women smoke compared to 60 percent of men, a situation that is similar in Indonesia and Malaysia. Women and girls form an enticing market with large growth potential and Big Tobacco is now starting to target this demographic with fancy cigarette packages, such as packaging in the form of lipsticks.

    The youth also represent a ‘cash-disposable’ crowd, and have been wooed heavily by big tobacco companies.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 1:55 pm #

      Introduce candy cigarettes. Get kids loyal to a brand even before they get their paws on the “real thing”. Also get doctors to prescribe different brands like they used to. That was swell.

      • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 2:01 pm #

        It’s insidious. These freaks are as bad as pedophiles.

      • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 2:15 pm #

        Janos, just like the 50s and 60s. Candy cigarettes were a thing. So was giving away little four packs of cigarettes. I saw this standing in line for college registration in 1965. Why four packs? You can probably guess that research taught them that is what it took to hook someone.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 2:26 pm #

          So as a Quasi-Libertarian, what would you do to such drug pushers? I’d do something cruel but not unusual or unusual but not cruel. As long as both weren’t combined, I’d stay within the Letter of the Law. Surely an Executive doesn’t need both hands? He’s not a typist in other words! Nothing unusual bout that. Or say one has already lost a hand, it would be cruel to take another. So put him in public square with his hand stuck inside a cookie jar if he is guilty of a crime like that. The cookie jar is cemented into the ground so he has to stay there for awhile A modern day stocks. It’s unusual but not cruel.

          Hiring Non-Americans though? Then the gloves come off….

          They won’t even give you pain killers anymore if you have serious dental work done. Last time I went, I was treated like an addict when I asked for something.

      • 100th Avatar June 5, 2019 at 9:42 pm #

        Remember the candy versions that had a fine powdered sugar on the cherry colored tips that would give the appearance of smoke when agitated, like when ashing?

        • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 12:24 pm #

          Gee my old Lasalle ran great. Dose were the Daze.

    • Tate June 5, 2019 at 2:17 pm #

      Edward Bernays, the “father” of Public Relations, pulled the same thing in the U.S. during the 1920s on America’s women. He shared commonalities with the Sackler crime family, naturally.

    • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:20 am #

      The point is, if that conspiracy is the case, the victims buy their own ‘bullets’ and the purveyors make another fortune in what is a pretty long slow process.

  90. FincaInTheMountains June 5, 2019 at 1:25 pm #

    Schism of World Orthodox Christianity hit a Copper Pan with a Bang

    On the eve of the presidential elections in Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko initiated the process of creating an “independent” Orthodox church in Ukraine.

    This “departure” was blessed by the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew, who in early 2019 issued a “tomos about autocephaly”, that is, permission to create a Ukrainian Orthodox church, independent of the Russian Orthodox Church, but linked to the structures of Bartholomew in Istanbul.

    The provocation had a deafening information background. Everybody wrote about it. However, Bartholomew, although he sees himself an “Ecumenical Patriarch” – sort of Orthodox Pope, did not gain even a minimal number of supporters. The heads of the majority of Orthodox churches sharply distanced themselves from such “initiative”.

    And then the real resistance began. And it has now spilled out – in early June 2019 – into what can be called “the boomerang returns, sweeping away all the sinners-schismatics”.

    From the Patriarchate of Antioch, whose founders are traditionally considered to be the apostles Peter and Paul, and Patriarch of Antioch and All the East and who oversee the Heavenly Affairs of the Orthodox on vast lands – from the Middle East to North and South America and Australia, unexpectedly, a statement was made that “they did not rule out the possibility of convening a pan-Orthodox council without the participation of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople”.

    The Bishop of Erzurum Qais in an interview with RIA “Novosti” said: “If all Orthodox churches gather a Council without him (Bartholomew) and decide to overthrow the Constantinople primate, then it is possible.” And further: “We recognize with honor the Patriarch of Constantinople, but today the problem is that the Patriarch of Constantinople made a mistake.”

    And at the end of the interview – just a bomb: “So that the Patriarch of Constantinople would reconsider his decision, and that the church crisis in Ukraine should be resolved peacefully, and that the schismatics should return to the canonical Church.”

    The World-wide War of the Roses failed to engulf the World Orthodox Christianity.

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  91. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 1:40 pm #

    This is what I mean when I say ignoramus, and no, this is not me advocating for vaping which is idiotic in my opinion, but at least, for now, the second hand mist doesn’t cause cancer like second hand smoke from cigarettes does.

    Comparing cigarettes to cannabis is illogical. The comparison would be nicotine to cannabis. Cigarettes are a nicotine delivery device and Big Tobacco has formulated it in such a way as to get you addicted and to slowly murder you in the process. Not so with a joint although the second hand smoke from it is equally odious & obnoxious, I will agree.

    What about vape? Many people are vaping today rather than smoking old fashioned cigarettes.

    Big Tobacco’s push for Big Vape

    From the 1950s onward, tobacco companies worked to emphasize scientific uncertainty and downplay links between smoking and lung cancer, and nicotine and addiction.

    With vaping they are flipping the playbook.

    All major tobacco companies are moving into vaping, including Altria (parent company of Philip Morris), British American Tobacco and Japan International Tobacco. In tandem with vaping industry associations, tobacco companies are relying on public health arguments to make the case that electronic cigarettes are “less harmful” than traditional ones.

    “What [tobacco companies] were doing in the past was saying that there was no real evidence. In fact, it’s almost … turning on its head at the minute,” said Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

    • JohnAZ June 5, 2019 at 2:11 pm #

      450

      Here is a real problem. You say comparing the two is illogical. Why?

      Part of the MJ mystique is that we know so little about it. Does it cause cancer? Does it cause COPD? Cigarettes were targeted as a health problem by the government because of its effects on Medicare. Are we just shifting from one nightmare to another. You mentioned nicotine as the comparison item. Not only nicotine. CO, CO2, tars, and others. A study was done decades ago that pointed the finger at tobacco picking up polonium from the soil and putting it in the leaves. The tobacco plant tops were grafted onto tomato roots and vice versa. The tobacco roots were the culprit. The tomato tops were infused with the polonium and the tobacco tops were not. The hypothesis was that the polonium atoms, which are radioactive, contributed to the cancer incidence. I did not ever hear any response to this.

      COPD, a much more prevalent result, is just a product of the build up of soot in the lung tissue. After awhile, the lungs lose their elasticity, emphysema, and their ability to clean themselves out, chronic bronchitis. Both are unreversible. Similar to Black Lung in the coal fields.

      Anyway, the marijuana industry is going to block all investigations and comparisons to cigarettes. And get away with it until it becomes a health problem

      Think about it, MJ is potentially a combination of a disease causing agent, like cigarettes and an intoxicant like alcohol, all rolled into one.

      Fun!

      By the way, Beverly Hills also banned the sale of vaping supplies.

      • Tate June 5, 2019 at 2:32 pm #

        Why does there need to be a “MJ industry”? Why can’t folks just be allowed to grow their own but not be allowed to sell it? Same question can be applied to alcohol. The most vulnerable are the ones who suffer the most.

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 6:28 pm #

          Hear, hear!

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 2:49 pm #

            Thank goodness for someone who doesn’t say ‘here, here!’

            (Where, where?)

      • Exscotticus June 5, 2019 at 3:14 pm #

        Most if not all of the carcinogens associated with cigarettes are not an issue if you vape. The nicotine is still an issue as it’s highly addictive. But it’s not responsible for cancer or COPD on its own.

        Cannabis is not only not addictive, but it’s also a beneficial drug for many. Cancer victims who use cannabis to overcome vomiting, anxiety and loss of appetite opened the door for its acceptance by the states. Even the Land of No!—NY—has a medical marijuana program now.

        If cannabis is vaped, then cancer and COPD are highly unlikely. If cannabis is smoked, then it likely has the same risks associated with smoking cigarettes.

        • GreenAlba June 5, 2019 at 6:48 pm #

          Some info. here, Exscotticus, although it’s not exactly light reading:

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1277837/

          There was a view some time ago that smoking cannabis was four times worse than smoking tobacco (and some thought it was much worse than that) but later research seems to suggest this is not the case.

          Having said that, my husband (who apparently grew his own in his parents’ garden as a student and told his mum it was tomatoes) had a neighbour with a partially amputated leg from a biking accident who died of lung cancer after years of smoking cannabis for pain relief. But that’s just one person, obviously.

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:27 am #

            Green Alba

            Correct me if I’m wrong, but the General cannabis habit in the UK,where much if the available substance is hashish, is to ‘spliff’ – that is, to add hash/weed to a hand rolled tobacco cigarette.

            It wasn’t the weed that gave him cancer. I have an English friend who ended up with serious heart disease the same way. He swore to his doctors he wasn’t a ‘smoker’ but when he had to give up spliffing, he lost all interest in marijuana – which is famously non-addictive.

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:30 am #

            I can also rccommend a Netflix doco just arrived called ‘Weed the People’ about just how effective maijuana is medicinally – one study actually showing how THC can destroy cancer cells.

            It also explains how & why the human nervous system works so well with THC compounds – we have natural receptors for it in our brains.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:20 am #

            Majella

            “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the General cannabis habit in the UK,where much if the available substance is hashish, is to ‘spliff’ – that is, to add hash/weed to a hand rolled tobacco cigarette.”

            As I’ve said previously on here, my knowledge of the practicalities of things smoked for the purpose of mind alteration is less that that of anyone else on this website!

            I read a few relevant leaflets when my kids were young but it’s all changed since then anyway.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:23 am #

            I have been following the ‘medical cannabis’ debates for some time – all good in my view and I feel sorry for the parents who are having such a struggle to get it legally prescribed for their children, while, bizarrely, the UK is apparently one of the biggest exporters of medical cannabis.

            I’ve always fancied trying the brownies, Alice B. Toklas style, but the opportunity has never arisen 🙂 .

          • Exscotticus June 6, 2019 at 10:08 am #

            >>> smoking cannabis was four times worse than smoking tobacco

            I don’t disagree. But that doesn’t mean that cannabis in itself is 4x worse than cigs. The latter is designed to be smoked, whereas the former can be consumed in many safe ways. You could even ingest it in brownies.

            Nor would I say that cannabis is 4x worse than nicotine, as the latter is highly addictive.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 12:26 pm #

            Alice was a very attractive woman. Do you have a moustache like she did?

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 2:47 pm #

            Exscotticus

            ” But that doesn’t mean that cannabis in itself is 4x worse than cigs.”

            I’m not saying it is. I just said it used to be thought. There’s plenty of information in the article.

            And obviously it’s just referring to smoking it. Like I said, I never got a chance to try the brownies 🙂 .

          • Majella June 6, 2019 at 3:01 pm #

            True, GA – the comestibles are best…really lovely long soft body highs that don’t leave you a giggling incoherent mess.

            While in the U.K. 1989-91, I only ever had hash but couldn’t smoke it. Just Heating a wadge and pinching off the amount between thumb & forefinger and eating it was an awesome fun way to spend a Sunday night serving punters in a quiet Surrey pub….

            And you’re probably right that smoking it is as least as bad as tobacc, but I’d be surprised if it’s 4x, given the nasty additives Big Baccy includes to keep the addition up and the cigarette burning when put down.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 5:00 pm #

            You’ve had more fun than me, Majella!

            I was a student in the 70s, in a house share down south with new friends who are still my friends decades later, after children and widowings, but we were entirely law abiding! We had a few boozy parties but that was it. So perhaps not entirely law-abiding if you include noise regulations – although the police were only called once. We always warned the neighbours and invited them – only polite 🙂 .

            I actually studied politics (with first-year economics) as half my joint hons. degree in the same department Steve Keen now teaches in, since you mentioned him. I’d heard about him before and looked him up.

  92. FincaInTheMountains June 5, 2019 at 2:25 pm #

    It’s ridiculous to see that even smart people all the time try Poroshenko’s costumes on new Ukrainian President Zelensky and guess based on this “Isn’t Ukrainian President just a puppet on a man’s hairy paw with three passports?”

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwFGCChWgAA34By.jpg

    Well, how can you compare a super-talented artist with this ghoul?

    I assure you, Zelensky’s talent will still express itself, and even if it is not beneficial for Russia, Poroshenko’s stupidity will not be sensed either.

    Remember how Putin, Merkel and Hollande explained to him in Minsk for 7 hours that his troops were surrounded in Debaltseve?

    And by the way, they failed at it, which cost Ukraine three thousand soldiers killed trying to break out of the encirclement with a weapon!

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

    Another thing is that Zelensky became president by chance, just like Donald Trump.

    He himself did not understand why he needed it, acting on a whim, and now simply does not know what to do and how to deal with it, and he tries on Poroshenko’s parade uniforms, understanding that in order to understand something you have to first remain the president, and secondly remain alive.

    But it is even funnier to listen to the arguments of Russian nationalists about the “fraternal” Ukrainian people. With the same success, the British can talk about the fraternal Irish people, except that the Irish were really unlucky with their neighbor, and Ukraine would still remain who-knows-what even if Russia and Poland were not near.

