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| Lindsey Graham |
David Warren is down on liberals, as he usually is. But he declares himself a Distributist, which is what exactly? Google knows:
Distributism is an economic and social philosophy advocating that the means of production should be widely owned by individuals and families rather than centralized in the hands of the state (socialism) or mega-corporations (capitalism).
First articulated in the early 20th century by Catholic thinkers like G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, it acts as a "third way" that champions widespread private property, decentralized communities, and family-owned enterprises.
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| Bruce Springsteen - Timothy Norris/Kia Forum |
You might think, like I do, that Bruce Springsteen is apparently suffering from a full blown case of TDS - Trump Derangement Syndrome. But now I am confused. I found this in a story on Variety:
“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ‘n’ roll in dangerous times,” he said, in his now-familiar invocation and statement of intent that has opened every night on the tour. “Tonight, we ask all of you to join with us in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, unity over division, and peace over —”
And the now 18-member E Street Band crashed into a cover of Edwin Starr’s Vietnam-era anthem “War,” which the group had originally covered on the “Born in the U.S.A.” tour some four decades ago.
Which sounds exactly like what everyone on the right has been saying. So I don't understand what Springsteen's problem is, other than he has lost his mind.
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| Spencer Pratt - Roy Rochlin GettyImages |
“The way you keep ICE out of LA is by enforcing the law, not defying it,” he continued. “I look at what Mayor [Daniel] Lurie did in San Francisco — clearly, no friend of the Trump administration — but he called the president and made a deal. He vowed to have SFPD crack down on crime, and the president agreed to keep ICE out of the city. … You don’t see [any] riots, no crazy videos of ICE agents having chaotic arrests. That’s how it’s done.”
“Why is it that only certain cities are having all this chaos with ICE?” he said. “They are in a lot of cities, but there are only problems in places like LA and Minneapolis. It’s not a Democrat/Republican thing. Memphis doesn’t have chaos. Liberal San Francisco doesn’t have the chaos, unlike LA.”
The “common denominator” in these chaotic cities, Pratt argued, is “activist mayors using their city, their residents, their businesses as fodder for their political grandstanding, and people suffer as a result.”
I seem to recall President Trump was threatening to tack the word National onto Immigrations and Custom Enforcement which would give us the title acronym.
All three of my kids live in Portland (a veritable hotbed of anti-ICE demonstrations) and two of them are starting to complain about the local taxes. Of course, that might just be a function of their age.
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| Technate of America |
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| Technocracy Rally, Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, California |
It just occurred to me that conservatives are not going to prevail in blue cities. The majority of people, somewhere between 60 and 90 percent, operate on the 'get along to go along' method. Logic and reason have no effect on these people, they operate on feelings. Charlatans make use of this to get into power and enrich themselves. As long as we have free speech we are not going to be able to shut them down, and free speech is kind of essential to freedom. If you don't like living in a blue city the only solution I see is to move to the country, which reminded me of this tune. Blue cities are just going to continue to get worse until they are like Latin American cesspools.
Spain ERUPTS: Patriots ATTACKED By Socialist Mob Over Mass Illegal Migrant Amnesty by Steve Watson
Violence broke out in the Spanish city of Granada when roughly 40 left-wing Antifa extremists tried to shut down a pre-election rally held by the nationalist party Vox in Plaza de las Pasiegas. Police had to form a cordon between the rival groups as fights broke out, delaying the event by around 30 minutes.
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| Professor Schlevogt's Compass |
Fine story on RT about Hungary and European Union. It's kind of long, so I've only included the introduction. The professor is a heck of a wordsmith, so it's worth reading just to enjoy the flow. As to his argument, I totally agree. Europe is going to the dogs, and quickly.
Prof. Schlevogt’s Compass No. 53: Europe’s dying heart – Hungary’s vote delivers lethal kick
Orbán’s defeat will saddle EU taxpayers with over €100bn in short order – yet this is but the tip of the iceberg.
The speechwriter of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen must have fancied himself (genderspeak: themselves) deserving of a handsome bonus when he placed the following words into his principal’s mouth: “Europe’s heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight.”
Yet his euphoria – and the delirious jubilation of the liberal European elite at the defeat of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán by his rival Péter Magyar in the 2026 parliamentary elections – will prove short-lived.
If anything, Europe’s “heart” is not beating stronger, but faster, driven by a final surge of adrenaline: the reflex of a chronically diseased system under acute stress. What masquerades as renewed vitality, then, is merely the pathological sign of a failing organism – a last, frantic acceleration before terminal failure.
The Union’s demise will not be averted by rhetoric; it is being hastened by it. In the absence of Viktor Orbán’s restraining role, five mutually reinforcing forces of erosion across multiple landscapes will accelerate, converging to precipitate the EU’s ignominious end.
