CECIL

Photo: Luca Galuzzi

I bumped today's scheduled post after witnessing all the faux moral outrage over the killing of Cecil the Lion.  Why do I call it faux moral outrage?  Really? Do you need to ask?  A people who kill 11 billion chickens a year are morally outraged over the death of one lion?  Okay, he was kind of cute, but undoubtedly they're talking about it right now over a Michelob at the Outback Steakhouse.  Puhlease!

I have no moral reservations about hunting, have done so in the past and will probably do so in the future.  I don't trophy hunt, I'd rather take a cow than a bull (Elk for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about), a doe than a buck.  That's a personal preference, they taste better and I have no desire to have a head hanging on my wall.  I don't begrudge those that do, but I'd rather take a picture of a majestic Bull Elk than a shot at it.

I know what I am, an opportunistic omnivore, I'll eat anything I can get my hands on. Like the lion, I have my place in the food chain, both as predator and prey.  I've been stalked by mountain lions, stared down a bear, and I was even attacked by a magpie once.  Haven't had to kill any of them yet,  the bear came close although he decided after a few minutes I wasn't worth the time and aggravation.

Sure I can live on nuts and fruit and other green stuff, but I still have that evolutionary genetically programmed desire to sink my teeth into a nice juicy steak.  I can respect vegetarians, more power to you, but I wouldn't feed myself a diet of nuts and berries any more than I would feed a lion a diet of nuts and berries, it's something neither of us has evolved to. 

If Dr. Palmer violated the law, prosecute him for that violation, in accordance with the law, not as some outraged mob of peasants with pitchforks and torches.  I have seen numerous comments from people calling for him to be killed, tortured, skinned, beheaded, hunted; calls for his house and business to be destroyed, he and his family disenfranchised... attainder of blood, and all that.  The president of PETA even wants him hanged.  Meanwhile listen to this as you marinate in all your self-righteous glory  over burgers and brats on the BBQ this weekend, this one's for Cecil.

And if you have any doubts about who and what Cecil was... watch this, but I warn you it's graphic. It's 9 lionesses eating a water buffalo alive.

Despite what you may have been told by Walt Disney, these are not lions, they're cartoons.

Anthropomorphize at your own risk.

P.S If you're interested in hearing the original tune behind The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Click Here

A Must Read

I got home from the bar and fell into bed soon after Saturday night bled into Sunday morning. I didn’t wake up until three police officers barged into my apartment, barking their presence at my door. They sped down the hallway to my bedroom, their service pistols drawn and leveled at me.

This is from a good opinion piece from the Washington Post and Alex Horton a member of the Defense Council at the Truman National Security Project who served as an infantryman in Iraq with the Army's 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Obama's Oxymoronism

Is Barack Obama a Socialist?

I see a lot of arguments start in Left and Right Blogistan when a conservative calls Obama a socialist, and Democrats dogpile the name-caller and insist our president is no such thing.

Many Dems say that with bitter disappointment, while other Obama fangirls smugly parrot the media meme that he is a moderate.  So there is disagreement even the Democrat camp.





It's Simple:  Obama is a Socialist

Socialism is...

* a social and economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy

* a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.

* "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, citizen ownership of equity, or any combination of these.

* "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
(Source:  Wikipedia - Socialism)

Those bullet points are right out of Obama's Progressive Democrat manifesto. Sure, he's not going to seize factories. Why do that when you can post government agents to enforce government decrees and then shake down the owners and workers at the end of the day today for the money you need to bribe the poor to vote for you tomorrow?

Even Bernie Sanders, a good, honest Socialist, doesn't advocate a complete state takeover of the means of production. Like Obama, he just wants to confiscate "excess" wealth from productive people and "spread it around" to the losers of life's lottery.

That's socialism. It doesn't work, never has.

What about Euro-Socialism?

The closest socialism gets to working is the democratic socialism-lite as practiced in Germany and Scandinavian countries.  Their government-social models rest upon a foundation of trust (as well as a wealth of state-owned natural resources), shared values, and societal homogeneity.

Go look there now. The model is breaking down as populations age and governments are forced to bring in unassimilable immigrants to prop up the Ponzi scheme and old age social safety nets. They are finding out that if you build a Field of Dreams welfare state, they will come.  From poor Eastern European nations, Southern European Gypsy camps, and Muslim North Africa.

Sweden has made perhaps the most dramatic turn, and is now shockingly un-socialist in many ways, practicing what could be more accurately described as secular subsidiarity. Obama and his minions are driving in the opposite direction. 

America is not Northern Europe

Obama and his progressive Democrats have socialist aspirations, but they execute them poorly, thus angering both left and right.  It doesn't help that our federal government is an unaccountable army of lumbering cyclops under the control of unaccountable lawyers and international financiers. 

