Mike Ryan
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.KEEPING YOUR SANITY WITH THE VIRTUE OF HAPPINESS
Happiness is not a smiley face, and a happy life is not a perfect Facebook profile of blissful moments and beaming selfies building on a continual upward trajectory.
We are biological, not mechanical; our minds are not computers - though some functions of our brains are similar. Our lives are full of rhythms, cycles of expansion and contraction, ebb and flow.
So a human life that is happy is not a trivial matter of being lucky, of getting what we want; of pleasant pastimes or the absence of responsibilities or pain. A human life that is happy is an accomplishment; a triumphant, sometimes even a heroic creation.
Some of the most deeply and genuinely happy people I’ve known have overcome tremendous physical or psychological hardships to get there. As with any big, long term project, it takes work; it’s complicated and time consuming - more like a great symphony of harmony and counterpoint than a simple catchy jingle. To create a life that is truly happy over time takes discipline, passion, and courage.
A happy moment can be a matter of luck; a happy life requires virtue.
SKYE’S LINKS 03/09/23
It's All Fake
The Crisis of Inauthenticity
____________________________________________________________________________Here is a thought exercise:
How fake and inauthentic must information be to be manufactured and inauthentic?]
Everything is fake, from musical performances to Congressional committees and elections to national policies and the science of war.
The English language is poorly equipped to differentiate the degree and direction of inauthenticity, and this is a growing problem.
Tucker Carlson is unleashing the J6 videos on Fox, and the ratings are more significant than for all other television in the same timeslot combined. We are talking about landing on the moon levels of viewership, and the left is in a total freak out.
No doubt, something big will be done to bump the narrative. But now, it's pretty clear that government is as fake as the news.
It is ever more crucial to discern the difference between the real and the fake, to have the courage to state it, and the culture not to tolerate punishment for that courage.
This, my friends, is why you are a TTP member. Come over to Skye's Links and talk about the inauthenticity problem.
THE VIDEOS SHOWING THE TRUTH ABOUT JAN 6 HAVE THE DEMS IN PANIC
Now, the Justice Department also kept a lid on that video footage and in fact, in some cases, DOJ did not share it with criminal defendants who had been charged on January 6 in violation of their constitutional rights.
We felt it was a public service to bring what we could to you. There was no justification for keeping the secret any longer and a powerful argument to be made that sunlight is always and everywhere the best disinfectant and in fact, because it was video evidence, it is to some extent self-explanatory.
Democrats like Chuck Schumer reacted with hysteria, overstatement, crazed hyperbole, red-in-the-face anger. What is that? Well, it's not outrage, of course. It's fear. It's panic. Here’s why – and why the McConnell-Romney GOP is in panic as well.
DOES THE GREATER IDAHO MOVEMENT PRESAGE A NATIONAL DIVORCE FROM THE POLITICAL LEFT?
They said it was an absurd waste of time, but now, the progressive coastal regions of Oregon and Democrats in Idaho are getting a little worried about the “Greater Idaho Movement,” with at least 11 eastern Oregon counties officially voting to leave the state and join their more conservative neighbors in Idaho.
Democrats were saying that the move was impossible, but with momentum growing they are now suggesting that the break-up is “bad for the country.”
Yet it makes perfect sense for red counties to want to break away from blue states after the kinds of chaos leftists have created within our nation in the past few years alone. When Dems say this would be “bad for the country” what they really mean is that it will be bad for them.
If people have the ability to choose and take their county and their land with them, why would they stay under the governance of a leftist dominated place?
MCCARTHY AND CARLSON JUST BLEW UP THE JAN 6 INSURRECTION MYTH
When it comes to January 6, 2021, a day cynically cast by Democrats as equivalent to 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the depths of the Civil War to smear and target the "deplorable" half of the country, Democrats demand that you believe them, and not your lying eyes.
The reality is that they can't handle your handling of the truth.
That's the dirty secret behind their outrage over House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) decision to fulfill a commitment to release the 44,000 hours of January 6 footage the U.S. Capitol Police had been sitting on—outrage further stoked because the process will begin with reporting on the tapes by the Ruling Class's preeminent bête noire, Tucker Carlson.
LIFE AMONG THE RUINS
American society is facing three existential crises not unlike those that overcame the late Roman, and a millennium later, terminal Byzantine, empires.
Premodern Barbarism
We are suffering an epidemic of premodern barbarism. The signs unfortunately appear everywhere. Over half a million homeless people crowd our big-city downtowns.Most know the result of such Medieval street living is unhealthy, violent, and lethal for all concerned. Yet no one knows—or even seems to worry about—how to stop it.
So public defecation, urination, fornication, and injection continue unabated. Progressive urban pedestrians pass by holding their noses, averting their gazes, and accelerating the pace of their walking. The greenest generation in history allows its sidewalks to become pre-civilizational sewers.
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY UNDERSTANDING THE FUNCTION OF EMOTIONAL MEMORY
We can spend a lot of time thinking about what was missing when we were little, or what we wished would have happened; our many desires unfulfilled, things we left unsaid, support we longed for that wasn’t available or wasn’t strong enough.
I’ve known people who spend a good percentage of their lives absorbed in such memories. Their self-concept, their sense of “who I am,” becomes wrapped around “how it was,” until the two are nearly indistinguishable. This is not a good way to live.
The way through is to change the ongoing hurtful patterns that were established in the past, and that we are continuing to some degree in the present. Let’s talk about how to do this.
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/03/23
Things That Fail
"In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life and lost everything: security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again."--Edward Gibbons, on the fate of Ancient Greece.
Things fail, and sometimes things fail bigly. Back in the days of Athens, civic virtue fell, and this is undoubtedly happening today.
