Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
THE RUSSIAN ARMY IS PUTTING ON A FASCINATING ANTIQUE SHOW IN UKRAINE
Russian T-55 blown up by Afghan Mujahaddin 1984 photo ©Jack Wheeler
The Ukrainian intelligence service has reported the destruction of a Russian D-74 artillery piece on the battlefield. The destruction of a single howitzer on its own is fairly unremarkable against the scale of the fighting there until you realize that this gun was made in the 1950s and phased out by the Soviet Red Army in the 1970s.
We can put this together with reports that, having lost more than 6000 tanks, Russia is once again fielding T-55s. The T-55 was a great tank but its design dates from the end of World War 2. I last saw one being blown to smithereens by a British Challenger 1 during the first Gulf War in 1991.
Quite apart from the one million casualties Russia has suffered – and two million more will be required to take the remaining 25 per cent of the Donbass, according to a recent British intelligence update – even the most fervent and optimistic supporter of the tyrannical Russian regime must realize its army is at its last gasp.
EUROPE IN THE BALANCE
Almost weekly in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Sweden a sensational assault committed by an illegal migrant -- often enjoying some sort of state support or with prior arrests for the same crime -- surfaces.
Until recently, European politicians and the media sought to either ignore such news or accuse those who clamored for tighter borders, more police protection, and stiffer penalties of being "racists" or "xenophobes."
Until recently, that is.
Mass protests are now common in Britain against the Labour Party's open borders policies and generous welfare entitlements for immigrants who arrive illegally and without authentic "political refugee" status.
Greek officials, also swamped by illegal immigration, now cite President Donald Trump's secure border policies as new models for their own.
The majority of European immigrants now come from majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet many arrivals seem angrier at their newfound liberal hosts than at the dictatorships they fled back home.
Europe's immigration policies will not work in a multi-ethnic democracy.
WHEN THE TRUMP DOJ GOT A MEXICAN DRUG LORD TO APOLOGIZE
🚨 “El Chapo’s” Sinaloa Cartel Co-Founder, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, has pled guilty to operating a continuing criminal enterprise and to RICO charges.
“His guilty plea brings us one step closer to achieving our goal: the elimination of the drug cartels and the… pic.twitter.com/7AUHrKJgCa— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 25, 2025
Attorney General Pam Bondi, Monday, August 25
In a watershed moment for the war on drugs, one of the most elusive and powerful drug lords in modern history — Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, 77, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel — stood before a U.S. federal judge and admitted guilt. Cartel bosses don’t typically apologize, but in court, El Mayo did just that:“I recognize the great harm illegal drugs have done. ... I apologize and take responsibility for my actions.”
Perhaps the most explosive part of Zambada’s plea was his acknowledgement of systemic bribery. He admitted paying politicians, generals, and police officers to shield cartel operations.U.S. officials have long suspected pervasive corruption in Mexico but lacked testimony from someone at the top. El Mayo’s admission undercuts decades of denials from high-level officials about bribery in Mexico.
His testimony also forces D.C. policymakers to grapple with the uncomfortable truth: Billions in U.S. taxpayer aid have gone to a country where officials have worked hand in glove with the cartels.
BEWARE YOUR NORMAL
First of all, let me apologize to everyone, and most particularly the editorial team for my hiatus recently. I had several things going on and several articles in the works, and each time I felt like I was making headway, something would happen in the world to push me in another direction.
One of the pitfalls that, I believe, ordinary people have when trying to predict or understand the possibilities of how others will act in the future is them thinking that those other people will process and view the world as they do. It’s easy to do. When we try to imagine others, we tend to nuance that with our own outlooks and the circle of people we know as a benchmark, of sorts.
But most of us TTP readers are, probably, more or less, on a normal baseline with like-minded conservatives; and therein lies the problem.
War story time.
COULD TRUMP WIN A HISTORIC ACHIEVEMENT IN SYRIA AND LEBANON?
To paraphrase Winston the Wolf from Pulp Fiction, let's not start shaking each other's hands quite yet. American presidents since Harry Truman have tried to establish Middle East peace as their legacy.
We could stretch that back another half-century if we include British and French leaders, for that matter. That even includes Trump 45, who came close with the Abraham Accords.
By the time Trump returned to office, Israel was in the middle of fighting a war started by Hamas and joined by Hezbollah and Iran. However, Trump has built enough momentum settling a half-dozen other conflicts -- as well as helping Israel take Iran out of the war -- that his influence in the region has hit a new zenith.
Axios' Barak Ravid reported ereyesterday (8/25) that Trump may leverage that into a spectacular advance toward a real peace in the region, one that will further isolate Iran's proxies and end their hegemonic ambitions for good:
DESPERATE DEMS TRY TO TALK LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE
Talking points are out instructing Democrats to stop using terms like “birthing person” and “LGBTQIA+” and to begin talking again like Normal People.