    Anyway, someone would have been near, and that someone would have been to blame for the fact that Ukrainians do not have their own state. Only one nation is absolutely complimentary to the Ukrainians – it is the Germans with their ordnung and boots for licking with their tongue.

    And to Slavophiles in Russia, Ukraine and Ukrainians are not needed by themselves, but to substantiate Slavophilism, which is in fact an attempt to turn Russians into Germans, and to turn Holy Rus into the Holy Roman Empire of the Russian Nation.

    And in this sense, the Russian Slavophile nationalists are also Ukrainians, who have not fulfilled their dream of a German boot, only some want to lick it and others to wear it.

    But you can’t fool the real Ukrainians – they know that the German boot on the Russian foot is actually a Russian boot, and this is an antagonistic contradiction between the fraternal Russian and Ukrainian peoples!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjN8jQtqrYk

    • KesaAnna June 6, 2019 at 1:35 am #

      ” turn Holy Rus into the Holy Roman Empire of the Russian Nation. ”

      I suppose then , ” Guilty as charged ! ”

      I preferred East Germany . United Germany I don’t know , and don’t care for.

      And would prefer even better a Holy Roman Empire of the German People — i.e. a hundred plus German sovereignties.

      But never fear , I think , The Russians , like the Americans , will hold onto their R.M.S Titanic even if it means sinking with it.

  93. Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 2:37 pm #

    Ax not for whom the Fokkers fock, they fock for thee.

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 3:16 pm #

      I believe the proper pronunciation is “aksk,” but I suppose it varies by region.

      • SoftStarLight June 5, 2019 at 5:38 pm #

        Lol that is a pet peeve of mind. I don’t know why but when someone starts saying ax/axed in place of ask/asked (which happens alot in certain parts around here) it makes me fidgety even though I continue to smile throughout the conversation.

        • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 6:26 pm #

          I heard it a lot in the military. A lot of the bros said it that way on purpose. A cultural “bonding thang,” or whatever.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 8:49 pm #

          It’s also a pet peeve of mine too. I try to pet it now and then.

  94. Tate June 5, 2019 at 3:17 pm #

    “The term ‘Gell-Man Amnesia effect’ was coined by the late novelist Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) in honor of the famous physicist who died last month. Murray Gell-Man had pointed out to Crichton that he had noticed that journalists aren’t very accurate at writing about… physics, nor about Crichton’s [vocation], showbiz, so why do we trust them to write reliably about everything else?

    “I was reminded of the Gell-Man effect when reading British journalist Angela Saini’s much celebrated new book, Superior: “The Return of Race Science”.

    “In Saini’s sprawling conspiracy theory about the malign forces that inspire evil scientists to keep on noticing differences between human groups despite seventy years of politically correct censorship, I am cast as a villain, along with, among others, polymath Francis Galton, psychometrician Arthur Jensen, geneticist James D. Watson, rock singer Morrissey, Harvard geneticist David Reich, and even Albert Einstein. (That lineup makes me feel like the batboy on the 1927 Yankees: honored just to be on the same field.)

    “Saini gets her story about me so wrong that’s it’s hard to have much confidence in the rest of her book.
    Saini, a pleasant-looking lady who is part of a London media ‘power couple’ with her BBC editor husband Mukul Devichand, is a true believer in today’s low-to-middlebrow dogma that race-does-not-exist.

    “Her style of science denialism is a growing force in this century’s culture, as the DNA evidence continues to pile up, embarrassing her resentful emotions. For instance, she laments:

    Saini: ‘Ancestry testing has taken the work of well-meaning scientists who only tried to do good in the world and inadvertently has helped reinforce the idea that race is real.”

    Sailer: “Well…yeah. It has.

    “Saini gets her story about me so wrong that’s it’s hard to have much confidence in the rest of her book…

    “In her chapter ‘Human Biodiversity: How race was rebranded for the twenty-first century,’ Saini reports that I, personally, facilitated the return to influence of nefarious ‘race science’ by starting a sinister email list in 1998. (Actually, it was in 1999.)

    “Her source is Jonathan Marks, whom she describes as ‘a genial, generous professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.’ I’ve been a fan of Jon for over twenty years, but this may be the first time I’ve heard him described as ‘genial.’ In reality, Dr. Marks has the classic Angry Leftist Radical personality of the more famous Dr. Marx (a comparison I suspect he would find pleasing).

    “Saini’s story begins with Marks getting an email from:

    ‘…a little-known science journalist and former writer for the conservative National Review, Steve Sailer. The invitation was for Marks to join a mailing list of people interested in the subject of human variation. ‘I knew absolutely nothing about him,’ Marks recalls. ‘He just seemed to be someone who was organizing something.… It seemed pretty straightforward and harmless.’ So he signed up.

    “Saini says, with justification, ‘By the summer of 1999, Sailer’s roster of members was astounding.’ Like the CIA, I can neither confirm nor deny the membership of any individuals in any email group I’ve ever organized without their personal consent. That would be in bad taste.

    “Because Dr. Marks has decided to snitch, however, I shall assume he has consented.

    “According to Saini’s version, like Captain Renault in Casablanca discovering that gambling was going on at Rick’s, Marks was shocked, shocked to discover that the discussing of race was going on in a Human Biodiversity email group.

    “‘It dawned on Marks that Sailer’s seemingly innocent email list was not so much a way to discuss science in an objective way but more about tying together fresh science and economics with existing racial stereotypes. One debate that sticks in Marks’s mind today, for instance, took place between him and a journalist who claimed that black people were genetically endowed to be better at sports. Marks insisted that this was a scientifically shaky argument, not to mention one with dangerous political implications. The two experts clearly disagreed. But rather than help reach a consensus, ‘Steve Sailer clearly took his side,’ he tells me. ‘At which point I realized, ‘Ah! This isn’t an impartial scholarly discussion.’””

    Sailer: “Dr. Marks implies that he didn’t become aware of the shocking fact that he and I don’t agree all that much on important empirical and epistemological questions until after he’d joined my seemingly ‘harmless’ email group.

    “But my recollection is that the two of us had carried on a frank and spirited correspondence for quite some time before I started my email group in 1999. As I blogged in 2010, in the later 1990s:

    ‘I came up with the term ‘human biodiversity’ to describe my chief intellectual interest. I modeled the term on Edward O. Wilson’s coinage ‘biodiversity.’ I then looked to see in the first web search engine, Alta Vista, if the term had ever been used before. I quickly found Marks’s 1995 book ‘Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History.’ I bought it and read it and then exchanged several emails with Marks over it. At one point, he and I agreed to approach magazines to see if they would like to publish a debate between Marks and myself over the reality of race, although enthusiasm on the part of editors turned out to be mild, to say the least.

    “It’s unlikely that Dr. Marks was surprised that I didn’t agree with him; after all, we’d been emailing each other from well before I formed my email group in early 1999. I see from Amazon.com that I bought his Human Biodiversity book on March 7, 1998, so we likely argued one-on-one in the second half of 1998.

    “What’s more likely is that Jon was surprised the distinguished audience didn’t much agree with him. It’s only natural that Dr. Marks would like to both dish dirt and avoid blame for his membership in an email group that leaned toward the heretical. So it’s understandable that he excuses himself as having been duped into participating. Moreover, he reassures his ego that the reason his self-evidently correct arguments about race and sports were not greeted with the universal acclaim they deserved by the impressive audience was that I used reprehensible trickery.

    “In any case, vastly more important than what happened in private email arguments over race and sports in 1999 is what has happened in public since then.

    “For example, back then, in the Olympic men’s 100-meter dash, the race to determine the World’s Fastest Man, in 1999 the last 32 finalists, going back to the 1984 Olympics, had been at least half sub-Saharan black.

    “Today, however, the last 72 finalists in the 100-meter dash have been at least half black. Five more Olympics have gone by without a single nonblack qualifying for the eight-man finals.

    “Similarly, in 1999 there were only a few nonblack cornerbacks starting in the NFL, such as Jason Sehorn. Today, all starting corners for the last fifteen NFL seasons have been black.

    “If science, in the Popperian view, is about making predictions, whose predictions have turned out to be more correct?

    “Dr. Marks’ argument isn’t actually with me. It’s now with history.

    “Saini also goes to interview David Reich, who runs the world’s most productive lab for sequencing ancient DNA. (Reich’s 2018 book “Who We Are and How We Got Here” is so informative that I wrote three reviews of it…

    “Initially, Saini is wowed by Reich’s prestige and his polished lines about the ubiquity of ancient ‘migrations’ (a euphemism for invasions, conquests, enslavements, epidemics, and slaughters):

    Saini: ‘What we think of as “indigenous” Europeans are, Reich and other scientists now understand, the product of a number of migrations over the past fifteen thousand years, including from what is now called the Middle East.’

    “Saini takes everything personally in that girly style that predominates in 2019, gushing:

    “’This is the book I have wanted to write since I was a child, and I have poured my soul into it.’”

    “As a loyal Indian racialist (her first book was “Geek Nation: How Indian Science Is Taking Over the World)”, she has an obsession with finding sciencey-sounding arguments that her people have just as much right to move to England as the native English have to live there. Hence, she is much cheered by Reich’s finding that the Battle-Axe Culture steppe invaders exterminated most of the population of England about 4,500 years ago:

    Saini: ‘When considered from the perspective of the deep past, race, nationality, and ethnicity are not what we imagine them to be. They are ephemeral, real only to the extent that we have made them feel real by living in the cultures we do, with the politics we have.’

    “Saini [further] reflects:

    ‘If skin color and genetic purity can’t be a measure of ethnic identity, because Britons have changed on both these counts over the millennia, then there’s nothing to prevent anyone from anywhere from earning citizenship and becoming truly British….’

    “Well, there is the law.

    “But the law didn’t stop the Proto-Indo-Europeans (i.e., Aryans) from conquering Western Europe 4,500 years ago, so why should it stop anybody from doing it again today?

    “But then Reich goes on to blaspheme against [Saini’s] race-is-just-a-social-construct creed:

    Saini: ‘At the same time [Reich] thinks some categories may have more biological meaning to them. Black Americans are mostly West African in ancestry and white Americans tend to be European, both correlating to genuine population groups that were once separated at least partially for seventy thousand years in human history….’

    ‘He suggests that there may be more than superficial average differences between black and white Americans, possibly even cognitive and psychological ones, because before they arrived in the United States, these population groups had this seventy thousand years apart during which they adapted to their own different environments.

    ‘Reich implies that natural selection may have acted on them differently within this timescale to produce changes that go further than skin deep. He adds, judiciously, that he doesn’t think these differences will be large—only a fraction as big as the variation between individuals, just as biologist Richard Lewontin estimated in 1972. [ed. Reich knows he’d better not buck orthodox opinion.] But he doesn’t expect them to be nonexistent either: as individuals we are so very different from one another that even a fraction of a difference between groups is something.’

    Sailer: “The scientist’s sacrilege causes the scandalized journalist to harrumph:

    Saini: ‘They are words I never expected to hear from a respected mainstream geneticist.’

    — Steve Sailer 6/05/19

    https://www.takimag.com/article/arguing-against-reality/

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 3:52 pm #

      Interesting. I watch track and field on occasion as well and have definitely noticed the black domination in distances all the way up to the marathon, which up to about 15 years ago or so had been the last remaining stronghold for white runners. Anything shorter than a mile? Forget about it. I always watch the handful of white guys just to notice how utterly over matched they are. Mere boys among men.

      Blacks are just now beginning to make inroads into pro cycling now too, which they should rightfully dominate as well, but cultural factors – not to mention PEDs – seem to be the limitation there. Better drugs and good old fashioned discrimination are the white boys’ last remaining hope there.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 9:11 pm #

        There is one White High Schooler who may be one of the fastest men in the world though. An outlier? Or a rare genotype almost vanished from the world?

        I note how much you like called Whites, boys. The scars of your Marxist youth are disfiguring indeed. Rightfully dominate? It’s like your Marxist ethnomasochism and your pop Science are intersecting here.

      • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 11:09 pm #

        In CT coupla black HS dudes, legs like tree trunks, muscular arms, facial hair etc, claimed they were actually female, won all the track and field girls events, breaking many records as well. Everybody here was down with it, saying how courageous they are.

        I shit you not, CFNers.

        brh

        • malthuss June 6, 2019 at 12:33 am #

          but I could not ‘shoot fish in a barrel.’

    • malthuss June 5, 2019 at 3:53 pm #

      While I luv Takis, u takin up too much space, bro.

      • Tate June 5, 2019 at 4:29 pm #

        Just spin the sh*t outta that scroll bar.

        • Tate June 5, 2019 at 4:31 pm #

          Or mouse scroll function, whatevah

      • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 9:11 pm #

        Stay in your own lane, bro.

  95. malthuss June 5, 2019 at 3:52 pm #

    HECKLER

    By: Evan Minsker

    Jun 4 2019

    Chad Arrington is a Baltimore singer who performs and records under the name Chad Focus. While Arrington isn’t a household name in the music world, his song “Dance With Me” landed on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart last year and received a T-Pain remix. He also appeared in an enormous Times Square billboard (below), which advertised both his real name and his Chad Focus project.