A grossly inefficient government does not upset Democrats, but some aspects of Obama's crony crapitalism does. Doling out billions to Solyndra and other political cronies is ok with them, but they don't like him cozying with Wall Street Banksters and toadying to global corporatists and the international oligarchs.  Those actions make him indistinguishable from the garden variety Republican, as does his lust for ever more power. 

Wait 'till Hillary Wields the Expanded Powers we handed Obama

So, in summary, Obama is a socialist of the modern-day statist variety. He is also a corporatist who feeds the war machine, and he does a pretty good job maintaining that uneasy tension.

Tyler Durden and Zero Hedge sums up Obama perfectly:

Obama’s job was to talk like a marxist, but act like a robber baron. In this regard, his reign has been an unprecedented success.

Hillary will be more of the same, only without the charisma and easy smile. We'll see if a scowling, scolding grandma with an attic of arsenic and old lace and basement full of dark secrets can keep the project going...

Army orders Recruiters to call police on armed citizens

Photo: Aldaron

For what? Exercising their 2nd Amendment rights? Need I remind you?

I, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God

Just be grateful you're still thought worthy of protection.

Stars & Stripes 

Democrats drop Jefferson and Jackson

Democrats drop Jefferson and Jackson names from their annual fundraising dinner in Connecticut due to their ties to slavery.  One can only be left wondering who they intend to replace them with.

Mango fan Django

For your Sunday relaxation.  I met these guys last week, and they are phenomenal musicians...



From Mango fan Django's website:

Mango fan Django has been playing Gypsy Jazz in Colorado since 1998 and is known for a unique style of acoustic guitar swing that has delighted audiences of all ages.

Inspired by a Gypsy jazz style invented in the 1930's by guitarist Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of France, Mango fan Django's sound also sends a wink and a nod to jump swing hepcats of the 40's, the sassy Caribbean and Latin bands of the 50's, 60's and beyond, and contemporary musicians from today's Gypsy jazz scene.

I've said it many times before and I will continue saying it:  We are in a golden age of non-corporate music not seen since perhaps the days of Charlie Poole and Woody Guthrie.  Yes, the Southeast has always had their string bands, the Mississippi Delta its bluesmen, but now with the internet, local acts can reach across the globe, and they don't have to please the corporate suits in LA to do it.

Sanctuary

The beautiful young woman in the photograph to the right is dead.

Murdered by a man who should never have been loose on the streets of an American city.

Murdered as well by politicians who ranked  popularity and power above the rule of law, and have chosen to ignore the acts of the legitimate legislators of the peoples will to curry favor with some potential future base of support.

If we were truly a nation of laws, not men, the host of pandering politicians and bureaucrats who enabled this crime would find themselves on trial for their lives as accessories before the fact.

Let the plaintive  tones of today's music serve as a lament to the passing of both Kate Steinle, and the rule of law.

There is no sanctuary from those who would rule in their own name, and by their own will.

DILUTE THE VOTE!

Despite a federal court order to the contrary issuing a temporary injunction, the DHS proposes expanding Obama's amnesty program:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposes to expand eligibility for provisional waivers of certain grounds of inadmissibility based on the accrual of unlawful presence to all aliens who are statutorily eligible for a waiver of such grounds, are seeking such a waiver in connection with an immigrant visa application, and meet other conditions.  The provisional waiver process currently allows certain aliens who are present in the United States to request from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) a provisional waiver of certain unlawful presence grounds of inadmissibility prior to departing from the United States for consular processing of their immigrant visas — rather than applying for a waiver abroad after the immigrant visa interview using the Form I-601, Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility (hereinafter “Form I-601 waiver process”)

First, DHS would eliminate current limitations on the provisional waiver process that restrict eligibility to certain immediate relatives of U.S.citizens. 

Second, DHS proposes to expand the provisional waiver process by eliminating the current restriction
that limits extreme hardship determinations only to aliens who can establish extreme hardship to U.S. citizen spouses or parents.

Or in short:

DILUTE THE VOTE 

You may submit comments, identified by DHS Docket No. USCIS-2012-0003, by one of the following methods:

http://www.regulations.gov   Follow this site’s instructions for submitting comments.

You may email comments directly to USCIS at uscisfrcomment@dhs.gov.  Include DHS Docket No. US
CIS-2012-0003 in the subject line of the message.

Mail: 

Laura Dawkins,
Chief, Regulatory Coordination Division,

Office of Policy and Strategy, 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 

Department of Homeland Security,
20 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20529-2020.

Reference DHS Docket No. USCIS-2012-0003 on your correspondence

Also available on the Federal Registry 

Playing Trump

Photo: Michael Vadon

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE*

Despite or perhaps because of coming off as a braying jackass, Donald Trump has surged to the lead in the polls.  The little tiff between Trump and McCain started when McCain stated that Donald Trump was bringing out the crazies in the GOP, if that's the case so be it, he's bringing out 26% far surpassing any other GOP hopeful. In fact, gaffes that would have brought other contenders to their knees seem to add fuel to the Trump fire.