First the details, then I’ll get to why this is so glorious…
Third Way, a leftist think tank that poses as moderate, released a memo Friday (8/22) calling on Democrats “Who Wish to Stop Donald Trump and MAGA” to stop using “words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.”
The Third Way’s blacklist is broken down into six categories, then an array of blacklisted terms. This is fantastic for two reasons.
WHAT MADE THE DEMOCRAT PARTY GO CRAZY?
The answer was not Trump alone.
Indeed, irony abounds when Democrats resonate with the claims of the vestigial Never Trumpers that the MAGA movement “hijacked” the Republican Party.
In characteristic projectionist fashion, the left is simply falsely attributing to their opposition the very hijacking that hit the Democrat Party.
But while the public knows how the left/Democrat agenda is imploding, they are confused over why the Democrat Party is hellbent on such nihilist missions.
Why did Democrats become unrecognizable to the middle class, and who is responsible for their collective self-destruction?
There are four root causes of the wreckage of the Democrat Party.
THE MYTHS THAT MADE PUTIN’S WAR
The remains of a burnt-out Russian tank in a vegetable garden in Velyka Dymerka, Kyiv
[My A Short History of Russia was first written for President Reagan and his National Security Council in January 1985, first published on TTP in March 2004, and as an Archive in February 2024 to expose Putin’s myth of Russia’s history in his interview with Tucker Carlson. Here is distinguished historian Timothy Snyder exposing that myth on a much deeper level.]
Vladimir Putin, the author of the worst war of our century, believes that an ancient priestly chronicle sanctifies the endless bloodshed. The truth about that work of art, The Tale of Bygone Years, helps us to see the truth about Russia’s war.
Its hero, the Danish chieftain Rørek, leads us to another work of art, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We will need the art to get at the tragedy. Putin is a cynical man, a master of post-truth politics. But at the bottom of the deepest cynicism can often be found one very naive idea.
Putin’s is that Russia has an ancient, unbroken and holy past that includes Ukraine.
The Tale, a hodgepodge assembled by medieval Kyiv monks in the early 1100s, became for him a kind of prophecy. In a pre-invasion text of his own and in a long interview with Tucker Carlson last year, Putin presents the life of Rørek as the starting point of a sacred history in which Russia, 900 years later, must invade Ukraine.
BLENDING IN
John Bolton Eludes FBI By Blending Into A Herd Of Walruses
BETHESDA, MD — Federal agents raided the home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton on Friday as part of a security probe involving classified documents. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of Bolton were currently unknown, as it was believed that he escaped by blending in with a nearby herd of walruses.
"I didn't know there were so many walruses in Maryland. Now we'll never find him!" FBI Director Kash Patel was heard saying at the scene. "Walruses. This job never gets any easier."
Walruses are not native to Bethesda, where Bolton's primary residence is located, on account of them being marine mammals that live near the ocean. But, according to sources, Bolton always keeps a herd of walruses nearby in case he needs to disappear.
Bolton has had a long and controversial career in government with scandals related to Vietnam War draft avoidance, Iran-Contra, planning coups in foreign countries, and being the product of Russian experiments to create the world's first human/walrus hybrid. Sources said it was only logical that he would keep a group of the marine mammals around as part of an elaborate escape plan.
Agents canvassing Bolton's neighborhood reportedly met with a witness who claimed that the former U.S. ambassador was home just minutes prior to the raid and was tipped off by a nearby seagull. "I've got to vamoose!" Bolton was allegedly heard saying as he dove into the nearby herd, also called a haul-out, of walruses and began barking. "Arf-arf! To the ocean, my brothers!"
At publishing time, John Bolton had been recovered from the gill net of a fisherman's trawler and was being transported to Washington, D.C. for questioning.
~ Babylon Bee reporting
WHAT IS THE DEMOCRAT ALTERNATIVE TO TRUMP?
The Pavlovian Left goes berserk at the mere prospect of each new Trump initiative.
Its escalating reactive venom and hysteria are calibrated to the success of Trump’s latest policy.
Yet the new hard-left Democratic Party offers no counter-agenda to explain its furor. Still less do Democrats attempt bipartisan efforts to craft shared legislation.
Under the Biden administration, over 10 million illegal aliens flooded the country, sometimes 10,000 a day at the southern border. More than half a million criminals swarmed in.
Yet now there is essentially zero illegal immigration and over 100,000 criminal aliens deported. 1.6 million who entered illegally have voluntarily gone home. Yet the left has fought the enforcement of immigration law tooth and nail.
Do they believe that it is lawful and moral to break immigration law but immoral and illegal to enforce it?
What is their solution?
