Don't you just love the pope preaching to us about compassion with immigrants while he sits behind his 40 ft walls with perhaps the most extreme security on earth?!
A friend of mine is distraught over this. But I heard Bishop Barron (quoting, I think, Fulton Sheen) say that sin came into the Church with Peter. I came back to the Church trying to figure out my son's Neo-Marxist and postmodern views. As God has a sense of humor and knows how cynical I am, it was through quips from non-believers such as Camille Paglia, David Berlinski, and F.A. Hayek that provided the bread crumbs back. That someone six years ago would tell me I'd be doing the rosary every day or meeting with a Dominican friar to discuss philosophy (Marxism and postmodernism), I would've said they were insane. Now I am at peace but as still a curmudgeon.
I think that, and the isolation of "work from home", are why young people, especially genZ, are going back to church.
BUT I can tell you this:
Christians have a lot of soul searching to do for their behavior (and lack of action) during the scamdemic. Yet, you don't hear any Church leaders reflecting on that and "confronting" their congregations in their sermons.
Why? Because Its the same craven leadership that encouraged their followers to excuse their behavior.
I mean, after all, the only Bible verse Christians needed in order to know how to conduct themselves, just happened to be, perhaps, the most recognizable of all passages:
2 Timothy 1:7
"God has not given us a spirit of fear but rather of power, love and a sound mind."
I took the friar to task for the horrendous response. We had a candid conversation that the Churches that opposed mandates were often rooted in a fellowship model. I can tell there was a lot of tension in the Church. There is one irascible nun who grew up Jewish, became Protestant and then a nun. She is a force to be reckoned with.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
I think most pastors have taken a "let's sweep this under the rug" attitude towards what went on during 'VID. I fear, like 9/11, people will either forget or it will be generationally forgotten. I mean, did you ever have "NYC elects Muslim Mayor" on your Bingo card?
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do the offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
I agree with you 💯 % and a lot of catholics voted for trump, no matter what they say they are single issue voters. ABORTION was the only issue they cared about, trump said he was pro life and went to the MARCH FOR LIFE, and said he would repeal ROE V WADE, that's all they cared about. They excused all his criminality and immorality. There is a MOTHER MIRIAM, a catholic ““ nun”” who has a youtube channel and prays novenas for trump. PATRICK MADRID, has a program on RELEVANT RADIO, he's a big trump supporter, JOHN MARTIGNONI, OF the BIBLE CHRISTIAN SOCIETY, another big trump supporter EWTN and THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER ALL SUPPORT TRUMP.
And there's a lot more, and you're right you never hear any of this from the pulpit.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do the offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Seem to remember reading one article talking about how those walls for the Vatican were built way back when Muslim invaders were a concern. I don't know if that has any relation to things going on today, but worth a mention. :)
Well, it has always seemed to me that a good number of my ancestors figured that out back in the 16th century. My other-side-of-the-Reformation relatives, of this day and age, attend mass via Zoom and took the jabs because Pope Francis told them to "do it for love." The protestant relatives took the jabs, too, and some of them even went for Nazi-level Jab Crow. Lots of funerals and lots of conversations about doctors visits and tests and "baffling" conditions.
We live in a world where the left and their controlled institutions conduct rituals to reassure the public that the people who allowed the fire are the ones best suited to describe the smoke.
'Twas always thus, even long before our wise founders drafted a document designed to protect our rights from the grasp of evil government, then gave that very same government the power to interpret and enforce that document.
When you consider the scale of resources they've enlisted, Ryan, it boggles the mind.
The entire MSM, NGO's, legislators, etc. Trillions.
Also, if you happen to see thru the matrix, you'll be deplatformed. Keep going to work and buying shit to support the captured, corporatist capitalism system.
A lot of churches are corrupt as hell. Locally, we currently have a Seventh Day Adventist organization with multiple churches in town all of which are predominently Mexican and continue to sponsor as many people as they can to keep bums on seats and their own income stream going. They also host big events for the 'disadvantaged'. I'm not going to argue with free dental for the poor, but I'm sure it is not entirely altruistic on their part as it brings more money and people to their churches.
When I lived in Sacramento, the local Russian churches did much the same thing. They finally got a bit of scrutiny after a few high-profile domestic incidents within their community involving fathers mass killing their children/families, and that is how it came out that they were bringing over pretty much just anyone with a pulse for the money.
I certainly don't doubt the Catholic Churches in the area are in on it too.
And dozens if not hundreds of other “religious” orgs and churches. The Lutherans are still hard at work protecting illegals whom they helped usher into the US, and getting paid handsomely for it by the gullible and virtue-signalers, and of course, taxpayers.
Most Catholics know, they beg and grovel and promise that they really are just supporting local charity now when they ask for donations at Church, because Catholic donations have dropped so much once word got out.
Not to belabor the points made here, but at least one Catholic needs to stand up for her faith (raises hand). We are the Church. “Jesus Christ did not say, ‘come to me you that are free from faults,’ but ‘come to me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.’ To affect this union was the goal of his life and Passion. Knowing our weakness as he did, the greatness of his love caused him to leave us the sovereign remedy.” —Ven. Catherine McAuley, foundress Sisters of Mercy. Ergo, the church is earthly, human and flawed. Christ gave us a better way, it’s ours to use.
This was my point about how those DOGE autists striding into wasteful government offices and saving $2tn per year was doomed to be little more than farcical theater. It was staggeringly naïve about the real nature of the problem.
The opening salvo must be an immediate and absolute cessation of *all* government cash transfers to corporate entities (including states and cities). The federal government was *never* intended to be an ATM and this is exactly why.
Of course, that’s never going to happen and collapse is now the only available outcome.
And don’t think the shocking refusal to pass the SAVE act is coincidental and unrelated.
While DOGE may have been a forlorn hope, it was instrumental in revealing the scope and specifics about the waste, fraud and abuse that exists in our government spending.
We all knew it was there, but in a vague and untutored way; did we have any idea that it was HALF of government spending?
All necessary steps in learning how to rein in the behemoth, if we can ever do that before they collapse our civilization.
That's where I am with Trump. But I still question if the rift between Elon and Trump was real. I would go work for the Feds for free if they let DOGE rip through the waste and fraud in SS and Medicare and permitted me to help stop the blatant theft.
I think the feud was a thing to get people to stop firebombing Tesla dealerships (and the occasional Tesla owner). It had no effect on DOGE, which is still going. They've just learned not to attract press/Democrat attention. Unfortunately, a lot of people, even ones who know better, think if something wasn't on TV it didn't happen.
Ryan, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Trump. That said, I'm glad you voted for him 3 times and hope you will delve a little deeper into his true personality :-)
I get whay your saying. And i think hes often misunderstood- especially when it comes to thinking forward. Like it just amazes me people still don't get why he takes the most extreme positions while negotiating to eventually get what he wants. It's so obviously "The Art of the Deal" it's not even worth explaining to people.
He was NEEDED. If not him, then who?
I just think so much more could've been accomplished with DOGE.
That's my point. We are lucky to have Trump. I support him and think he was the right medicine, at the last possible moment, before we irrevocably slipped into totalitarianism.
I will forever be grateful...but I still think it's healthy to be critical of him when warranted, lest we fall into the same close mindedness trap of the left.
I’m not so sure DOGE is completely gone. I continue to see some of the old names come up. Probably consulting under the radar so the crazies will stop playing with matches.
It seems to me the ‘divide’ that happened was staged. There is no divide between Trump and Elon. They are both trying to save the nation, but in order to do what they’re doing without leaks, they had to manufacture a break. And the media fell for it. And loved it.
DOGE ran for as long as the clock would let it, the Musk feud had no import. Any longer, and Musk would have had to be submitted to the Senate for consent, which you know would never have been granted.
I was a huge Trump supporter. I finally took the red pill about a year ago and realized what a horror show he has turned out to be. I do not doubt that he will be viewed in history as one of the worst presidents ever. The long-term damage from his executive orders showing future presidents how to run the USA as a dictator will be immense; it is worse than what the deplorable Democrats were doing. Then there is the diplomatic trick of turning the entire world against us; and the list goes on He will leave us in an incredible mess.
Trump fell for convid, lockdowns and jabs. He's never going to get past that 10,000 foot tall granite elephant smack on the timeline. Amazingly, the alternative we had for executive leadership was worse. God help us.
Well done as always, and spot on target. We indeed cannot be cynical enough. This is the real world massive-scale version of the 2003 Swedish movie “Kopps” where a small town police force starts committing crimes to justify its existence. Of course AI describes the film as a parody of police action movies. Me thinks it had more in mind than that. Do we as a population have the will to demo this rotting hulk? Nah, no time, need to check TikTok. I agree with other commenters here that you can say what you like about Trump’s character flaws, but none of this would have come to light any time soon otherwise.