The question is why?

My opinion is that the electorate is sick and tired of politicians and Donald Trump doesn't talk like a politician.  He gets more credit for speaking his mind like Joe at the bar than he gets negativity for speaking politically incorrectly.  In many ways he's the Republican answer to the populism of Barrack Obama, I keep half expecting to come across a commercial on TNT "Next on Reality TV... the Trump Campaign" 

What do you think is the basis of Donald Trump's popularity?

*There Can Only Be One is an off-handed reference to the movie Highlander, Donald Trump's mother was Mary Anne MacLeod of the Clan McLeod. 

 

How to Identify a Likely Terrorist

No, you're not getting a picture since I refuse to post pictures of *$%#% Muslim Terrorists that should be buried in a 55-gallon drum full of bacon fat at the bottom of a manure pond on a swine farm.

I was reading an article in the Washington Post the other day about people protesting the governments seemingly idiotic policy of importing our enemies.  Well come on, be kind, they don't have the airlift and sealift capability we have, how else are they gonna get here?

In this article they cited a quote on Facebook from a Hamilton County Public Defender, for those of you unfamiliar with Tennessee, that's where Chattanooga is.

This same thing will happen again, likely soon, unless our government can do a better job of identifying our enemies.

So, I've put together a little quiz to see how well you, our general readership, can do at identifying the likely Islamic terrorist on a simple list:

James Smith
John Johnson
Robert Williams
Tomas Garcia
William Jones
David Miller
Fuad Khalaf
Richard Davis
Diego Rodriguez
Joseph Anderson

Not too difficult huh?  I just picked the name sort of randomly off the National Counter Terrorism Center List and tried to pick someone without a lot of press.  If I gave you a list of 100 random names taken out of a phone book and included among them those responsible for terrorist attacks against the US in the past ten years, chances are I think you'd get an "A" if I asked you to pick out the likely terrorists.

Now I'm sure one of our progressive friends will come along and pick James Smith or Joseph Anderson just to be contrary, but you know... despite their bluster, they will know just as you do who the terrorist on the list is.

 

 

Hoarse Sense

"Sometimes the world seems like a big hole. You spend all your life shouting down it and all you hear are echoes of some idiot yelling nonsense down a hole."  -- Adam Duritz

Silverfiddle & Ducky in another dimension far into the future

I've been extra ranty lately, and I could tell by the comments that very few read the posts all the way to the end but I've got it all out now and I thank you for your forbearance.

To quote George W. Einstein...

"It's gonna take a thinkier level of strategery to smoke 'em out and make our wings take dreams. They misunderestimated us when we tried to throw food on our family. Our enemies never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do those in government."

Back over to you, Finn!

Barack Hussein's Caliphate of this World

America has devolved into a strange populist direct democracy, where government clerics enforce ad hoc public policy based upon who screams the loudest. Meanwhile, the legislative branch takes orders from state-less plutocrats, Wall Street banksters and faceless corporations while the president issues decrees.

America is a Caliphate Ruled by Nine Mullahs in Black Robes

Never mind what the law says in black in white.  The law is whatever the mullahs tell us it is, and we must bow down.  Like abortion and corporate personhood, gay marriage is a fundamental right.

Chief Justice Roberts is the odd duck out on the gay marriage ruling.  He claimed it had "nothing to do with the constitution."

What the hell does Judge White-Out know about the constitution? And what does a crumbling piece of parchment have to do with life in the Progressive State of America?

Gay Marriage Does Us No Harm

Those worried about gay recruitment of our youth are fingering the wrong culprit. Internet pornography and our porn-lite pop culture convert thousands of young men every day into socially-stunted crotch-grabbing monkey-boys demanding backdoor action and a money shot on the first date. And a thousand girls a day comply, because social media and peer-acceptance is everything.

ObamaCare is a metastasizing cloud of liberty-devouring termites, but the gay marriage ruling does our secular Mullahocracy no harm.

Does "God Hate Fags?"

We know that God warned us against homosexuality in the Torah, but we don't know what his reasons were...

Many Biblical mandates had practical health and sanitation reasons. Playing with poop is unsanitary, and a torn anus or perforated intestine would spell death for someone back in those days.

Another reason for God's intolerance toward gays could have been that God was all about prodding his chosen people to get busy making little chosen babies, and men lying with men and women lying with women doesn't get the job done. See also: Onan

Earthly Husks

Today, we have soap and running water, prophylactics and lubrication products, and if someone does get injured we have modern medicine.  So is homosexuality OK now?  Or is there a deeper spiritual meaning to all of those Old Testament and New Testament corporeal prohibitions?

Also, God's Chosen People, the Hebrews, are birth-controllin' like crazy. And the rest of us? We're not God's chosen people.  Society has thrown the Bible overboard, heteros cheat, divorce and remarry at a pace that makes the woman at the well look like a paragon of wifely virtue, so it makes no sense to hold on to the anti-gay stuff.

