I'll pause this time - midweek - to blurt a couple of mini rants about the monsters who will soon unleash something hellish, in order to distract us. But hang around to the end, where I'll recommend some of the best recent comix from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal!
This weekend, I'll get back to part 8 of my ongoing series of tactics that might help fix this mess we are in.
== Do not be fooled when Republicans 'stand up to Trump' ==
But this vote re Obamacare is not such a revolt! It is a tactic to get the GOP out of a jam, backing away from their cruel act that risks enraging tens of millions, if Obamacare subsidies expire, then giving them excuse to blame dems for resulting deficits.
Likewise, the Roberts "Court" will rule against Trump on some symbolic matters, in order to maintain an illusion of 'balance'...That last matter - DEFENDING OUR DEFENDERS - is the core topic of my current posting. (Before this one.)
== Are there any signs of movement by Principled Republicans? ==
Good question. Sure there are Kinzingers and Liz Cheney (gulp). But aside some such anecdotes, are there signs of actual, organized revolt by decent or at least slightly patriotic Republicans? Perhaps leading to a split-off Sane Conservative Party? (We need one.)
... and release blackmail kompromat on any GOPper pol who dares to lift his head. (Or, in the case of Collins/Murkowski, whatever male relatives they are protecting, by submitting to Putin.)
So, standing up will take a lot more guts than Olde Republicans ever had. Or ever will.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/branch-2
And do poke at these selected ones!
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/frenchmen
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/life-7
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/steve
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/xx
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/princess-3
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/happiness-5
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/firstborn
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/number-one
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sex
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/attention-span
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/addiction
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/lesson
And finally this one that SO came true!
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/slam
30 comments:
“Planned super-9/11 attack”, “KGB agents”, “Liz Cheney”, “Appomattox”, etc. etc.
LOL, time to retire from punditry boomer, you’ve gone around the bend.
We hear about the phenomenon of AI model collapse, where AI’s become self-referential and go off on tangents unrelated to reality. This is not limited to computers though; a lot of people who clearly spend too much time online and in their own heads evince the human version of this, where their internal models of how the world works, unsubstantiated by anything but their own pet ideas and the reinforcement of the like-minded, wander off into absurdities and drive themselves crazy. This is of course not limited to any particular political faction. To anyone like this I’d advise turning off social media, getting outside, travelling and getting some new empirical inputs before you have a paranoid-psychotic break.
pfeh, twitbeard. You do not dispute the transfer or firing of IGs, JAGs and intel and counter-terror professionals. Instead of stepping up to dispute it - or offering an alternative explanation - or showing any curiosity - you can only sneer.
But our trolls here CAN parse English grammar! So aren't we the elevated site!
Trump is panicking.
https://youtu.be/3INf8gNKth4?si=IZJ2fL-Fp2dEo6Rh
The commentary over here showed that, too.
There is a perception that MAGA is splitting and splintering.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Dec18-5.html
So Musk is already donating big money to help Republicans in the midterms. What caused the change of heart? He had dinner at Number One Observatory Circle recently and spoke with the fellow who lives there, J.D. Vance. That could have been it. Or a simple calculation that no matter how much money Musk gives to Republicans, he won't be forced to eat dog food next year and the payback if his candidates win could be enormous. He understands that having members of Congress in debt to him could be valuable down the road.
Sorry, but Elon Musk doesn't just say bad things. He does bad things.
I will always chuckle at your desperate clutching to the idea that its Russia who is blackmailing your politicians and not its own intelligence services and Israel (with China rising fast).
pfeh. At least Treebeard & Locum try. All you are is a twerp.
Is this some kind of AI/Onion thing, or did the Kennedy Center board vote 'unanimously' to rename it the Trump Kennedy Center?
And did rumpT actually announce his intent to create the "first-ever Patriot Games: an unprecedented four-day athletic event featuring the greatest high school athletes....One young man and one young woman from each state and territory," drawing immediate comparison to the Hunger Games from any person with 3 active brain cells?