At least DOGE showed us the magnitude of the problem. I was appalled, after being harassed by the IRS, that there are almost no financial controls on most of government and associated NGOs. Billions, perhaps trillions, go missing and unaccounted for while the IRS is trying to deny me a $420 deduction. It's beyond bizarre.
We all rant about the crooked and inept politicians who facilitate this graft, yet these pols are supposed to be answerable to their constituents. IOW, the voters -- especially those in CA -- are really the ones to blame. They will selfishly vote for anyone who promises them "free stuff", services, or just pledges to extract a "fair share" from those billionaires who dared to be successful and who are already picking up the check for the insane largess.
The ballot initiative to confiscate private capital has over 50% support and will no doubt pass in November, along with a new governor in Tom Styer who looks to be even more dangerous than Newsom. While billed as a "one-time" tax, we all know how that story ends. Meanwhile the billionaires themselves are boarding their private jets and getting out of town. Robbing the rich (even if the poor get nothing) isn't a viable strategy once there are no rich left to rob.
Which perfectly aligns with the Left's 6 decade-old strategy to hollow out the politically independent and self-sufficient middle class and replace them with a permanent underclass forever dependent upon government handouts -- and the party who will provide them. The Biden Invasion was simply the next step in the process.
Remember LBJ's private remark when launching the so-called "Great Society":
"We'll have those ni***rs voting Democrat for the next hundred years"
And when it happens they will all be asking, "what went wrong?"
That's why, after 27 years, we are checking out of the CA asylum for good. Before November, so we can watch the collapse progress and laugh from a safe distance.
Historically, the constitution was written specifically to PREVENT public money from being cannoned out for private purposes. But you cannot forestall entropy or domesticate locusts. Anything that COULD be done WILL be done.
Once you reach a critical mass of enough voters who benefit (or at least believe they do) from government sourced funding, there is no turning back the tide at the ballot box. Rather, it will only continue to grow until the entire system collapses.
My guess is the SAVE act will never even hit the floor. The only outcome is what has happened to all Empires throughout history. They collapse under the weight of politics.
It's kind of impressive to me what a shitheel Thune turned out to be. We have a bill with 80+% support from the public, including over 70% of Democrat voters, but it's a kill shot to the Uniparty so it's going to die.
Secession or civil war? Congress & the courts can't stop these shenanigans. The congress critters rant & rave about the latest fraud, then run off to their next fundraiser.
I don’t know enough about economics to comment intelligently but my question is this. Isn’t the bottom source of all this money the taxes the citizens pay? If so, isn’t it time to just turn the spigot off? How else does the common man stop this massive problem? Our own government is in on the steal.
Yes they at least realized the symbiotic relationship between the host and the parasite. Politicians being many (poly) ticks can only suck until they burst.
Taxes, yes, but also federal government borrowing and monetary policy. The reason your groceries cost twice as much as they did ten years ago is in large part due to that "value" being created out of nothing and US Treasury checks being cut to the grifters.
As you probably know, but what is little realized, is the Federal government spends a third more every year than it takes in in tax revenue. The rest is paid with debt created by the Treasury and supported by the Federal Reserve (and bought by the Federal Reserve). So, for whatever we pay in taxes we're probably paying about a third more in the form of inflation. Without this, we'd probably have a slight increase in purchasing power each year.
Right, someone is getting a check that any bank will happily cash, and only 2/3rds of that check was paid for by anyone on the other side of the chain. The rest is new money chasing scarce resources.
I've been waiting with much anticipation for you to pen this essay. You're not only over the target, but you're taking a dump on it in broad daylight! I'm 63, my wife and I are the last two years of the boomers and it embarrasses the sh*t out of us. Our entire lives have been lived during our slow decline, from the 1960's protests (we were too young to participate), Viet Nam, the explosion of illicit drug use, Watergate, the 1980's (the best decade of humanity for a host of reasons!), RTC, Enron, Y2K, 2000-2008 housing boom/bust, Great Recession, and the explosion of unbridled government growth, corruption, and $40T in debt/insolvency. All this sh*t happened under our watch. The two of us are running out of years, but there may be time for our kids and grandkids if drastic action is taken immediately. Ben Franklin warned, "a republic if you can keep it." Well, for all intents and purposes, we've slowly lost the republic and the U.S. is about to go suddenly bankrupt. You mentioned that we are not constitutionally equipped to handled this, and I agree. The question now is: Do we act unconstitutionally to save the constitution? And I think the answer is likely, YES! And it happens to be our duty as written in the declaration of independence. Is it time for a prescribed (Bukele-like) martial law scenario that lasts say exactly two or four years to clean all the rats out of the cellar through a couple of highly scrutinized election cycles until the cesspool is significantly free of fecal matter? I think so. Don't get me wrong, this is the last thing I want to see happen, but as a husband, father, and grandfather, I think intellectual and cultural sobriety has convinced me that this may be our only existential chess move. Can it be accomplished in 2-4 years? I think so. Is it going to suck. I'm quite certain. Must it be done now and must it be done by the electorate and a civilian-led military? Again, I think so. If not now, when? If not us, who? One thing I've learned over my years, especially since social media has erupted, is that many of us have powerful opinions until the work starts. But once the work starts, the rats show themselves and they make easy targets. Thank you for your work, bad cat.
Did you ever notice that despite the hundreds of words in the Constitution forbidding the government from violating enumerated rights, and restrictions on exercising non-delegated powers, there is not a single word prescribing punishment for government officers who violate them anyway? (Yeah, there's mere removal from office, but that's far short of actual just punishment.)
I'm good with at least 3 (possibly all 5) of the last 5 of the10 commandments. I can imagine a much better rat-free world without murder, theft, coveting, and a beautiful world if we added lying and adultery to the list. Death penalty for all premeditated murder; 3-5 year imprisonment for 1st offense of theft/life imprisonment to a work camp for all offenses thereafter including a free voluntary death by starvation/dehydration at any time; Coveting carries the same penalty as theft because this would rid the world of the demonic far Left & Marxists once and for all; and how about a conspicuous tattoo or brand that identifies all 3x adult liars and 2x adulterers? Seems simple and effective to me.
The USG tried to lead by example, inviting DOGE into the inner sanctums of several Rube Goldberg bureaucracies.... Aside from catching the (admittedly enormous) USAID catfish, the program was discredited, and the practitioners were vilified.
The states participating in federal and state level fraud have even less incentive to investigate much less curtail the activities; as you say, a system is what it does.
The most black pilling experience of these last 7 years has been the ultimate, final realization that tens of millions of my erstwhile American (and Western) compatriots are in fact criminally incurious, lazy, and made of hate and envy.
Shirley has found more fraud than DOGE (is this organization still up and running because I haven't heard about them in a long time) and wtf is the FBI's job? And where's Ray Epps while I am at it.....geeeeze
DOGE was specifically focused on federal govt issues. Each fed dept now has its own DOGE arm. Nick Shirley found tons of HHS related fraud, and HHS is moving on those, and also in CA and other states. Big data analysis and AI are going to make this a lot easier to spot - but the feds must want to do it. They haven't before.
An enormous contribution the early DOGE under Elon Musk made was to require that every invoice specify which govt line item it was funded under, and what the money was used for. Treasury used to just pay out every single invoice, no questions asked! A recipe for fraud and lack of auditability and budget overruns. No doubt intentional.
Thank you...I just hope they are still moving forward on all this- and people will be held accountable but I won't hold my breath about this...it's way too deep!
Yup. There was a recent minor story about how five of the "Seditious Six" Democrats were professionally trained by paid color revolution operators on how to try and incite the military to oust and/or kill Trump. (This is why, by the way, the left can't stop screeching incoherently about Pete Hegseth - he's literally the one standing in their way on this plan). Patel and Bondi did all the paperwork but it went to a DC grand jury who said "it's (D)ifferent" and refused to indict.
Once upon a time our nation was filled with the notion that good people had Ethics, Integrity, Honor. It was the goal to be a "Man of your word."
Social pressure was enough to keep many from straying too far....the public backlash against an elected official for wrongdoing was their undoing, giving reasonable doubt room to be effective.
It was unethical dishonorable persons who discovered the legal phrase Plausible Deniability. JMO
how do I get in on that gig? All I see on indeed are jobs to stock shelves full of Nike shoes. There isn’t a single gig to smash the plate glass window and take them home.
Indeed is not the place to be looking. The ad is in the back of those 'Independent Weekly' papers in every city of any size. Every week there will be a couple of ads to 'Be an Activist/Community Organizer/Make a Difference'. They always pay more than most jobs in an area. I used to think they were just for taking opinion polls or manning petition booths, but I'm pretty sure now they are also conduits for paid protestors, etc.
I dunno. But, I have a disproportionate RAGE about this scheme, despite all the other nonsense, because they have stoked hate...and honestly are making some people actually raaaaaacist.
Its hard to blame them after 50 years of reverse racism.
It makes sense that NGO’s are a tumor growing on government. They are the same cells with different machinery, and much like government they make the problems they are allegedly solving worse.