COMEY BEING A TEENAGE SWIFTIE EXPLAINS WHAT DEMOCRATS REALLY ARE
James Comey, the 64-year-old former FBI director who was one of the most prominent players in the Russia Hoax, outed himself the other day: He’s a Taylor Swift fan, a Swiftie.
And he’s not just someone who says, “Her tunes are catchy.” Oh, no. Comey finds deep meaning in Taylor Swift’s music. It speaks to him—and the fact that it does explains a great deal about the man and his Democrat party politics.
Swift was, and is, what young girls and leftist women want to be: so gorgeous that their emotional mess doesn’t matter. In many ways, Swift is the avatar of a generational ideology that’s stuck in high school and junior high school: emotional, immature, and, when it comes to the girls, incredibly vicious.
Moreover, girls that age are devious, given to backstabbing, whether through truth or lies (but usually through the latter, not the former).
Those traits, incidentally, are the same traits that the Democrat party embraced when Trump was elected: emotional, immature, and incredibly vicious, including embracing partial truths and flat-out lies in their rush to destroy him.
THOUSANDS OF UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN PLACED WITH UNVETTED SPONSORS UNDER BIDEN
The counties of origin for, and number of, unaccompanied alien children who entered the U.S. from fiscal years 2021-2024 (left chart) and from fiscal year 2025 (beginning Oct., 1, 2024) through June 5, 2025 (right chart). (Office of Refugee Resettlement)
The Biden administration placed thousands of illegal alien children in the care of unvetted sponsors, according to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
The Iowa Republican has released Department of Health and Human Services data showing that during President Joe Biden’s administration, over 11,000 unaccompanied alien children were placed with unvetted sponsors who were not the children’s parents or legal guardians. Additionally, no home visits were conducted for over 79,000 illegal immigrant children.
Moreover, some children were “allowed to be placed with sponsors who were actually smugglers and sex traffickers,” according to the HHS. “My oversight continues to expose disturbing evidence that the Biden-Harris administration turned a blind eye to tens of thousands of kids who needed proper supervision and care,” Grassley said in a statement.
“It’s appalling to prioritize speed and optics over the safety and well-being of children,” the senator continued.
MELANIA TRUMP’S LETTER TO PUTIN STANDS UP FOR ABDUCTED CHILDREN
One of the darkest chapters of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine will be his regime’s systematic abduction of Ukrainian children.
Last week, first lady Melania Trump delivered a letter to Putin during the Alaska summit, appealing to him on behalf of these children. In it, she reminded the Russian dictator that “every child shares the same quiet dreams in their hearts … of love, possibility and safety from danger.” Her letter avoided politics, but made the clear point that abducting children is an act of barbarism that cannot be tolerated.
Ukraine has documented nearly 20,000 kidnapped children, though the true number could be many times higher.
These boys and girls are not just displaced — they are forced into Russian families, indoctrinated with propaganda, punished for speaking their native tongue, and in some cases subjected to military training. Reports have even exposed online “catalogs” where children are sorted by eye color or hair color for adoption in Russia.
This is not wartime collateral damage, but a deliberate campaign to erase a nation by erasing its children.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/30/24
The Return of Blasphemy Laws.
As of today, Brazil's Supreme Court has declared that individuals who utilize a VPN to access Twitter/X will face a daily fine of up to $8,874.
The core principles of a free press and the liberty to express one's opinions were initially established to counteract the blasphemy laws that arose during the Middle Ages. The Enlightenment movement aimed to advance human progress by basing knowledge on the new science, rather than on the dictates of power and authority.
However, it seems that those who benefit from positions of power are attempting to reinstate these blasphemy laws, instead of allowing ideas to compete in a fair marketplace.
Globally, from London to Beijing, Ottawa to Brasília, and Washington to Moscow, governments have been taking action against the marketplace of ideas and the liberty of individuals to form their thoughts. These actions seem to be aimed at creating sensational court cases and influencing legal systems by targeting the consequences of free speech. A memo was sent round as governments everywhere fear the possibility of Trump’s return and the freedom of speech that he represents.
These individuals are trying to dominate the narrative and silence opposing voices, thereby undermining fundamental human freedoms, which emphasize reason, critical thinking, and the open exchange of ideas. Their efforts to manipulate public discourse and maintain their hold on power pose a threat to human life and prosperity. If left unchecked, this could lead to a regression into a society characterized by fear and oppression.
Let’s have a look while we still can.
SKYE’S LINKS 08/29/24
Prepare yourself, you may not think it’s possible any longer, but you’re about to be shocked by the corruption on the Left. Trust me. It’s enormous. And it’s not The Big Guy or his family. It’s hers.
There’s good news coming out of Vegas regarding voter registration rolls, some unexpected news coming from the Zuckerboy, and some not particularly surprising news from both France and Russion – oh, how the elites hate free speech from the unwashed masses!