When Christophobic God-haters choose to cornhole, scissor, abort and contracept themselves out of existence, can God even be mad about it? Maybe, in a roundabout way, we're actually doing his will.

Folk Music Friday: Don't Hesitate

I love musical threads that wind their way through decades and various songs.

The first known recording of Jack 'O Diamonds, comes from Blind Lemon Jefferson back in 1926.

From Wikipedia:

Jack of Diamonds (a.k.a. Jack o' Diamonds and Jack of Diamonds (Is a Hard Card to Play)) is a traditional folk song. It is a Texas gambling song that was popularized by Blind Lemon Jefferson. It was sung by railroad men who had lost money playing Coon Can. At least twelve white artists recorded the tune before World War II. The song has been recorded under various titles such as "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia" (Riley Puckett) and "Rye Whiskey" (Tex Ritter).

The song is related to "Drunkard's Hiccoughs", "Johnnie Armstrong", "Todlen Hame", "Bacach", "Robi Donadh Gorrach", "The Wagoner's Lad", "Clinch Mountain", "The Cuckoo", "Rye Whiskey", "Saints Bound for Heaven", "Separation", and "John Adkins' Farewell." This family of tunes originally comes from the British Isles, though is most well known in North America. The lyrics may originate in the American Civil War song "The Rebel Soldier" and the melody from the Scottish song "Robie Donadh Gorrach", known by Nathaniel Gow as "An Old Highland Song".

Here's the YouTube.  I have the same version on CD:



Here's Woody Guthrie singing a few lines of the song's cousin, Rye Whiskey.  As a bonus, there is a clip of Alan Lomax interviewing Woody tacked on to the end:




Now hear the great Charlie Poole turning the song into a new one called Hesitation Blues. I don't know the year, but it's most likely 1920's:



Finally, here are the Avett Brothers performing The Coo Coo Song almost 90 years after Blind Lemon recored Jack 'O Diamonds.  They segue into "The Fall," so keep listening!

Kicking against the Pricks

Did you really believe that fascism would arrive in America waving a flag and carrying a Bible? Instead, militant we-say-so-ism dogpiles nonconformists, burns an American flag and tears out Bible pages to roll oversized doobies with...

I am for the rights of all in this country, including gays, atheists, transgendered, immigrants and Muslims.  I want America to be a place where people of all races, religions, and ideological stripes can breath free and determine the course of their own lives free from harassment.

What disturbs me is how diabolical activists attach themselves to an issue of fairness, hollow it out and turn it into a Trojan Horse to assault our Judeo-Christian heritage and that most hated group:  white men who refuse to castrate themselves and get on board the progressive bandwagon. And it is principally hateful white progressives stirring up the masses.

It Takes a Village of Idiots

Most disturbing is how we don't need government jackboots to enforce politically-correct thinking, speech and actions.  Government indoctrination centers known as public schools have conditioned us to police ourselves by using lawsuits, peer pressure and social media to maumau the dangerous freethinkers into conformity.

Rebel flags, Donald Trump, conservatives, anti-illegal immigration, Evangelicals, climate change skeptics, small government advocates, TEA Partiers, The Dukes of Hazard...  The progressive hive's list of enemies grows longer each day.

Why did Univision noisily attack The Donald Trump and break its contract with him?  Because they can.  Americans have rings in their noses and are easily herded from one manufactured outrage to the next.

Quashing Dissent is the Highest Form of Progressive Patriotism

We can't leave each other alone.  No one is entitled to his own conscience anymore.

Ask Brendon Eich why the rabble is now screaming for the heads of old statues to be knocked off and CSA Generals to be disinterred.  Eich was ousted from the company he founded because an activist termite discovered that six years earlier he had contributed money to the successful anti-gay marriage campaign in California.

We're compelled to trash and tear down everyone who doesn't think and act like we do.  Not only that, we publicly delight in the misfortune of the hated other.

It's all about the Tribe

The public square has fractured into a dystopian landscape of competing tribes and warlords, a grand war of all against all.

Che is still OK!

People scream about slavery that ended 150 years ago, but not a word about contemporary slavery and human trafficking, some of which actually happens here in America.

Feminists rage against mansplaining, manspreading and rape culture, even as they surpass men in higher education and break down one barrier after another while enjoying more freedoms than anywhere else in the world.

Meanwhile, women are treated as property in much of the world and trafficked for sex slavery, but not a peep from the North American Black Widow Tribe that needs trigger warnings and authority-enforced sex rules so they can drink and get stupid just like men, and then throw the men in jail to smother their shame at getting their Jezebel on a little too strong.

Immigrant activists and the leftwing guilty whites who enable them trash this country even as they crash the borders and wave the flags of the failed states they escaped from.