I mentioned George Soros in a blog post yesterday, and today I read about him in this curious story from Meduza, the Russian opposition newspaper.
Russia pulls 30% of library books in Ural city over Soros Foundation funding
About 30 percent of the books in Yekaterinburg’s libraries will have to be pulled from circulation because they were purchased with money from billionaire George Soros’s foundation, the director of the city’s municipal library network told the city council.
“The main bulk of the books were purchased in the 1990s. We are now facing changes in legislation. We have to remove some books from the collection because they were bought with Soros’s money. That’s about 30 percent of our entire acquisitions,” Irina Cheremisinova said, responding to a question from Yabloko member Konstantin Kiselev about library acquisitions.
She said libraries in other regions are facing the same problem, and that changes in legislation are the cause.
At the same session, acting Culture Department director for Yekaterinburg Elena Sokolova said the libraries are currently short of books and the budget lacks funds to replenish their collections, the Russian news outlet Vechernie Vedomosti reported.
The Soros Foundation operated in Russia from the late 1980s, working primarily through the nonprofits Open Society and Sodeistviye. It supported the development of educational programs, provided assistance to students and scholars, funded the construction of internet centers, and allocated money for printing books and textbooks.
The foundation wound down its active operations in Russia in 2003. In 2015, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared it an “undesirable organization,” saying it was working to undermine Russia’s constitutional order.
An “undesirable organization”, huh, imagine that.
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| Bulldozer |
The Shrouded, Sinister History Of The Bulldozer by Joe Zadeh
According to an 1881 obituary in a Louisiana newspaper, the word “bulldozer” was coined by a German immigrant named Louis Albert Wagner, who later committed suicide by taking a hefty dose of opium dissolved in alcohol. Little else is recorded about Wagner, but his term became a viral sensation in late 1800s America, going from street slang to dictionary entry in just one year. It likely originated from a shortening of “bullwhip,” the braided tool used to intimidate and control cattle, combined with “dose,” as in quantity, with a “z” thrown in for good measure. To bulldoze was to unleash a dose of coercive violence.
If, like gods, we aspire to create machines in our own image, then it’s fitting that the original bulldozers were humans. Leading up to the corrupted U.S. election of 1876, as the Southern states were being reconstructed following the Civil War, terrorist gangs of predominantly white Democrats roamed about, threatening or attacking Black men who they thought might vote for the Republican Party. The men were the bulldozers, and the acts they carried out were bulldozing.
The story goes on to tell of some of the crimes committed and the eventual application of the word to the machine.
Title was coined by one of my kids many moons ago.
From a story from The Telegraph via Bayou Renaissance Man
American voters ... are unabashed in their belief that the American way of life is based on an abiding principle: that individuals have an inalienable right to improve their circumstances in life by their own efforts. If they find that their aspiration and determination are frustrated by things that are beyond their control like inflation or competition for jobs from illegal migrants, they expect the government to act effectively on those problems. Traditionally in the United States, it has been believed that this was what government was for: to remove obstacles to individual achievement and progress.
Much more recently the European model of state intervention and the creation of a welfare state which is designed to protect the disadvantaged and to care for those who, it is believed, cannot succeed on their own, has been brought into the US electoral arena. It is espoused by Left liberals like Bernie Sanders and the new mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, who have gained a hearing but whose ideas are still considered exotic and profoundly at odds with mainstream discourse. It is important to appreciate this because, paradoxically, it could help to illuminate the identity crisis that European democracies are undergoing.
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| Portland Frog Brigade - Eric Shelby |
Line from a letter to Willamette Week might explain why Oregon consistently elects Democrats:
One party rule: That’s because the R’s keep nominating folks out of step with Oregon. Some 20 years ago a former Republican elected official said: The Oregon Republican Party has been hijacked by an extreme right-wing Libertarian faction. So that no longer can it elect anyone in a statewide election. (I think since then, 2 R’s have been elected to a minor post.)
This leads me to think that Oregon Republicans are dunderheads more concerned with ideological purity than actually trying to improve our situation. Also, frogs like water and water, at least in cartoons, is blue.
Actor | Character Name | Role |
|---|---|---|
Katherine "Kate" Wyler | U.S. Ambassador to the UK and Second Lady | |
Hal Wyler | Kate's husband and former U.S. Ambassador | |
Austin Dennison | UK Foreign Secretary | |
Eidra Park | CIA station chief | |
Nicol Trowbridge | UK Prime Minister | |
Stuart Heyford | Deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London | |
Grace Penn | U.S. President | |
Todd Penn | Husband of Grace Penn and First Gentleman of the U.S. | |
Billie Appiah | White House Chief of Staff | |
Margaret "Meg" Roylin | A key figure in British politics |
Been watching Zero Day on Netflix this evening, and man oh man, it's like an instant replay of the days news. I swear ten percent of the show is spent on the actual investigation and the other ninety percent is spent on the politics surrounding the investigation. It's a stark reminder that all of the news I hear on a daily basis is bullshit and is not worth any of my time.
