Category: Current Events

Neil Oliver Talks About Despots and Freedom

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Since I first saw one of Neil Oliver’s videos on The Conservative Treehouse I’ve come to envy his amazing eloquence and his Scottish brogue.  But more than his language skills I enjoy his forthright defense of freedom.  I really don’t know his history or his specific political stripe but he has been passionate about standing against the anti-freedom forces array against him and us.

In this video he talks about how what’s happening in Ukraine is no longer the antithesis of how the West behaves.  After all if Joe Biden doesn’t like your politics he’ll send men with guns to throw you into prison and if you resist you’ll end up just as dead as a Ukrainian freedom fighter.

America Needs a Prophet

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America has lost its way.  Those under forty are dispirited and directionless.  The older people are confused and frightened.   Only the fanatics of the Left are energized.  And their only impulse is to destroy what is normal.

William Butler Yeats in his poem, “The Second Coming” characterized the problem of modernity thus:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity …”

I think what he is saying is that we’ve lost our way utterly.  Those running our civilization have disconnected from what is essential to human life.  They’ve cut away the roots that nourished our culture and our people.  And maybe they’ve done it purposefully.  Maybe they think they should get rid of most of us.  Or maybe they want to end humanity altogether including themselves.  I’m not sure which.

It may be that the western world and America in particular will needs a revival.  It has happened several times in America’s history that a religious revival has swept across large areas of the country to restore purpose and energy to the communities here.  It might coincide with a financial crisis or a war.  Usually religious leaders would declare a “crusade” to attack a spiritual problem like alcoholism or gambling.

I don’t know if there are any religious leaders in the mainline churches who aren’t already coopted by the Left.  I guess it could be anyone coming from any background.  Maybe it won’t even be a religious man.  But it will have to be someone who can speak eloquently and to the point.  That man must preach against the Left in all its various forms.

What is needed is someone who can confidently and convincingly attack the Left and all it stands for.  He will need to provide a coherent and comprehensive plan to reestablish Western Civilization as it flourished a hundred years ago.  He will have to be a Moses to lead the people back into the promised land.  He will have to cast down the golden calf and provide the people with the commandments they need to restore order to their lives.  What does that metaphor equate to in our current world?  So many things.  Probably the most fundamental commandment will be return to living in functional families.  And that means abandoning the feminist model of working women who produce one child sometime in their late thirties or early forties.  It means stay at home moms who raise their children themselves.  And men who work to support those families.  And spend the rest of their time at home with their wives and children and in their communities.  That is the central theme of a revival.

Next, the schools need to be reformed.  All the leftist propaganda must be stripped away from kindergarten to graduate school.  All of the intersectional studies programs must be eliminated.  No good ever came from Women’s Studies or Queer Studies or Africana Studies.  Ever.  Schools must return to their original purpose; vocational training.  Whether it’s advanced physics or carpentry teaching a valid skill as a means to making a living is what we pay colleges to teach our children.  If they don’t accomplish that then shut them down.

And last but not least we have to reform our federal government.  And this is the most difficult reform of all.  The managerial state has become our master.  It dictates to us how we must live in excruciating detail; what we must do and what is forbidden.  The prophet we need must have laws to reform the government and cast out the masters who have made us slaves.

That is what we need; someone of gigantic stature to reform our society.  It’s an almost impossible task.  But if no one appears we are surely doomed.  We will sink into serfdom and even our elites will be pushed aside by abler cultures that maintained their understanding of what makes a healthy culture.  Where is our Moses?

25FEB2022 – OCF Update – Weekly Installment of Snow Removal

photog Current Events, OCF

 

4 – 8 inches of snow projected.  Probably 4 inches on the ground already.  And the obligatory freezing rain at the end to provide the literal icing on the cake.  Blah, blah, blah, I hate snow.  Blah, blah, blah, I hate New England.

And we’re back.  Sorry about the obligatory “winter in New England” rant.  But it’s in my contract so blah, blah, blah.

Well, next week starts March.  The days are definitely getting longer and life is speeding up here at the Compound.  I purchased the (hopefully) last gas can’s worth of fuel for the snow blower.  I’m more than halfway through the latest (for me) Galaxy’s Edge novel and it’s good.  Wish I could say as much for my novel.  I have to face it.  Running a blog takes up most of my free time and that means writing is the loser.  I’ll have to figure something out.