White racists fuel the worst "white people" stereotypes by spewing vile, racist filth on comment threads...

I could go on, but why bother?

All I can say is, enjoy the party while it lasts, progs.  As your enemies retreat and self-censor to avoid your idiotic, reason-free confrontations from hell, you will turn on one another (just ask Rachel Dolezal, or any true liberal who has strayed from the reservation), and I'll sit back and laugh.

I would say that we have devolved into Somalia, but that would be a micro-aggression.

We are a nation of pricks, and we deserve one another.

DEATH TO AMERICA

Photo: AP

YEAH!!! WE HAVE A DEAL!

The photo above was from the Quds Day celebrations in Iran on July 10, 2015... on July 14, 2015 President Obama announced that he had successfully negotiated a deal.  

YEAH!!! RIGHT!!!

I might give him the benefit of the doubt if I wasn't watching videos of the Iranian Parliament chanting Death to America, Death to Israel.

Apologists on the left say not to worry, it's only for their own internal nationalist consumption... to which I reply, Yeah, like Nazism was only for Germany's own intern nationalist consumption.  Remember, Chamberlain walked away with a deal too!

What do you say?

Where do we go from here?

Pope Francis is firmly in the leftwing Democrat camp, the Supreme Court has buoyed Obamaism, Hillary Rotten Clinton literally corrals the press as she rides her broom to the White House, and the GOOPers in congress couldn't light the torch of liberty if their asses were on fire.

Then there's the niggling problem of Western societies and economies coming apart at the seams:

“How is society going to cope with structural unemployment and the envy, hatred and the social warfare?” he said. “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us. It’s unfair.” Continuing in dire terms, he said: “We’re in for a huge change in society. Get used to it. And be prepared.”
-- Johann Rupert, Billionaire owner of Cartier

Where do we go from here?  The GOOP has no answers, they've done nothing with their majorities except enrich themselves, and the GOOP primary is shaping up to be another fundamentalist tent revival preach-off.

I was very close to changing my party affiliation to Democrat, but I could not return to that party (I voted for Al Gore in the 1988 Democrat primary).  So I ended up choosing Libertarian; it's closest to how I feel anyway.

Politicians and the global elites are selling our country out from under us, and nobody listens to us.  What concrete steps can we take to make the politicians change their ways?  How do we take charge of our country and our lives again?

I've asked this question in other forums, and I get a lot of answers that advocate one political philosophy or another, but those answers are no good because we can't get there from here.

Third-Party?

And all I can say to those on the right itching for a third party (with apologies to General Patton) is...

You don't win elections by splitting off into a third party.  You win elections by making the other poor, dumb bastards split off into a third party.

A New Kind of Hope

Here's what I wrote over at AOWs to try to cheer up those who believe our Republic is dead:

The Republic is far from dead, my friends. But, the experiment the founders spoke of has failed. The DemonCrap-GOOP government blew up the chemistry set.

We tried, we really did, and we had something special for awhile, but we're Germany now without the efficiency and thrift; Britain, Italy and France without the long, glorious past and ancient ruins.

We can go on a long time like this: Just look at Argentina, or for a longer example, Greece.

People here will learn how to hide their wealth from the government, trade labor to avoid taxation, and an underground economy will thrive. Corruption will flourish, and people will find a thousand ways to quietly thumb their noses at government and throw the sabot into the machinery when they get the chance.

Also, the progressive insurrectionists will eventually turn on one another in the frenzy for ever-greater ideological purity; they always do.

New Situations Require New Thinking

I have some ideas, but most of them sound crazy and I'm not prepared to discuss them yet.

What are your ideas?

Related:   Western Hero:  Caught Between Libertarianism and Conservatism 

Global Sink Hole

Good News:  Despite 'loss of trust' and 'lack of commitment,' Greece will get a bailout.  It's only right.  Greece forgave Germany's WW II debts. (and there was much more to forgive that just some squandered money).

Bad News: Greece is caught in a debt trap...

"Reducing or stabilizing their high debt levels encounters the same stubborn contradiction: The effort to curb debt through higher taxes or lower spending initially weakens economic growth, and weaker growth increases the debt." (RCM-Robert Samuelson)

Worse News: Much of the developed world is also caught in a debt trap...

"In 2014, gross debt as a share of GDP was 132% for Italy, 246% for Japan, 95% for France and 105% for the U.S., reports the IMF." (RCM-Robert Samuelson)

Also, our own Puerto Rico is next up in the bankruptcy docket.

Under normal circumstances...

...countries in such economic straits could clamp down on domestic spending and consumption and export their way out of it, kinda like China's has built their powerhouse economy for the past two decades.

Speaking of China, it's stock market is melting down, and the crash would make Greece look like a pimple on a gnat's ass.

Anyway, With all the big consumer economies in debt and suffering anemic economic growth, the China solution is not an option. It's one starving neighbor trying to borrow another starving neighbor's last egg.