It’s official, now, that Musk will come to the stranded astronaut’s rescue, eventually, which is embarrassing for the developers at Boeing; and another big corporation drops DEI – just before they were exposed. Go woke go broke may not be their fate after all.
Kamala put on a totally staged show for the cameras, but wasn’t smart enough to realize that the real customers she ejected to replace with actors had cameras of their own.
President Trump talks about the assassination attempt, while the people who are supposed to be telling us about it won’t, but damning details keep leaking out anyway.
Not many folks are buying ‘Crat “joy” about inflation; and Chuck Norris proves once again that he’s the manliest man in man-dom. Let’s head into Labor Day with a laugh!
IT’S NOT RIGHT VERSUS LEFT; IT’S SANE VERSUS INSANE
[Strong language warning]
“Our society is now a strange hybrid of the Middle Ages, the Third Reich, and Brave New World. We have two classes — lords and peasants; we are in the midst of a very profitable genocide; and it’s all infused with surveillance technology, mind-altering drugs, and wall-to-wall propaganda.” — Dr. Toby Rogers
The alliance between Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Donald Trump is many things. But first it’s an all-clear signal to a large class of less-than-fully brain-damaged Americans that it’s okay to quit being insane.
As you know, this election is no longer a battle between the political Left and Right. It’s an epic struggle-session between the sane and the insane.
You just witnessed the Democratic Convention nominating an empty pantsuit whose only record as a high government official is failure to protect and defend the nation and to support its constitution.
All arranged without any real votes cast. Pretty neat trick, pulled off under the banner of Saving Our Democracy.
Please understand that it was the result of hypnotizing so many vulnerable personalities into a mass formation psychosis.
They were vulnerable because they are scared stiff by propaganda specifically targeting their deepest archetypal fears — in this case, fear of Daddy, meaning fear of behavioral boundaries, in short, of being civilized.
BARBARIANS AT THE GATE
A long time ago, Charles Martel, uncrowned ruler of the Franks, led his Christian army to victory over the forces of Arab commander Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi at the Battle of Tours (October 10, 732 C.E.).
The defeat of the Muslim invaders, especially dreaded for their heavy cavalry, marked a turning point in the long-standing war against the Umayyad Caliphate.
After crushing the Visigoths at the Battle of Guadalete (July 19, 711 C.E.), they had earned a reputation for being invincible as they expanded their dominion toward the north of the Iberian Peninsula, founding the province of al-Andalus.
At one point, it seemed inevitable that they would march on Paris. It is stated by historians, however, that the Frankish infantry finally succeeded in stemming the Islamization of Western Europe. At least for the time being.
It may very well be that present-day migrants, who traverse entire continents to reach the post-Christian, liberal, and affluent societies, landing on south-facing shores of Spain or crowding at border posts in the Balkans, are not armed and organized in ranks on arrival in the West.
However, they are far more numerous than the saber-wielding cavalrymen that ravaged Christendom in the past. They make a formidable invasion force.
THE FALL OF VLADIMIR PUTIN IS NOW ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
It has been the most efficient offensive of the entire war. Ukrainian intelligence identified the Russians’ weak points. Special forces crossed the frontier in advance to prepare the ground. And when the attack on the Kursk oblast came on 6 August, it was a textbook example of what strategists call an all-arms maneuver.
This is the most significant Ukrainian victory in two years. Russian infrastructure is being degraded, bridges thrown down, gas installations hit. More airfields, refineries and supply depots are now within range. The gas plant in Sudzha has had its rail links cut. The nuclear power station in Kursk is at risk. Around 130,000 Russian civilians have been displaced.
What is Ukraine’s strategic goal? As is often the case, the offensive had a chief objective and several secondary ones. The principal aim was to alter the calculus within Russia, making the war less attractive and turning key figures against the man determined to prosecute it at any cost, Vladimir Putin. But before we come to that, let us consider what else Ukraine hoped to achieve.
AMERICA UNBURDENED BY WHAT HAS BEEN
Every farmer, and most country people, know the insidious problem posed by rodents. The most common of these pesky rodents are, of course, mice and rats.
And, because their nature is to hide and invade by night, they create a need for more devious means of eradication than mere trapping. The solution is to feed them a poison they won’t fear eating, so others will also ingest it and die.
Blood thinners are, by far, the most commonly used for this purpose. They usually require multiple feedings and do their work over a period of several days, allowing others to be comfortable with the environment and taking the bait for themselves. It all works very well, but how?
Over a period of time, the blood is rendered unburdened by what it was meant to do. The platelets and other coagulants are similarly unburdened by their original purpose and the rodent dies without knowing why or what hit it.