    On May 29, a federal grand jury indicted Arrington in connection with allegations that he used a company credit card to make over $4.1 million in unauthorized purchases—many directly connected to his music career. He faces federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

    The indictment, unsealed today and viewed by Pitchfork, claims that while Arrington was employed as an SEO specialist at an unnamed company, he and four unnamed co-conspirators used a company-issued American Express card to spend millions in fraudulent purchases. Between January 2015 and August 2018, Arrington allegedly used company money to promote his music, purchase audio equipment, artificially increase plays on Spotify and other st

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
    • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 8:24 pm #

      Maybe this Arrington chap will claim ‘racism’ and get a pass, like Jussie Smollet did. After that a book deal, appearance on The Tonite Show, The View, who knows?

      Skys the limit!

      brh

  96. BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 4:24 pm #

    Impeachment seems to be in the offing; Im trying to figure out on what grounds.

    Didn’t matriculate at Harvard? Didn’t do any graduate work at Yale? Doesn’t summer in the Vineyard? Wasn’t at Princeton with Michelle? Wasn’t a freedom rider? Wasn’t down with the Stonewall rebellion? Grew up in Queens, not upper west side Manhattan?

    What exactly?

    • K-Dog June 5, 2019 at 4:37 pm #

      Is he up to date on all his liquor licenses? How did they get Al Capone? I think it was taxes. Perhaps they can just find something and ask Trump to step down or else. No way has he been through the financial troubles he has been in and not cut corners. He had casino’s somebody who laundered money needs to be given immunity.

      Or it could be all talk and no action.


      Everybody knows that the war is over
      Everybody knows the good guys lost
      Everybody knows the fight was fixed
      The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
      That’s how it goes
      Everybody knows

      • K-Dog June 5, 2019 at 4:39 pm #

        He had casinos, so…

        I was auto-corrected.

      • BackRowHeckler June 5, 2019 at 7:32 pm #

        KDog

        Ozone does a real good rendition of that song.

        Its on his playlist

        Sounds better than the original artist, whose name escapes me right now.

        Incidentally, Sweden is dropping those sexual assault charges against Assange, which were probably bogus to begin with.

        brh

        • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:37 am #

          St Leonard…

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 8:44 am #

            Don’t knock Leonard – I love that voice!

            Although I’d give Ozone a chance too, obviously 🙂 .

  97. Pucker June 5, 2019 at 4:43 pm #

    Dystopia….

    “Liberalism instead understands liberty as the condition in which one can act freely within the sphere unconstrained by positive law. This concept effectively brings into being what was merely theoretical in its imaginary state of nature, shaping a world in which the theory of natural human individualism becomes ever more a reality, now secured through the architecture of law, politics, economics, and society. Under liberalism, human beings increasingly live in a condition of autonomy in which the threatened anarchy of our purportedly natural condition is controlled and suppressed through the imposition of laws and the corresponding growth of the state. With humanity liberated from constitutive communities (leaving only loose connections) and nature harnessed and controlled, the constructed sphere of autonomous liberty expands seemingly without limit. Ironically, the more completely the sphere of autonomy is secured, the more comprehensive the state must become. Liberty, so defined, requires liberation from all forms of associations and relationships, from family to church, from schools to village and community, that exerted control over behavior through informal and habituated expectations and norms. These controls were largely cultural, not political—law was less extensive and existed largely as a continuation of cultural norms, the informal expectations of behavior learned through family, church, and community. With the liberation of individuals from these associations, there is more need to regulate behavior through the imposition of positive law. At the same time, as the authority of social norms dissipates, they are increasingly felt to be residual, arbitrary, and oppressive, motivating calls for the state to actively work toward their eradication. Liberalism thus culminates in two ontological points: the liberated individual and the controlling state. Hobbes’s Leviathan perfectly portrayed those realities: the state consists solely of autonomous individuals, and these individuals are “contained” by the state. The individual and the state mark two points of ontological priority. In this world, gratitude to the past and obligations to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification: culture, rather than imparting the wisdom and experience of the past so as to cultivate virtues of self-restraint and civility, becomes synonymous with hedonic titillation, visceral crudeness, and distraction, all oriented toward promoting consumption, appetite, and detachment. As a result, superficially self-maximizing, socially destructive behaviors begin to dominate society. In schools, norms of modesty, comportment, and academic honesty are replaced by widespread lawlessness and cheating (along with increasing surveillance of youth), while in the fraught realm of coming-of-age, courtship norms are replaced by “hookups” and utilitarian sexual encounters. The norm of stable lifelong marriage is replaced by various arrangements that ensure the autonomy of the individuals, whether married or not. Children are increasingly viewed as a limitation upon individual freedom, which contributes to liberalism’s commitment to abortion on demand, while overall birth rates decline across the developed world. In the economic realm, the drive for quick profits, often driven by incessant demands for immediate profitability, replaces investment and trusteeship. And in our relationship to the natural world, short-term exploitation of the earth’s bounty becomes our birthright, even if it forces our children to deal with shortages of such resources as topsoil and potable water. Restraint of these activities is understood (if at all) to be the domain of the state’s exercise of positive law, not the result of cultivated self-governance born of cultural norms.“

    Patrick J. Deneen
    Why Liberalism Failed

  98. tucsonspur June 5, 2019 at 5:59 pm #

    It’s bad, folks. It’s bad. White Nationalism is a threat to national security. Of course our porous border and endless immigration is not.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/house-white-nationalism-hearing-130228990.html

  99. Pucker June 5, 2019 at 6:02 pm #

    Hitting a brick wall….

    “Premised on the idea that the basic activity of life is the pursuit of what Hobbes called the “power after power that ceaseth only in death”—which Alexis de Tocqueville later described as “inquietude” or “restlessness”—the endless quest for self-fulfillment and greater power to satisfy human cravings requires ever-accelerating economic growth and pervasive consumption. Liberal society can barely survive the slowing of such growth, and it would collapse if economic growth were to stop or reverse for any length of time. The sole object and justification of this indifference to human ends—of the emphasis on “Right” over “Good”—is the embrace of the liberal human as self-fashioning expressive individual. This aspiration requires that no truly hard choices be made. There are only different lifestyle options. Liberalism’s founders tended to take for granted the persistence of social norms, even as they sought to liberate individuals from the constitutive associations and education in self-limitation that sustained these norms. In its earliest moments, the health and continuity of families, schools, and communities were assumed, while their foundations were being philosophically undermined. This undermining led, in turn, to these goods being undermined in reality, as the norm-shaping power of authoritative institutions grew tenuous with liberalism’s advance. In its advanced stage, passive depletion has become active destruction: remnants of associations historically charged with the cultivation of norms are increasingly seen as obstacles to autonomous liberty, and the apparatus of the state is directed toward the task of liberating individuals from such bonds. In the material and economic realm, liberalism has drawn down on age-old reservoirs of resources in its endeavor to conquer nature. No matter the political program of today’s leaders, more is the incontestable program. Liberalism can function only by the constant increase of available and consumable material goods, and thus with the constant expansion of nature’s conquest and mastery. No person can aspire to a position of political leadership by calling for limits and self-command. Liberalism was thus a titanic wager that ancient norms of behavior could be lifted in the name of a new form of liberation and that conquering nature would supply the fuel to permit nearly infinite choices. The twin outcomes of this effort—the depletion of moral self-command and the depletion of material resources—make inevitable an inquiry into what comes after liberalism. If I am right that the liberal project is ultimately self-contradictory and that it culminates in the twin depletions of moral and material reservoirs upon which it has relied, then we face a choice. We can pursue more local forms of self-government by choice, or suffer by default an oscillation between growing anarchy and the increasingly forcible imposition of order by an increasingly desperate state. Taken to its logical conclusion, liberalism’s end game is unsustainable in every respect: it cannot perpetually enforce order upon a collection of autonomous individuals increasingly shorn of constitutive social norms, nor can it provide endless material growth in a world of limits. We can either elect a future of self-limitation born of the practice and experience of self-governance in local communities, or we can back inexorably into a future in which extreme license coexists with extreme oppression.“

    Patrick J. Deneen
    Why Liberalism Failed

    • Ol' Scratch June 5, 2019 at 6:21 pm #

      We can pursue more local forms of self-government by choice, or suffer by default an oscillation between growing anarchy and the increasingly forcible imposition of order by an increasingly desperate state. Taken to its logical conclusion, liberalism’s end game is unsustainable in every respect: it cannot perpetually enforce order upon a collection of autonomous individuals increasingly shorn of constitutive social norms, nor can it provide endless material growth in a world of limits. We can either elect a future of self-limitation born of the practice and experience of self-governance in local communities, or we can back inexorably into a future in which extreme license coexists with extreme oppression.“

      That’s just plain brilliant, although it should probably be reworded to effectively reach its target audience. The people who understand it likely benefit from it already and therefore don’t want it to be understood. The people who don’t need to, but probably need it “dumbed down” a bit to reach them. Then again, most people just plain don’t read anymore at all, so what are ya gonna do?

      • KesaAnna June 5, 2019 at 9:03 pm #

        Or —

        it ( It – fill in the blank ) attacks religion because religion is a rival authority ( a more effective authority ) to the state.

        It attacks the family because the family because the family is a rival loyalty to the state.

        It attacks private property , because property is what gives you the means to say , ” No thanks , we don’t want your ” help” . ”

        If it , whatever it is , attacks or subverts any of the above it is a good bet it is somehow in fundamental error.

        If it attacks all three , it’s a pretty good bet it is really fucking bad news.

        • On the other hand, it gives the opportunity for the individual to break free and achieve their fullest potential.

          Just look at Kim Kardashian and Kayne West

          And would such bad news deliver such groundbreaking fashion in music and shoes?

  100. Elrond Hubbard June 5, 2019 at 6:11 pm #

    Ocasio-Cortez: Manafort shouldn’t be forced into Rikers solitary confinement

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/05/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-manafort-rikers/index.html

    “Washington (CNN) – Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said Wednesday it was wrong for the government to hold people in solitary confinement as she called for better treatment of Paul Manafort.

    “News emerged on Tuesday that Trump’s former campaign chief could be headed to the infamous Rikers Island jail complex in New York City for the duration of a state case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. The move would transfer Manafort from a western Pennsylvania prison here he is serving his ongoing federal sentence.

    “Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday responded to the expectation that Manafort would be kept in solitary confinement at Rikers with a string of tweets saying Manafort ‘should be released, along with all people being held in solitary.’ …

    “In her tweets, Ocasio-Cortez said she was applying her beliefs to Manafort’s case, adding that ‘a prison sentence is not a license for (government) torture and human rights violations. That’s what solitary confinement is.'”

    She’s not wrong.

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    • Exscotticus June 5, 2019 at 6:18 pm #

      >>> She’s not wrong.

      Remarkably, she’s wrong about virtually everything. A person randomly spouting edicts according to a coin flip would be right more often than AOC.

      Whether or not solitary confinement is torture depends on the individual. In many cases, inmates request solitary to avoid getting shivved (shanked?) or worse by a hostile general population.

      • James Hansen June 5, 2019 at 8:39 pm #

        I believe the only person that can save the U.S. is AOC, without her we are doomed.

        • I have to agree. AOC uber alles.

        • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:41 am #

          Hear, hear.

        • elysianfield June 7, 2019 at 11:04 am #

          “I believe the only person that can save the U.S. is AOC”

          James,
          Really? If this be, in fact, the case….please kill me now….”

      • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 8:56 pm #

        Sounds like she wants him denied solitary in Rikers so as to get him killed. Latinx Devil Girl who needs to be tamed.

        • James Hansen June 5, 2019 at 9:12 pm #

          You better leave that to me as I have had several PR girlfriends in the past. And yes they are as hot as they look!

          • Tate June 6, 2019 at 10:45 am #

            Sad. What is this desire to mate with the wildlife? White men should get back to the serious business of starting families. That starts with seeking attractive women of their own race who are frigid in the sexual department, who have declined riding the cock carousel.

            I know, that’s like searching for Bigfoot in the current year, but still.

        • KesaAnna June 5, 2019 at 10:41 pm #

          I think your skepticism is correct , but your theory wrong.

          Say a thousand little brown girls starve to death.

          Well , maybe there is hand -wringing to a degree that is disgusting and annoying , but , ultimately , big fucking deal.

          But some well – to – do white girl meets a bad end ?

          Holy shit ! Time for some draconian discipline to be applied to an entire nation that didn’t even know the damn girl.

          So we turn to this case ;

          Joe Nobody meets a bad end in Belzec – by – another – name ?

          The news may well never even appear in a newspaper , much less make it to television.

          But Joe Aristocrat winds up dead in the jug , and the right – wing suddenly have a martyr that matters.

          Name a single one of the working class kids who died at Waco ?

          Do you think the same would be the case if a Kardashian kid were incinerated ?

          Consider your own history ; It is a mistake to ever , in any way , discount Hitler’s Iron Cross.

