Guest Contributor – Milo Mindbender – 15FEB2025 – Dirty Politics

Politics has always been an advance auction of the loots able to be transferred to the victor. Very few are willing to go through the process of getting selected/elected in order to actually serve the common good. More are driven by the actual greed and envy. This becomes more apparent election cycle after election cycle. We willingly as a nation abdicate our personal responsibility and authority to the same people to try and curry their favor. We can not afford them, or more honestly have been out of for them and their “services”. As a nation we need to be more cognizant of where our treasure is allocated, some aspects of government require a veil of secrecy, but for the most part let the disinfectant light of day shine. Our political overclass has demonstrated pure contempt for the very people it claims to represent. Mandating equal outcome regardless of personal input, blatant 2-tier justice for politically preferred actions, sponsorship of NGO actions that are if not outright illegal, just plain shady. Let the sun shine in, if we only save a fraction of what is wasted that is something. The very people who are outraged told us elections have consequences and we need to shut up and stay in our place.

Rebuild the Middle Class

In the comments to yesterday’s post was this one by TomD:

“For a number of years, I saw leftism coming and attributed it to a politically motivated elite with a brilliantly executed long focus political motive. There’s probably at least some of that but the revelations of last few weeks lead me to think that what we have been observing with such dismay over the past decade or so is coming from a much baser motivation: greed.

The revelations coming from DOGE seem to imply a very large and intricate network of NGO’s lavishly endowed from scantily controlled government disbursement programs. Apparently, the amount of money disappearing into these dark and uncontrolled conduits is well into the $trillions.

Everybody close to government is getting RICH and they do not want the trails to become illuminated.”

I think a lot of us who were just plain old patriotic Americans, or what they now call civic nationalists, assumed that the Left really was sincere with all the craziness they preached and that the waste and inefficiency were symptoms of their myopia and unwillingness to use meritocratic selection when populating the federal government with useless people of all imaginable types.

But just like TomD I’ve finally gotten it through my thick skull that for the most part all these people in government are just plain crooks stealing us blind.  And I include almost all the Republicans in that category too.  All they want is a way to cash in on their positions in the machine that prints money and hands it out to those in the know.

I suppose that I should be philosophical about all this.  After all, greed is what makes capitalism work supposedly.  And I suppose if they were just wetting their beaks but still doing their jobs to keep this country healthy, rich and strong I’d be inclined to say, “Well, that’s just human nature.  They’re just good old boys picking up some crumbs from the floor of the bakery.”

But it’s nothing like that.  They’re like Mitt Romney’s company Bain Capital.  They’re selling off the assets of a company (America) and sending the employees home without jobs and without their pensions.  They’re liquidators.  It’s a giant going out of business sale with us as the former employees forced to take temporary employment, boxing up the equipment as it’s shipped off to China and elsewhere.

But for as long as the Merry Go Round keeps turning, they get paid by skimming off of the proceeds from the sales of what’s still left.

Eventually, our bodies will be all that’s left.  And the only use for those will be as cannon fodder for the forever wars that still bring in value to the people running the show.  And that’s why Ukraine and the Middle East and Taiwan are always in the news and why we still have to hear about how important democracy is.  They need our sons to suit up and fly to the desert and die in the heat.

And that’s why we should hate these people with all the hate we can manufacture.  To them we’re cattle and that’s all.  They feel not the least kinship toward us and we should not have the least compunction about them failing, losing their jobs or anything else.  Hearing about how NGOs are laying off people means less than nothing to me.  In fact, I’m overjoyed to hear about some Harvard graduate who was making mid-six figures working for a George Soros “open society” NGO shocked and dismayed to be out of work and stuck with a huge mortgage on a five-million-dollar house in Northern Virginia.

Compare his plight to a family that’s been living for the last two hundred years in Ohio or Pennsylvania while the industries that were located there systematically relocated to China and left the working class more and more desperate and poor.  Trump has looked at what is going on and clearly seen the liquidation game for what it is.  If the rest of his team are smart, they’ll see that their only hope (and ours) is to continue this process to force the corporations to invest in us.  To quote a mythical small town American, “this rabble you’re talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?”

Call it populism, nationalism, whatever -ism you care to.  This used to be a great nation.  A balance has to be struck that allows for a prosperous middle class.  Instead, the masters of the universe think they can settle into a feudal system with them at the top and us as the serfs.  I think it’s time we let them know that if this is going to be feudalism then we might as well bring the time up to the French Revolution and make a big old bonfire out of their cool stuff.

Enough is enough.  Empty out Washington, slash the federal budget, lower our taxes, stand pat on the nuclear arsenal, fix all the broke stuff, bring back our jobs, fill up the prisons and rebuild the middle class.

15FEB2025 – Quote of the Day

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then, again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revaluation of prominent historical figures.