"the incentives that arise from this are entirely perverse: solutions = unemployment and ongoing, worsening, or hideously overstated risks, threats, and problems provide job security and bales of cash."
This is such a sad truth. It's a counterintuitive nightmare. The more money and effort you throw at a problem the worse it gets. And we see it played out time and time again in all manner of things.
Do users of Chapstick have drier lips than the rest of the world? Does the moistening actually lead to more of a perception of dryness.
Why do homeless people who never shower seem to have more hair than those that shampoo and condition the sam kinneson out of their hair?
Why is it that we just happened to have a "pandemic" on the tail end of another simulated pandemic event?
If true, everything that has been alleged about SPLC is very, very bad news for them. But the worst, and easiest to prove unambiguously, is their violation of about a billion banking laws. They lied to federally chartered banks when they set up the accounts that were used to funnel money to their 'informants.' They're not squeaking out of this in front of an easily buffaloed jury in a county courthouse in Alabama.
SPLC located in Montgomery as a giant middle finger to the ‘haters’ they claimed to be combatting, so the fact that means they have to face a jury empaneled there is pretty sweet. But it’s also better for us that they are accused of federal crimes, not state or civil matters.
Given it's slowly been coming out that the reason nobody's going to jail is because DC grand juries keep saying "it's (D)ifferent", the fact that there's an indictment at all is a huge win.
Best fantasy ever: "we the experts empanelled to study this problem have determined that it is not, in fact, a problem. please accept the return of the remainder of our budget and put it to more useful ends.” My dad taught at a graduate school of social work. I remember him saying the problem with programs is that when someone's mortgage payment became attached to the problem, there was no incentive to a solution. This now sounds quaint. Right before he retired the modest building became a modern big giant to better produce those who will profit off the financialization of suffering.
I remember reading a Readers Digest article over 40 years ago on the subject of nonprofits who had reached their goals, needing to scramble to move the goalposts to remain relevant. (Seen any polio epidemics recently? Yet March of Dimes still around! MADD got all the state BACs lowered? Still around!)
He claimed that of all the nonprofits he studied, there were only two honest enough to dissolve themselves once their goals had been achieved. I don't remember one of them, but the other was CEPTIA -- the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America.
Are you old enough to remember pay toilets? They were a real thing. I was a minor contributor to this organization when I was a college student, and it's one of the few times I've been on the winning side.
When NGOs didn't and couldn't get tax funding. Since there's no going back to that state of affairs, the way forward that is (according to my chickens) to tax NGOs the same way you do a company: money donated no matter by who or whom or even a whole host of whoms counts as income from business.
(Translate that into relevant legalese as per your own nation a/o state at your leisure.)
Suddenly, it becomes unprofitable to run NGOs as nudging-operations, as well as as grift-mills or at all.
I don't know if it is allowed under USA laws and praxis, but it would probably be a good idea to try and do full revisions/audits on the ten or twenty largest NGOs, back-dating it all to say four-five years before Obama was installed. Not realistic maybe, but if the current president won't even try, any successor of his won't either.
And in a twist of irony, this is actually the mechanisms of the free market-concept in action.
Tax money is a resource. Creating an NGO and inveigling it into the state is a way to get at that resource. Reports and "learing centers" and so on is the product/service provided.
That all of it is worse than worthless on a societal scale does not change that all this grift follows capitalist ethics perfectly: the point is after all doing what profits me, now, at the least cost and the least effort and risk.
If state-/party-sponsored race grifting is that "what", then that's what the market will deliver.
Make it unprofitable, and the market will shift away from it.
The loophole here is that NGOs are specifically forbidden to spend money on partisan causes, but they apparently are not forbidden to regrant it to other organizations that do. (Or, if it is forbidden, it's impossible to enforce.)
Strangely, the IRS has no problem identifying and penalizing YOU heavily if you move money from your IRAs, MSAs, etc. into other accounts that are NOT of exactly the same type, but apparently the fedguv is incapable of doing this with NGOs.
I'm guessing the re-granting schtick is done in a circular fashion until "expenses" has eaten up what was granted in the first place, with the same names appearing over and over again in whatever sub-org was granted a sub-grant.
That is explicitly illegal to do here too and would render the guilty party something like 6-8 in max sec prison, esp. if it was government money stolen this way.
Unless the Socialist Democrat party and/or their cronies were involved - when it's them, the law stops working.
I'm afraid this NGO-fraud situation will ultimately be used to create even more co-operation between state/federal and banks so that the banks become a de facto enforcer of laws and regs intended againswt organised crime, but instead used against political opposition.
De-banking and being locked out of e-services is a real thing in the EU, and it all started with the excuse/reason of the measures being set up to fight drug smugglers, traffickers and such.
No... what you describe works to line the pockets of the people running the organizations, but in this case the organizations are specifically set up to route huge amounts of tax money into partian warchests. So people take their cut, yes, but the aim is to deliver most of it to the street armies of a political party.
Fuckers figured out the money fountain and frolicked in it.
I remember reading articles about Morris Dees turning rotten and that was a long time ago already. No wonder the resistance in the DOJ has been hanging on with a vengeance. Whole superstructure ready to crash.
On several occasions, Joe Biden claimed that white national supremacists were the greatest terrorist threat to the USA. I believe that moron believed it. This SPLC fraud makes it clear where that bullshit came from.
>SB1380, “housing first” passed in 2016. it was supposed to be a landmark public private NGO partnership to “solve” homelessness and create “no judgment” housing with non-profits as the operational layer.
You want to solve any problem in life you gotta render judgment.
But long before "no judgment" re the homeless, we had that no-judgment model everyone loves so much--the "powerless over alcohol" mantra where everyone got to sit in the coffee-and-cigarettes-reeking room sharing the worst things they did to themselves and their loved ones and everyone nodding in recognition because they were all so powerless until they surrendered to the Lord, or something. That was the Original Sin operating model.
You have an interesting observation regarding AA. I attended their meetings about 20 years ago while waiting for a spot to open up in my county's Alcohol & Drug Council therapy program. What I couldn't accept was that I could lay off my responsibility for drinking on some "Higher Power" who gave a crap whether I drank or not! I'm not nearly so arrogant as to believe there isn't a higher power, but my understanding has always been He's more likely to help those who help themselves. I never did figure out if it's a literal or figurative disease; I just wanted it to stop. It did when I committed fully to being sober and kept the promises I made. The other thing that seemed dishonest about AA to me was its claim of not being a religion. Proponents exhibited a degree of religious fervor that was cult-like. It works for some so I don't crusade against it, but it certainly wasn't for me.
The Soviets were largely inspired by that model in their public confessionals, where people would fall into paroxysms of guilt and confess their "counter-revolutionary bourgeois thoughts".
The feminists of the 1960s and 1970s picked up the same practice, as did the various left-wing groups, with race, sexual preferences and climate/consumer related stuff tacked on from the 1990s onwards.
Currently the fad is confessing - via social media of course - your sins against the Climate:
"Oh I feel so ashamed but it was my niece's wedding and they had booked it in Pattaya in Thailand and I just had to attend, so I had to fly, but I'll compensate by buying only eco-friendly vegan justice-marked produce for a month!"
Misanthropy is dangerous, but I just can't quit the habit.
Jörmungandr the Midgård Serpent is a force of evil, but it's not tempter, just a monster encircling the world at the bottom of the ocean. Quite different from the Biblical serpent.
(On the other hand, the name of the Norn Skuld means "future" or "that which is yet to come" as well as "guilt". Different, since rather than guilt-tripping you for some kind of "sin", it is instead a warning that you /might/ be fated or Doomed to commit some action or other you'd rather not have to.)
And the name "Jörmungandr" is a kenning, made up out of an archaic word for something enormous (Jörmun-) while -gand(r) means staff, rod, snake, penis, mast, river plus some more words for elongated things. The (r) is the definite article.
This also why Gand-alf is called that: "Stave-elf".
I have sometimes wondered why snakes, adders, serpents, asps, wyrms, et al were made into "evil" animals. Neither Celt nor Greek nor Japanese or [insert list of ten thousand African tribes] proclaimed the serpent evil.
Not even the Norse considered the snake ("orm") evil; it was an instrument of Fate/Doom and of the justice of the Aesir (Oden puts a venom-spewing snake above Loke after the latter has been fettered to a rock using the guts of his child as ropes, as punishment for the murder of Balder), as well as for fertility and healing.
Jörmungandr the Midgård Serpent is a force of evil, but it's not tempter, just a monster encircling the world at the bottom of the ocean. Quite different from the Biblical serpent.
(On the other hand, the name of the Norn Skuld means "future" or "that which is yet to come" as well as "guilt". Different, since rather than guilt-tripping you for some kind of "sin", it is instead a warning that you /might/ be fated or Doomed to commit some action or other you'd rather not have to.)