"the world now sits beneath a mountain of debt worth an astonishing $200 trillion. That’s greater than twice the global GDP, which is currently $75 trillion." (Forbes)

Lord help us if interest rates go up, which is what would happen if we tried to inflate our way out of it or write down sovereign debt.

The Knights Templar Gambit?

There is talk of Greece suing Golden Sacks, but what if they took it a step further?

I think it would be kinda fun to see Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and whatever other debt-laden countries lock up and refuse to pay, putting their global bankster un-indicted co-conspirators in a serious sweat box.

The next step would be for the 'richer' sovereign nations to seize the global banksters' assets and clap the global fraudsters in jail.

The story of how the Catholic hierarchy and France's King Philip took out Jaques de Molay and the Knights Templar provides a classic roadmap. Catholic leadership (richer nations) was jealous of the Knights' (international banksters) power, and Philip (poorer nations) was deep in hock to them.

What if we collectively wiped out all debt around the globe?

$ Global financial markets would collapse, and productive activities that are credit-dependent would grind to a halt

$ Critical quotidian activities like delivery to grocery stores would cease

$ Pension funds would collapse, since they hold a lot of this debt

What do you think would happen?

Could the same big governments that clamped down on the global banksters take action to ameliorate the negative fallout?

Read this for better answers than I have provided: What effect would clearing all world debt have?

A Point of Order

This is the first flag of the Confederate States of America (fourth iteration):

This is the second flag of the Confederate States of America, there was a problem with it; when the wind wasn't blowing it looked like a white flag:

This is the third flag of the Confederate States of America, introduced to solve the "Oh look, the Rebs are surrendering" problem:

This is NOT a flag of the Confederate States of America, it is the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia:

Historically, the "Rebel Flag" never flew over the South Carolina statehouse, this one did:

The revival of the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia started not in the immediate aftermath of the civil war but in 1948, it was reintroduced and revived by one man running for office.  Can you guess which party he was running under?:

Slavery existed in the United States of America for 88 years (1777-1865), worst case scenario if you consider black oppression as lasting to the current day... 238 years.  As an Irishman, and my ancestors were from Donegal (in Ulster), my people were oppressed by the British for 800 years and I would have no problem flying this flag on my flagpole today (Orangeman's Day), which unless you're Irish you probably won't understand:

Seriously, everyone needs to get over it and put the past behind them, for until we do there is no going forward. 

A Greek Comedy...

Photo: (C) Giovanni Dall'Orto

And the Jokes on Europe!

61% of Greeks vote no on austerity.  

"Today we celebrate the victory of democracy," Tsipras said in a televised address to the nation, describing Sunday as "a bright day in the history of Europe."

As if you could vote yourself out of debt.  What was it Franklin said? "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch".

This ones for Angela:

Climate is Variable

Link

Link

Link

Link

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Click Here for

Groundbreaking Scientific Global Warming Discovery

U$ $enate for $ale

Againstcronycapitalism.org

White House correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh writes...

"Americans have little confidence in most of their major institutions including Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, banks and organized religion, according to the latest Gallup poll."

From the Guardian:

Using data from the Federal Election Commission, this chart shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate:

Out of the total $1,148,971 given, an average of $17,676.48 was donated to each of the 65 “yea” votes.

The average Republican member received $19,673.28 from corporate TPP supporters.

The average Democrat received $9,689.23 from those same donors.

Here's a complete bribery rundown, so you can see how much each of the elected hogs at trough sold out the American worker for.  Those in red voted for it.  I had to go to Againstcronycapitalism.org for the vote tally.  Couldn't find it on the taxpayer-funded US Senate site, and Daily Kook had the results in colored pictographs for the stoned illiterates who visit the site...

Senator  TOTAL
Ayotte R - NH $98,050.00 
Barrasso R - WY $1,000.00 
Bennett D - CO $53,700.00 
Blunt R - MO $77,950.00 
Boozman R - AR $5,050.00 
Burr R - NC $60,000.00 
Carper D - DE $2,000.00 
Coats R - IN $4,500.00 
Coons D - DE $3,500.00 
Cotton R - AR $3,500.00 
Crapo R - ID $24,000.00 
Cruz R - TX $35,425.00 
Ernst R - IA $13,000.00 
Feinstein D - CA $1,000.00 
Fischer R - NE $9,000.00 
Flake R - AR $3,500.00 
Gardner R - CO $5,000.00 
Grassley R - IA $35,000.00 
Hatch R - UT $11,000.00 
Heitkamp D - ND $10,500.00 
Heller R - NV $9,500.00 
Hoeven R - ND $8,500.00 
Isakson R - GA $102,575.00 
Johnson R - WI $18,500.00 
Kirk R - IL $28,200.00 
Lankford R - OK $5,500.00 
Lee R - UT $14,511.00 
McCain R - AR $51,750.00 
McCaskill       D - MO $1,000.00 
McConnell R - KY $4,500.00 
Moran R - KS $36,000.00 
Murkowski R - AK $28,500.00 
Murray D - WA $25,760.00 
Nelson D - FL $2,000.00 
Paul R - KY $5,000.00 
Perdue R - GA $12,500.00 
Portman R - OH $119,750.00 
Rounds R - SD $1,000.00 
Rubio R - FL $14,500.00 
Sasse R - NE $1,000.00 
Scott R - SC $67,500.00 
Shelby R - AL $4,500.00 
Thune R - SD $28,500.00 
Tillis          R - NC $11,000.00 
Toomey          R - PA $63,750.00 
Wyden D - OR $26,500.00 
(Source:  C. Robert Gibson)