I’ve been looking at a couple of options for selling photos and photo books.  It looks like it should be relatively easy to set up and I’ll include links on the site.  Doing some advance research for the July trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons.  I’ll definitely have to pare down the list of photo equipment I planned to bring.  But there’s plenty of time to do that.

It’s remarkable to watch Dementia Joe become an even bigger loser every day.  The only true thing Barry Obama ever said was that no one should ever underestimate Biden’s ability to foul things up.  It truly is his super power.  But it’s not a mystery.  He’s just a lazy idiot.  Lying about things that fool stupid people at the expense of the good of the United States has always been his go to plan.  And when you’re just a crooked senator or the Vice President it wasn’t that critical.  But when you’re pretending to be the President of the United States it kind of is.

I think the general feeling across the country on both sides is, “How is this guy going to keep this up for almost three more years?”  That’s a really long time.  Will there be anything left of the country by then?  I guess we’ll find out.

The mask mandate is retreating at top speed now.  Only the school requirements are still there and that is one of the most aggravating ones because of the illogic of masking the least vulnerable.  It highlights how beholden the Democrat Party is to the teachers’ unions.  Good.  That will continue to alienate parents in the run up to the November elections.

The Ukraine debacle will really hurt the economy once we have $6/gal gas to deal with.  That might actually tip us into a recession.  Stagflation right from the dictionary definition.  Well, they say Americans are too fat.  This will give us all a chance to go on an involuntary diet.  Oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I’m curious to see how Trump’s social media experiment goes.  It will take a while to know if there’s something solid there.  The initial excitement will have to wear off first.  After all, I’ve never been completely sure what Twitter actually does that’s useful.  Amazon’s business model and Google’s ads I understand.  Guess we’ll find out.

So at some point I’ll disappear for a few hours to move the white stuff.  If anything  interesting shows up I’ll opine.  Enjoy the rest of the morning.

 

 

The Global Project is Starting to Look Kind of Tattered

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After the Soviet Union folded its tent, George H.W. Bush famously talked about a “new world order.”  Clinton and W. both allowed this new project to feed off the power of the United States until it was supposed to replace it with a global alliance of elites who floated above the nationalist concerns of the proles and harvested the fruits of the labor of whatever market would provide them at the lowest price; India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and possibly the far side of the moon at some point in the future.  And in doing this they crushed the working-class citizens of the United States.  And now they’re doing the same to the middle class too.  But that’s unimportant.  A new managerial class is being imported into the United States to replace Americans as the white-collar servants of the managerial class.  And this imported help will work at a discount too.  So, it’s a win-win for the elites.  They’ve gotten rid of those pesky Americans with their outdated ideas of patriotism and freedom and replaced them with compliant foreigners who also work cheap.

Lately the proles have started to revolt.  They elected Trump and demanded Brexit.  But happily, order has been restored.  The 2020 election was enhanced (rigged) and the FBI is busy arresting anyone who protested against it.  Even the Canadians have resorted to gestapo tactics when their working-class people protested the vaccine mandates.

But a funny thing happened on the way to this New World Order. The elites have stepped on so many people that they may have splintered their own coalition of the aggrieved.  The afro-centric nature of the last couple of years of the resistance have stepped on the toes of several of the other constituencies.  The Latino and Asian populations are seeing their concerns ignored when they compete with how Black Lives Matters sees the priorities.  And feminists, especially lesbians, are outraged at how “trans-women” are being given rights and privileges that trample on female concerns.

The traditional religious beliefs in many ethnic groups, especially Latino groups are very unhappy with the homosexual agenda especially as it is being taught to their children.  And many communities including affluent whites are outraged at the inclusion of critical race theory (CRT) in the K-12 school curriculum.  And finally, going along with the BLM problems everyone living in cities are horrified by the elimination of effective policing in their neighborhoods.  Crime is epidemic and district attorneys refuse to prosecute almost any crimes committed in their urban jurisdictions to somehow compensate for alleged past inequities in black arrests and incarceration.