          Imperial Germany did not hand out decorations like candy to peasants. Decorations were for officers / nobles.

          Hitler’s Iron Cross propelled him permanently and irrevocably into the class that matters. Simple as that.

          So , well , yes the fate of this aristocrat does matter , even if this aristocrat is identified with Trump’s camp.

          A ” deplorable ” he certainly isn’t , and they know that too , their rhetoric not withstanding.

          • KesaAnna June 5, 2019 at 11:03 pm #

            Pff , I left out the clarifying detail ;

            If it were , ” solitary confinement ” it would be solitary confinement with TV , reading material on demand , easy access to commissary , ” solitary ” ” confinement ” or not , and conjugal visits.

            Shit , can I have that too ?

            And if it is to be , ” general population ” do you really think that is going to mean an 8 x 10 cell with a psychotic meth head and a drug cartel hitman for room mates ?

            You have infirmary – type cell blocks. — people on life support , 50 – year olds losing body parts to Diabetes. Not much threat there.

            You have child molesters . — Actually a very safe group. Hated outcasts with targets on their backs. Typically the last thing they want to do is make trouble. And you aren’t a child anyway.

            Non – payment of child support. — Hey , it isn’t the country club set , but the terrible crime of this group is that they are poor and / or indolent losers. Not very threatening either.

            ” General population ” can mean many different things.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 11:15 pm #

            Remember Kesa, the Greasers are higher than you on the Tree just as we are above them.

            Yes, Hitler was a Hero. And he did what the higher classes were too afraid or too sold out to do. There are higher forms of courage beyond the physical – as worthy as that is in itself. He had both – that rare form of moral courage that could stand against a crowd, and indeed, an entire Civilization.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:33 am #

            ” – that rare form of moral courage that could stand against a crowd, and indeed, an entire Civilization.”

            You mean that guy who topped himself in a bunker along with the ones who murdered their own kids?

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 10:43 am #

            That’s what we were told happened Alba. Hitler may have escaped and lived out the rest of his life in Argentina for all we know. Or perhaps the story is even more fantastical. They say reality is stranger than fiction. Either way at least he loved his country and people. I can’t say that for sure with any one politician now. Can you?

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 11:54 am #

            SSL

            You really are a person who will believe anything. Well good luck with that. It’s well known that people who are happily deluded have a happier life than people who are more realistic, though, so it won’t affect your happiness. There are happy pills that do pretty much the same thing. As my husband used to say, ‘depression is the price of sensitivity’, so you’ll be fine.

            Why would a person who loved his country leave them in the
            mess that he caused and bugger off to live serenely in Argentina?

            Also, he didn’t love all of his fellow citizens he had murdered in death camps. Or perhaps they’ve been living in a theme park in Argentina as well.

            You’re the absolute limit.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 4:53 pm #

            There is two sides to every story Alba. Don’t you have curiosity to hear the other side since we only hear one side of this story? I did not state anything as fact. And ok, I could have said “it is my impression that he loved his country and his people”. Why were the crowds so adoring and so excited and elated when he spoke? He clearly connected with his people and they with him. Otherwise history would have not been so. I wish we had a Leader that was so awe-inspiring that women would be throwing flowers, screaming in elation and fainting and men would be stoically saluting, proud and standing tall. Wouldn’t you rather that than constant anger and hatred? I am sorry that I am so open minded and curious and it offends you. I did not have an intention of aggravating you. And I am not celebrating anyone getting hurt. Just because war is part of life doesn’t mean that I like it or celebrate it.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 5:09 pm #

            “I wish we had a Leader that was so awe-inspiring that women would be throwing flowers, screaming in elation and fainting…”

            We had that with the Beatles but it was 14-year-old girls.

            I honestly can’t believe that an adult women would aspire to having a demagogue who inspires hysteria in idiotic women.

            Some of the 14-year-olds peed their pants, too I believe.

            I am horrified for America if that’s how you see politics.

          • SoftStarLight June 7, 2019 at 9:27 am #

            Well I was having some fun with it ok. But its still true. I wish we had leaders that inspired awe and amazement. The common people need that. When a person is inspired they typically reach to do more than they would if they were not inspired. And again, it goes back to the benefits of feeling like you are part of something much bigger than yourself. All of these things are good things for society.

      • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 1:12 am #

        She’s right about this. Paul Manafort is no angel but he was caught up in the witchhunt and he was a sacrificial lamb so that Mueller could look like he was really punishing the wrong doers who “stole” the election. Solitary confinement seems over the top in this case.

        • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:47 am #

          Bullshit.

          Manafort was was convicted on multiple charges of fraud & tax evasion that had been going on for decades. If he hadn’t been induced into volunteering to run Fuckface von Clownstick’s campaign, he could STILL be enjoying the (extremely) high life now.

          No ‘sacrificial lamb, SSL. What a fool – both he and you.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 10:38 am #

            And so I guess you have never heard of a man that does do bad things but still has a heart? So he participated in something he believed in and got dinged. I blame that on people like you. Having him brought to justice for the wrong things he did is one thing. But making him go to solitary confinement because he was part of a political campaign that you disagree with is terrible. I wouldn’t do that to anybody just because they didn’t see eye to eye with me.

          • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:29 am #

            Fuckface von Clownstick

            Love it. Great moniker for him.

            Yeah, Manafort was always guilty of this shit and the only reason he got nabbed is because he affiliated with Trump, otherwise, they would have left him to his continual graft. It does go to show, ALL of these political creeps are guilty of the same to varying degrees meaning some more than others and some less than others. It’s just a matter of seriously investigating them and charging them.

            AOC is naive about this. Manafort will be raped in general population and no matter what a corrupt sleazebag crook he is, I can never and will never condone rape and/or enable it.

            In this case, they are all witches so a witch hunt is warranted — one that’s much more comprehensive than Mueller’s miserable attempt. All Of Them Witches.

          • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 1:50 pm #

            People like that get put in minimum security prisons – not Rikers for God’s sake. Maybe they shouldn’t but they do. Why make an exception for him unless you want him destroyed?

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 4:33 pm #

            I see what you are saying. I didn’t understand the context. So in this case he needs solitary confinement for safety reasons given the prison he is in. So then they meant to destroy him the whole time or at least make his life miserable. How cunning! They make people believe they are fighting for his rights when truly they are getting people to cheer on his demise. Truly a sad statement on our justice system, media and politicians.

    • Elrond Hubbard June 6, 2019 at 1:40 pm #

      Either no one clicked through to the article (at any rate, no one who posted about it), or reading comprehension is abysmally low. AOC is taking a principled position against solitary confinement in its entirety, and it’s the correct position. Fs and D-minuses all around.

      • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 4:34 pm #

        Did I receive a D minus? I feel like I put in a lot of effort.

  101. 450.org June 5, 2019 at 6:45 pm #

    Biden. What a scumbag. He’s as loathsome as Trump in his own right. He believes we can frack our way back to 280. Yeah, no, I don’t think so. Or maybe he doesn’t believe that and doesn’t give a shit and is only pretending to so he can line his pockets some more as if he hasn’t lined them enough already during his ignominious political tenure.

    Biden’s Climate Plan: Much More than Natural Gas, But Still Natural Gas

    It seems clear that natural gas is treated as a cleaner-burning transition fuel, which casts a dubious light on the plan’s promise to “re-claim the mantle as the world’s clean energy leader and top exporter.” Democrats have been pushing the gospel of natural gas since the Obama years. In April, the Democratic House overwhelmingly voted for a bill allocating $580 million in federal funding to help Europe transition its energy economy by building natural gas infrastructure.

    Filmmaker Josh Fox, whose 2010 documentary, “Gasland,” was nominated for an Academy Award, told Paste in an email that he has grave concerns with the plans apparent openness to natural gas given Biden’s record on the issue.

    “That Joe Biden has a climate change plan is encouraging, especially after his and Barack Obama’s administration oversaw the largest expansion of fossil fuel drilling and fracking in recent memory,” he explained. “But Biden’s fracked gas obsessed past and present is apparently going full bore into the future, as fracking and, more importantly, fracked gas power plants will be expanded and extended for decades in his current plan.”

    Fox, who is backing Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2020 due to his calls for a total ban on fracking, added that despite its bells and whistles, the Biden plan could actually represent a step in the wrong direction.

    “Fracked gas, because it leaks so much methane, which is both an undercounted and unsolvable problem, is actually worse for the climate than even horrible old coal,” he explained. “So Biden advocating for more fracked gas is actually a step backward…The Dems can’t have it both ways, they can’t act on climate and convert our economy to fracked gas. It is either fracked gas or the planet.”

    • 450.org June 5, 2019 at 6:57 pm #

      Fracking & plastics go together like a horse and carriage and plastics production is soaring with America leading the way. Is Uncle Joe in bed with Big Plastics? Maybe so. Maybe so.

      The Hidden Relationship Between the Plastics Industry and Fracking in the U.S.

      While the report looks at emissions from plastic production worldwide, it focuses on the United States, and for a good reason: Nowhere is the plastic industry development as fast as it is here, where new plastic plants are predominantly designed to use natural gas, as opposed to the oil-based production favored by much of the rest of the world. “We are seeing a rapid export of plastics technology based on natural gas that is linked to the plastics boom,” Muffet said.

      The “shale rush” in the United States not only has supplied the country with massive amounts of fracked gas, it also has opened a market for the hydrocarbon ethane, which can be made into plastic. Between 2008 and 2017, ethane production in the United States more than doubled, from around 700,000 barrels a day of ethane to almost 1.5 million. By 2021, it is expected to reach 2 million barrels a day.

      In 2016, Shell announced it would be building a multi-billion dollar “cracker” plant ?— ?a facility that breaks ethane into ethylene, which is used to make plastic such as polyethylene. Polyethylene is the most common type of plastic used in single-use plastic packaging, the sector that makes up around 40 percent of global production and is the largest and most rapidly growing segment of the plastic economy.

  102. Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 9:05 pm #

    https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-tosses-all-charges-in-white-nationalist-rioting-plot/

    Old fashioned White Male Judge frees RAM guys (Rise Above Movement). Anyone else would have thrown them in prison. Gives them a stern lecture about fighting for their Race. Let the State do its job. They’ll take care of the Antifa. Sure they will, Judge.

    Sounds like John Az.

    Justice is very far from blind. It depends on who does what rather than just the what. And of course it’s in the eye of beholder. This Judge sees a misdemeanor where other would see a hate crime.

    • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 1:52 am #

      Whites are a minority in California. Doesn’t being a minority confer special status and rights? When do we get White history month? We need White only spaces too since other minorities can have exclusive spaces and clubs. There is going to be a lot more of this in the future and its going to put lots of these politicians who say they believe in tolerance for everyone in awkward spots. Time to see what their idea of equality is all about. They will either flip like pancakes as you say the Fox people will do or they’ll twist into pretzels. Some of em deserve to be pretzels.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 4:17 am #

        Yeah, these guys are great – like the Jets in West Side Story. A social athletic club, but one dedicated to a higher purpose. It’s tragic the Feds cracked down on this whole thing. Men need to fight sometimes.

        Pretzels, eh? I knew I picked the right girl. We’ll make ’em say Uncle. I can you hear you saying, Want some s’more?

        The whole Nation is one big Bonfire of the Vanities. Hopefully a Remnant will emerge from this furnace like burnished gold.

      • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:52 am #

        Simple fact check on Wikipedia, took 6 seconds:

        “According to 2015 US Census Bureau estimates, California’s population was 72.9% White, 14.7% Asian, 6.5% Black or African American, 1.7% Native Americans, 0.5% Pacific Islander and 3.8% from two or more races.”

        You’re a sad, delude, racist fool, Jean. Still, you’ve plenty of company!

        • Majella June 6, 2019 at 6:54 am #

          …does your Louisiana IRL beau know about your t
          ‘Thang’ with Janos?

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 10:29 am #

            Excuse you! Your Wikipedia statics are lame. Notice no mention of Hispanics. Strange being California right? No Californios? Clearly Wikipedia is including Hispanics as White so that the takeover isn’t so clear. This site provides a clearer and more honest picture. In 2017 Hispanics formed a slight majority and in the coming years their demographic dominance is anticipated to increase.

            https://www.thoughtco.com/california-population-overview-1435260

        • Q. Shtik June 6, 2019 at 9:34 am #

          WHAT?! No Mexican/Mestizos?

        • benr June 6, 2019 at 9:40 am #

          Majella while that is the on the books “metrics” there are at last guess over 4 million illegal aliens in California alone.
          Most of them Hispanic BUT a new growing demographic of Chinese people is also starting to spring up.
          Driving though parts of Los Angeles now looks like Tijuana and other parts look like Beijing.

        • Exscotticus June 6, 2019 at 10:29 am #

          Simple fact check on Wikipedia, took 6 seconds:

          “Hispanics are the largest ethnic group in California”

          More facts:

          “the Hispanic and Asian populations have grown considerably, in part because of relatively higher levels of immigration.”

        • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 12:47 pm #

          Jean, Jean, so young and alive.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhM84pJLkLg

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 4:03 pm #

            Wow so magical and dreamy :-). What a beautiful song!!!!