Oger, his handlers might be panicking, but in his own mind he may still be the Great and Mighty Oz, and not enough MAGA hatters have taken off their emerald-tinted glasses to unseat him. Plus, his backers have not yet finished looting the US and/or working towards Loc's dream of a 'return' to a 95%+ Aryan Nation*. At some point, he'll be scribble-signing whatever pardons and executive orders are put in front of him, and then ushered back (trailing a stream of drool) to a fake Oval Office encrusted entirely with fools' gold. And he'll still be in power.
*Not all of his backers and handlers want the exact same things, which is a 3rd Reich-style saving grace. As Gandalf said "Oft evil will shall evil mar."
Pappenheimer
P.S. Hitler had Speer, iirc, draw up plans for a Berlin transformed into 'Germania' a world capitol filled with stupendous architecture and urban planning, including an arch that had to be bigger than the Arc de Triomphe; some projects were actually initiated but WWII delayed everything a bit. Our boy seems to be skipping the whole 'seize total control first' bit. Good.
Ha! That should be 'capital', not 'capitol'. Clearly the onset of CRS
Pappenheimer
Well, not to disagree, but currently, the size of your donations determine US policies, buying you anything from a piece of legislation to a pardon.
Having to rely on blackmail requires real work and preparation. (But maybe Russia sticks to it because it has less and less funds available.)
@Pappenheimer,
You're not wrong, and it's not The Onion.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Dec19-2.html
...
The third thought that we (and approximately 99% of other people) had is: Did nobody in this administration read the books, or see the movies, in The Hunger Games trilogy? For those unfamiliar, the Hunger Games are an athletic competition staged by a corrupt president leading a fascist government in which one boy and one girl are chosen from each state (well, each "district") and pitted against each other in a competition meant to distract the teeming masses from how bad their lives are and how evil the government is. Needless to say, it does not turn out well for the president or the government.
As soon as Trump made his announcement, social media was absolutely awash with Hunger Games memes. That includes social media posts from Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) and from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), containing, respectively, a screen shot and a scene from the Hunger Games films. We suppose it's possible that Trump, or Stephen Miller, or Russell Vought, or all of the above are well aware of the series and liked the fascist overtones. Still, the announcement either makes them look clueless and out-of-touch (they DON'T know the series) or it makes them look stupid (they DO know the series, but didn't understand the ending, or didn't bother to watch/read to the end).
...
Guess I was prescient 8 years ago when I started referring to him as President Snow.
Speculation abounds that DJT is on his way to a hospital again.
My theory, or maybe Summer Daydream: In order to avoid the fallout of the release of Epstein details, they're about to fake his death.
I didn't watch Von Schitzenpantz's address Wednesday night, but my sense from commentary about it is that it boiled down to one message:
"Many of you are believing your lying eyes and ears and forgetting to believe the wonderful narrative I will now take pains to explain to you again."
Rather than a psychotic break or AI-style hallucination, I interpret Dr Brin's acceptance of government manipulation in the form of “Planned super-9/11 attack” false-flag events, covert extralegal shenanigans & planned election fraud as a tacit admission that these things have ALREADY HAPPENED, and I find this development to be quite encouraging.
Have the ideological scales finally fallen from our fine host's eyes?
Or, will he continue to feast on the false media pablum that insists that 'Trump is panicking and/or dying', 'Russia is losing the war to Ukraine' and 'Young EU conscripts are ready & willing to sacrifice their very lives for the benefit of their Muslim replacements.'
Who knows? Perhaps our fine host will even admit that the Rule-of-Law is descriptive rather prescriptive and that humans are in no way compelled to obey even the most well-written rule set if & when they choose not to, as in the case of federal laws in Sanctuary Cities & mass shootings in established 'Gun-Free Zones'.
Best
I hadn't realized that the Australia Bondi shooters only had a shotgun and bolt action rifle. VASTLY more would have died if - under US gun laws - they had access to far worse human-killer weapons. Those two are legit firearms for people to own. But monsters are monsters, and these would have done far worse, if they had worse.
