This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: “The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves”

  • If They Only Had A Brain

    This is kind of a link fest, something you can go through, read the articles linked, and make your own decisions about the subjects. It is, after all, Saturday, and I know the NAVY!-Army game will be first and foremost on your minds, but – well, you need something to do when Army doesn’t get those yards.

    In her interview at the link, Camille Paglia almost infers that this may be birthing pains of some sort, or better yet, the last gasps and struggling efforts of the current liberal side of the political fence in its death throes.

    No harm in that. Everything comes full circle at some point. Her indictment of current politicos and potential liberal candidates is scathing, harsh and well deserved. They are falling all over themselves to choke their own party to death. Her take on the Democrat party is like watching squirrels in my yard chasing peanuts I’ve thrown out to them and then chasing each other. It’s a bunch of little kids who will never grow up but want to be part of a gang. Hence, we get bimbos like O-C and shouting ‘look-at-me’ idjits like “Nuke ‘em” Swallwell.

    She’s right about Clinton.  Shrillary does want dTrump to win the 2020 election. The Liberal side of the fence is being loaded with mindless droids whose robotic programmed responses to stray words are the first symptom of loss of self-awareness. And this untutored, sanctimonious non-religious generation of lost children is being drained away toward a greedy, demanding fake religion of pseudo-science, to sacrifice everything for the greed of a few who will abuse them badly. History shows us repeatedly that such things fail, and fail badly. Oh, but next time, we’ll do it right! Really? Then why did the liberals like Kamala Harris turn into a scrounging shoal of hagfish during the Kavanaugh hearings? Why can’t they get off the ‘hate Trump’ bandwagon and stop pounding that drum? It is not surprising that Paglia, as a professed atheist, recommends that the study of religion be a requirement now, if you take everything else into consideration, including the unenlightened social group known as SJWs.

    Here’s the link to Paglia’s interview:

    https://spectator.us/camille-paglia-hillary-trump/

    There’s another link to Googly-eyes Ocasio-Cortes’s proposal “New Green Deal”, in which she outlines every possible way to destroy a thriving economy. You might want a strong drink to read the “Green New Deal” itself, but there is help included in the article.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/08/the-green-climate-deal/

    The author of the article went through the proposal, piece by piece, to dissect it and try to understand it, and then gave up, went outside to get some fresh air and wonder how long it would be before his head exploded from the dumb, dimwitted, ignorance that this zippy little bimbo offers (with assistance noted from Bernout Sanders).  She’s right in the same rowboat with “Nuke ‘Em” Swallwell, you know.

    Googly-eyes seems to think that money fall off of trees or is just cranked out. She includes a defunding of the military by 50%, and instead, using the National Guard for everything. I think we already use the National Guard for just about everything, don’t we? These are just a few of her bubbly ideas.

    And finally, the link below takes you to a National Review article about Mueller’s obsessive pursuit of something – anything, in fact – that will show beyond a doubt that there was Russian interference in the 2016 election, based originally on the deal Trump tried to make and failed to build another Trump Tower in Moscow.  https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/mueller-investigation-collusion-allegations-partisan-politics/

    Mueller has done some unconscionable things himself, including finding ways to get people to perjure themselves, which is what a corrupt Chicago cop like Jon Burge of Chicago was notorious for doing. Bringing a conspiracy crank like Corsi into this mix is a sign of desperation.  Unfortunately, Mueller has spent thousands of hours and tons of tax money on this project and so far, has done nothing but make it clear that he hates Trump and is obsessed with getting rid of him.  That sounds like a personal problem to me.

    While we may find people like Googly-eyes and Mueller to be distasteful at best, they are symptoms of a larger and very widespread problem called “not really paying attention”.  Paglia’s interview addresses these problems, too.  We cannot afford to be unaware or dismissive of them.

    Go NAVY! Beat Army.

  • Random Open Thread

    Random Open Thread

    Flt. Lt. Alastair “Sandy” Gunn was executed for his role in the “Great Escape” prisoner breakout. (Spitfire AA810 Project)

     

    An extremely rare World War II Spitfire fighter plane flown by a pilot who later took part in the “Great Escape” has been recovered from a remote Norwegian mountainside. Specially equipped for long-range reconnaissance, the Royal Air Force Spitfire AA810 was shot down on March 5, 1942, during a mission to photograph the German battleship Tirpitz. The Spitfire’s pilot, Flt. Lt. Alastair ‘Sandy’ Gunn, bailed out from the plane but was captured by German forces. In 1944 he was part of the famous “Great Escape” breakout from the Stalag Luft III POW camp. Recaptured shortly after the breakout, the Scot was among 50 escapees executed by the Gestapo.