To unburden someone or something of what “has been” is to unburden it from the lessons learned or the discoveries made that cumulatively create what we might call knowledge or wisdom. To “re-imagine” something is to reject it as it is, and find a replacement which may very well be inferior.
But the current group of people who make up the Biden-Harris administration find “what has been” America, a burden. They look at the United States as a blank canvas as one may roller-paint the Mona Lisa with ceiling white and start over.
The political philosophies of Engels, Marx, and Hegel are the rat poison of a country.
SKYE’S LINKS 08/22/24
So AI pictures are popping up everywhere and, for some strange reason, a lot of them are fakes. Who could have predicted that?
And what the ‘L is it with Large Language Models and the linguistic liabilities of leaning left? Let’s look. There’s even a scientific paper that explains it.
Then, of course, there’s insanity at the DNC Convention, “Let’s do more of that same old thing that always leads to tyranny and serfdom, it’ll be different this time.” There is no one so blind as those who will not see.
Then we’ve got some shocking information about the J13 assassination attempt and what came after. We’re not getting much in the way of info out of the FBI, but they’re getting plenty of info on us – from our own vehicles.
We knew this election year was going to be off the rails, and it’s clear that Common Sense is not going to be the October Surprise. Climb in and fasten your seatbelt!
BARRON TRUMP AND HIS BUDDY BO LOUDON ARE INTRODUCING TRUMP TO THE YOUTH VOTE
This supports what a young man told me, which is that his generation is uninterested in old people’s media and looks only to alternative media for information.
Now, it turns out that Barron Trump, working behind the scenes, and his friend Bo Loudon, who is the face of the duo, are working hard to show these young voters that Donald Trump may be old, but Kamala Harris is the one stealing their futures.
The moment that Trump stepped into the political arena in 2015, Melania went full Mama Bear, protecting Barron from public scrutiny. This was absolutely the right thing to do.
However, now that he’s turned 18 and left high school, the 6’9” Barron seems to be breaking out of the protective barrier his mama created for him….
While Barron is still keeping a low public profile, he’s working with his friend Bo behind the scenes to change the election dynamic among young people. The mainstream media are ignoring them, but Fox and non-American media outlets are starting to notice.
THE POLITICAL TAKEOVER OF THE TEXAS ELECTRICITY MARKET
In June, the Texas Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit claiming that the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) had broken the law when it set the wholesale price of electricity at $9,000 per megawatt hour for about 80 hours during the Texas blackouts that occurred during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.
The PUCT’s commissioners had dictated the price of electricity because they believed that market-driven “energy prices across the system…as low as approximately $1,200” did not “accurately reflect the scarcity conditions in the market.”
Their decision drove the total cost of electricity for those three days to as high as $38 billion, more than Texans had paid for electricity over the previous 12 months.
The Supreme Court never sought to understand why….They did not question whether the PUCT actually could or should manage the almost $50 billion a year Texas electricity market.
Their focus was to “ensure that the courts will stay in their lane” by not interfering with regulators.
REMOVING THE “GREAT” FROM BRITAIN
Last month, Britain made a dangerous swing to the left.
Private education has been attacked, more public housing, the promotion of environmental Marxism, and much more.
But that isn’t to say there wasn’t an unspoken gospel among the main parties concerning the deliberate impoverishment of the British Isles.
Merely aesthetic differences separate them.
A distinguished associate of mine told me about his grievances, the attacks against people earning lower wages and the political weaponization used by both major parties to score points from the electorate.
He also mentioned the infuriating behavior of leftist Samaritans preaching love, but when people vote contrary to their intentions, spew irascible diatribes.
Disappointing as it is, I am not terribly surprised. It would be a mistake to label the conservatives as oriented by free-market liberalism. Some permitted the organization of market forces; others such as Robert Peel, Margaret Thatcher and John Major were proponents of individual liberty.
THE DNC’S PROPOSED PLATFORM IS A BIZARRE DOCUMENT
With the Democrat convention having begun today, the DNC released its platform, a 91-page mess of ideas and stances that is, as Lewis Carroll would say, a combination of “ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.”
Aside from insisting that Biden is the candidate, the document is a mess of communism, lies about Trump, economic ignorance, race-baiting, and, surprisingly, pro-Israel language that will enrage the pro-Hamas base.
At the end of the day, few will like it. I’ve attempted to put the highlights into this post.
The first section in the document covers economics. It is framed in terms of class warfare between Trump, the country club candidate fighting for billionaires, and scrappy Scranton Joe Biden, who isn’t a candidate.
The actual DNC candidate is the elitist Kamala, the child of two Berkeley professors, who then grew up in affluence in Montreal, Canada.