  103. capt spaulding June 5, 2019 at 9:29 pm #

    Somebody had to take Trump aside and explain that D day didn’t stand for Donald. He was pissed.

    • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:49 am #

      Good one.

  104. KesaAnna June 5, 2019 at 10:08 pm #

    ” I once worked in a Catholic Center, in the bookstore/reception area. They forced themselves to have a ministry to the Poor even though there hearts weren’t in it at all. One time one of the nuns broke an appointment she had with a homeless guy so she could go to a meeting of refugees from El Salvador (back when all the Liberals were competing on who could say it the best). They mattered more, were cooler and more glamorous than our street people, you see. And she wanted to associate with that glam and get some for herself. ”

    I’m sure there is such a thing as a priest or nun who comes from a working – class background , just as I am sure there are a few lawyers or physicians around who are genuine Horatio Alger stories.

    Kinda rare though . And in the case of Priests and nuns , I have yet to meet any.

    ( And rather funny then that people who bash Church leadership otherwise exalt education and a high standard of living , when in bashing Church leadership they are bashing precisely the sort of person which they claim is their goal. )

    I avail myself of the services of the Church for many things , but never for understanding of poverty.

    They never get it. Not because they are stupid. They are not stupid , they are smart.
    Not because they are ignorant. They are educated .

    Not because they haven’t worked in a soup kitchen.

    Actually , working in a soup kitchen , voluntarily , and going to Disney World , voluntarily , really are not fundamentally different activities. They are voluntary social excursions , pastimes , or hobby – type activities. You may learn a lot from the activity , but you never learn the most important thing.

    Specifically in this case you won’t learn any more about poverty working in a soup kitchen than you learn in hanging around Disney World.

    Only in a ONE WAY , INVOLUNTARY , trip to the gutter or to the trench will you learn the subject.

    So said Adolf Hitler himself. But unfortunately neither his fans nor his enemies mine his gold , but skip instead strait to his nonsense .

    And so I suppose the same with the Church , and in life in general.

    • Janos Skorenzy June 5, 2019 at 11:22 pm #

      Actually they did do a soup kitchen, though almost none of the priests and nuns had nothing to do with it. The parishioners who were involved did a great job on it. One priest helped prepare the food. I never met him and he wore a flag of Ireland apron. Pretty clueless to do something like that of course or for such a thing to even exist.

      I tend to agree with you – the University of Hard Knocks is a quite a thing. Maybe a few who work with such people gain some of their wisdom. But very few…..

      May our Lady of Knock pray for us. No blasphemy – she has a sense of humor. I know because…..

      • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 12:21 pm #

        You have been refined with fire and thus are immensely powerful. And your intellect is a force to be reckoned with. Thus your natural place at the top of the chain.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 12:40 pm #

          Every knock is a boost.

  105. KesaAnna June 6, 2019 at 12:25 am #

    Race ?

    How about culture or geography instead ?

    One of my favorite books , a rather old one now , is , ” America at 1750 . ”

    ( 1750 — that’s barely 20 years before the American Revolution )

    Not a history of colonial America , but a demographic study.

    English were only five or ten percent of the population , almost exclusive to the upper class . Otherwise marginal.

    30 to 40 % of the population is Celtic. Scotland is poor , so basically dependent on England , and that extends to the New World , and influences things.

    But you might wonder what sort of liking is involved in dependence ?

    In the Irish case , the answer to that question appears resolved .

    At this point the Irish in America , to the 90% degree , are of the Protestant variety , not the Catholic.

    The British government was NOT encouraging Catholic migration to the New World at this point. Just the opposite.
    All the Catholics in Canada to the North , and Catholics to the South in Spanish America , were quite enough menace , thank you very much.

    But that does not mean the Protestant Irish liked the English. They seemed to deeply distrust or plain hate the English.

    If there is any substance in the claim that people will VOTE with THEIR FEET , when they can ,

    Then it sure seems that the Protestant Irish in America were moving Heaven and Earth to get as far away from the English as possible.

    They were generally the original Western pioneers . I suspect the American Revolution was silently already an accomplished fact in Appalachia before the revolution.

    And Appalachia remains to this day a Protestant Irish stronghold.

    ( And a big part of why I like living there , even though it is so poor , even though they are not my people. But that’s another story. )

    And 50 to 60% of the population is German.

    Demographically , America has certainly changed .

    But it certainly seems to me that , certainly where White America is concerned , what prevailed in 1750 still prevails ;

    It is a German country pretending to be English.

    You like psychology ? Then there are plenty of pathologies here.

    Whenever America bashes Germany it is basically bashing itself.

    Like hitting your mother. Even if your mother is Medea , it still is ultimately self -defeating.

    It has really as damn little in common with its English Allies as it has with its Israeli Allies .

    And I have never understood why , on the one hand , it makes a shrine of the Declaration of Independence , but has otherwise spent 200 years sucking up to the British !

    WTF ?

    With the enduring deprecating jokes about Appalachia , and the demonization of the Confederacy , it’s pretty clear you Germanized – folk don’t care for the Celts. oh well.

    Structurally and geographically you have most in common with Russia , and so should be friends.

    But that’s a mirror of the East German ~ Soviet relationship , only with the paranoia going the other way.

    The Soviet Union never had a better or more reliable ally than East Germany , but they never would drop the whole Hitler thing and so never would trust us.

    America never will trust Russia , though Stalin is dead , and after all Russia really is a poor country with a mountain of problems of its own.

    Russia will not conquer the world , any more than you realistically can conquer the world.

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    • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 2:06 am #

      You’re right about this Kesa. The most prominent heritage in the US is still German I’m pretty sure. Though Hispanic Mestizo is quickly catching up. But I’m with you. We should give up this Anglo pretense and go full scale Deutschland 2.0. It is really who we are. No reason to feel bad about it anymore.

      • KesaAnna June 6, 2019 at 5:06 am #

        What I think is there should be one religion and many states .

        Where Germany itself is concerned , that would look like the Holy Roman Empire pre – Martin Luther.

        Instead , it is the other way around.

        As i would say ; ass – backwards , and a fucking catastrophe , and must ever be , no matter how many gadgets we invent.

        German unification was a bad thing in 1871 , and was a bad thing in 1989. The political labels fundamentally being neither here nor there.

        Where America is concerned , perhaps it is a great misfortune that the Celts were a minority and not the majority ?

        But then , perhaps if they had been a majority it wouldn’t be one big state anyway ?

        Whatever , if the Confederacy had succeeded in its divorce , so much the better . And not because I dream of owning slaves , but because I don’t.

        Janos is correct that a homogeneous state is ever the default preference.

        The trouble is — WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A HOMOGENEOUS EMPIRE ??

        You haven’t , because it is an absurdity. A contradiction in terms.

        And so , too, a master race , of any race.

        All you will find in empires are contemptible slaves.

        Whether you define freedom according to the Spartan fashion , or the Athenian fashion , again , it is never to be found in empire.

        The proper ordering of authority should be —

        Family

        Church

        State.

        Instead it is —

        State ( ludicrously playing God and parent )

        Church ( any mans opinion , and soon enough no opinion at all. )

        and family ( as the afterthought of sex. )

        And not because we are more enlightened . The order today is driven by greed and hubris , plain and simple.

        And will never turn out well , even if we could make petroleum out of thin air.

        • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 11:57 am #

          You are very wise Kesa. You are an Aristocrat within the clothing of a Peasant. So much more elevated than all of the peasants wearing the clothing of aristocrats that attempt to run our lives here in the Empire each and every day.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 12:39 pm #

          Yes, well said Kesa. Unity in Diversity. One general Culture and a multitude of political entities gave us the Glory of Greece and the flowering of the Renaissance in Italy. Of course they have to be able to unite to defend themselves against Empires. And also not tear themselves apart fighting against each other. Greece did unite more or less against Persia, but wasn’t able to do so against Alexander. And by the time Rome rose, they were altogether too exhausted to have much chance. The Athens/Sparta Wars ruined them.

        • elysianfield June 7, 2019 at 11:12 am #

          “The trouble is — WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A HOMOGENEOUS EMPIRE ?? ”

          Kesa,

          …japan?

      • Majella June 6, 2019 at 7:00 am #

        Anglo -Saxons…a Germanic tribe…there’s really no actual difference SSL.

  106. malthuss June 6, 2019 at 12:36 am #

    the news gets worse and worse.
    and lawlessness is being legalized.

    • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 2:08 am #

      Indeed! No borders and no law means no country.

  107. Pucker June 6, 2019 at 1:27 am #

    Liberalism Off-the-Rails….

    What result if a bloke identifies as a dog? Or as a squirrel? Or a parakeet?

    Chasten Buttigieg;

    8h
    Could I legally be put in therapy by my parents for how I identify?
    Have others who share my identity been murdered and harassed simply for their identity?
    Is it or has it ever been illegal for me to exist?

    • Pucker June 6, 2019 at 1:56 am #

      What they’ll do is to change the law to make it illegal to question the identity of a bloke who identifies as a squirrel. Then all of the sane people will be thrown into prison and the squirrels will be in charge.

      • JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 10:55 am #

        Watching DC, I think the squirrels are already in charge.

        • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:22 am #

          Exactly! And that is why they need to be chased. They are ruining everything in their selfish pursuit of their nuts.

    • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:19 am #

      As long as he does not hurt anybody should we care if the bloke has a toke and chases his tail?

      If the dog chases the squirrel the squirrel will care.

      http://chasingthesquirrel.com/

      Pucker, it is almost like you wrote this for me to find.

  108. KesaAnna June 6, 2019 at 3:14 am #

    ” Remember Kesa, the Greasers are higher than you on the Tree just as we are above them. ”

    I wonder what the significance of that would be ?

    I think the world should be divided into princes and peasants.

    Not least because it ALREADY IS , and WILL REMAIN SO.

    Do I wish to be a Prince ? Not at all. Who WOULD want such a thing ?

    It should be a terrible burden to be a Prince. A kind of terrible misfortune.

    That people seek after it and envy it I suspect tells you where their thought really leads , and it isn’t toward responsibility , but away from , an escape from , responsibility.

    How is , ” Peasant ” a dirty word ? the vast majority of men come from peasants. They are peasants now. They will be peasants tomorrow too , and forever.

    IF the past 500 years of revolution had amounted to ANYTHING not one among you would have anything to fret about , even if dirt poor , even if next door to Chernobyl , even if headed into another Ice Age.

    ” It should be a greater honor to be a street – sweeper and citizen of this Reich , than to be a king in a foreign state. ”

    Amen !

    If that were REMOTELY true , it would BE true.

    Peasants make the world go ‘ round , always have , and always will , and without them you have nothing at all.

    So no one thinks , ” peasant ” a derogatory term who really possess such sentiments.

    I not only Know who Mozart and J.S. Bach were , I prefer them.

    And I can quote Shakespeare .

    Good ?

    No , bad. ( Bad , if popularity or status were my particular concern. )

    Your own kind resent and hate you . They feel you are , ” getting above yourself . ”

    ( gee, and i thought the sentiments of the Middle Ages were passe’ ! )

    And the better sort resent , or even fear you. If a toilet – scrubber can comprehend Shakespeare , what then our pretensions ?

    • KesaAnna June 6, 2019 at 3:24 am #

      I’ll leave it to all you Jacobins to worry about the pecking order. 😛

    • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 1:36 pm #

      Race matters, Kesh. As a Black German, I know this is hard for you to hear, but it is so. Thus did Hitler sterilize the results of those many illicit unions between Black French African troops and German women.

      The French brought these troops in to hold the Sudentland, well knowing what the result would be. Thus France is cursed, for this and many other reasons. One German woman described how quietly the Blue/Black Ghoums could move. A very graceful people who used this ability to sneak up on women and rape them.

      • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 5:17 pm #

        Yes, because rapes in WWII were all carried out by black people.

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

        The Russians were less graceful about it, from what I hear.

        Who sterilised the results of those illicit unions?

        “The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million.[7][8][9][10] According to historian William Hitchcock, in many cases women were the victims of repeated rapes, some as many as 60 to 70 times.[11] ”

        No, that doesn’t sound graceful at all, does it?

        Shame on you.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 6:46 pm #

          Exactly. The Germans were savaged by your Russian Communist allies. You just scored a touchdown for my side. Again.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 7:43 pm #

            I have nothing to do with the politics of the Russian communists. I respect the huge contribution of the Soviets to the defeat of Hitler and I mourn their unimaginable losses.

            But rapists are rapists.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 8:12 pm #

            And I expect they died as Russians, not Soviets. To keep the Nazi scum out of their land.

      • Q. Shtik June 6, 2019 at 6:37 pm #

        how quietly the Blue/Black Ghoums could move – Janos

        ===========

        I Googled up a picture of some Ghoum troops marching and they didn’t look particularly black. In fact, some could have passed for white.