And the name "Jörmungandr" is a kenning, made up out of an archaic word for something enormous (Jörmun-) while -gand(r) means staff, rod, snake, penis, mast, river plus some more words for elongated things. The (r) is the definite article.
This also why Gand-alf is called that: "Stave-elf".
I have sometimes wondered why snakes, adders, serpents, asps, wyrms, et al were made into "evil" animals. Neither Celt nor Greek nor Japanese or [insert list of ten thousand African tribes] proclaimed the serpent evil.
Not even the Norse considered the snake ("orm") evil; it was an instrument of Fate/Doom and of the justice of the Aesir (Oden puts a venom-spewing snake above Loke after the latter has been fettered to a rock using the guts of his child as ropes, as punishment for the murder of Balder), as well as for fertility and healing.
Here, there was a very strong division between feminists/feminism and women's libe/equal rights-groups.
The former were until the late 1980s/early 1990s the lunatic (and hard core Pol Pot-endorsing) fringe and didn't have a lot of pull or power outside their own circuit.
By the mid-to-late 1990s they had started to become the mainstream, and by 2005 what was in 1975 seen as borderline insane enough to warrant institutionalisation was not just normalised but virtually mandatory as opinion among the feminists, and feminism by then meant everything from "equal pay for equal hours" to "not wanting to sleep with migrant men is racist" to "all men are rapists in spe or de facto and should be castrated after having donated sperm".
Possibly it is a cultural difference. I just remember that as a child I'd always felt resentful of the cultural norm that girls couldn't wear pants to school, you were expected to get married, we were discouraged from playing with Tonka trucks, etc. So when the bra-burning days rolled around, I was all for it, although never participated in any organized way.
In just a few years things got insane, of course, but that seems to be human nature, at least in recent history.
The cult-vibe was definitely real here, esp. up North. Many of the women who joined in the 1970s came from hard-core old school Protestant fundamentalist homes, families belonging to sects started in the 1800s (the kind where they ban the use of zippers because making it easier to take your pants off inivtes sin - real example), and swapped sects more or less.
From Protestant to Communist to Feminist. A woman named Anneli Furmark made a biographical comic about it, and that it was the recognition of the various groups - nominally opposed in ideas and content - using the exact same methods, being organised the same way (charismatic leader using all the gaslighting techniques, guilt-tripping and public shamings, always appealing to scripture and an authority-figure only the leader could correctly interpret, et cetera) that shook her out of all of it, eventually.
Now, finally, feminism is on the way out. The young call it "unsexy" and lame, the migrant-colonists simply ignore it or weaponise it against Swedish women (race trumps gender in the opression-deck of cards), and even some politicians have dared to say that they do not consider themselves feminists, pointing to well-known memes and scenes from the USA; nose-rings, blue hair, weaponised hysteria, the woiks.
The cult-vibe was definitely real here, esp. up North. Many of the women who joined in the 1970s came from hard-core old school Protestant fundamentalist homes, families belonging to sects started in the 1800s (the kind where they ban the use of zippers because making it easier to take your pants off inivtes sin - real example), and swapped sects more or less.
From Protestant to Communist to Feminist. A woman named Anneli Furmark made a biographical comic about it, and that it was the recognition of the various groups - nominally opposed in ideas and content - using the exact same methods, being organised the same way (charismatic leader using all the gaslighting techniques, guilt-tripping and public shamings, always appealing to scripture and an authority-figure only the leader could correctly interpret, et cetera) that shook her out of all of it, eventually.
Now, finally, feminism is on the way out. The young call it "unsexy" and lame, the migrant-colonists simply ignore it or weaponise it against Swedish women (race trumps gender in the opression-deck of cards), and even some politicians have dared to say that they do not consider themselves feminists, pointing to well-known memes and scenes from the USA; nose-rings, blue hair, weaponised hysteria, the woiks.
Most attractive of the genres are the #MeToo confessionals, because they work in more venues than any other -- from group therapy sessions to strip clubs.
Add Catholic Charities to the corrupt NGO list.
As a Catholic, I approve this message. It is true. The Lutheran Charities as well.
IIRC, both were/are also involved in illegal immigration.
Don't you just love the pope preaching to us about compassion with immigrants while he sits behind his 40 ft walls with perhaps the most extreme security on earth?!
The catholic church has become a joke.
A friend of mine is distraught over this. But I heard Bishop Barron (quoting, I think, Fulton Sheen) say that sin came into the Church with Peter. I came back to the Church trying to figure out my son's Neo-Marxist and postmodern views. As God has a sense of humor and knows how cynical I am, it was through quips from non-believers such as Camille Paglia, David Berlinski, and F.A. Hayek that provided the bread crumbs back. That someone six years ago would tell me I'd be doing the rosary every day or meeting with a Dominican friar to discuss philosophy (Marxism and postmodernism), I would've said they were insane. Now I am at peace but as still a curmudgeon.
I think that, and the isolation of "work from home", are why young people, especially genZ, are going back to church.
BUT I can tell you this:
Christians have a lot of soul searching to do for their behavior (and lack of action) during the scamdemic. Yet, you don't hear any Church leaders reflecting on that and "confronting" their congregations in their sermons.
Why? Because Its the same craven leadership that encouraged their followers to excuse their behavior.
I mean, after all, the only Bible verse Christians needed in order to know how to conduct themselves, just happened to be, perhaps, the most recognizable of all passages:
2 Timothy 1:7
"God has not given us a spirit of fear but rather of power, love and a sound mind."
That alone should've been their guiding principle
I took the friar to task for the horrendous response. We had a candid conversation that the Churches that opposed mandates were often rooted in a fellowship model. I can tell there was a lot of tension in the Church. There is one irascible nun who grew up Jewish, became Protestant and then a nun. She is a force to be reckoned with.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
I think most pastors have taken a "let's sweep this under the rug" attitude towards what went on during 'VID. I fear, like 9/11, people will either forget or it will be generationally forgotten. I mean, did you ever have "NYC elects Muslim Mayor" on your Bingo card?
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do the offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
I agree with you 💯 % and a lot of catholics voted for trump, no matter what they say they are single issue voters. ABORTION was the only issue they cared about, trump said he was pro life and went to the MARCH FOR LIFE, and said he would repeal ROE V WADE, that's all they cared about. They excused all his criminality and immorality. There is a MOTHER MIRIAM, a catholic ““ nun”” who has a youtube channel and prays novenas for trump. PATRICK MADRID, has a program on RELEVANT RADIO, he's a big trump supporter, JOHN MARTIGNONI, OF the BIBLE CHRISTIAN SOCIETY, another big trump supporter EWTN and THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER ALL SUPPORT TRUMP.
And there's a lot more, and you're right you never hear any of this from the pulpit.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do the offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Back during colonial times the preachers were shouting revolution from the pulpits. They were some of the strongest advocates for rebellion. Many joined the ranks to fight.
What do they offer now? Rainbows and skittle shitting Unicorns.
Seem to remember reading one article talking about how those walls for the Vatican were built way back when Muslim invaders were a concern. I don't know if that has any relation to things going on today, but worth a mention. :)
Well, it has always seemed to me that a good number of my ancestors figured that out back in the 16th century. My other-side-of-the-Reformation relatives, of this day and age, attend mass via Zoom and took the jabs because Pope Francis told them to "do it for love." The protestant relatives took the jabs, too, and some of them even went for Nazi-level Jab Crow. Lots of funerals and lots of conversations about doctors visits and tests and "baffling" conditions.
I'm a faithful practicing Catholic, and completely agree!
The Unitarian Lutherans, yes. It's a non-stop battle to keep the LCMS on -task. Mainly because of a cohort of the wahmen and gullible boomer men.
You gotta love it.
We live in a world where the left and their controlled institutions conduct rituals to reassure the public that the people who allowed the fire are the ones best suited to describe the smoke.
It's all narrative maintenance.
They covet anything and everything. 😡 entitled.
'Twas always thus, even long before our wise founders drafted a document designed to protect our rights from the grasp of evil government, then gave that very same government the power to interpret and enforce that document.
What could go wrong.
When you consider the scale of resources they've enlisted, Ryan, it boggles the mind.
The entire MSM, NGO's, legislators, etc. Trillions.
Also, if you happen to see thru the matrix, you'll be deplatformed. Keep going to work and buying shit to support the captured, corporatist capitalism system.
They received almost $3,000 for every illegal they brought here.
If you see the popemobile pull up in front of your house, take cover.
Thanks for the heads up ;-)
Honestly, I think Private Equity should see the opportunity here.
Buy a bunch or fraudulent companies, roll them up, throw some debt on it and collect management fees.
How quintessentially American would that be?
The Democrats would be interested.
A lot of churches are corrupt as hell. Locally, we currently have a Seventh Day Adventist organization with multiple churches in town all of which are predominently Mexican and continue to sponsor as many people as they can to keep bums on seats and their own income stream going. They also host big events for the 'disadvantaged'. I'm not going to argue with free dental for the poor, but I'm sure it is not entirely altruistic on their part as it brings more money and people to their churches.