The document insists that Biden has the best economic record ever and offers multiple promises for the future. Here are just a few:
SKYE’S LINKS 08/15/24
Get ready for some fun, the Left and their lackeys are taking a beating in so many ways. This week’s Links will have you shaking your head in disbelief at DEI in action, and then grinning with schadenfreudian delight.
We’ll start with some really great news about steps toward election integrity in Virginia, and the taking down of a player in the voting machine industry. His crime was in the Philippines, but he also sold machines in America; maybe this will lead to more good news here.
Sweden is providing some real hope for those wondering if we’ll ever be able to remedy the migrant invasion problem. And more and more information is coming out about J13—the Secret Service has serious problems; this is where the DEI influence is really obvious. And then there’s more good news coming from a court decision about 2A, too.
Nancy Pelosi drops her haughty mask and reveals the disdain she feels for those who aren’t in thrall to her; and Elon Musk’s star is getting brighter every day. Finally, as you can see in the cartoon here, there’s a new dance craze – the Harris Walz. Open this up and dance right in.
YUCKY UK
There’s a funny internet meme that uses a still frame from a British sketch comedy show in which two naïve Nazis wonder aloud, “Are we the baddies?”
The conservative humor site Twitchy is fond of referencing that joke whenever the U.K. government treats George Orwell’s 1984 as an instruction manual instead of a warning.
These days, the joke is everywhere because the world is watching Britain nosedive into abject tyranny.
U.K. officials do not like dissent. They do not like free speech. And they certainly do not like it when ordinary citizens criticize the government. For these reasons, the authoritarians across the pond caution their domestic serfs: “Think before you post.”
Included in that ominous threat is the promise that the Crown will come after anyone for “inciting hatred” online. What is “hatred”? Why, that’s for government functionaries to decide and for lowly commoners to find out! In a bit of cowardly arm-twisting meant both to encourage community snitching and to terrify concerned family members, Big Brother underscores its warning with this doozy: “Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences.” The government’s thought police would hate for something bad to happen to someone you love. So don’t force them to be the baddies, okay?
THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT
Today I want to talk about the right to remain silent. Despite it being one of the best-known American criminal justice rights, people who are under investigation still manage to run their mouths and leak information like a sprinkler to those who want to put them in jail.
You need to think about all of the ways you broadcast information to people; particularly under the stress of arrest.
Most conservatives haven’t been faced with this. Need I say, times are changing.
Up front also: I am intending this post for an American audience. If you are in some other country, you are subject to their legal system. Some Americans forget that when they go abroad.
Your rights may depend on your pain tolerance. In our scenario here, you have either been approached by law enforcement wanting to talk to you about something that happened, or you have found yourself not free to go following that happening. Now what?
ISRAEL WILL BE BLAMED FOR IRAN’S DESTRUCTION OF LEBANON
Iran’s strategy of Middle East conquest by proxy has proven remarkably effective. Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have all turned into pawns in the Persian power’s quest for regional dominance.
The latest iteration of that playbook, Gaza, shows what happens to an Arab territory that subordinates its own interests to Iran’s hegemonic and anti-Israel aims.
Iran’s cynical strategy of “fighting Israel until the last Arab” is about to repeat itself in Lebanon, after Hezb’allah’s July 27 rocket attack murdered a dozen children playing soccer on the Golan Heights of Israel.
Iran’s strategy has been successful partly thanks to anti-Israel bias by the global media, the U.N., International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and other actors that effectively abet Iran’s jihadi war on Western civilization.
UKRAINE’S LITTLE ROUND TOP DEFEAT OF PUTIN
Not only has Vladimir Putin, the putative emperor of Russia, been proven to have no clothes, but as evidenced daily in Kursk, the Russian Army militarily speaking has been caught stark naked as well by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).
Ukraine’s stunning counteroffensive in Kursk that began on Aug. 6 is proving to be a major personal embarrassment to Putin and his regime – and it is continuing to gain steam capturing Russian territory at a faster rate than what Moscow has been able to achieve in the Donbas after months of bloody fighting and 500,000+ casualties.
Sometimes, as Col. Joshua Chamberlain did while defending Little Round Top at Gettysburg during the American Civil War, you have to “fix bayonets’” and attack.
Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the AFU Commander-in-Chief, has done just that and boldly aimed them at the underside of Putin’s corrupt and decaying Russia.
In doing so, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals have proven the Russian Army to be one-dimensional. Putin’s army can lay siege – and it can inch forward bleeding bodies. However, it cannot maneuver.
This sad sack static Russian army is not their father’s Soviet Army. Rather, they are their great-great grandfather’s meatgrinder of an army that fled the battlefields of WWI
SKYE’S LINKS 08/08/24
Elon Musk says he’s going to vote for “bad-ass” Trump, impressed by his courage literally under fire, and he hopes to help with getting government more efficient – if that’s even possible.