All these problems are now adding to the revolt against COVID mandates and the anger at double digit inflation and supply chain disruptions.  The citizenry of the United States (and other western countries) is terribly angry at the feckless behavior of their elite masters and they want change.

And now, just when things look like they couldn’t get worse the geniuses at NATO manage to piss off Vladimir Putin to the extent that he was willing to invade the Ukraine.  And this instability that will rock the financial markets and send the price of oil through the roof provides the final proof needed to assure the world that the leaders of the New World Order are idiots.  What they’ve managed to do is expose their enterprise as a sham.  They whittled away the strength and legitimacy of the American military and now it no longer provides the club they formerly depended on to force the other nations to follow their rules.  Russia and China and maybe soon Iran and Turkey will start to enforce their own rules in their neighborhoods.  Allies like Japan, South Korea and Germany will have to fend for themselves and look for other partners to provide security in their neighborhoods.

This loss of superpower status is going to have practical, negative effects on American companies and citizens.  Our safety abroad will decrease.  Our money will become less valuable.   The best and brightest will consider other countries as possible homes for themselves and their enterprises.  And there will be more groups interested in challenging our military capability, especially in asymmetric engagements (guerilla tactics).  And our primary adversaries will be looking for opportunities to weaken us further.

It’s too soon to be talking about the end of globalism but things seem to be picking up steam.  Possibly we may be reaching a tipping point at which a clear majority of the American public turns against the globalist project and demands a return to an America First agenda.  Of course, the Left may just work harder at perpetrating voting fraud.  And the Republican establishment is working overtime to rally the public for whatever new war the neocons can think up.  But it is possible that this confluence of horrible news and horrible policies might tip things beyond the control of the Uniparty.  I guess I’m an idealist.  Fingers crossed.

Now That Russia Has Taken Ukraine Are the Baltics Next?

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The other day I speculated what our response would be if Russia invaded the Baltic States.  Now that the Ukraine has been occupied and nothing has been done by the West other than some pro-forma sanctions it occurs to me that there really isn’t anything keeping them out of the Baltics.  Not a thing.  Of course, that invites the question, what’s keeping them out of Poland or Germany or France.  Militarily, it’s the same answer.  In each case we only have the threat of nuclear war as a deterrence against Russian military attack and occupation.  By allowing our armed forces to become an LGBTQ poster child instead of a fighting machine we’ve put all our eggs in the nuclear war basket.  And Russia will continue to test us to see where the tipping point is.  Ukraine?  Moldova?  Estonia?  Latvia?  Lithuania?

And once China sees this happening we can forget about Taiwan.  And how about Korea?  Right about now I’m guessing Japan is starting to get a little nervous.  All these dominoes were set in motion when the Left’s world view was adopted by Americans.  When you demonize America and its history and deny the difference between a man and a woman you throw away the basis for the deterrence of an army or even a nuclear stockpile.  Would a woman like Kamala Harris or a feminist man like Joe Biden send troops against the Russians or launch nuclear weapons?  I’m guessing the Russians have decided the answer is no.

Lots of bad things are no longer unthinkable.  Luckily for us the Russians want to sell Europe gas and China wants to sell us everything.  So, they’ll be satisfied to just take the stuff they want.  They don’t have to force us into a fight for our lives.  It’s sort of like the smash and grab attacks on expensive stores.  If the sales staff stays out of the way and lets the thieves take what they want they won’t get hurt.  And what else can you do when you’ve told the police they’re evil.  You’ve thrown away your shield and have to submit to the thieves.

It’s not a happy situation we find ourselves in.  But at least it lays bare the reality of a feminized West.  Without men in charge of the military and foreign policy, non-feminized countries will be free to exert military force as they see fit.  Our safety culture will direct us to take the less dangerous option of hectoring the enemy like a global Karen telling Moscow or Beijing to stop what they’re doing or we’ll tell the UN on them.

But maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe Dementia Joe will stand up on his two feet and take Vladimir Putin behind the barn and lay the smackdown on him.  Maybe he’ll send our tranny brigade against the Russian army.  Size fifteen stiletto heels marching in unison to victory.  The good and bad news is that Biden is responsible and he’ll have to figure this out.  The good news is he’ll take the blame.  The bad news is we’ll have to suffer the consequences.