        On the other hand, in the doctor’s office waiting room today in New Brunswick, NJ I saw one of the blackest blacks I can ever recall seeing. And she was not ‘right off the boat’ to judge by her common African American accent.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 11:52 pm #

          Googled, looked and yeah, you’re right. Don’t know. Maybe the word “Ghoum” is used in different ways. What I read made it sound like a Tribe of Black Africans but maybe it has a generic meaning of French African troops – so it could be either brown Moroccans or Blacks from many different countries colonized by France.

  109. FincaInTheMountains June 6, 2019 at 5:07 am #

    turn Holy Rus into the Holy Roman Empire of the Russian Nation
    And would prefer even better a Holy Roman Empire of the German People — i.e. a hundred plus German sovereignties.
    == KesaAnna

    The difference between Holy Rus and the Holy Roman Empire of the German People is that Russia was always an integration, and not a colonial, Empire.

    At one time, Gaius Julius Caesar gave Roman citizenship to the Gallo-Romans of Languedoc and it was this act of Caesar that turned the somewhat fascist Roman Republic into the Roman Empire, which later became the Christian Empire, and the Orthodox Church teaches that the emergence of the Roman Empire was one of the providential preparations for the Incarnation of Mission of Christ.

    • KesaAnna June 6, 2019 at 5:29 am #

      ” The difference between Holy Rus and the Holy Roman Empire of the German People is that Russia was always an integration, and not a colonial, Empire. ”

      Thank you.

      Americans are disinclined to hear it when I tell them the Russians are their brothers in spirit.

      Perhaps it might help to hear it from the horses mouth.

      Integrated — like Russia.

      Not colonial — like Russia.

      You’re damn right.

      • JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 10:46 am #

        You are right. Any time the US has “conquered other countries, like the Spanish-American War, independence followed soon after. We have always had enough of our own resources to cover out needs.

        However, 1973 happened.

        And yes, we are definitely more similar to Russia than China.

    • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:14 am #

      The knee bone connected to the -> thigh bone.

  110. FincaInTheMountains June 6, 2019 at 6:11 am #

    Americans are disinclined to hear it when I tell them the Russians are their brothers in spirit. == KesaAnna

    In the 10th century, from Cnut the Great to Wilhelm the Conqueror, the people closest to the Russians from a cultural point of view were Normans and Anglo-Saxons, whose kings and queens constantly married Russian princes and princesses, which was associated with both the common religion and the fact that the Anglo-Danish state as well as Russia was an integrative, not a colonial Empire.

    The fact of the matter is that the conquest of England by William was in fact the first Crusade against the Orthodoxy inspired by the Papacy, and the conflict between the York and Canterbury departments was in many ways analogous to the conflict between Moscow and Rome.

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  111. FincaInTheMountains June 6, 2019 at 8:22 am #

    Happy Ascension Day!

    The commandment to preach the Gospel associated with this holiday in Mark’s Gospel is undoubtedly an explanation of the more than two thousand years of the era (and perhaps not one) between the First and Second Coming of Christ and the related necessity of the existence of the Christian State, which is popularly known as Empire.


    Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.

    And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

    So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.

    Mark 16:19-20

    Unfortunately, most of the Byzantine art has perished, and this is one of the few surviving examples dedicated to this holiday.

    Fresco in the Cathedral of Protat in Kars, Athos (XIV century)

    https://www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/ascension.jpg

    And this is the “Ascension of the Lord” by Giotto, from which the transformation of icon painting into Renaissance painting on religious themes began.

    https://sites.google.com/site/crossbr/GIOTTO_Ascension.jpg

    But El Greco, in my opinion, is proof of the possibility of making the icon an artistic task of Western painting of the Renaissance.

    But naturally, this should be done not in the way it was done in Ukraine after Union of Brest, which also became the result of a long historical process, the beginning of which was laid not with the denial of Christ, but with the denial of the Empire.

  112. wm5135 June 6, 2019 at 8:25 am #

    A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.
    Marshall McLuhan

    Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.
    Marshall McLuhan

    • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:09 am #

      A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. But it can sell a lot of …. anything.

      Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity. Yes, it makes the idiot feel significant and impotent.

      • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:10 am #

        Yes, it makes the idiot feel significant and impotent.

        No italics for my barkings.

        • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:19 am #

          Do you mean omnipotent versus impotent?

          • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:25 am #

            impotent rhymes with important

        • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:26 am #

          A little stretch I admit.

    • KesaAnna June 6, 2019 at 11:11 am #

      Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the scoundrel with dignity.

      — Would be a lot better.

      One should avoid , ” idiot ” , or , ” crazy ” unless you WANT to be dishonest or unfair.

      You can say that a person is sinful , evil , or criminal .

      But sinful , evil , or criminal does not necessarily imply inferior.

      A very bad character can still be every inch your equal.

      But opaque IQ science , and murky mind – reading science , can be used like a magic wand to transform in an instant a forty year old into a five year old.

      How fucking convenient.

      But much too convenient.

      As hard as it might be to back off from , ” You’re a bad person. ”

      It’s going to be a Hell of a lot harder to back off , ” You’re a stupid person. ” Or , ” You’re a crazy person. ”

      You would think that war would have taught us that “science ” doesn’t diffuse , it escalates.

      • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:29 am #

        Moral indignation is not the dog park of scoundrels exclusively. Anybody can enjoy the sweet blast of freshness moral indignation gives. It is like a cool breath mint and a buck will get you a dozen.

  113. JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 10:41 am #

    What a bunch of candy asses this country’s public is, especially the kids.

    I am listening to descriptions of D Day and what that generations kids endured to stop two dictator megalomaniacs from taking over the world.

    Then I hear the cowards in this generation reacting to an out and out invasion of our border by carping about a two to three percent increase in prices from tariffs. I think about the rationing going on by the public to support the troops during WW2.

    Disgusting, the public of today’s America does not deserve the gifts given to it by the Constitution.

  114. 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:09 am #

    Interesting. Finland is the only EU country where homelessness is falling. Apparently, it’s serious about eliminating homelessness. It’s not just lip service or half or quarter measures.

    Imagine trying this in America? Apoplexy wouldn’t even begin to describe the vitriolic reaction. Jesse Watters and his ilk would have the new homes/apartments bulldozed and the former tenants housed in internment camps run by private contractors at a cost of $80,000 per year per undesirable because that mkaes total economic sense, right?

    ‘It’s a miracle’: Helsinki’s radical solution to homelessness

    “We had to get rid of the night shelters and short-term hostels we still had back then. They had a very long history in Finland, and everyone could see they were not getting people out of homelessness. We decided to reverse the assumptions.”

    As in many countries, homelessness in Finland had long been tackled using a staircase model: you were supposed to move through different stages of temporary accommodation as you got your life back on track, with an apartment as the ultimate reward.

    “We decided to make the housing unconditional,” says Kaakinen. “To say, look, you don’t need to solve your problems before you get a home. Instead, a home should be the secure foundation that makes it easier to solve your problems.”

    With state, municipal and NGO backing, flats were bought, new blocks built and old shelters converted into permanent, comfortable homes – among them the Rukkila homeless hostel in the Helsinki suburb of Malminkartano where Ainesmaa now lives.

  115. 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:12 am #

    And yes, we are definitely more similar to Russia than China.

    Agreed. Both America and Russia are a Kleptocracy. The only difference is a matter of degree and how well they respectively hide it.

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    • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:55 am #

      There was quite a rhyme between the recent HBO Chernobyl series (I still need to see the last one) and contemporary America IMHO. The only big difference I see is that Russians expected the KGB to be doing their verification thing and Americans are under the delusion America has no KGB at all.

      Everyone here who claims regular membership at this cluster of a fuck knows better than that of course. The difference I’ll guess to be mostly historical. Hiding the fact of 800 people a year feeling the power of Homeland is a lot different than hiding the secret of sending millions to Siberia and such. So until that happens here, Cary On.

      Another difference is that had there been VLSI electronic toys as now the KGB could have been totally under the radar.

      Unless they made a mistake and a dog saw it one day.

      • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 12:00 pm #

        Agreed.

      • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 12:53 pm #

        All of America is slated to become a Gulag.

        “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then be deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children shall wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

        Thomas Jefferson

  116. JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 11:14 am #

    KA

    You talked about why a common church cannot be utilized everywhere?

    Something about the human animal’s make up, maybe a sidelight of ethnocentrism, that people will always disagree with what ever anyone says.

    Think about it, no matter what someone in charge says, 50% of the people will disagree. ???

    The most rational ideas will have detractors, not because they are bad ideas, but because—, just because.

    Maybe part of it is power, pecking order motivation that humans always try to knock the king off the mountain.

    A leader has to divorce him or her self from the perpetual disagreement agents and aim to do what they think is right.

    Yeah, Trump.

    • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:36 am #

      A leader has to divorce him or her self from the perpetual disagreement agents and aim to do what they think is right.

      That’s right, and if you think your daughter is hot hot hot and you think any man would want to bone her. That is all right too!

      Yeah, Trump.

      • JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 11:41 am #

        K dog

        A product of the MSM campaign.

        I would like to see one thing attributed to Trump proven. I sure have seen enough bullshit stories refuted and retracted on page 42.

        The whole Leftist media is a lie generator. Their entire editorial process is their to make up stuff on Trump.

        • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:44 am #

          It’s why my opinion of Trump is not formed by the media, period. Despite that, or because of it, I loathe & detest him FOR ALL THE RIGHT REASONS as anyone with a brain and principles should.

          • JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 11:50 am #

            So where are you getting all the information that has turned you into a Trump-hater, the Democratic Times?

          • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:57 am #

            Loathe & detest don’t equal hate. I won’t give Trump that energy. Hate gives energy to the one you hate. I will give Trump as little energy as I can withhold.

            I scan the horizon for any and all information and I use my power of observation of the target’s behavior to glean the rest. Trump’s an open book and that book is akin to porn. He’s trash.

          • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 12:21 pm #

            Yeah, that says it. But should we really be so mean to porn? It may have some redeeming value, unlike……………

        • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 11:59 am #

          The whole Leftist media is a lie generator. Their entire editorial process is their to make up stuff on Trump.

          I totally agree.

          I get to hate him for my very own reasons!

          • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 12:01 pm #

            And it is more than a breath mint thing. Trump and I have fundamental differences.

        • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 12:15 pm #

          But to your original point. You have to be kidding. There are several video clips of Trump making inappropriate comments about Ivanka in the mainstream news. I could post them but you can chase your own ball.

          But if you want to say he his putting on a show to manipulate people and really is not into incest you could be right. I will agree with that. He plays the fool well.

  117. SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 11:38 am #

    Can this really be happening?! I hope so!

    https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/ice-prepares-mass-deportations-acting-director-admits-no-choice/

    I propose a new measure as well. There are many White Americans who feel so much love and empathy for the Mestizos. Much more it seems than even for their own racial and cultural kin. Hey that is your business and I am not going to diss you for it. They are people too and deserve concern and care. But shouldn’t we begin to put our values to action? I say send these empathetic Whites back with the Mestizos to Central and South America. Upon their arrival they can follow through with building and nurturing those communities until they are up to speed and can meet the needs of their residents so that migration isn’t even a concern. After all, the Mestizos believe that White Men brought them knowledge and civilization in the ancient past. And so history repeats itself….See! Easy peasy and problem solved.

    • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 11:44 am #

      SSL

      Will you also help spread the word about Climate Change so that it doesn’t get any worse for the Guatemalans who are coming here because droughts are causing their crops to fail?

      I mean there’s 20-30 years of worsening baked in but you’ve got children, so you presumably don’t want the problem to worsen in the long term for them.

      You just need to learn as much as you can from reputable scientific sources and vote for people who take it seriously. Easy peasy. Problem made a little bit less bad. Not solved. We’ve left it too late for that by listening to people who’ll read anything but the reputable science.

      https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/drought-climate-change-force-guatemalans-migrate-to-us/

      • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:47 am #

        Will you also help spread the word about Climate Change so that it doesn’t get any worse for the Guatemalans who are coming here because droughts are causing their crops to fail?

        And fight the good fight to decriminalize and regulate heretofore illegal drugs so the cartels can no longer slaughter the peasants in Latin America because of the draconian, ineffective American war on drugs?

        • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 12:03 pm #

          And I assume you will be assisting with all of the addicts that result from decriminalization? Not that we don’t have enough already. You have much energy for the fight and it can be channeled to good use.

          • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 12:18 pm #

            There will always be addicts regardless of illegality. Education, regulation and treatment will keep it at a manageable number in addition to conjuring a more egalitarian society versus the society we have now which is built on despair.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 12:22 pm #

            I completely agree.

      • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 11:58 am #

        Not coming ‘here’, obviously. That must have been an slip of the fingers born of too much empathy with your plight 🙂 .

      • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 12:02 pm #

        I am open to all considerations Alba. The climate changes and society should be prepared for as many eventualities as possible. Perhaps you would be willing to assist with this new evangelism? Given that climate change will naturally affect us all (unless its regional) then I believe people need to be ready in all parts of the world to the greatest extent possible. And that includes preparing for possibilities that are the exact opposite of what you expect to happen.

        • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

          ” The climate changes and society should be prepared for as many eventualities as possible. ”

          What sensible people do is prepare for the one that the science shows is actually happening.

          Actually happening now.

          But I get that talking to you on the matter is as much use as talking to a brick wall, so, while your sons have my sympathy for the future their mum and her friends don’t wish to mitigate for them, there’s just no point.

          • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 12:10 pm #

            You’re wrong! I am listening.

          • malthuss June 7, 2019 at 10:11 am #

            There is a best selling book, lambasted with 630 bad reviews.
            The book is by Peter Brimelow.
            Title–‘Alien Nation.’

            He noted some of those latino nations have populations that have tripled in less than a century. Or increase was nearly tripled.
            And fools like you think migration is due to ‘Climate Change.’

            No, ‘everything free in merika’–West Side Story saw this in the 1950s or whenever.

      • malthuss June 6, 2019 at 1:36 pm #

        GREEN ALBA
        The country with the highest per capita number of porn searches is…Pakistan.[end quote].

        A muslim land. And the word is the #1 search [not just porn search]
        IS FOR TRANNY PORN.

        Need I post repressed homo?

        • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 2:15 pm #

          Interestingly, malthuss, it’s possible to have a sex-change operation in some Muslim countries. I think Iran may be one of them, but I’m not sure.

          It’s because they can’t cope with the reality that homosexuality is a thing, so they’d rather homosexuals changed sex surgically than, you know, just let them live a normal life.

          What could possibly go wrong?

          There’s a huge market in re-instating hymens too, when marriage is on the cards. That’s the kind of shite you get in demented theocracies that can’t cope with reality.

          • capt spaulding June 7, 2019 at 8:11 am #

            Green Alba, For a transsexual in the middle east, it’s a red letter day when, after sexual reassignment surgery, for the first time, their husband beats them. Finally, affirmation of their new status. Life is good.

    • JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 11:45 am #

      Used to be called the Peace Corps, conceived by JFK along with VISTA. My belief is that every child reaching maturity be required to do national service for two years minimum. Peace Corps, VISTA, or the military. Might screw their heads on right.

      • JohnAZ June 6, 2019 at 11:48 am #

        And per GA, maybe a fourth service organization working the climate issues, esp. pollution of all forms. Those two guys trying to clean up the ocean could probably use some help!

      • Tate June 6, 2019 at 12:04 pm #

        What a concept!

        Here’s another. How about a corps of yoofs policing free speech on the Internet?

        Oh wait! We already have that.

        • Tate June 6, 2019 at 12:06 pm #

          Then there could be an auxiliary corps doing door-to-door struggle sessions er ‘outreach’.

      • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 12:08 pm #

        I have always said that Whites have the biggest hearts. That has gotten us into lots of trouble to this point. We have to turn this weakness into a strength. Saving the world as we have in the past is a way to do that. But we must fortify our own countries as well. Some will be busy helping their own people while others can bring civilization to the rest of the world. Its all in service to Christ.

    • Majella June 6, 2019 at 2:47 pm #

      Oh, FFS, SSL

      Here you go again, with yet another poorly thought through ‘final solution’:

      – get rid of the non-whites stinking the place up, and while you’re at it, get rid of any sympathetic whites , because they’re race-traitors.

      Result? A restored 1950s USA, with unicorns & rainbows everywhere.

      Can you really be that naive?

      • SoftStarLight June 6, 2019 at 4:23 pm #

        Your inner racist emerges Majella. I know these are very difficult topics. As if I am happy about the damage done to the natural and human ecosystems. You need to get more clues. I mentioned nothing about “non-whites stinking up the place”. Nor did I mention race-traitors. And final solution? Please! Clearly you didn’t understand that I was simply offering a proposal for consideration. And my proposal is very humane. Very human centered. Re-establishing natural borders and habitats to protect and maintain human diversity. Or do you wish to destroy human diversity?

  118. 450.org June 6, 2019 at 11:38 am #

    Hitler may have escaped and lived out the rest of his life in Argentina for all we know.

    It’s possible, I suppose. I suppose it’s also possible he’s still alive and posting to this comment section. If not him directly, certainly his people-loving, god-fearing essence.

    If Hitler’s posting to this comment section, which one of you is him? Don’t be shy. Hitler wasn’t shy. Hitler isn’t shy. Hitler is not afraid to announce himself as Hitler. Come forth from the shadows, Hitler, and announce yourself and be counted and accountable for your commentary.

  119. 450.org June 6, 2019 at 12:11 pm #

    I think Chernobyl is instructive to those who want to build the wall. Why not build a sarcophagus over America like the Russians did for reactor #4 at Chernobyl? Why stop at a wall when a sarcophagus would ensure no contamination? Think about it. We can turn America into one giant indoor sports stadium since they’re all the rage these days. How cool would that be? Think of all the jobs it would create and it would mitigate the worst effects of climate change because Americans would be safe from the toxic environment outside the sarcophagus.

    • K-Dog June 6, 2019 at 12:26 pm #

      They had to shoot their pets.

      • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 2:25 pm #

        That was an excellent scene, was it not. Brutal, but mercifully necessary. What a job, right? They wouldn’t have spared you, dog, precisely because you’re a dog. I know it had to hurt seeing your compadres being executed like that — especially the pups who were eating the carpet they were so hungry.

    • Exscotticus June 6, 2019 at 12:41 pm #

      >>> I think Chernobyl is instructive to those who want to build the wall.

      Is it instructive to those in Beverly Hills who build walls around their homes?

      • volodya June 6, 2019 at 1:23 pm #

        Walls for me, no walls for you.

        Walls for me because for me security is a legitimate issue. But not for you. So, shouldn’t people not living in my gated community or compound need to have government-issued ID before they enter?

        But why on earth would YOU insist on people having government issued ID? Do YOU live in a gated compound?

        Voting? Bah, voter suppression. And anyway, anybody with half a brain knows that paperless voters vote Democrat, and even if they have no right to vote and even if the vote is fraudulent, it’s for Democrats, which is by definition a worthy vote.

        And why would YOU insist on walls? What legitimate security issues do YOU have? What legitimate economic interests do you have? None, nada, no security issues, legitimate or otherwise, no valid economic interests either. In your filthy sewer of a mind it’s all racism, nothing more, all hideous and phobic.

        But my mind is pure. It is pure in motivation and attitude. I’m worthy, you’re not.

        The replacement of the white working class by a desperate, marginalized, non-citizen, non-white populace, who are willing to work for peanuts, who are willing to live in fear of deportation or imprisonment, who are willing to live in degrading conditions, proceeds apace and this is how it should be because it is in my interest and my interests as one of the college educated elite are VALID and yours are not.

        Your interests are not valid because you are a substandard human, because you do not make the cut, because me and people like me set the standard as to who is worthy and who isn’t and I say you’re not.

        And your interests are not valid because they conflict with mine. And your interests are not valid because I SAID so.

        That’s how they think Exscott. That’s what you get with a – cough – Progressive.

      • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 2:22 pm #

        Yes. Do you really believe I would exclude them? Sure you do. Either everyone is you, or they’re a commie, liberal socialist, right? Those are the only choices. Easy peezy.

        • volodya June 6, 2019 at 2:55 pm #

          Progessives are the opposite of what they say they are. They are regressive, they are for themselves, they are mendacious, self-dealing incompetents, they look after the billionaire class that bank-rolls them.

          The “progressive” agenda is a lot of talk about lezzies, gays and trannies and a lot of action on enriching the outlandishly rich. Everything progressives do is an act, their every utterance is a lie, they were instrumental in ruining the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans and not only Americans but also that of multitudes around the world.

          There isn’t a country that they don’t consider a military target. Progressives are morons, not only on the domestic front but also and especially in the international realm. Does anyone with a functioning brain-cell really believe that “progressives” truly give a fuck, even the slightest fuck, about the disastrous condition of American Blacks and Hispanics and working class women, let alone working class White people? Or even the aforementioned lezzies, gays and trannies? It’s ALL talk and to a “progressive” it’s ALL about money.

          • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 4:21 pm #

            Do you hear that all of you out there who identify as “progressive?”

            I don’t identify as a progressive, so it’s no skin off my back how you perceive those who do.

          • elysianfield June 7, 2019 at 11:47 am #

            “I don’t identify as a progressive, so it’s no skin off my back how you perceive those who do.”

            450,
            You do not understand. We don’t give a fuck how you self-identify…the Organs will determine your status.

  120. Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 1:03 pm #

    Is it my imagination or is the media making a gigantic to do about D Day this year – far more than usual that is? If so, that bodes very ill. That would be them priming us for another invasion, probably Iran this time.

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    • volodya June 6, 2019 at 1:30 pm #

      The reverence for all things military is part of the hypocrisy. Showing enough reverence absolves people of having to serve. It’s in lieu of actual military service. When service was compulsory, people mocked the military. Remember Gomer Pyle USMC?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUo37r0TPuM

    • BackRowHeckler June 6, 2019 at 1:48 pm #

      Its the last celebration with living veterans. It was in 1938, 75 years after Gettysburg, the final gathering gathering took place at the battlefield in Pennsylvania, and 1991 at Verdun in France, 75 years after that battle.

      Some of the battles the US fought on the Western Front in WW1 against the German Army were bigger than Normandy, and with more casualties, but they seem to be forgotten.

      • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 2:01 pm #

        “It was in 1938,”

        What was in 1938?

        • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 2:03 pm #

          Sorry, misread that sentence, brh. Got you now.

    • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 1:59 pm #

      “Is it my imagination or is the media making a gigantic to do about D Day this year – far more than usual that is? If so, that bodes very ill. That would be them priming us for another invasion, probably Iran this time.”

      Where have you been? It’s the 75th anniversary. So you can pop your paranoia under the pillow for another time.

      Sheesh…

      • 450.org June 6, 2019 at 2:19 pm #

        It’s not your imagination. These things always have an air of inauthenticity about them but this year it’s palpably over-the-top.

        Why don’t they give the same recognition to Maggie Thatcher’s hard-fought, victorious military campaign against the Falkland Islands?

        • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:20 pm #

          Well it wasn’t against the Falkland Islands, 450, it was against the Argentinian dictatorship that invaded the Falklands,which is currently British.

          I’m not sure it could happen again. How long can the UK maintain a small island off Argentina in present straitened circumstances? At some point, common sense will have to prevail.

          There is a view that it’s all about the 200-mile coastal limit for oil exploration.

          But the Falklands conflict lasted only just under two and a half months, so it makes no sense to compare it to the second world war.

          I didn’t watch the celebrations in their entirety – I only saw the extended extracts that came up on the news. But I didn’t find what I saw objectionable. Maybe it’s an age thing, when your parents lived through the war and it’s always felt close. Listening to the surviving veterans talking can still bring tears to my eyes – they are so modest and unassuming, and always attribute the real bravery to their comrades who didn’t make it.

          Janos has his own agenda because he’s on the Nazi side and wishes they’d taken over all of Europe and the UK.

          F**k that for a game of soldiers, as they say.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:30 pm #

            which *are* currently British, even…

          • Exscotticus June 6, 2019 at 6:30 pm #

            >>> How long can the UK maintain a small island off Argentina in present straitened circumstances?

            Well if the UK wasn’t subsidizing millions of immigrants, I’d imagine it’d be quite easy to keep the remnant empire going.

          • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:38 pm #

            “Well if the UK wasn’t subsidizing millions of immigrants, I’d imagine it’d be quite easy to keep the remnant empire going.”

            Yes, dear…

        • GreenAlba June 6, 2019 at 6:29 pm #

          On a lighter note, an anecdote re the soldiers.

          The Falklands at that time were a bit like the UK circa 1950. A bit of a backwater. The soldiers, being not at all PC, referred to the inhabitants as ‘Bennys’, Benny being a character in a TV soap of the time who was a bit er… slow.

          Here he is – Benny from Crossroads:

          https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtOZ8ggWgAEsym1.jpg

          Their superior officers ordered them to stop using this epithet about the population they were there to protect, so the obliging squaddies started calling them ‘Stills’* instead.

          *They’re ‘still’ Bennys but we can’t call them that.

          Mean 🙂 .

  121. capt spaulding June 6, 2019 at 1:12 pm #

    My grandfather died in a German concentration camp during WWII. He got drunk and fell out of the guard tower.

    • Majella June 6, 2019 at 2:52 pm #

      Lol! You’ve always God the best one-liners, Capt!

  122. malthuss June 6, 2019 at 1:20 pm #

    What do you think of the only White male in this?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0APbcB1syGE

    • Tate June 6, 2019 at 1:47 pm #

      Rhetorical question, right?

      He’s GAY, dude! How else to explain.

      • malthuss June 7, 2019 at 10:15 am #

        I didnt know what to make of him.

        Rhetorical question, no–iso insights.

        Why have the only WM last?
        Why is he leaning forward?
        Why so fat and unappealing?

    • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 1:47 pm #

      Do you mean the ad for the brain supplement? The video that came on after was pretty non-descript. The Plan of the Elite is working, their designs are very deep and well thought out. Indian and East Asians can provide the brain power, if not always the creativity. Hispanics, the muscle power. White Women, who love to judge, can police via Human Resources.