This week's HFR looks at the failure of the things the left counts on to gain ultimate control. Take A.I., for instance; central planners hope that the computer algos will lead to total control of the world's emotions and thoughts.
Sure, A.I. can do many cool things, but it can't identify fitness for purpose. It produces answers to questions and artwork without the underlying meaning. Given the enormity of available data, it is surprising how clunkish and unnatural it becomes when asked to innovate. It cannot.
The power grid is in serious trouble as EGS, and federal mandates will begin to remove much of the base generating capacity within the next few years. In the end, people will not stand for it. But until then, you might think about a backup power source. Regulations are cutting deeply into the small generator supply, and shortages have emerged. They will get worse, with some jurisdictions requiring licenses and fees on generators. Be proactive.
Wokism is fumbling as Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind Dilbert was banned almost everywhere. It's not what he said that caused the ban; he occupied a box to be checked before the 2024 election.
His response? Rather than grovel and promise to support Biden in 2024, he gave it up. He went off to Galt's Gulch. We will see more of this as people expect it to be canceled. Cancellation is now being factored into career planning.
Institutions failed the world badly, as shown during Covid. The Duning-Kruger Effect is essentially to blame. Moderately qualified people tend to have much more confidence in themselves and their roles than highly talented people. We learn through Congressional testimony that government policy was distilled down to whatever conservatives proposed, but the government did the opposite.
So poorly prepared were the leaders at the CDC and other institutions that these leaders could not envision that actual scientists stood for fundamental research. Somehow, no quality score was placed on research, so the work of the political hack was valued more than the deep research of actual scientists.
We live in a technological world, and this is no way to manage technical problems.
Finally, there is light emerging from the void. The voters fired Lori Lightfoot. Even Chicago natives are getting tired of violent crime. Lori's failure probably ruined the chances for the next unqualified black lesbian in Chicago.
Bye Bye, Lori; it's time to roll up our sleeves and save the country. It will help if you stay out of the way.
SKYE’S LINKS 03/02/23
Well, that didn’t take long. Yesterday (3/01) in TTP, your read Betsy McCaughey’s Biden’s ‘America Last’ Health Treaty. And voilá, there it suddenly is in the New York Post this morning (3/02), retitled Biden’s WHO Pandemic Treaty Would Kill Americans In The Name Of ‘Equity’.
Enter “global health equity” in duckduckgo, and you’ll see dozens of entries advocating it without any criticism of it whatever, led by WHO and the CDC. It is the latest example of how pathologically blatant Woke Fascism has become.
This is likely to be very important! It looks like Elon Musk is going to create a non-woke AI company:
Elon Musk Allegedly Forming New AI Venture To Take On 'Woke' ChatGPT
There’s so much more and so much more fun. Jump right on in – let’s go!
LORI THE LOSER
You can see why Lori Lightfoot is nicknamed “Mayor Beetlejuice.” The resemblance is striking.
On Tuesday, the Chicago Mayor lost her reelection, and not by a little. Lightfoot limped into third with 17 percent of the vote.
Naturally, like any good radical leftist, Lightfoot took no personal responsibility for her loss, choosing to blame it instead on others. In this case, the entire city of Chicago is guilty of being sexist and racist as reported by the New York Post:
“I’m a black woman in America. Of course,” she replied when asked by a reporter if she had been treated unfairly.
“I am a black woman — let’s not forget,” Lightfoot, 60, told the New Yorker in a piece that ran Saturday. “Certain folks, frankly, don’t support us in leadership roles.”
Apparently, the city that elected her to the mayorship in the first place suddenly became racist and sexist during her time as that city’s mayor.
BIDEN’S ‘AMERICA LAST’ HEALTH TREATY
Joe Biden's diplomats are negotiating a treaty with the World Health Organization to promote so-called “global health equity”.
The premise is that in a pandemic or other worldwide disease emergency, Americans should not get better or faster health care than inhabitants of third-world countries. If Biden rams this through, Americans will suffer and die needlessly.
Under the draft treaty, presented in Geneva on Feb. 1, the U.S. will be obligated to hand over a whopping 20% of its medical supplies, including diagnostic tests, antiviral medications and vaccines, to WHO for global distribution. Article 10 of the treaty specifies this will be done in "real-time," not after American needs are met.
Read on… it gets treasonously worse.
THE CHICKENS OF WOKENESS COME HOME TO ROOST
The chickens of wokeness are coming home to roost on the heads of the business leaders who have done so much to unleash this plague upon us.
Perhaps most trenchantly, Bloomberg of all places recently reported that many ESG funds have been forced to close for poor performance and rapidly eroding investor interest.
Look at Starbucks and the NCAA. Both of these businesses have eaten the whole woke sandwich, now suffering serious nausea.
Consider how much Warner Bros. Discovery is paying for its and DC Comics’ embrace of woke: see the Daily Mail’s delightful story, Holy Wokery, Batgirl! Wokegirl is so ghastly that, despite having spent at least $90 million on it already, Warner’s new boss David Zaslav is sending it to a cave in the desert southwest somewhere to lie forever unseen.
THE COMPLETE SOVIETIZATION OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
With the wholly illegal and unconstitutional FBI raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago on yesterday (8/08), in search of documents they have long had access to, there can no longer be any doubt about the full communization of the American left.
The thorough weaponization and politicization of each of our law enforcement institutions is now undeniable; the Dems have crossed Caesar’s Rubicon.
The Democrats are so determined to destroy Trump, they are willing to reveal their true colors: They are all Stalinist communists now. The good news is that Trump scares them so much they’ve overreached, making Trump stronger and more unbeatable than ever.