“O brave new world, that has such people in it!”

Tucker Showcases Kamala Harris Speaking Gibberish

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Kamala Harris’s brain must be the scariest territory to try to navigate safely through.  To say that she spouts nonsense is being superhumanly generous.  Tucker Carlson has two quotes of her speech to the NATO allies about the Ukraine debacle.  In the first one she manages to say absolutely nothing while gassing off for a few minutes.  In the second she lectures the Europeans on the fact that they have been at peace for seventy years.  Gee, I hope she didn’t give this speech in Belgrade.

Seriously, what must even the half-witted globalists think of America if we send this bimbo over during a disaster like the Ukraine collapse.  Even dimwits like Macron are going to start thinking they better make friends with Putin right away.

If this woman is qualified to be President of the United States then anyone is.  My alarm clock can be President.  My car GPS can definitely be President.  Either of my dogs can be President except right after they take their heartworm medicine.  My car keys couldn’t be President, but maybe Vice President.

We’re in a lot of trouble.

Compare and Contrast

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I listened to Putin’s speech and then I listened to Dementia Joe’s mumblings.  I know I’m prejudiced against Biden but it wasn’t even close.  Putin spoke almost off the cuff.  He related the history of Russia as honestly as it can be put.  He complained about the outrageous tactics that Lenin and Stalin used to create the various “ethnic” states.  The wholesale mixing and matching territories to prevent any threat to the central authority by ethnic groups.  It’s the speech of a pragmatic and confident ruler telling the outside world why he’s making the moves he is and why he feels justified in making them.  He’s not asking permission.  He’s explaining why no one had better get in his way.

Listening to Joe is painful.  Watching him try to read off the teleprompter but still stumble every few minutes is annoying as all hell.  Plus, it’s all bluster.  He’s going to impose sanctions that sound like mostly refusing to loan Russia money.  From what I’ve read Russia isn’t in debt.  We on the other hand are in debt to China for trillions of dollars.  Somehow, I think Russia can underwrite its growth out of the boundless oil and gas revenues it receives.  A real leader would try to find some modus vivendi with Russia.  Theoretically, we should have an easier time dealing with Russia than China.  Also, the realities of Russia’s relationship with Europe would warrant careful consideration of the practical aspects of maintaining mutually beneficial policies.  But not Joe.  He’s probably more worried about how Burisma will be affected by these changes.  After all, if Hunter stops getting paid how can the “big guy” get his twenty percent.

Now let’s talk about morality.  Vladimir Putin is a ruthless autocrat.  He uses whatever tactics get him what he wants.  The cruelty of the tactics that were used against the Chechen rebels were horrific.  The fact that Putin used Chechens to destroy their fellow Chechens in no way excuses the hideousness of the policies.  But it does indicate the intelligence that Putin brought to his actions.  He fought fire with fire.  Putin is someone to be feared and respected because he is competent.

What exactly are the moral advantages that Joe Biden brings to the table?  He is an inveterate liar.  He lies about his personal life.  He lies about his official actions.  He seems to lie without any thought to how transparent the lies are.  He plagiarizes the words of other men.  There is credible testimony that he sexually assaulted a woman on the streets of Washington D.C.  And as for his financial dealings, he’s been peddling his government influence for as long as he’s been in public office.  And when he became Vice President, he became an international influence peddler.  He was able to collect millions of dollars in China and the Ukraine through the help of his bag man; his junkie, pervert son Hunter.  And all of this is documented on a laptop that Hunter idiotically left in a computer repair shop and ended up published in the pages of the New York City tabloid the New York Post.  And finally, just watching video of the man as he interacts with women and children is repulsive.  He sidles up behind women and grabs their shoulder and sniffs their hair.  He’s like Suetonius’s description of the depraved behavior of Tiberius.

Say what you will about Putin’s ruthlessness, at least the things he has championed for his country are essentially wholesome.  He defends Christian religion and Russian culture against such outside influences as LGBTQ organizers and globalist NGO agitators.  Compare this to Biden who has opened the US borders to criminal aliens and defended the murderous rioters, looters and arsonists who ran amok during the 2020 George Floyd insurrection.