Those voting yea, but no money collection reported:

Alexander (R - TN)
Cantwell (D - WA)
Capito (R - WV)
Cassidy (R - LA)
Cochran (R - MS)
Cornyn (R - TX)
Daines (R - MT)
Enzi (R - WY)
Graham (R - SC)
Inhofe (R - OK)
Kaine  (D - VA)
Risch (R - ID)
Roberts (R - KS)
Shaheen (D - NH)
Sullivan (R - AK)
Vitter (R - LA)
Warner (D - VA)
Wicker (R - MS)

The four GOP weasels you see up there don't get off so easy.  Every damned one of them voted for cloture, which opened the door for this vote.

Corker, Lee and Menendez did not vote.

You can go to AgainstCronyCapitalism.org for the complete list of Yeas and Nays.

The anti-American global corporatists made out pretty good for a mere $1,148,971.00, didn't they?

We can't even say the crapweasel senators "sold their vote," because they don't own America. A more accurate charge would be fencing stolen goods.

In other news, Americans have lost confidence in everything...

Related:
The Hill - Boehner Doles out Punishment
Gallup - Confidence Below Historic Norms

Con Game

"Conservatism's frowning, shattered visage lies half sunk in the desert of an antique land..."

William F. Buckley planted intellectual seeds, and they bloomed. Barry Goldwater rose, incipient, but withered under a mushroom cloud.

Ronald Reagan rode in, a Shane at High Noon, and stared down the bad guys. He restored the townfolk's faith in themselves, then rode off into the sunset. That was conservatism's high-water mark.

Newtie the Sta-Puft Marshmallow man towered and thundered, and the Dems quaked, and some historic reforms were pushed through, but his own scandals brought him down, and political conservatism has been a mewling puddle of incoherent mush ever since.

Yeah, we had the TEA Parties, but they turned into Sarah Palin circuses. Nobody cared that half the country hated her, and that we'd never expand the tent with her finger-wagging smart-ass sass, but we laughed and amused ourselves, and it was all good until the circus tent collapsed.

Those longing for the good old days will be longing for a long time.

Death of Conservatism: An Inside Job

The Government-Pop Culture-News Media Triumvirate killed the TEA Parties. The DC toadies in the press jammed mics in TEA partiers' faces and conducted hostile cross-examination on national TV, grilling ordinary citizens much harder than they ever had a politician. The Media Triumvirate excoriated Uncle Walt the Vietnam vet and his bride Aunt Emma for daring to challenge the DC emperors and expose them for the naked, craven phonies they really were.

There was a time not so long ago when the press would have celebrated citizens holding their elected officials accountable. Hollywood used to make movies about stuff like that.

Even after all that, I still don't blame the left. Sure, they patiently laid the social groundwork over many decades, but conservatives, libertarians, and non-political liberty-lovers drowsed off under Reagan's cowboy silhouette, and we now awake to a progressive nation.

We went on vacation and left it to the political pundits, and they blew it. The rightwing pontificators preached to the peanut gallery and gleefully ridiculed our ideological foes. Think that's funny? Effective? Do you feel any urge to join a group that loudly lampoons your cherished beliefs and mean-mouths you?

And we blew it by parroting their caustic bullshit instead of thinking for ourselves and engaging our fellow citizens in sincere, respectful conversation.

This is Where it has gotten Us:

Conservatives are now viewed by a broad section of society as sour and hateful, and that is quite an achievement stacked up next to liberals Bill Maher, Barney Frank, Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Dan Savage, Ted Rall, Al Sharpton and the entire Clinton Crime Syndicate's hatchet squad.

Conservatism is unfairly painted as one giant hate group in a nation where the progressive Planned Parenthood keeps the black population down, and angry rhetoric flares from leftwing racist groups like La Raza, MeCHa, CAIR, and the New Black Panther Party.

Conservatives are shouted down and shut out of popular culture, public social media, and college campuses, but conservatives are branded "Intolerant" and a danger to "Diversity."

It's upside down; a rape of reason; but here we are.