When I lived in Sacramento, the local Russian churches did much the same thing. They finally got a bit of scrutiny after a few high-profile domestic incidents within their community involving fathers mass killing their children/families, and that is how it came out that they were bringing over pretty much just anyone with a pulse for the money.
I certainly don't doubt the Catholic Churches in the area are in on it too.
Yep. Tons of illegal alien stuff. Ditto Caritas.
And dozens if not hundreds of other “religious” orgs and churches. The Lutherans are still hard at work protecting illegals whom they helped usher into the US, and getting paid handsomely for it by the gullible and virtue-signalers, and of course, taxpayers.
Most Catholics know, they beg and grovel and promise that they really are just supporting local charity now when they ask for donations at Church, because Catholic donations have dropped so much once word got out.
Not to belabor the points made here, but at least one Catholic needs to stand up for her faith (raises hand). We are the Church. “Jesus Christ did not say, ‘come to me you that are free from faults,’ but ‘come to me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.’ To affect this union was the goal of his life and Passion. Knowing our weakness as he did, the greatness of his love caused him to leave us the sovereign remedy.” —Ven. Catherine McAuley, foundress Sisters of Mercy. Ergo, the church is earthly, human and flawed. Christ gave us a better way, it’s ours to use.
This was my point about how those DOGE autists striding into wasteful government offices and saving $2tn per year was doomed to be little more than farcical theater. It was staggeringly naïve about the real nature of the problem.
The opening salvo must be an immediate and absolute cessation of *all* government cash transfers to corporate entities (including states and cities). The federal government was *never* intended to be an ATM and this is exactly why.
Of course, that’s never going to happen and collapse is now the only available outcome.
And don’t think the shocking refusal to pass the SAVE act is coincidental and unrelated.
While DOGE may have been a forlorn hope, it was instrumental in revealing the scope and specifics about the waste, fraud and abuse that exists in our government spending.
We all knew it was there, but in a vague and untutored way; did we have any idea that it was HALF of government spending?
All necessary steps in learning how to rein in the behemoth, if we can ever do that before they collapse our civilization.
DOGE requires a level of all in commitment that we simply have not reached yet.
Yeah, but Trump let his ego get in the way.
I never had a doubt he would alienate Elon and his crack crew.
Once in a generation opportunity lost because he just couldn't stand sharing the limelight.
That said I still voted for him 3 times...and don't regret it at all.
From DOGE came Nick Shirley, and from him we have the immortal “Learing Center.”
Yup. And now CA is trying to pass a law to make illegal to uncover government fraud!
Plus that poor guy has been doxxed relentlessly and had dozens of death threats for doing the right thing!
That is the state of affairs. Astonishing!
That's where I am with Trump. But I still question if the rift between Elon and Trump was real. I would go work for the Feds for free if they let DOGE rip through the waste and fraud in SS and Medicare and permitted me to help stop the blatant theft.
I think the feud was a thing to get people to stop firebombing Tesla dealerships (and the occasional Tesla owner). It had no effect on DOGE, which is still going. They've just learned not to attract press/Democrat attention. Unfortunately, a lot of people, even ones who know better, think if something wasn't on TV it didn't happen.
I would work for them for free just to heckle the bureaucrats!
Ryan, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Trump. That said, I'm glad you voted for him 3 times and hope you will delve a little deeper into his true personality :-)
I get whay your saying. And i think hes often misunderstood- especially when it comes to thinking forward. Like it just amazes me people still don't get why he takes the most extreme positions while negotiating to eventually get what he wants. It's so obviously "The Art of the Deal" it's not even worth explaining to people.
He was NEEDED. If not him, then who?
I just think so much more could've been accomplished with DOGE.
That's my point. We are lucky to have Trump. I support him and think he was the right medicine, at the last possible moment, before we irrevocably slipped into totalitarianism.
I will forever be grateful...but I still think it's healthy to be critical of him when warranted, lest we fall into the same close mindedness trap of the left.
I’m not so sure DOGE is completely gone. I continue to see some of the old names come up. Probably consulting under the radar so the crazies will stop playing with matches.
I hope.
And more than anything I hope JD gets 2 terms on the heels of Trump.
The "house" was filthy. It was way past time to take the trash out.
Hopefully JD can complete the job.
I hope he runs with Rubio.
That’s what I see.
It seems to me the ‘divide’ that happened was staged. There is no divide between Trump and Elon. They are both trying to save the nation, but in order to do what they’re doing without leaks, they had to manufacture a break. And the media fell for it. And loved it.
DOGE ran for as long as the clock would let it, the Musk feud had no import. Any longer, and Musk would have had to be submitted to the Senate for consent, which you know would never have been granted.
I was a huge Trump supporter. I finally took the red pill about a year ago and realized what a horror show he has turned out to be. I do not doubt that he will be viewed in history as one of the worst presidents ever. The long-term damage from his executive orders showing future presidents how to run the USA as a dictator will be immense; it is worse than what the deplorable Democrats were doing. Then there is the diplomatic trick of turning the entire world against us; and the list goes on He will leave us in an incredible mess.
Donald Trump didn't invent running the country by executive order. That would be one Barack Hussein Obama, Mmm Mmm Mmm.
Worse than the Democrats? Here; I’m laughing at you. 😂
Trump fell for convid, lockdowns and jabs. He's never going to get past that 10,000 foot tall granite elephant smack on the timeline. Amazingly, the alternative we had for executive leadership was worse. God help us.
Well done as always, and spot on target. We indeed cannot be cynical enough. This is the real world massive-scale version of the 2003 Swedish movie “Kopps” where a small town police force starts committing crimes to justify its existence. Of course AI describes the film as a parody of police action movies. Me thinks it had more in mind than that. Do we as a population have the will to demo this rotting hulk? Nah, no time, need to check TikTok. I agree with other commenters here that you can say what you like about Trump’s character flaws, but none of this would have come to light any time soon otherwise.
I don’t think it was real. Manufactured for many reasons.
I think DOGE did some permanent good by getting quite a few of the computer system talking to each other behind the scenes.
🎯
Probably too late.
At least DOGE showed us the magnitude of the problem. I was appalled, after being harassed by the IRS, that there are almost no financial controls on most of government and associated NGOs. Billions, perhaps trillions, go missing and unaccounted for while the IRS is trying to deny me a $420 deduction. It's beyond bizarre.
EVERY corner of government is incapable and hypocritical about it. Every one.
"Man who accidentally left 300,000 guns for Taliban lectures Americans on gun control."
Well said. I scrapped my comment after reading yours.
Kudos
Thirded. Don't just turn off the spigot, thread a pipe plug into the feed line.
We all rant about the crooked and inept politicians who facilitate this graft, yet these pols are supposed to be answerable to their constituents. IOW, the voters -- especially those in CA -- are really the ones to blame. They will selfishly vote for anyone who promises them "free stuff", services, or just pledges to extract a "fair share" from those billionaires who dared to be successful and who are already picking up the check for the insane largess.
The ballot initiative to confiscate private capital has over 50% support and will no doubt pass in November, along with a new governor in Tom Styer who looks to be even more dangerous than Newsom. While billed as a "one-time" tax, we all know how that story ends. Meanwhile the billionaires themselves are boarding their private jets and getting out of town. Robbing the rich (even if the poor get nothing) isn't a viable strategy once there are no rich left to rob.
in a society with more takers than makers, direct democracy is a WMD.
Which perfectly aligns with the Left's 6 decade-old strategy to hollow out the politically independent and self-sufficient middle class and replace them with a permanent underclass forever dependent upon government handouts -- and the party who will provide them. The Biden Invasion was simply the next step in the process.
Remember LBJ's private remark when launching the so-called "Great Society":
"We'll have those ni***rs voting Democrat for the next hundred years"
Game. Set. Match.
That's why they call it "our democracy". It's theirs, not yours or mine.
Mass suffrage was a pandoras box that I wished were never opened. (Anyone that can recommend a good source on the reasoning to extend voting rights?)
That's why voting rights need to be replaced with voting privilege. So you want to vote? Earn it.
For a start
- Have served in the military
- Live with your Wife and have kids
- No financial aid (during last 10 years?)
- Own the house you live in
- Can't work for the state
- Can present an ID card
Though with how many people there is that's dependent on maintaining the status quo I lack the imagination to see how this can be resolved peacefully.
That’s why collapse is baked in. Not if, but when.
And when it happens they will all be asking, "what went wrong?"
That's why, after 27 years, we are checking out of the CA asylum for good. Before November, so we can watch the collapse progress and laugh from a safe distance.
Historically, the constitution was written specifically to PREVENT public money from being cannoned out for private purposes. But you cannot forestall entropy or domesticate locusts. Anything that COULD be done WILL be done.