Looking at these two men it’s hard not to see an imbalance.  Biden is an empty suit.  He’s just the chair warmer for a ruling elite that controls all the levers of power so the puppet doesn’t have to be very impressive.  Putin is a leader, not a democratic leader, more of a dictator but still a popular leader.  Regardless of the differences in circumstances and world opinion it’s hard not to be impressed by Putin and hard not to be disgusted by Biden.  Just my impressions.

Update

TomD’s comments 

It’s like a horror story, the Dims are failing so badly and obviously at everything that seemingly any rational person on earth would think they need a basic reappraisal of their goals and methodology. But not this group, No Sir!

One of the many horrors of the Biden “Administration” is there is no way out for at least 3 years. Look at the attached “order of succession”. To quote the Lady, “It’s turtles all the way down.”

order of sucession.jpg
order of sucession.jpg

 

Putin, Europe and Biden

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Vladimir Putin looks to be taking a couple of more bites out of the Ukraine.  First, he reclaimed the Crimean Peninsula along with its warm water harbor for his navy.  Then he supported his Russian allies in Eastern Ukraine to give them autonomy.  Now he’s declaring those eastern areas independent.  They’ll have two separate names, Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, but the reality will be that for all practical purposes they will be part of Russia.  As far as Western Ukraine goes, I assume what Putin will do is declare NATO membership as a flash point that would trigger invasion and occupation of the rest of the Ukraine.

I don’t think anyone in NATO who is being honest with himself is at all surprised with this outcome.  With the United States in disarray and Western Europe a laughing stock militarily I don’t see how Putin would hesitate to use the excuse of NATO encroachment to reclaim hegemony over the Ukraine and Belarus.    Some people are probably wondering about the status of the Baltic States; Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  These countries have significant Russian ethnic populations and it wouldn’t be shocking to hear these groups might start making noises about being oppressed.  The difference is these countries joined NATO back in 2004.  If the Russians rolled into any of them this would be grounds for NATO military action which theoretically extends all the way up to nuclear war between Russia and the United States.  Now there’s a highly interesting point!  Would the Russians attack the Baltics and would we go to nuclear war if they did?  According to the book, we would.  But would we?  You know, we might.  I think Putin isn’t looking at the Baltics right now.  I think he realizes that occupying the Baltics would be like invading Poland; a step too far.

But he won’t let the Ukraine or Belarus go.  And he doesn’t have to.  The balance of power in Europe is shifting because of the weakness of the West and the improving economic position of Russia because of its oil and gas revenues.  Germany and Eastern Europe need Russian energy supplies.  They’ll develop closer relations with Russia and hope to “civilize” Russia as they hoped to with China.  But I’m not sure it will work that way.

When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 and Russia reached a low ebb, I remember thinking that all of the newly independent states like the Ukraine and Belarus would one day take their place as parts of Europe.  They would be free and prosperous nations and chart their own destinies.  But the reality of these places is an entirely different thing.  The political dysfunction on display is shocking and characterizing these places as gangster states is not an exaggeration.  The Russians have an intimate knowledge of the power centers and major players in these corrupt states and they can manipulate public opinion and bring enormous military and economic pressure to bear on any group that works against their interests.  These states may have been declared independent but they are for the most part puppets of the Russian government.

Knowing this to be true, I think it is naïve to think we can detach these places from Russian hegemony.  We’re not going to send troops into the Ukraine or Belarus.  We’re not going to fight a nuclear war with Russia over these areas that we have no commitment toward.  And the Russians know it.

So, we’ll threaten sanctions.  Maybe we’ll enact sanctions and then the Russians will use that as an excuse to take the rest of the Ukraine.  Then they’ll cut off the natural gas to Germany and Eastern Europe.  Then Europe will end the sanctions.