In fact, this event illustrates exactly the point I've made for 20 years about a compromise that could work wonders: The Jefferson Rifle: hidden essence of the gun debate - http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2007/01/brin-classics-jefferson-rifle.html
The Kennedy Center being renamed was not unanimous, as Trump has said. At least one dissenting voice was muted and not allowed to speak during the vote.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/dec/19/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-venezuela-immigration-north-carolina-rally-us-politics-live-news-updates?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-69457bb68f086a70a358b72f#block-69457bb68f086a70a358b72f
This is a reminder that the GOP will lie about *everything* every day and oligarch-owned US media will play along with the lies instead of reporting them.
Please, please, make consumption of reputable foreign media a big part of your reading habits. US media, including "liberal" outlets like NPR and PBS, are in the bag for the GOP.
Der Oger... again and again... mere corruption is SATIABLE! You can say: "That's enough for this year" or "Any more would look bad," or "I have lines I won't cross and you are asking for something that harms my nation more than I would benefit."
Blackmail leaves the victim NO such freedom to act or refuse. Seriously. I find it incomprehensible why this is not blatantly clear. It truly is bizarre.
---
I have no idea why I skim locum... but I truly am curious. His 1st para this time was typical loony screeching... but then... #3&4 were... well...
... the 2nd &3rd were still insane and wrong, but they ask questions, as an actual cogent adversary might. And a couple of those question I cannot answer with certainty!
Indeed, we are seeing a president and Project 2025 cult breaking the Civil Service Act every single day to crush the professionals who keep civilization going, and no one stops them.
But we will. And my series of Newer Deals includes ways to ensure this monstrous horror does not repeat.
Vitamins? My paying attention at all seems a fetish. And yet, doesn't it prove that *I* am not a dogmatist?
Apparently the worst American, David Brooks, is in the Epstein files after his NYT screed dismissing the scandal as a "stupid story".
Well... Trump proves every day that his appetites are insatiable... but I will happily admit that one will lead to the other, and both can exist in the same space.
Even a bolt-action rifle is murderous in experienced hands - ask the Prussian Guards in Flanders 1914, who thought they were facing British machine guns instead of Enfields. Adding rifling, smokeless powder and a magazine allows a single rifleman to kill everything in his field of view until he runs out of targets or ammunition, but I have to admit, limited by their speed in working the action - at least 15 rounds a minute, aimed fire, in the British Army.
It does place an upper limit on how much of a crowd you can kill, I guess, but
classical Spartans observing the effects might have blanched and muttered something about the valor of men being extinguished.
I reread your 'Jefferson Rifle' snippet, which is fine, but I suspect we'll never get the 2A crowd to agree to limiting civilian arms to bolt-action single-shot or even magazine-fed. Too bad we can't outlaw smokeless ammo (black powder is rough on snipers, revealing their location, obscuring their vision, and fouling their weapon quickly) or rifled barrels. I'd settle for regulating the acquisition of ammunition on something like the Swiss model.
Pappenheimer
I'd suggest another Route: Reduce the probability of violent behaviour that would lead to gun violence, as proposed here:
https://youtu.be/F-9RCKKvoJw?si=k6zJ6Tl7ju_LB9SC
That would still leave you with a murder rate four times higher than Europe, but it would be a start.
https://www.threads.com/@stonekettle
It's being reported that 3 GB out of 300 GB of the Trump-Epstein files have been released. We should assume that the missing 297 GB is all President Stranger Danger.
If DOJ would like to prove us wrong, they can just release it all now.
You know, per the Law.
Agreed. The most obvious conclusions that anyone might draw from the refusal to release information must be considered as the upper bound of the incrimination that would result from releasing it. Whatever reality is is worse or equal to that conclusion.
Not true? Then show us the proof.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The question is: Are enough MAGA congresspeople fed up with Bondi to impeach her about this?
And the second question: If they answer is "yes", how long will the House Christmas vacation last? To Easter? Or to the election?
"pfeh. At least Treebeard & Locum try. All you are is a twerp."
And yet...you arent saying I am wrong. Israel, your own intel services and China are the big three blackmail networks in the Modern USA. Epstein didnt have clothes with the VDV stitched on it did he?
I find the current progressive enthusiasm for defending the CIA to be be baffling. I suspect its a kind of in-built class bias. Reminds me of the episode of Yes Prime Minister where Sir Humphrey was insistent that a former colleague could not have possibly been a Soviet spy because he was "one of us" and a "gentleman".