Once you reach a critical mass of enough voters who benefit (or at least believe they do) from government sourced funding, there is no turning back the tide at the ballot box. Rather, it will only continue to grow until the entire system collapses.
California is already staring into that abyss.
My guess is the SAVE act will never even hit the floor. The only outcome is what has happened to all Empires throughout history. They collapse under the weight of politics.
Perhaps we should get motivated by the brave people in Ireland?
The Irish have perhaps reached a greater degree of frustration and despair...
Yeah, but we need to take a page out of their book...cuz we're heading that way in many states
It's kind of impressive to me what a shitheel Thune turned out to be. We have a bill with 80+% support from the public, including over 70% of Democrat voters, but it's a kill shot to the Uniparty so it's going to die.
Very concise statement. Of course he is Cocaine Mitch’s butt licker and UniParty scum so it’s to be expected.
Collapse will be tough.
Brutal
Secession or civil war? Congress & the courts can't stop these shenanigans. The congress critters rant & rave about the latest fraud, then run off to their next fundraiser.
Wouldn't it be something if we actually had 2 political parties?!
RNC shovels money at RINO Murkowsky to derail MAGA challenger Tschibaka.
Murkowsky speechifies AGAINST the SAVE America Act.
It's all a giant self-licking ice cream cone.
Do you think it's impossible to shame the ones we have? I see lots of bemoaning on this issue but very little organisation and action.
no. they are incapable of shame. we'll eventually have to withdrawal our consent to be governed imo
Once again, Eric Hoffer's observation remains undefeated.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."
I don’t know enough about economics to comment intelligently but my question is this. Isn’t the bottom source of all this money the taxes the citizens pay? If so, isn’t it time to just turn the spigot off? How else does the common man stop this massive problem? Our own government is in on the steal.
if you stop paying taxes they'll send someone to break your legs
Violence works, and that's why the government has a monopoly on it, and use it regularly.
#Ireland 2026
I just want to know what percentage the Mafia was getting. It seems we need to shop around for which organized crime ring will run us the cheapest.
La Cosa Nostra would be a breath of fresh air. I would welcome their limited larceny.
Yes they at least realized the symbiotic relationship between the host and the parasite. Politicians being many (poly) ticks can only suck until they burst.
You clarified my viewpoint immensely. Tx.
Lolol. Exactly.
At least La Cosa Nostra didn't have the force of the law.
Government IS the mafia...and we vote for it.
I swear we pay taxes to fund our own demise.
100% because our government and government funded NGOs (biggest oxymoron of all time), are the mafia.
Let us think of governments as criminals with flags.
--ALAN TURIN, ATTY (July 25, 2002)
Such a simple concept that so many struggle to understand. They prefer to believe government is populated by the Mother Teresa’s among us.
Taxes, yes, but also federal government borrowing and monetary policy. The reason your groceries cost twice as much as they did ten years ago is in large part due to that "value" being created out of nothing and US Treasury checks being cut to the grifters.
As you probably know, but what is little realized, is the Federal government spends a third more every year than it takes in in tax revenue. The rest is paid with debt created by the Treasury and supported by the Federal Reserve (and bought by the Federal Reserve). So, for whatever we pay in taxes we're probably paying about a third more in the form of inflation. Without this, we'd probably have a slight increase in purchasing power each year.
Right, someone is getting a check that any bank will happily cash, and only 2/3rds of that check was paid for by anyone on the other side of the chain. The rest is new money chasing scarce resources.
and whoever gets access to the newly created money first (Wall St.) doesn't see the inflation until much later.
What I’ve said all along. What if 50% of taxpayers earning $100-150k annually just simply didn’t file?
What I’ve said all along. What if 50% of taxpayers earning $100-150k annually just simply didn’t file?
If only anybody could agree to anything all at the same time.
What I’ve said all along. What if 50% of taxpayers earning $100-150k annually just simply didn’t file?
I've been waiting with much anticipation for you to pen this essay. You're not only over the target, but you're taking a dump on it in broad daylight! I'm 63, my wife and I are the last two years of the boomers and it embarrasses the sh*t out of us. Our entire lives have been lived during our slow decline, from the 1960's protests (we were too young to participate), Viet Nam, the explosion of illicit drug use, Watergate, the 1980's (the best decade of humanity for a host of reasons!), RTC, Enron, Y2K, 2000-2008 housing boom/bust, Great Recession, and the explosion of unbridled government growth, corruption, and $40T in debt/insolvency. All this sh*t happened under our watch. The two of us are running out of years, but there may be time for our kids and grandkids if drastic action is taken immediately. Ben Franklin warned, "a republic if you can keep it." Well, for all intents and purposes, we've slowly lost the republic and the U.S. is about to go suddenly bankrupt. You mentioned that we are not constitutionally equipped to handled this, and I agree. The question now is: Do we act unconstitutionally to save the constitution? And I think the answer is likely, YES! And it happens to be our duty as written in the declaration of independence. Is it time for a prescribed (Bukele-like) martial law scenario that lasts say exactly two or four years to clean all the rats out of the cellar through a couple of highly scrutinized election cycles until the cesspool is significantly free of fecal matter? I think so. Don't get me wrong, this is the last thing I want to see happen, but as a husband, father, and grandfather, I think intellectual and cultural sobriety has convinced me that this may be our only existential chess move. Can it be accomplished in 2-4 years? I think so. Is it going to suck. I'm quite certain. Must it be done now and must it be done by the electorate and a civilian-led military? Again, I think so. If not now, when? If not us, who? One thing I've learned over my years, especially since social media has erupted, is that many of us have powerful opinions until the work starts. But once the work starts, the rats show themselves and they make easy targets. Thank you for your work, bad cat.
To dispose of the rat's nest is the easy part.
How to stop history from repeating itself? What rules, with penalty on death should you break them, needs to be carved in stone?
Did you ever notice that despite the hundreds of words in the Constitution forbidding the government from violating enumerated rights, and restrictions on exercising non-delegated powers, there is not a single word prescribing punishment for government officers who violate them anyway? (Yeah, there's mere removal from office, but that's far short of actual just punishment.)
I'm good with at least 3 (possibly all 5) of the last 5 of the10 commandments. I can imagine a much better rat-free world without murder, theft, coveting, and a beautiful world if we added lying and adultery to the list. Death penalty for all premeditated murder; 3-5 year imprisonment for 1st offense of theft/life imprisonment to a work camp for all offenses thereafter including a free voluntary death by starvation/dehydration at any time; Coveting carries the same penalty as theft because this would rid the world of the demonic far Left & Marxists once and for all; and how about a conspicuous tattoo or brand that identifies all 3x adult liars and 2x adulterers? Seems simple and effective to me.
Yeah. The “Thou shalt nots” are the easy ones. It’s those “thou shalt” ones that we can’t seem to obey.
Like
Like
The USG tried to lead by example, inviting DOGE into the inner sanctums of several Rube Goldberg bureaucracies.... Aside from catching the (admittedly enormous) USAID catfish, the program was discredited, and the practitioners were vilified.
The states participating in federal and state level fraud have even less incentive to investigate much less curtail the activities; as you say, a system is what it does.
The most black pilling experience of these last 7 years has been the ultimate, final realization that tens of millions of my erstwhile American (and Western) compatriots are in fact criminally incurious, lazy, and made of hate and envy.
Shirley has found more fraud than DOGE (is this organization still up and running because I haven't heard about them in a long time) and wtf is the FBI's job? And where's Ray Epps while I am at it.....geeeeze
DOGE was specifically focused on federal govt issues. Each fed dept now has its own DOGE arm. Nick Shirley found tons of HHS related fraud, and HHS is moving on those, and also in CA and other states. Big data analysis and AI are going to make this a lot easier to spot - but the feds must want to do it. They haven't before.
An enormous contribution the early DOGE under Elon Musk made was to require that every invoice specify which govt line item it was funded under, and what the money was used for. Treasury used to just pay out every single invoice, no questions asked! A recipe for fraud and lack of auditability and budget overruns. No doubt intentional.
Thank you...I just hope they are still moving forward on all this- and people will be held accountable but I won't hold my breath about this...it's way too deep!
“we needed to have an informant network!'“
Ok, so where are the indictments? Is it legal for civilians to pay criminals to commit crimes under *any* circumstances?
“Your honor, I was recruiting an informant when I offered that hit man $10k to get rid of my husband”
Sorry, that doesn’t work.
it does work, when you own the judges and prosecutors.
Yup. There was a recent minor story about how five of the "Seditious Six" Democrats were professionally trained by paid color revolution operators on how to try and incite the military to oust and/or kill Trump. (This is why, by the way, the left can't stop screeching incoherently about Pete Hegseth - he's literally the one standing in their way on this plan). Patel and Bondi did all the paperwork but it went to a DC grand jury who said "it's (D)ifferent" and refused to indict.
the likely answer is they were paid to agitate to provide the evidence SLPC wanted to put in their powerpoint decks.