    Gunn’s plane was a specially adapted Mk 1 Spitfire stripped of guns and armor and fitted with additional fuel tanks to extend its range from 575 miles to nearly 2,000 miles.

     

    Read the entire article here: World War II fighter plane flown by ‘Great Escape’ pilot discovered on Norwegian mountain

  • The Peasants are Rioting in Paris….

    The French are rioting over Macron’s increase in the carbon tax.

    https://www.atr.org/french-revolt-against-carbon-tax

    In France, diesel fuel is now at $8.20/gal and gasoline at $9.00/gal. The bulk of the price at the pump here is taxes, not fuel costs. Macron wants to increase the carbon tax in France to $63/tonne. There is no reason for it, other than his personal greed factor. It goes for absolutely nothing other than payola to IPCC and to line his pockets.

    From the article: The loudest and most famous voice from the weekend protest is that of Jacline Mouraud, a diesel owner from Brittany who has become the star of the yellow vest movement due to her YouTube videos and appearance on all major French news outlets.

    “You have persecuted drivers since the day you took office. This will continue for how long?” she said in a YouTube video that has millions of views. “You only need those taxes for new china in the Élysée palace or another expensive swimming pool for your private residence!”

    This seems to be a growing movement in France since 283,000 people in 2,000 locations rioted and burned stuff over it. I’m waiting to see how long it takes Macron to realize that  – well, the French generally hate him. But they voted him in over Marie LePen, and she warned them what would happen.

    The link to WUWT’s article is here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/02/president-macrons-climate-change-fuel-tax-riots-continue-in-paris/

    It also appears that in Paris, some of the rioting is the work of groups closely resembling the antifas here this country. There is much damage in Paris, and Macron is ‘shocked’ about it.  Well, les Crapeaux had a chance to vote in Marine le Pen, but they went for this King of Disconnectedness instead. I wonder if he will offer the peasants cake to eat.

    It is not just in France that this tax-to-death attitude is going on. There is a proposed bill coming up to inflict a $55/ton carbon tax on us, the unsuspecting public.

    I’ve already discussed how a similar tax proposed by IPCC on my gas bill alone would cost me income I simply do not have.  I did the simple math to find out what this carbon so-called tax might cost me, the same as the IPCC’s carbon tax, which was a staggering $21,000 per month by 2030, based on cubic feet of natural gas usage.

    Converting therms to tons was easy enough. There is a site that does that. The result for me was 3.774892954361 tons in January 2018, which is about average for me. My January bill is usually $115 to $120, depending on the weather. The carbon tax is an incremental tax, meaning that it starts low but increases every year for five years to an unconscionable $55/ton, which in my case is $206.14, making my wintertime household gas bill $325.98, an amount that is unaffordable at best, and egregious at its worst.

    This proposed so-called tax is not meant to benefit any of us at the taxpaying end of the economic scale. It will simply go into a massive slush fund with an elaborate title that this bunch of tax-sucking slugs in Congress will be able to dip into at will.

    https://www.atr.org/details-horrible-carbon-tax-bill

    The real anti-growth economic impact for the USA is discussed here:  https://www.atr.org/study-shows-devastating-economic-impacts-carbon-tax

    From ATR:  A carbon tax will not be pro-growth. Most carbon tax scenarios reduce GDP for the entirety of the 22-year forecast period. 

    Better than break-even economic performance may not be possible unless revenue is devoted entirely to corporate tax relief. A lump-sum rebate results in lost GDP equal to between $3.76 trillion and $5.92 trillion over the 22-year forecast period.

    That is trillions, not millions or billions of dollars – trillions lost to this nonsense.

    If you want to drive a thriving economy into a profound economic Depression, you tax the living daylights out of it until it is squeezed dry. Keep raising taxes and before long, there will be no more taxes to be found. We had a revolution in this country a while back because George III imposed a Stamp Tax Act on everything that was printed, to squeeze colonists dry. We fought that, and won.