And there’s a real possibility that Elon’s SpaceX will be asked to rescue the two Boeing astronauts stranded at the ISS – how galling that would be for the Lefties! All of the Congressional drama concerning the USSS has shown one glaring fact that is reiterated in an email by an SS Counter-sniper that the first rule in the agency is to CYA.
Too late: 41% of voters think it was an inside job. So it’s no surprise to learn that the Fed is funneling billions of taxpayer money to online censors. Meanwhile, the migration of Normals out of California continues, with Chevron the latest to desert the sinking ship. Newsom must be so proud.
Then we end with some good, sensible comments from one of the Supreme Court Justices about laws (there are just too many). Enjoy!
GOOGLE LOSES LANDMARK ANTITRUST CASE
In a landmark legal decision, a federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust laws by maintaining its monopoly power in the markets for general search services and general search text advertisements.
The ruling, issued on Aug. 5 by Judge Amit Mehta, concludes a lengthy legal battle initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of state attorneys general.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reached the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act,” Mehta’s decision stated.
REPUBLICANS, YOU’RE GOING AFTER KAMALA ALL WRONG
Republicans are just waking up to the horror that they’ve been had.
The Trump campaign seems blindsided by Kamala Harris. Having avoided the ordeal of a primary, Harris dances onto the national scene appearing well-rested and unscathed.
In polls, she is already tied with Trump—erasing his sizable lead in just one week.
Scrambling to make sense of what just happened, J.D. Vance has called her extra-democratic appointment a “coup.” He has suggested it cheated voters out of the chance to pick their own nominee.
But a “coup” involves regime change. This switcheroo involved none. That’s why you don’t see members of the Biden administration objecting.
The maneuver didn’t damage Biden’s party, which tested a losing candidate, looked at his polls, and swapped him out for something better.
A more accurate description is this: the Republicans have once again been outfoxed. So has the electorate, which could wind up with a far more left-wing president than it even knows.
The question is: What are Republicans going to do about it?
ARMED MIGRANT GANGS STALK UK WHILE GOVERNMENT CRACKS DOWN ON NATIVE BRITS
Just a fraction of the Brits murdered by foreigners recently. And they expect zero pushback from that?
It's a story we've seen before. In the US and Europe during the pandemic lockdowns, far-left rioting and looting in the name of BLM was widely celebrated by the corporate media and protected by government officials. The lockdown mandates were not enforced when it came to progressive unrest.
Conservative anti-mandate protesters, on the other hand, were treated as terrorists and governments were quick to censor, suppress and intimidate. A two tier policing system and legal system bubbled to the surface.
Wherever conservative, nationalist or "right wing" protests arise in the west the full force of government power is applied to frighten the public into compliance. It might be to enforce covid mandates or it might be to prevent the populace from questioning open border policies. In the UK, the mask has truly come off. The message? You will accept mass immigration from the third world, or else...
IS THIS THE BIGGEST ELECTION FRAUD SCANDAL EVER?
Imagine you are 80 years old and the unexpected knock on your door turns out to be an eager young journalist who wants to know how on earth you found the time, money, and energy to make all those small political donations to Democratic candidates and progressive activist groups.
"What are you talking about, young man? I think I gave Bill Clinton $10 a long time ago, but I haven't given anybody in either party a penny since that contribution," you exclaim.
Turns out, the young journalist excitedly explains, that Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show you made more than 20,000 donations in recent months with a total value in excess of $800,000!
And oh by the way, according to those same FEC records, you are still living at an address in Virginia, not the New Jersey home where this increasingly tense interview is taking place.
Something clearly isn't right. Either the FEC records represent some sort of computer glitch or you are a victim of Smurfing.
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/17/23
The Saint Patrick’s Day Report
Today is Saint Patrick's Day celebrating the passing of Ireland's patron saint. Rather than talk about the festivities and libations enjoyed worldwide, we explore the schism between the Irish and Roman Catholic Church. The divide has been there since the fifth century. However, it grows wider as the Vatican goes ever more woke, and the Irish refuse to follow.
American cardinals of substantially Irish descent have been meeting in Houston for some time to discuss a possible church synod. A Houston Synod will replace Vatican II if Rome chooses to follow along. Otherwise, it would form the foundation of a New World Catholic Church based mainly on the unique features of the Irish Church as established by Saint Patrick.
These things only happen a few times every thousand years. As expected, the possibility has drawn spooky attention from organizations such as ROCOR, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which is doing backflips to support a schism in the Western Church. Would Saint Patrick approve? He was the guy that converted the pagans and Druids to Christianity, and he did it with a particular style and masculine swagger.
The bank failures last week might be the tip of the iceberg. Other banks are showing stress as their bond portfolios are incinerated by inflation. The world's power players are alert and taking radical inflationary steps. But hmmm, won't more inflation create a feedback loop that hurts more banks?