“Go say a bunch of absurdly racist stuff in a loud militant way”
is different from
“Go commit felony assault on black guys”
They were no doubt smart enough to not put requests for the latter in writing.
Nobody put in writing that Lois Lerner should illegally harass legitimate organizations either. It still happened. She knew the mission.
which is my point. You can’t prosecute plausible deniability in a justice system properly designed around reasonable doubt.
Once upon a time our nation was filled with the notion that good people had Ethics, Integrity, Honor. It was the goal to be a "Man of your word."
Social pressure was enough to keep many from straying too far....the public backlash against an elected official for wrongdoing was their undoing, giving reasonable doubt room to be effective.
It was unethical dishonorable persons who discovered the legal phrase Plausible Deniability. JMO
I once had a boss who made a very simple statement to me that for some reason has stuck with me in a powerful way
“Its not hard to excel”
And this is very true. This is a good example. Merely being committed to keeping your word which isn’t exactly difficult puts you in elite company.
Same goes for showing up on time
Or any other number of basic behaviors that are easy to implement and taken for granted.
We live in a morass of behavioral and executional mediocrity, and that is being generous.
Treat people decently
Be honest
Keep your word
Work hard at whatever you do
None of this is hard, but it puts you in the behavioral 0.1%. All of the expected social and financial rewards usually follow.
It’s not that hard to excel.
The bonus is that the Smithsonian will make a poster about you.
https://tri-statedefender.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/whiteness-1_0.png
I blame Costanza.
Well, at least we know where the paid protesters are coming from...
how do I get in on that gig? All I see on indeed are jobs to stock shelves full of Nike shoes. There isn’t a single gig to smash the plate glass window and take them home.
Indeed is not the place to be looking. The ad is in the back of those 'Independent Weekly' papers in every city of any size. Every week there will be a couple of ads to 'Be an Activist/Community Organizer/Make a Difference'. They always pay more than most jobs in an area. I used to think they were just for taking opinion polls or manning petition booths, but I'm pretty sure now they are also conduits for paid protestors, etc.
I dunno. But, I have a disproportionate RAGE about this scheme, despite all the other nonsense, because they have stoked hate...and honestly are making some people actually raaaaaacist.
Its hard to blame them after 50 years of reverse racism.
It makes sense that NGO’s are a tumor growing on government. They are the same cells with different machinery, and much like government they make the problems they are allegedly solving worse.
Socialism starts when government creates a problem, and then government steps in to solve the problem
I have been reliably informed by "these people" that as a white male, I am incurably racist, and nothing I can do will ever ameliorate that.
Therefore, I have adjusted my life goals to include being the very best racist that I can possibly be. Do what you do best, right?
Should they happen to prove wrong, or full of *t, as I suspect they will, then at least my bigotry against them still justifies itself, for the win.
the original Henry Bowman wasn't racist, but he lived in a timeline with a different set of government induced problems.
But indeed, in the one we are living in, being racist is the only correct choice
During the Summer of Love they would post the listings on craig's list under the title of looking for actors.
"the incentives that arise from this are entirely perverse: solutions = unemployment and ongoing, worsening, or hideously overstated risks, threats, and problems provide job security and bales of cash."
This is such a sad truth. It's a counterintuitive nightmare. The more money and effort you throw at a problem the worse it gets. And we see it played out time and time again in all manner of things.
Do users of Chapstick have drier lips than the rest of the world? Does the moistening actually lead to more of a perception of dryness.
Why do homeless people who never shower seem to have more hair than those that shampoo and condition the sam kinneson out of their hair?
Why is it that we just happened to have a "pandemic" on the tail end of another simulated pandemic event?
If true, everything that has been alleged about SPLC is very, very bad news for them. But the worst, and easiest to prove unambiguously, is their violation of about a billion banking laws. They lied to federally chartered banks when they set up the accounts that were used to funnel money to their 'informants.' They're not squeaking out of this in front of an easily buffaloed jury in a county courthouse in Alabama.
> They're not squeaking out of this in front of an easily buffaloed jury in a county courthouse in Alabama.
I'll believe it when I see people actually going to federal prison for multi-decade terms.
Actually Alabama is a relative win of a venue (for us).
It could as easily have been DC or SDNY, ice tossed onto the griddle.
SPLC located in Montgomery as a giant middle finger to the ‘haters’ they claimed to be combatting, so the fact that means they have to face a jury empaneled there is pretty sweet. But it’s also better for us that they are accused of federal crimes, not state or civil matters.
Given it's slowly been coming out that the reason nobody's going to jail is because DC grand juries keep saying "it's (D)ifferent", the fact that there's an indictment at all is a huge win.
I used to live in Alabama. Whites there are not nearly as racist as people up north.
Best fantasy ever: "we the experts empanelled to study this problem have determined that it is not, in fact, a problem. please accept the return of the remainder of our budget and put it to more useful ends.” My dad taught at a graduate school of social work. I remember him saying the problem with programs is that when someone's mortgage payment became attached to the problem, there was no incentive to a solution. This now sounds quaint. Right before he retired the modest building became a modern big giant to better produce those who will profit off the financialization of suffering.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
government is a jobs program
it is horrifying and allowing the unionization makes it much worse. Even FDR was against gov't unionization.
so he said at the time. If he was alive now, he'd support it. Commies gonna commie
I remember reading a Readers Digest article over 40 years ago on the subject of nonprofits who had reached their goals, needing to scramble to move the goalposts to remain relevant. (Seen any polio epidemics recently? Yet March of Dimes still around! MADD got all the state BACs lowered? Still around!)
He claimed that of all the nonprofits he studied, there were only two honest enough to dissolve themselves once their goals had been achieved. I don't remember one of them, but the other was CEPTIA -- the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America.
“The Committee To End Pay Toilets” 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Are you old enough to remember pay toilets? They were a real thing. I was a minor contributor to this organization when I was a college student, and it's one of the few times I've been on the winning side.
In department stores. And I remember the poem: “Here I sit brokenhearted, paid a quarter to sh*t and only farted.”
😂😂😂
My husband taught me that one. Because it happened to me😂😂😂
You know when this wasn't a thing?
When NGOs didn't and couldn't get tax funding. Since there's no going back to that state of affairs, the way forward that is (according to my chickens) to tax NGOs the same way you do a company: money donated no matter by who or whom or even a whole host of whoms counts as income from business.
(Translate that into relevant legalese as per your own nation a/o state at your leisure.)
Suddenly, it becomes unprofitable to run NGOs as nudging-operations, as well as as grift-mills or at all.
I don't know if it is allowed under USA laws and praxis, but it would probably be a good idea to try and do full revisions/audits on the ten or twenty largest NGOs, back-dating it all to say four-five years before Obama was installed. Not realistic maybe, but if the current president won't even try, any successor of his won't either.
And in a twist of irony, this is actually the mechanisms of the free market-concept in action.
Tax money is a resource. Creating an NGO and inveigling it into the state is a way to get at that resource. Reports and "learing centers" and so on is the product/service provided.
That all of it is worse than worthless on a societal scale does not change that all this grift follows capitalist ethics perfectly: the point is after all doing what profits me, now, at the least cost and the least effort and risk.
If state-/party-sponsored race grifting is that "what", then that's what the market will deliver.
Make it unprofitable, and the market will shift away from it.
The loophole here is that NGOs are specifically forbidden to spend money on partisan causes, but they apparently are not forbidden to regrant it to other organizations that do. (Or, if it is forbidden, it's impossible to enforce.)
Strangely, the IRS has no problem identifying and penalizing YOU heavily if you move money from your IRAs, MSAs, etc. into other accounts that are NOT of exactly the same type, but apparently the fedguv is incapable of doing this with NGOs.
I'm guessing the re-granting schtick is done in a circular fashion until "expenses" has eaten up what was granted in the first place, with the same names appearing over and over again in whatever sub-org was granted a sub-grant.
That is explicitly illegal to do here too and would render the guilty party something like 6-8 in max sec prison, esp. if it was government money stolen this way.
Unless the Socialist Democrat party and/or their cronies were involved - when it's them, the law stops working.
I'm afraid this NGO-fraud situation will ultimately be used to create even more co-operation between state/federal and banks so that the banks become a de facto enforcer of laws and regs intended againswt organised crime, but instead used against political opposition.
De-banking and being locked out of e-services is a real thing in the EU, and it all started with the excuse/reason of the measures being set up to fight drug smugglers, traffickers and such.
No... what you describe works to line the pockets of the people running the organizations, but in this case the organizations are specifically set up to route huge amounts of tax money into partian warchests. So people take their cut, yes, but the aim is to deliver most of it to the street armies of a political party.
Aha - it is somewhat depressing that despite our systems for NGO siphoning tax money being rather different, the end result is still the same.
Rope and lamp-posts come unbidden to my mind, as the possibly only cure.
Or breaking rocks.
Fuckers figured out the money fountain and frolicked in it.