    Here’s something else that is disturbing: the Bill authorizes armed carbon tax enforcement agents:  The bill authorizes armed carbon tax enforcement agents to collect the new tax on energy used by Americans. As if customs enforcement doesn’t already have enough on its plate, the bill states:

    “The revenues collected under this chapter may be used to supplement appropriations made available in fiscal years 2018 and thereafter –

    “(1) to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in such amounts as are necessary to administer the carbon border fee adjustment.”

    So, if you somehow don’t pay this energy tax into this slush fund, you’ll get arrested???? If it shows up on my gas bill, which is my only source of carbon, men with guns and badges are going to show up on my doorstep demanding money from me? Aside from this looney-tune proposal, this loudly smacks of Gestapo tactics to me.

    The true nature of this proposed tax is discussed at the links, but most egregious is the 2-child limit per household included in the language of the proposal.  Here it is, straight from the bill text:

    “A carbon dividend payment is one pro-rata share for each adult and half a pro-rata share for each child under 19 years old, with a limit of 2 children per household, of amounts available for the month in the Carbon Dividend Trust Fund.”

    The reasoning behind a limit of 2 children per household is not specified, not at all. Because it is poorly written, it can be read as a means of forcing population control on families, which is what the Chinese government has been doing for decades.

    You may want to call Florida Republican Congressman Francis Rooney at 202-225-2536 and ask him why he has signed onto this absurd and harmful Democrat tax proposed by Deutsch, which seeks to impose a tax that is nothing but a feed into a slush fund. You should also call your own Congress critters and tell them to vote against this bill. Or send them e-mails to that effect. And sounding angry about it, in a civilized way, is acceptable. It isn’t a sales tax. It is larceny.

    It is extremely necessary on the part of all of us to be aware of these vultures and give them as much room as possible to expose themselves for what they really are. Without awareness of them and their agenda, we will lose the very things we value most.

     

  • Guns Can Fire By Themselves? Really?

     

    Too early in the morning for my mind to take in this bout of fear and selfishness by other people, so I will leave the article and my summary for you.

    https://freebeacon.com/issues/landlord-tells-harvard-student-move-legally-owned-guns/

    Her roommates went into her room in her absence, went through her things, saw her MAGA hat, found her guns, called the cops who verified that the guns were in compliance, and decided to vote her out of the house. Her landlord says she either moves or pays the $6000 rent for roommates because they’re threatening to move.

    It’s unfortunate that the lack of understanding held by her roommates toward her concerns about running into her abuser is trampled on by their personal fears. One of them thinks the guns will jump up and start firing by themselves.

    You can’t make this crap up. She’s at Harvard. She’s not stupid. Her roommates are, however, at the bottom of the barrel in brain wattage.

    There’s a photo of the young lady. Look at that and think of your own children, in or nearing adulthood now, and ask what you would do.

     

  • Random Open Thread

    Random Open Thread

    Mary Jo Kopechne and Sen. Ted Kennedy (AP)

     

    Senator Ted Kennedy’s political career was tarnished on July 18, 1969, when his car crashed off a bridge on the tiny Massachusetts island of Chappaquiddick, plunging into the dark waters of the tide-swept Poucha Pond, killing 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne — a mystery that continues to haunt “America’s Royal Family.”

    The shocking events leading up to the political aide’s demise is the subject of Fox Nation’s new documentary titled “Scandalous: Chappaquiddick,” which aims to investigate how the youngest Kennedy narrowly escaped from drowning and returned back to his hotel room unharmed while his passenger mysteriously drowned.

    The Fox Nation special features never-before-seen interviews and retellings of the events that night, cracking down on the truth, pieces of evidence and errors that were apparent.

    That fateful night, Kennedy offered the aide a ride from a party at Chappaquiddick and less than 10 hours later her dead body was being pulled from the vehicle. However, the circumstances surrounding Kopechne’s drowning remain muddled nearly 10 years after the senator’s death in 2009 at age 77.

    At the time members of the media swarmed Chappaquiddick, right off the east coast of Martha’s Vineyard, and unraveled Kennedy’s multiple mistakes during the evening — derailing Kennedy’s presidential ambitions for certain.

    Kopechne reportedly remained underwater for some nine hours until she was discovered the following morning.