The Biden family has been taking money from China through shell companies. This appears to be a severe crime. So far, no congressional investigators have vanished or thrown a wrench into the investigation.
Meta is laying off another 10,000 employees. Their core technology did not turn out to be what they desired. The problem with hiring for woke instead of merit is that companies end up with dysfunctional systems and poor products. Meta is in trouble.
Ukraine is maintaining a robust demand for artillery shells. The United States is drawing down prepositioned stocks worldwide, but the numbers are not good. We currently need at least four new production lines for 155 mm artillery shells. But we lack the industrial infrastructure to build those new production systems. From personal experience this week, I can attest that DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are DIE. The natation's schools have created a compliant workforce, not a critically thinking workforce. This must be solved immediately.
OMG! The O'Keefe Media Group is online. We see throughout this week's HFR the growing obsolescence of big media. The production base of entire companies can be replaced with one or a few iPhones. This massive change to the 100-year narrative coincidentally aligns with the Frankfurt School march through the institutions. The Fourth Turning grinds on…
Finally, we come to J6. Much of this was covered in yesterday's Skye's Links. What was not said was the utter and total destruction of the credibility of the Federal Government will not fade away. Narrative control is lost, and the government's crimes are truly shocking.
Power will devolve to the states.
SKYE’S LINKS 03/16/23
Breaking News! Kim Jong Un Attends Ivy League University To Learn New Brainwashing Techniques
Actually, Kim now wants to change schools. “Columbia students are pretty woke-washed,” he notes, “but the kids at Stanford leave them in the dust, so I’m transferring immediately.” This, after a woke gang of Stanford Law School students, led by an associate Dean of DEI shouted down a 5th Court of Appeals Judge who came to speak before the student Federalist Society:
The lesson:
Wisdom from the Mises Institute on the new Puritanism. The fear of North Korea defector Yeomani Park as she visited Columbia University—“I realized, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying”—is a grave warning to our country.
DESANTIS IS FLAT-OUT WRONG ON UKRAINE
DON’T LOOK AWAY, GOV. DESANTIS! NYPost today (3/15)
Last month (2/23), the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel told us that Ukraine War Is Ron DeSantis’s Security Test.
Now, after months of near-silence and innuendo, Florida Gov. and GOP presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis decided to speak about Ukraine, removing all doubt about his position. He flunked the test, and badly – joining what Strassel calls “the GOP surrender caucus.”
While his statement on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Monday (3/13) makes a handful of valid points, it is ridden with a fundamental misunderstanding of the war and US geopolitical interests. Most fundamentally, he fails to understand the stakes of the conflict, calling it a “territorial dispute” in his words. In this, DeSantis could not possibly be more flat-out wrong.
TRAD-WIFE TREND MAKING FEMINISTS FURIOUS
It started with young women half-joking about being angry with the feminist movement for “liberating” women so they now have to get up to go to work to pay their own bills.
Then a trend on TikTok began emerging that gained traction very quickly. It was women simply posting their daily lives as traditional housewives. They cooked, they cleaned, they looked nice for their breadwinning husband, and they took care of the children during the day.
It’s a trend being called “tradwife.” And, wow, is it making woke women just oh so mad…
WOKESTER APOCALYPSE AT SILICON VALLEY BANK
On the left, they're claiming President Trump triggered the meltdown of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday (3/10) through signing off on deregulation. On the right, they're saying it was wokester priorities that drove the bank bust.
First, here's their wokesterly profile: Their corporate governance charter was full-speed ESG; Their corporate code of conduct went big on diversity, inclusion, and equity; they had a woke boss for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, who was busy organizing a month-long Pride campaign and a "Lesbian Visibility Day."
Second is economist Steve Hanke assessment: “SVB was a poorly run bank, a disaster waiting to happen. Any regulator worth his salt should have seen this coming long ago.”
Once again, the Dems’ one-size-fits-all excuse for anything they screw up – that it’s Trump’s fault – doesn’t wash.
THE BEST SOLUTION TO BIDEN’S GUT-BUSTING BUDGET
Senator Good Ole Boy, John Kennedy of Louisiana
Crazy Joe Biden released a new budget recently, and it’s absolutely gut-busting. With the topline total hitting an eye-watering $6.9 trillion, it would be the most expensive budget in American history, and it’s not even close. It’s so bad that it makes Barack Obama look conservative.
Luckily, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who is famous for his dry sense of humor, has the perfect solution for what to do with it.
“Sen. John Kennedy: ‘The only way I know how to improve the President’s budget is with a shredder.’
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) March 12, 2023”
Hammer, meet nail. Biden’s budget would be an abject disaster, both from the standpoint of fiscal sanity and from a policy perspective as well.