      Even White Nationalists can’t agree on “no enemies to the Right”, what to speak of Conservatives. Indeed we have taken on the same maladies and are infiltrated just as they were and are. Liberals conquered because they simply would not criticize the Left. And the Left would not criticize those further to the Left. Thus the whole thing veered Left, with Conservatives following like the wretched, beaten dogs that they are. Meanwhile White Nationalist talking heads excoriate Templar Fighting Men.

      • Exscotticus June 6, 2019 at 9:15 pm #

        >>> Liberals conquered because they simply would not criticize the Left.

        Nor do they criticize their minority alleged-ideological brothers, such as the rappers at Hillary’s 2016 campaign events…

        Sexy bitch I hope she ’bout it
        Come fuck with me, you know I got it

        How well do you think liberals would be doing if nearly all of the MSM was conservative? If the entire educational system from K to PhD was conservative? The right ceded two major cultural institutions and it has cost them dearly. And while Trump’s “fake news” rhetoric has done much to redress the imbalance, education continues to be a conservative no-man’s land.

        • Janos Skorenzy June 6, 2019 at 11:58 pm #

          We also ceded our Identity: Indians became the Native Americans. The First Americans. Bullshit. Whites created America. A Nation is a People first and foremost – not a Geography. Culture? Sure, the Culture OF the People. No Blonde or Red Bearded Muslims need apply.

        • benr June 7, 2019 at 9:57 am #

          That my friend is indoctrination which takes peoples free will from them to decide what they believe. Force fed a steady diet of utter bullshit via politically correct nonsense!
          Look at the tactics of the left if you are not in lockstep you are a racist and enemy and now you will be physically assaulted for being conservative on many college campuses by the never ending freak show of SJW warriors.

      • malthuss June 7, 2019 at 10:16 am #

        I found the ad odd.

        Hispanics, the muscle power–that is so 20 years ago. AI and Robots will be there, in the grave new world.

  123. BackRowHeckler June 6, 2019 at 2:15 pm #

    A few more OD deaths in Hartford last nite, H laced with fentanyl, junkies getting nervous, I see them on Asylum Ave on my way to work, ghosts, flitting around, avoiding cops and looking for a fix that wont kill them. What a life! Fact is, they’re already dead, and they know it. Odd thing tho, when a junkie dies there’s always somebody stepping up to take his place. Its like in Chicago. When I read ’50 shot, 10 dead in weekend mayhem’, I think, well that’s it, everybody whos gonna get shot has been shot. But no, next weekend 50 more get shot.

    Brh

    • malthuss June 7, 2019 at 10:21 am #

      racial breakdown of the people?

      there was a great you tube, ‘econcat88’–he disappeared.
      his talks are now on youtube but reposted by someone else.

      comment–
      toledo is a huge toilet
      bad idea for a public park at the former site of nathan hale school in westmoreland. it’s already a ‘bad neighborhood’ … hoops would go in and automatically it becomes a dark hang-out with trouble looming.
      a catch-all for gang related activity and a breeding ground for thugs and thieves, not to mention a literal dumping ground for trash, litter, junk and whatever else you could throw there.
      toledo is a huge toilet already and this area is certainly included. litter everywhere!

      done with your fast-food meal? just toss your paper bags, empty cups, napkins and half-eaten french fries out the window!!! it’s everywhere in toilet toledo!

      no more parks – these animals in toledo do not deserve anything nice because they don’t take care of it! this town and the pigs who litter everywhere are a disgrace. what an embarrassment

  124. FincaInTheMountains June 6, 2019 at 4:36 pm #

    Ukraine as a living space for the Reich and a suitcase without a handle for Russia

    All the time I want to tell you about the course of the US civil war following the appointment of John Durham, and in this connection I am now watching the Brookings’ discussion of various scenarios for the start of a US nuclear war with Russia and China after watching Trump’s speech in Normandy and a huge amount of evidence that Queen Elizabeth is now leading the union of Bushes and Trump, or even initiated it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbucrsbd2NM&feature=youtu.be

    And I have to tell you that John from Arizona is right – all these experts, talking about nuclear war, are schizophrenics, except for one who is afraid to say what he thinks in plain language, and disguises his completely sound thoughts with politically correct rubbish that makes them look like others schizophrenic nonsense.

    And these schizophrenics, by the way, do not consider themselves Napoleon, but are ready to ruin for the sake of their ideology, or rather the rotting remnants of propaganda of the 80s, God knows how many millions of people, and if there is an American president ready to listen to their advice, the America’s existence will end very quickly, just the same as all other developed countries that could pose a threat.

    The problem is that there are plenty of such “experts” in Russia too, especially among those who cut cabbage (making money), talking about Ukraine. So I decided before telling about the United States also to speculate a little bit about Ukraine from the standpoint of common sense, not trying to save instead of people the ideologies we inherited from the world that no longer exists.

    And I begin with the question of the “fraternal” Ukrainian people, who since the Union of Brest hated Russians and Orthodoxy more than the Germans or Italians, but as I wrote in this post at the beginning of the 20th century, this nation turned out to be fraternal for Russians so that the Slavophiles had another sample of the Slavs to build the Holy Roman Empire of the Russian Nation in the image and likeness of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.

    So, Lomonosov’s anti-Normanism, dictated by the desire to free the Russian Academy of Sciences from the overwhelming majority of the Germans, turned into Ilovaisky’s anti-Normanism, the goal of which is to turn the Russians into Germans with a different name.

    And in Ukraine, they succeeded, since even the Balts did not meet the Nazis with such joy and bread and salt as Ukrainians in Kiev and Lvov who finally got the opportunity to shoot their Jewish neighbors in Babi Yar and Lvov ghetto.

    But this was only the beginning, and after Babi Yar, it was the turn of Khatyn and hundreds of other Belarusian villages that were destroyed by Ukrainian death squads along with their inhabitants, the number of which I think even exceed the number of Jews and Poles killed by them.

    But let’s forget about these atrocities, as they were forgotten after the war, and we will consider the Ukrainian people fraternal. But then it is necessary to save the fraternal Ukrainian people from the Nazis, who seized power in Ukraine, and after the defeat of these Nazis, explain to schoolchildren in Ukrainian schools that everything that they had been taught in school for the last 5 years is a lie, but in fact the people who the Nazis called Ukrainian, are plain criminals. And it will be necessary to force them to look at the lessons of their own history and social studies (or whatever they will have instead of these lessons) photographs of a woman and her two-year-old daughter killed in Lugansk, and burnt corpses from the House of Trade Unions in Odessa.

    In Germany, these lessons were called denazification, but in 2014 the government of Angela Merkel proved that all these lessons went to dog’s waste, inviting Yanukovych to sign the European Association Treaty in German and Ukrainian, knowing full well that the leaders of Ukraine do not know both languages.

    And academician Glazyev hired an American company for his own money to translate this treaty into English and Russian, so that Yanukovych could understand what he was being offered to sign. (American company because Yanukovych did not trust Russian and Ukrainian translators, and for participating in this operation, Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort went to American prison.)

    And when Yanukovych read this document and proposed to postpone the signing, the fraternal Ukrainian people were given the command to go to Maidan, and the editor of the notorious Economist Lucas gave this command quite openly on his Facebook.

    And in order for useful idiots in Russia to go crazy with hatred to America and forget about the European Union, another EU spy in the United States was ordered to go to the Maidan and distribute cookies to Ukrainian idiots, and then say in the overheard phone conversation “Fuck the EU!”. Moreover, subsequent events showed that if Trump was chosen by Americans, and not by Russian hackers, Nuland is the enemy of the United States.

    And I can tell you about who and how gave the command to the Right Sector to move to coercive actions after Yanukovych signed an agreement to end the violence guaranteed by the ministers of the leading countries of the European Union and the USA, and gave the command to his loyal troops to leave Kiev.

    But that’s not all! I can also remind you that Barack Obama was ready to recognize Crimea as Russian if Russia does not disturb the rest of Ukraine in its submission to Parubiy and Turchinov, who receive orders NOT from Washington, and very soon it will be clear to everyone when any order from Washington in accordance with the Constitution should be consistent with the foreign policy of the US president.

    Yes, and the sanctions imposed by Obama while he was still sitting in the White House, and did not dangle around the country, campaigning for Hillary Clinton, were like a pebble to an elephant and were rather symbolic, but the sectoral sanctions imposed by the European Union really hit the Russian economy like the sickle in the balls and the present impoverishment of the Russians, is the result of precisely these sanctions.

    Moreover, these sanctions were announced three days after Merkel cooed with Vladimir Putin in Brazil at the World Championships and two days after the civilian Boeing was shot down over Ukraine, not waiting for the results of the investigation, which found Russia guilty only a year later.

    By the way, a few days ago, the Malaysian Prime Minister said that the conclusions of this investigation are not worth the paper on which they are written, but the EU sectoral sanctions were worked out so well that either Merkel has a time machine and she knew that the Malaysian Boeing would be shot down by Russia in advance, either this Boeing was just an excuse, and she was preparing these sanctions for a long time.

    It is not surprising that Vladimir Putin after this cooing in Brazil compared the European Union with a virgin bride and explained to Merkel that no matter how much the bride would twitch during the first wedding night, she would get what she was supposed to get as a virgin bride in these circumstances – SHE WILL GET FUCKED!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHICrGqV-Y

    And you know, Merkel looked at him like that after this explanation, that I have no doubt that she saw the connection of Brazil with this anecdote and understands that Putin does not believe in the second option, but the time machine seems to him impossible.

    Moreover, after seeing Trump’s speech today in Normandy, I came to the conclusion that the American president had come to similar conclusions and whatever you’ll be told about the speech today on TV, believe me, he consider them to flow not only from the World Cup in Brazil, but from the whole history of Germany in the last thousand years.

  125. Pucker June 6, 2019 at 5:53 pm #

    According to Deneen’s book “Why Liberalism Failed”, one likely dystopian future is that the underlying Liberalism musical score and software of the society in the context of a severe economic downturn may drive American society towards total collapse of traditional family and cultural norms with all of the “Freaks” using the power of the State to enforce the Individual’s right to do whatever he/she wants to do no matter how hedonistic, licentious and freakish. Individualism drives the expansion of state power. In other words, it’ll be a tota…li..tarian state run by the “Progressive” LGTBQ homos and pedophiles with no freedom of speech, no freedom of thought, but lots of trans humanism and an all powerful state to enforce the Freak Show. Hollywood in Control…”X Men”….

    This is how we may go out….How embarrassing….

    Patrick J. Deneen
    Why Liberalism Failed

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    • Pucker June 6, 2019 at 6:01 pm #

      “When you’re born into this life, you’re given a ticket to the Freak Show. When you’re born in America, you’re given a front row seat.”

      – George Carlin

      Freakshow On The Dance Floor
      The Bar-Kays

      Dance freaks move around
      You know, get down
      Dance freaks move around
      You know, get down
      It’s like a freakshow, yeah, huh
      Freakshow, baby, baby
      On the dance floor
      There’s a freakshow
      Freakshow, baby, baby
      On the dance floor
      It’s just a freakshow
      People, they come
      From miles around
      To see the freaks on
      The floor throwing down
      They’re wearin’ miniskirts
      Huh, and camisoles
      Tight leather pants
      Or nothing at all
      You’ll be dancing
      One on one or two on two
      They’re dancing three on one
      ‘Cause there ain’t no rules
      Face to face
      And cheek to cheek
      They’re dancing on the floor
      For all to see
      Freakshow, baby, baby
      On the dance floor
      There’s a freakshow
      When you’re out on the floor
      Freakshow, baby, baby
      On the dance floor
      It’s just a freakshow
      Everywhere I go, yeah
      Freakshow, baby, baby
      On…

  126. BackRowHeckler June 6, 2019 at 7:09 pm #

    Dr John the Nite Tripper has died.

    I remember one night in Florida seeing Dr John with Professor Longhair, not sure if it was the original Professor Longhair. But it was a good show.

    Brh

    • BackRowHeckler June 6, 2019 at 7:13 pm #

      And just last week Leon Redbone passed away.

      What the hell is happening?

      • Janos Skorenzy June 7, 2019 at 12:48 am #

        The old merchandise is being taken down to make room for the new. The Lord is the greatest Merchant of all, as well as being the Great Shepherd, and both the Lamb and the Lion.

        • SoftStarLight June 7, 2019 at 9:37 am #

          Yes, like you mentioned before (and actually I hadn’t heard it put in that way before) we don’t even own our bodies. Everything is His and for Him.

      • benr June 7, 2019 at 9:52 am #

        It’s called the quickening.
        What you see is what you get.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DTfBjFgiWg

    • malthuss June 7, 2019 at 10:22 am #

      I read some of Dr Johns book. He was an evil person.
      Thief, junkie, worked throwing the fetuses in the sewer for the ‘doc’ who formerly had done similar in the concentration camps.

  127. minianna1234567 June 19, 2019 at 2:43 am #

    Thanks for the helpful information you shared.
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