    At the time of the accident, Kennedy told police he was “unfamiliar with the road,” and that he came up to a narrow bridge at which point the car “went off the side of the bridge.” According to a description from a 1969 New York Times article, the road approaching the bridge is “narrow” with “no warning side on the approach.”

    Kennedy also claimed he had “no recollection” of how he got out of the car but added he “came to the surface and repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car,” noting he was “unsuccessful in the attempt.”

    The accident was not reported by Kennedy, but rather by a mother of a little boy who saw the overturned car in the pond when he was fishing. Kennedy later described his failure to report the incident to police as “indefensible.”

    Kennedy would go on to become one of the longest-serving U.S. senators, despite previously speaking of a “Kennedy curse” following the incident, questioning whether “some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys.”

     

    “Teddy Kennedy was the weak kitten in the litter, never able to measure up to his brothers. … One problem Teddy has always had was keeping it in his pants — even when other people are around”.
    Cleo O’Donnell

     

    Read the article here: Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy scandal that left a young woman dead chronicled in new doc

  • Random Open Thread

    Random Open Thread

    Lt. Henry “Hap” Arnold, who learned to fly from the Wright Brothers, sits in his airplane in College Park, Maryland, in 1911. (Air Force)

     

    In November 1938 Charles Lindbergh wrote urgently to Maj. Gen. Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold, the new chief of the Army Air Corps. Touring Germany, the aviation hero had witnessed the surging Luftwaffe firsthand.

    “Germany is undoubtedly the most powerful nation in the world in military aviation, and her margin of leadership is increasing with each month that passes,” Lindbergh wrote. “In a number of fields the Germans are already ahead of us and they are rapidly cutting down whatever lead we now hold in many others.”

    Arnold, on the job little more than a month, took Lindy’s warning to heart. He summoned to the National Academy of Sciences a group of researchers and university administrators, including MIT president Vannevar Bush and California Institute of Technology physicists Robert Millikan and Theodore von Kármán. Some military men thought Arnold was wasting time talking to “longhairs.” Invited by his old friend to lunch with the scientists, Gen. George C. Marshall balked. “What on earth are you doing with people like that?” Marshall asked.

    “Using their brains to help us develop gadgets and devices for our airplanes that are far too difficult for the air force engineers to develop themselves,” Arnold replied.

    Doctrinaire officers might not have thought to look on campus for help winning wars, but for Arnold the leap was logical. As one of the world’s first licensed pilots, trained at the Wright brothers’ own flying school and mindful that might requires science, technology, and solid design and planning, Arnold conceived a vision of America as an air power and, simultaneously balancing immediate needs with the necessity of peering into the future, nurtured a tiny, feeble armed service into an aerial armada capable of winning a world war.

    Read the full article here: Here’s why Hap Arnold, a practical visionary, became the ‘father of the Air Force’

  • And This Just In

    I’m reposting something from Watts Up With That, because if it weren’t for instant internet news, we might have not seen this coming.

    Democrats Debating Ocasio-Cortez Plan to Switch to a Climate Change Command Economy

     

    Please read it carefully, especially Ocasio-Cortez’s plans for seizing the American economy. Her ignorance is at an appallingly high level, yes, but she is a juggernaut on a roller coaster ride to make her place in history, by golly!!! She is annoying the very people who could/might be willing to help her climb to glory.

    She has done something that I had not anticipated: Ocasio-Cortez, in her haste to become Numbah One and lead with her ass… er, her lack of information, is running roughshod over senior members of the House and has already created a split in the Democrats over Her Plans. They are quarreling now. If this crack continues to grow and widen, as I hope it will, it weakens them. And if it gets wide enough, it may take a very, very long time to recover.

    We now have two in Congress who want to have their own way: ‘Nuke ‘Em’ Swallwell, and this Bronx bimp.

    They may seem like threats to the rest of us as a population, and they should, because they think they can do whatever they want to. We know that they can’t just do whatever they like, and that their “powers” are limited by law.  But beneath the perceived threat is the wedge they are driving into their own Democratic party.

    I had hoped this kind of crack in that party would occur some day. Hoped and wished and dropped coins in a charity wishing well. And it is happening right in front of us. If she continues along this path of running roughshod over senior members of the House, and probably the Senate at some point, a split which has already begun may widen and last for a very long time. Possibly take a century and a half to heal. Let’s hope so.