Now we get to the philosophical stuff.  Back when it was the Soviet Union versus the West there was a very clear distinction morally between the oppressive communist regime that held all of Eastern Europe in virtual slavery and the relative freedom of the West.  Here in the United States, we had our problems but in the 1980’s we were a truly free people who enjoyed our lives and did as we pleased.  But looking at the West today, especially after the COVID lockdowns, BLM riots, 2020 election fraud, CRT school propaganda and all the restriction on free speech and other freedoms by the surveillance state it’s extremely hard to pretend we have any moral superiority over Putin.  If Putin is a thug, then what is Biden?  Is the successor to the KGB any worse than the FBI and the Justice Department as they run gulags for the victims of their January 6th false flag exercise?  In fact, if you look at Putin’s stance on LGBTQ, I have to give him the advantage of being on the side of religion and family and against celebrating depravity and mental disorder.

I think Putin will have his way with the Ukraine.  Biden will make a lot of noise and then do not very much.  But it will be his chance to try to distract Americans from the disaster he has created at home.  Somehow, I doubt it will accomplish very much.  The cost of chicken is a little more important than the status of Kiev.

Reframing Life in Woke America

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So, the word is out, Biden is a bust.  His presidency will be remembered along with Jimmy Carter’s and Herbert Hoover’s as a disaster for the United States.  All well and good.  But he’s going to be around for years and the country is still in the hand of Marxists so what do we do in the meantime?

Well, we live!  We’ve still got families and friends and jobs and responsibilities, mortgages and food bills and all the other things that require our attention and organize our days.  We’ll still have to deal with woke psychopaths who run the companies we work for and torment us with diversity, equity and inclusion jibber jabber.  We still have the federal and maybe state government trying to covidize our lives.  And we still have to manage to deal with the shambles Biden has made of our economy.  And if you live in a blue city you have to dodge homicidal criminals without the help of a functioning police force.  That’s what you still have to do.  Sounds not too good.  But we’ll do it.  And an important strategy in surviving this mess is framing the situation correctly.  I’ll explain.

Losing your job is a bad way to deal with the annoyances that have become attached to modern companies.  You’re going to have to put up with watching the corporate harassment training video and now they’ll have the diversity, equity and inclusion video too.  And if you’re in management they’ll expect you to drink the Kool-Aid and spout the party line.  But who says you have to go the management route?  If you’ve got an important skill, you can avoid all the nonsense by just doing your job and avoiding the wrong people.  What do I mean by the wrong people?  I mean the woke, the social justice warriors, the true believers.  You’ll be able to spot them a mile away.  They always have several rainbow flags adorning their work space and other such paraphernalia.  They’re mostly women and/or queer but there are plenty of exceptions.  Some of the worst of the worst are straight white men who want to prove their loyalty to the cause.

These people will not hesitate to get you fired.  Never socialize with them.  Avoid talking to them about anything but work and limit even that to the minimum necessary to do your job right.  This has a twofold benefit.  The obvious one is it protects you from being reported to Human Resources for some kind of harassment offense.  And that is a very important benefit.  But the second one is also important.  Avoiding these people makes your life better.  I’ll give an example.

I used to work with this guy who was a progressive.  Sort of like one of the old hippies.  He and I both worked for a contract engineering company and were both assigned to the same client for a very extended contract.  Eventually both of us went to work for the client directly.  I had always tried to be friendly with the guy.  We had worked on an assignment together in California years before and for the most part he was a nice enough guy, maybe a bit too goofy.  But because the client company we both joined had a very lefty culture he quickly became adapted and soon he was one of the worst of the bunch.  And since we still spent plenty of time together at lunch and coffee breaks, he quickly became one of the most annoying parts of my day.  And this went on for the better part of a year until one day after one of these aggravating conversations it occurred to me that I disliked this guy intensely and eventually this was going to end up with this guy reporting me for some kind of thought crime.  It was the logical outcome.  So, the next time he started up on something, I told him I had had enough and from now on we would limit our conversations to work concerns only.  He looked a little stunned but he could tell I was completely serious and that was the last personal conversation we ever had.  Almost immediately I felt like some horrible irritant had been removed from my life.  I realized that I no longer had indigestion after lunch and I felt much less tired in the afternoon.  Sure, there were still plenty of lefties at work but I wasn’t responsible for talking with them at lunch or on coffee breaks.  I made a point after that to spend my time at lunch or break with like minded people and that worked wonders.