I hear a lot from conservative sites about the liberal bias of the mainstream media. So why aren't we looking at who is running these various media empires? I do know that Jeff Bezos, the King of Amazon, owns The Washington Post, and maybe they have changed. But then I got to wondering, maybe the people who run these big news outfits don't have a political agenda, they just go by how many eyeballs they can capture, and since they have been in this business for a long time, they know exactly what will get them the most eyeballs and so that's the kind of material they pump out.
Now it could be that some liberal agent money to these media outlets and since their reason for being is to make money, they took it, and that may have flavored their output. Which is why the liberals screamed so loudly about Elon and his cost cutting measures - the source of cash to fund their media campaigns was drying up. But if that was the case, you might expect the flavor of the news to have changed in the last six months. Has it changed? Not that I can tell. It's still nearly pure, unadulterated bullshit.
I'm sort of glad Trump got elected. Most everyone I know hates him, and most of that comes from listening to him. I solved that problem, I don't listen to him. Shoot, I don't listen to any talking heads. But I don't think Trump is going to solve any of our big problems. For that matter, I'm pretty sure they can't be solved. The big problems that I see are INFLATION and FOREIGN WARS, UKRAINE at the moment.
I wonder if AI might be able to help with our health care system. A lot of people in the health care industry spend a lot of time talking to patients. Much of it is just having a reassuring person to talk to. I wonder if Elon could whip up some very reassuring robots. They wouldn't have to be able to do much, walk, sit and talk, maybe hold a pen and a tablet. No calisthenics, no feats of strength or dexterity. Maybe hold the patients hand. I am sure there are dozens of existing scripts for communicating with patients. AI should have any trouble.
So we could have attractive male & female robots and select one or the other depending on the patient. I can already see problems when somebody forgets to sync up the voice with correct facial mask, and some manly looking robot starts speaking in a young woman's voice and freaks out the patient, so they sue.
Rachel Marsden is talking about Britain's immigrant problem and their solution:
Why the U-turn? Maybe it has something to do with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party currently polling at 35% – a record 15-point lead over Starmer’s Labour. Self-preservation always trumps virtue signaling.
And nothing shifts a politician’s priorities like the sound of voters measuring you for a political coffin.
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| The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York, Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May) by Childe Hassam (1859-1935) |
The MAGA movement has largely been an effort to reconstruct an American common culture, a consensus of values and behaviors we can all agree on. The Democratic Party opted to oppose that — a poor choice. In fact, they apparently viewed that effort as an existential threat to the hustles and rackets that were sustaining the party. For instance, the jobs program for otherwise unemployable college grads who styled themselves as “activists” working for NGOs under the umbrella of USAID.
This was the party’s army of influencers, organizers, ward-heelers, and ballot-harvesters, laboring on behalf of the “victims of oppression.” Quite a few of them resided in Academia, where they cultivated a whole lexicon of arcane, gnostic, crypto-Marxian ideology aimed not just at opposing the recovery of a common culture, but destroying whatever remnants of it remained.
The catch was: they didn’t believe in “social justice” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” That was just a smokescreen of verbiage over their race hustle, which means extorting money, unearned advantages, and status dishonestly. Thus was DEI birthed. And, with it, colossal frauds of “victimhood” such as the beatification of George Floyd and a long line of similar “justice-involved” cases that generated an impressive revenue flow for the Democrats.
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| Lord Acton Otherwise known as John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, 13th Marquess of Groppoli, KCVO, DL (1834 – 1902) |
Found this on Doug Casey's International Man:
“Lord Acton says that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. But reflecting, it is key to understand that power does not transform, it amplifies.
He who leads, shows what he really is… with more impact. Power doesn’t change people, it just takes away the need to pretend. The righteous protects, the ambitious abuses, the insecure becomes a tyrant. It is not power that corrupts, it is the true face of each that emerges when there is no longer fear of consequences.”
It seems to have come from Anthony Hopkins. Huh, imagine that, Anthony Hopkins. Who'd a thunk it?
Are Republicans & Democrats just different factions of the Uniparty? I've kind of wondered about that. I mean, Trump is a Republican, but so were both Bushes, and the Bushes, Clinton and Obama all seemed to be following the same agenda. So is Trump any different, or is he just another member of the Uniparty?
Ada Nestor thinks not:
The Desperation to Stop Trump Wasn’t Political, It Was Survival