    Personally, I want to see her stir up so much frenzy and quarreling that the Democrats lose sight of their goal to squash the Republicans and especially Trump. I also hope she really annoys a lot of senior Congress critters, but that’s just me.

    What?? I can dream, can’t I?

    Read the article, read the links to her plan and take in just how much she is stomping on people to have her way.  Be grateful for all the resources that give us a chance to find out about these things so quickly.

    And have a nice Thanksgiving Day.

  • A Brief Review of 2nd and 10th Amendments

    The Bill of Rights

    That small firecracker storm stirred up by yesterday’s posting of an article about a newly-minted Congress critter from California showed that this incipient Congress critter is ignorant of both Federal and state laws about everything.

    Here’s my attempt to clear up that ignorance as simply as possible.

    First of all, the US Constitution has Amendments that specify such things as what authority is delegated to the Federal government, and what is delegated to the states and to the people of the United States.

    The specific Amendment regarding this comes out of the Articles of Confederation, which was the original document meant to provide for a national and expanding, federal government. When the Articles of Confederation were dumped, the resulting Amendment designating states’ rights was created during the drafting of the US Constitution.

    The 10th Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights to create a class of powers, known as reserved powers, exclusive to state governments. The amendment specifically reads as follows: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

    Now, that’s quite clear language, in my view. It is plain English, unlike some of the bills passed by either or both Houses of Congress, bills in which gobbledygook is meant to cover the cracks in the system that come from quarrelsome parties in Congress. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/amgovernment/chapter/state-power-and-delegation/

    I will repeat it. Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

    The U.S. Constitution is silent on the dispersion of power between states and localities within each state. This means that because local jurisdictions are not mentioned specifically, then local power lies within the purvey of the states themselves.

    The other Amendment which is brought up here so frequently is the Second Amendment, which is as follows:  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    That’s pretty clear, too. At the federal level, your right to own guns is inviolate. The most recent example of a localized attempt to overstep the US Constitution as well as state law occurred  when the Mayor of Deerfield, IL, not only passed an ordinance banning guns in Deerfield, but also included a search-and-seizure procedure with no notice to homeowners, which was tested in court, and was found to not only violate Illinois state laws by not providing due process or warrants, but also violated the US Constitution. She lost, and lost badly.

    That was the first test of this kind of thing. I believe more will follow. Prepare yourselves mentally for that, and if necessary, get to be friendss with an attorney who knows both state and US Constitutional laws.

    It was this bout of illegal activity by one person that prompted the County of Effingham downstate to offer itself as a sanctuary county for gun owners. That ‘sanctuary county’ program continues in Illinois,  as I indicated a few weeks ago, with many counties following suit and more with the sanctuary proposal on their legislative books.

    Try to speculate on what will happen if state legislatures decide to go full potato about it, and declare themselves sanctuary states for gun owners.? We’d probably have another test of both state and federal laws. That would be my guess. That’s how you do things in this country. It is “We, the People”, not ‘The Government’.

    The newly-elected and very arrogant individual Swallwell from California voiced threats toward anyone who fails to obey a federal gun ban, including dropping a nuke on you. I’d like to see him try that.

    He is not only ignorant of the US Constitution, he is also colossally ignorant of laws in general.

    The US Constitution’s 2nd Amendment is a federal law, whether he likes it or not. It is backed up by the 10th Amendment. His authority is a lot more limited than he can possibly imagine by the language of the 10th Amendment:  “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

    Bear that last phrase in mind: “or to the people”, and review the Deerfield debacle. This Amendment has withstood the test of time and the court system.

    The 10th  Amencment is quite clear. It is within the rights of each and every state government to create legislation regarding owning guns. It is, in fact, reserved to the states to create such laws as they see fit, which has resulted in the State of Illinois passing rather stringent but valid FOID and CCW laws, both of which meet legal requirements and state laws, and constitutional terms at the federal level. This is what tripped up the Mayor of Deerfield.

    I want to remind everybody reading this that Prohibition, a Constitutional amendment passed by Congress and ratified by the states, did not work and was repealed within a few years. Among other things, it provided room for the rise of organized crime, which started with Al Capone.

    It is extremely necessary on the part of all of us to be aware of these vultures and give them as much room as possible to expose themselves for what they really are.

    Without awareness of them and their agenda, we lose the very things we value most.