I reject blaming others, because if the problem is beyond your command, then so are the solutions. There is no going back. Time is a one-way street. The only option is to blaze a new trail in this brave new world, and that means cutting sling on those old people and stale ideas that have dragged us down.

... as in 'Bowel Movement'

The "conservative" "movement," such as it is, is "led" by fools, clowns, shrieking harridans, self-important pompous asses, crap weasels, nest-featherers, fake populists, liars, turd blossoms, turncoats, compassionate crapitalists, crouching masturbators, bastards, gay bashers, four-flushers, sour-mouth haters, racists, Elmer Gantrys, summer soldiers, firebugs, turncoats, progressive statists, and dimwits who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel in pictograph.

They're still using Barry Goldwater's 1960's rhetoric, only with flamethrowers.  And God bless Barry Goldwater, who by the way would probably kick every one of those inept buffoons and gutless poltroons right square in the ass with the pointed toe of one of his cowboy boots.

We are a progressive nation...

... and we will continue down that path until new people with new ways to state eternal truths come along.

The old order is dead: Ann Coulter, Limbaugh, Palin, Levin, Hannity, Kristol, the whole stinking pile of them should pile their useless asses onto a cruise ship and sail off into the sunset. And take Donald Trump with them. Retire. After all the ha-has, hee-hees, millions of words of inflammatory rhetoric, pontification, excoriation, they've gotten the cause of conservatism... Nowhere. Actually, less than nowhere. We're back to Pre-Buckley.

Hayek repeated the very old truism that if an idea is to take hold with a new generation, it must be framed in that generation's way of thinking and stated in that generation's language. Conservatism has failed, profoundly and completely, to do that.

Turn off Rush, throw Coulter's books in the toilet where they belong, and tell Reverend Huckabooboo and his ilk to get their ass back behind a church pulpit where they belong. Then, go Google Adam Carolla.

Hillary Rotten Clinton's e-mail Non-Scandal

I like the foreign press because they report and say things the DC servants in the US press dare not.

Britain's Daily Mail gives us a nice summary of Hillary Clinton's on-going e-mail non-scandal, and they start with the obvious:

Tuesday's revelation covers barely 3,000 of the 55,000 pages that must go online by the end of the year; 9:00 p.m. release suggested State Department tried to bury it.

Indeed.  Here is a rundown of what was in this first public installment of the clandestine server e-mails Her Rottenness the Clintoon (HRC) turned over to the State Department:

* 25 e-mails were classified by the State Department (remember the shills in the press assuring us she conducted no confidential national security business on her personal server?)

* Hillary lied when she told us Sidney Blumenthal was providing unsolicited advice.  E-mails show her querying him for information.

* The Obama administration lied when they said they knew nothing of her clandestine e-mail.  Records show David Axelrod, Jack Lew, Rahm Emanuel and others sending her messages at that address

* No Thrill between Hill and Bill.  Hillary and her Clinton Crime Syndicate partner in crime Bill, keep up on each other's whereabouts via intermediaries, rarely communicating directly (Can you blame either one of them?)

Many are poking fun with the exchange where Huma Abedin tries to explain how to operate a fax machine...

...But the #1 bizarro e-mail mentions her meeting with Santa:

'I'm seeing Santa at 8:30,' she wrote her deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin six months after taking office, 'so [we] won't take off until closer to 9:30.'

They tried to pass it off by saying she was referring to her hairdresser who is named Santa, but subsequent investigation revealed what we all suspected:

"It was a typo. HRC was really meeting with Satan."

Facing our Demons

A Catholic priest has apparently issued an urgent warning about the dangers of "summoning a demon" by performing the weird Charlie Charlie Challenge.

"I want to remind you all there is no such thing as 'innocently playing with demons'.

"Please be sure to NOT participate and and encourage others to avoid participation as well.

"The problem with opening yourself up to demonic activity is that it opens a window of possibilities which is not easily closed."  (Daily Mirror)

Facing Unpleasant Facts

Orwell saw that the choice between Stalinism and fascism was in fact no choice at all—that the real struggle was between freedom and tyranny. A conservative by upbringing, and a socialist and a dissident by nature, he did not believe in politics as a matter of allegiance to a party or camp. What he did believe in was his own sensibility—or what he described as his "power of facing unpleasant facts." (Atlantic - The Power of Facing Unpleasant Facts)

Surrender

Germany’s birth rate has collapsed to the lowest level in the world and its workforce will start plunging at a faster rate than Japan's by the early 2020s, seriously threatening the long-term viability of Europe’s leading economy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel warned in a speech in Davos earlier this year that Germany will lose a net 6m workers over the next 15 years, shrinking gradually over the rest of this decade before going into free-fall.

The HWWI said Germany must open it doors to further immigration [...] but fears that it will be a hard sell to voters in the current stormy atmosphere. (Telegraph - Germany's Democraphic Crunch Worsens)

Happy 4th!!!

For your listening pleasure...