I remember reading articles about Morris Dees turning rotten and that was a long time ago already. No wonder the resistance in the DOJ has been hanging on with a vengeance. Whole superstructure ready to crash.
Oh yes, I voted for this with a vengeance too.
On several occasions, Joe Biden claimed that white national supremacists were the greatest terrorist threat to the USA. I believe that moron believed it. This SPLC fraud makes it clear where that bullshit came from.
>SB1380, “housing first” passed in 2016. it was supposed to be a landmark public private NGO partnership to “solve” homelessness and create “no judgment” housing with non-profits as the operational layer.
You want to solve any problem in life you gotta render judgment.
But long before "no judgment" re the homeless, we had that no-judgment model everyone loves so much--the "powerless over alcohol" mantra where everyone got to sit in the coffee-and-cigarettes-reeking room sharing the worst things they did to themselves and their loved ones and everyone nodding in recognition because they were all so powerless until they surrendered to the Lord, or something. That was the Original Sin operating model.
You have an interesting observation regarding AA. I attended their meetings about 20 years ago while waiting for a spot to open up in my county's Alcohol & Drug Council therapy program. What I couldn't accept was that I could lay off my responsibility for drinking on some "Higher Power" who gave a crap whether I drank or not! I'm not nearly so arrogant as to believe there isn't a higher power, but my understanding has always been He's more likely to help those who help themselves. I never did figure out if it's a literal or figurative disease; I just wanted it to stop. It did when I committed fully to being sober and kept the promises I made. The other thing that seemed dishonest about AA to me was its claim of not being a religion. Proponents exhibited a degree of religious fervor that was cult-like. It works for some so I don't crusade against it, but it certainly wasn't for me.
Yup!
The Soviets were largely inspired by that model in their public confessionals, where people would fall into paroxysms of guilt and confess their "counter-revolutionary bourgeois thoughts".
The feminists of the 1960s and 1970s picked up the same practice, as did the various left-wing groups, with race, sexual preferences and climate/consumer related stuff tacked on from the 1990s onwards.
Currently the fad is confessing - via social media of course - your sins against the Climate:
"Oh I feel so ashamed but it was my niece's wedding and they had booked it in Pattaya in Thailand and I just had to attend, so I had to fly, but I'll compensate by buying only eco-friendly vegan justice-marked produce for a month!"
Misanthropy is dangerous, but I just can't quit the habit.
There's a reason why Genesis is so heavy on human guilt.
As I keep saying, to me the serpent is the hero of the story.
The serpent was simply stress-testing the Garden of Eden design.
I knew you'd get the point of it.
Herpetophile here 🐍
Me too!
Don't tell anyone but I was a teeny bit disappointed when the cobra didn't eat my then-father-in-law.
Jörmungandr the Midgård Serpent is a force of evil, but it's not tempter, just a monster encircling the world at the bottom of the ocean. Quite different from the Biblical serpent.
(On the other hand, the name of the Norn Skuld means "future" or "that which is yet to come" as well as "guilt". Different, since rather than guilt-tripping you for some kind of "sin", it is instead a warning that you /might/ be fated or Doomed to commit some action or other you'd rather not have to.)
And the name "Jörmungandr" is a kenning, made up out of an archaic word for something enormous (Jörmun-) while -gand(r) means staff, rod, snake, penis, mast, river plus some more words for elongated things. The (r) is the definite article.
This also why Gand-alf is called that: "Stave-elf".
I have sometimes wondered why snakes, adders, serpents, asps, wyrms, et al were made into "evil" animals. Neither Celt nor Greek nor Japanese or [insert list of ten thousand African tribes] proclaimed the serpent evil.
Not even the Norse considered the snake ("orm") evil; it was an instrument of Fate/Doom and of the justice of the Aesir (Oden puts a venom-spewing snake above Loke after the latter has been fettered to a rock using the guts of his child as ropes, as punishment for the murder of Balder), as well as for fertility and healing.
Jörmungandr the Midgård Serpent is a force of evil, but it's not tempter, just a monster encircling the world at the bottom of the ocean. Quite different from the Biblical serpent.
(On the other hand, the name of the Norn Skuld means "future" or "that which is yet to come" as well as "guilt". Different, since rather than guilt-tripping you for some kind of "sin", it is instead a warning that you /might/ be fated or Doomed to commit some action or other you'd rather not have to.)
And the name "Jörmungandr" is a kenning, made up out of an archaic word for something enormous (Jörmun-) while -gand(r) means staff, rod, snake, penis, mast, river plus some more words for elongated things. The (r) is the definite article.
This also why Gand-alf is called that: "Stave-elf".
I have sometimes wondered why snakes, adders, serpents, asps, wyrms, et al were made into "evil" animals. Neither Celt nor Greek nor Japanese or [insert list of ten thousand African tribes] proclaimed the serpent evil.
Not even the Norse considered the snake ("orm") evil; it was an instrument of Fate/Doom and of the justice of the Aesir (Oden puts a venom-spewing snake above Loke after the latter has been fettered to a rock using the guts of his child as ropes, as punishment for the murder of Balder), as well as for fertility and healing.
I also question why Adam did not take responsibly for his own actions. It was Eve’s fault. Isn’t that the typical abuser’s rational?
We should treat Genesis as if Muriel Spark or Iris Murdoch wrote it. Great story but be skeptical of the author behind it.
I’m smiling as I read your response. Thanks
I learned to my cost to never read biographies of one's favorite writers.
‘The feminists of the 1960s and 1970s picked up the same practice’
Hm. The teenage me was one of those, but I don't remember any confessions of guilt, at least on my part.
Possibly it is a USA/Europe difference?
Here, there was a very strong division between feminists/feminism and women's libe/equal rights-groups.
The former were until the late 1980s/early 1990s the lunatic (and hard core Pol Pot-endorsing) fringe and didn't have a lot of pull or power outside their own circuit.
By the mid-to-late 1990s they had started to become the mainstream, and by 2005 what was in 1975 seen as borderline insane enough to warrant institutionalisation was not just normalised but virtually mandatory as opinion among the feminists, and feminism by then meant everything from "equal pay for equal hours" to "not wanting to sleep with migrant men is racist" to "all men are rapists in spe or de facto and should be castrated after having donated sperm".
Possibly it is a cultural difference. I just remember that as a child I'd always felt resentful of the cultural norm that girls couldn't wear pants to school, you were expected to get married, we were discouraged from playing with Tonka trucks, etc. So when the bra-burning days rolled around, I was all for it, although never participated in any organized way.
In just a few years things got insane, of course, but that seems to be human nature, at least in recent history.
The cult-vibe was definitely real here, esp. up North. Many of the women who joined in the 1970s came from hard-core old school Protestant fundamentalist homes, families belonging to sects started in the 1800s (the kind where they ban the use of zippers because making it easier to take your pants off inivtes sin - real example), and swapped sects more or less.
From Protestant to Communist to Feminist. A woman named Anneli Furmark made a biographical comic about it, and that it was the recognition of the various groups - nominally opposed in ideas and content - using the exact same methods, being organised the same way (charismatic leader using all the gaslighting techniques, guilt-tripping and public shamings, always appealing to scripture and an authority-figure only the leader could correctly interpret, et cetera) that shook her out of all of it, eventually.
Now, finally, feminism is on the way out. The young call it "unsexy" and lame, the migrant-colonists simply ignore it or weaponise it against Swedish women (race trumps gender in the opression-deck of cards), and even some politicians have dared to say that they do not consider themselves feminists, pointing to well-known memes and scenes from the USA; nose-rings, blue hair, weaponised hysteria, the woiks.
The cult-vibe was definitely real here, esp. up North. Many of the women who joined in the 1970s came from hard-core old school Protestant fundamentalist homes, families belonging to sects started in the 1800s (the kind where they ban the use of zippers because making it easier to take your pants off inivtes sin - real example), and swapped sects more or less.
From Protestant to Communist to Feminist. A woman named Anneli Furmark made a biographical comic about it, and that it was the recognition of the various groups - nominally opposed in ideas and content - using the exact same methods, being organised the same way (charismatic leader using all the gaslighting techniques, guilt-tripping and public shamings, always appealing to scripture and an authority-figure only the leader could correctly interpret, et cetera) that shook her out of all of it, eventually.
Now, finally, feminism is on the way out. The young call it "unsexy" and lame, the migrant-colonists simply ignore it or weaponise it against Swedish women (race trumps gender in the opression-deck of cards), and even some politicians have dared to say that they do not consider themselves feminists, pointing to well-known memes and scenes from the USA; nose-rings, blue hair, weaponised hysteria, the woiks.
Most attractive of the genres are the #MeToo confessionals, because they work in more venues than any other -- from group therapy sessions to strip clubs.
Judgment is the bedrock basis of rationality. No judgment, no reason. If you are good at it, you are wise, there is no other criterion.
If you give charity to middlemen, you surrender your judgment to theirs. Never do that.
Yes.