And this is a good policy everywhere.  Both at work and outside work I look to spend my time with people whose opinions I respect.  It can never be one hundred percent.  Most of my bosses were lefties.  I was always very professional and performed what was expected of me but when it came to company social functions I would bow out.  No golf.  That was with the management types and they were woke types almost to a man.  Bowling would be better but still there were problems so I even let that go.  I preferred to organize my own after work activities with only people I knew wouldn’t aggravate me with some progressive nonsense.

And that’s what I mean by reframing the situation.  Just because the Left controls the public and private organizations doesn’t mean they control most of the important parts of our lives.  We have control of most of the space we live in.  Sort out the world into the good and the bad.  Avoid those people who only cause grief and trouble.  Seek out the people who won’t cause heartburn when you spend time with them.  They don’t have to be your clones.  There’s plenty of variation on our side of the fence.  There are intellectuals and guys who prefer to get their hands dirty.  There are introverts and extroverts.  You name it.

So, there’s my secret in a nutshell.  Search out the people on our side of the fence and maximize the connections you have with them.  Fraternize with them.  Do business with them.  Help them when they need help.  And more importantly, avoid the opposite types.  Don’t waste your free time around them.  Avoid them like the plague.  You’ll be happier and you’ll isolate them from normal people.  And that’s what they deserve.

Nobody’s Clapping Joe

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Approval rating, legitimacy, consent of the governed.  These words mean different things.  But they are linked.  The consent of the governed is needed to provide legitimacy to a government.  And if the approval rating for a leader, edges down to a third of the voters it starts to look like the consent of that country is evaporating.

I think what we are seeing is America turning its back on Dementia Joe.  A quarter of his term is over and he has shown himself to be dishonest, dangerous and incompetent.  America doesn’t know how to get rid of Biden but they want him to go away.  As a proxy for that we will take away his legislative enablers, the Democrat majorities in the House and Senate.  This will force him to rely on executive orders to perpetrate his crimes against the Constitution and the American people.

Now this has happened before.  In fact, most presidents lose seats in congress during the off-year election.  Probably Obama is closest to Biden’s case in terms of paying for his progressive overreach during his off-year election in 2010.  He is closest but not close.  Biden is a very special case.  Not since Carter have we had a president who ignited an economic disaster as Joe has with the runaway inflation now afflicting the working people of America.  And when you combine that with the other two plagues; rampant urban crime and COVID tyranny; and with the fact that he sounds like a dementia patient, what you get is a someone who is not a credible leader.  And when that happens people no longer give him the benefit of the doubt.

I think an example of this was how the AP reporter started challenging the State Department spokesman who called a press conference to announce the supposed Russian false flag operation against the Ukraine.  The reporter refused to take the spokesman’s word at face value and asked for some kind of proof of his allegations.  And even the usually compliant jellyfish at CNN and MSNBC are beginning to push back against the more patently false statements and lame explanations that the administration feeds them concerning inflation, crime and other ongoing catastrophes.  So even his usually dependable stenographers are showing incredulity at the bolder lies being distributed.

But it’s more than that.  A large and growing percentage of Americans are done with this president and his administration.  They want a solution to moving on from this dysfunctional mess we’re in.  It’s like when a mayor has betrayed the police force in his town and the police respond by turning their backs on the mayor at a formal ceremony.  It’s a vote of no confidence.  The American people have no confidence in Joe Biden.  They don’t like him.  They don’t trust him.  And they want him to go away.

But how to get rid of him?  Even after the mid-terms we won’t have anywhere near enough senators to convict him during an impeachment trial.  I think it requires a two thirds majority.  And even if we did, we’d end up with Kamala Harris which would be equally if differently bad.  We’d have to impeach her too and then we’d end up with the Speaker of the House which would probably be Kevin McCarthy.  And that wouldn’t be much of an improvement.

So, we’ll be in a bad position for three more years.  We’ll be stuck with Biden.  The damage he’ll be able to do will be somewhat limited but he’ll continue to harm us every way he can.  He’ll allow illegal aliens to flood the country and he’ll use executive decrees to undermine the laws that are supposed to protect us.

But at least no serious person will pretend that he’s anything but the lying, crack-brained, crooked creep that he’s always been.  There won’t be any more applause or even polite silence.  It will be derision and hatred for the rest of his miserable and despised term in office.  Let’s go Brandon.