You think these people are the result of a meritocratic process that selects the best... "one of us" as it were.
Republicans Rep Stefanik is leaving Congress. The bleeding from the GOP is pretty large, prompting fantasies they are getting ready to join creation of a New Conservative Party. Or (much worse) a 'bridge' party aimed at a fictitious 'middle.' But far more likely is that this is about folks leaving politica to escape blackmail traps.
Meanwhile... the whole 'redaction' insanity was eerily PREDICTED in a fun/absurd Kirsten Dunst film "Dick" (1999). Nixon hires two flakey 15 year olds as White House dog walkers who fall in love with him and croon fantasies into the president's office tape recorder... which soon is subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee. And Dick realizes... "I can survive all the rest, the burglary, the coverups, the bribes... but messing with 15 year olds will get me lynched!" So he erases their love songs, leading to the 18 minute "Gap"!
In light of the the pathetic Bondi 'redactions' and Epstein's pal the pussy-grabber having on-record said "I like 'em young" ... have I uncovered "Dick" as an important part of the training set for the AI running this simulation?
Tell me another place online where you get connections like this!
Re: Epstein Files:
Most cases of sexual violence are domestic, and many committed by the father against the kids.
Not rarely the mother participates in shielding the offender or even helping him in the act. There have also been cases of mothers selling their kids.
Pam Bondi is such a woman.
When it comes to the progressive left's current infatuation with the centralized federal intelligence agencies, I suspect something more pernicious than simple "in-built class bias" but rather Nietzsche's "Will to Power" where attempts at centralized top-down control gravitate towards the authoritarian.
It's quite ironic actually, as our erstwhile hippy-dippy progressives attempt to utilize the once discredited CIA, FBI & other totalitarian federal agencies as the tool to force their citizens to love, tolerate & respect each other on pain of death and imprisonment.
Be nice to each other OR ELSE we'll imprison & kill you.
That's been the progressive refrain for the last 30 years or so and, to this goal, our liberal progressive rulers have empowered (as in 'given power over to') the increasingly independent federal agencies as their chosen enforcement tool, the problem being that there is no such thing as 'an independent tool'.
Remember this as the Epstein Files emerge in fragments, slow walked by the very independent federal intelligence agencies who still employ the 'honey-trap' as their primary tool, and ask yourself who is the user here & who is the tool?
I also suggest that you apply Dr Brin's Blackmail Thesis much more liberally, as it explains so very much about our current government shitshow.
Best
Re the Epstein pedophilia and then 'redaction' scandal: his was all eerily PREDICTED in a fun/absurd Kirsten Dunst film "Dick" (1999). Nixon hires two flakey 15 year olds as White House dog walkers who fall in love with him and croon fantasies into the president's office tape recorder... which soon is subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee. And Dick realizes... "I can survive all the rest, the burglary, the coverups, the bribes... but messing with 15 year olds will get me lynched!" So he erases their love songs, leading to the 18 minute "Gap"!
In light of the the pathetic Bondi 'redactions' and Epstein's pal the pussy-grabber having on-record said "I like 'em young" ... have I uncovered "Dick" as an important part of the training set for the AI running this simulation?
Tell me another place online where you get connections like this!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144168/
Back to jibbering fecal froth now, alas.
"Be nice to each other OR ELSE we'll imprison & kill you."
No... that's how YOU think. You and your fellow Nazi-commies. We've all knon a long time, here, that you cannot extrapolate how others, especially opponents, see or think, in more than 2 dimensions or colors or positive sums. You cannot even imagine that we think differently than you do... but we do.
Only in your case it is "Be nice to me and obey my tyrannical whims OR ELSE we'll imprison & kill you."
Nearly 100% of the political violence in America is by you nutters and you are building a massive corps of brownshirts in masks. And while there sure have been CIA and FBI and military sins, a majority of those skilled professionals are part of why we've given the world its best 80 years, ever. And their professionalism is what you traitors are determined to crush...
...as you have banished scores of our most-skilled counter-terror agents, paving the way for what Putin has planned for us.
onward
onward
Post a Comment