George Orwell

Just a Regular Old Thursday in the Age of Trump

The increasingly shrill and desperate shrieks coming from bureaucrats and Democrats is truly music to the ears of hard-pressed taxpayers everywhere.  DOGE has found the mother lode and shutting off the spigots that siphon off billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the coffers of cronies and crooks at NGOs around the world is the greatest act of American patriotism since the Revolutionary War was fought by an army of ragtag lunatics two hundred and fifty odd years ago.  If Trump follows up on all of the executive orders he’s written and defends them against the fake judges attacking from all sides he has the potential of getting his face (and hair) on Mt. Rushmore.

And now he’s beginning to address Ukraine.  He’s begun discussions with Putin and Zelensky.  That’s going to be a long story but he’s begun well.  Those negotiations will be long and difficult.  A war that’s killed over a million men isn’t ended by turning a switch.  The Russians and the Ukrainians are fighting a grudge war and even though it’s going against the Ukrainians they haven’t given up yet.  In their desperation they might try some pretty awful things and that would make the Russians even angrier.  Probably the smartest course for us is to convince Ukraine that the longer this thing goes, the worse will be the eventual outcome for them.  Of course, most of this is the fault of American neo-cons who were responsible for the color revolution that installed the crazies in Kiev.  If we hadn’t provided them with hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of arms and assurances that they would win, they never would have taken on the Russian bear and they would still have all of their land and all of their men.  Crazy.

So, what’s next?  We’ve become so jaded that we expect every day will include another Trumpian miracle.  Another attack on the Left and its stooges.  Well, they keep coming.  Gabbard and Kennedy are in office and Patel was just advanced to the full Senate for a vote.  All of that is going well.  I read that the Justice Department has halted the prosecution of New York Mayor Adams and because of that the lead federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York resigned in protest.  Well, if she can’t have her politically motivated prosecution, she’s gonna take her ball and go home.  Boo Hoo!

As Chemist mentioned in the comments yesterday, DOGE thinks they can shave trillion dollars off the price tag for social security and the other entitlements.  That’s not all the way to where we have to get but it’s about 40% of the way there.  That’s definitely nothing to sneeze at.  So initial indications are that the Trump administration and the Congressional Republicans are moving in the right direction to start fixing some of the biggest problems that plague us.  It’s hard to be critical of what’s going on so far.

In other news tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I’ve agreed to spring for some Thai food and treat Camera Girl to a drive in my luxury sedan (well sort of) around the beautiful Dunwich environs.  We can make this trip because I spent the morning shoveling slush and water off of the driveway in anticipation of tonight’s deep freeze.  I reminded her of my prudence and diligence in attending to this situation and how her frail womanliness would never have been capable of the exertion and the sheer strengthliness of my manly effort.  She feigned indifference but I could sense her awe.

I’ve added a revolt within the ranks of the good guys in my story.  It sort of came out of nowhere but I now think it’s a good way to add tension and give the main character a chance to prove his leadership and shift the action away from the King of the Mole Men who is really more of a sage and businessman than a man of action.  I’m imagining a sort of St Crispin’s Day speech to rally the troops and head into the final crisis (whatever it turns out to be!).

Next week will be extra busy.  I have three separate extra commitments that will keep me hopping and neglecting my site work.  Such is life.  And so, it goes.

Tom’s World – 13FEB2025 – The Ultimate Pyramid Scam

Tom | Flickr

TomD

The Federal Government is history’s absolute worst fiduciary administrator even theoretically possible. SS and Medicare are supposed to be involuntary pay in advance programs for medical insurance and pension. I seem to remember having roughly 15% of my wages deducted throughout my life and sent to the Fed, supposedly to supplement or finance my retirement. So, how did the benefits for which I paid in advance throughout my working career become a line item expenditure on the federal budget?

If you are a pension fund administrator and spend every cent the second you get it and hopefully pay retirees from current funds, there’s a name for that: Pyramid Scam, a felony.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 13FEB2025 – $1T

 

Talcove from LexisNexis Special Services testifying before the DOGE committee yesterday:

“What amount of fraud can be prevented in the entitlements programs and how?”

“By putting identity confirmation requirements in at the front end of payment systems, eliminating self-certification, and monitoring the back end – $1T.”

A trillion dollars sounds like a good start on cutting the budget.

 

 

Update:

Comment by TomD

Yeah, 1 $trillion as in 10^12th power, is a start. You want to see the logical conclusion of this process?

This is the largest real bill printed in the history of man. When I got the bill, the value was approx. 1/10th the value of the paper that it is printed on. Ironically, due to now scarcity, the bills are selling for well over $100 on ebay. I’m pissed, I bought 20 of them for $1 each and was giving them away as jokes/object lessons.

100-trillion-zimbabwe-front