A great deal of ruin

Victor Davis Hanson does not like what he is seeing:

“Our Parasitic Generation”

Are we sure that there is all that much ruin left in the United States?

We are $31 trillion in collective debt. The new normal is $1.5 trillion budget deficits. The military is politicized and short of recruits. We trade lethal terrorists for woke celebrity athletes as if to confirm our enemies’ cynical stereotypes. 

Our FBI is corrupt and discredited, collaborating with Silicon Valley contractors to suppress free speech and warp elections. We practice segregation and racial discrimination and claim we do not because the right and good people support it and, anyway, the victims deserve it. The country has seen defeat before but never abject, deliberate humiliation as in Kabul, when we fled and abandoned to the terrorist Taliban a $1 billion embassy, a huge, remodeled air base, thousands of friends, and tens of billions of dollars in military hardware—and hard-earned deterrence.

We are witnessing the breakdown of basic norms essential for civilized life, from affordable food and fuel to available key antibiotics and baby formula. Old Cairo seems safer than an after-hours subway ride or stroll at dusk in many major American cities. Medieval London’s roadways were likely cleaner than Market Street in San Francisco. Speech was freer in 1920s America than it is now.

Lots more at American Greatness here.  It’s important.  And it’s grim.

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Rebuild America First

 

J D Rucker is fired up.  Here’s an extract from “Rebuild the America First Movement or Die Trying” at America First Report:

Recognize the Enemies

We cannot fight an enemy if we do not recognize exactly who they are. It’s easy to say that the massive, widespread voter fraud as well as legal but dirty tactics used to sway elections are all the fault of Democrats, but this is inaccurate. It’s the Uniparty Swamp that’s truly behind the theft of the “red tsunami” in 2022 and the presidential election in 2020. Mitch McConnell was just as responsible (in fact, probably more so) for Republicans losing elections as Chuck Schumer.

The RINOs would rather the party lose than win with America First patriots. They despise Donald Trump, but more importantly they despise those of us who supported him. This is why they managed to lose a seat in the Senate despite the state of the nation being more abysmal than it has been in modern history. The party in charge of the House, Senate, and White House does NOT get rewarded with more seats under normal circumstances, but the Uniparty Swamp made it happen. The GOP may have won a razor-thin majority in the House, but that’s just because it’s too challenging for them to subvert so many elections across the country. The Uniparty Swamp is okay with a House led by Kevin McCarthy since he’s one of them.

. . .

Localize

This doesn’t just have to do with the America First movement. We should be striving to localize nearly every aspect of our lives with so many threats coming together around us. But the original plan of the Tea Party was to establish localized chapters. The America First movement should do something similar with one caveat. If we’re going to operate locally, we need to maintain that stance.

The Tea Party was killed by several groups of grifters who nationalized the movement. Some of the Tea Party groups were okay, but most were not. Unfortunately, being “okay” isn’t good enough for the long haul and being a grifter group is counterproductive. We cannot allow that to happen to the America First movement. If should form locally in areas across the country. It should stay local. It should operate locally [emphasis added]. Otherwise, it will be corrupted. . . .

Read the rest here.  Mr Rucker outlines some of the things patriots can DO to try to reverse course and undo some of the damage.   

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Neil Oliver on the deadly consequence of going Green

 

Neil Oliver’s weekly monologue is, once again, insightful and also unnerving. Here’s part of the transcript (via Treehouse):

Winter arrived last week – and with it a dose of reality. All that talk about wrapping up warm in the house, putting on an extra jumper, hot water bottles, full-size onesies – it’s dangerous nonsense. It might be fine for a while if you’re a healthy adult – but it’s a tragedy in slow motion for babies, young children, the elderly, the sick.

And it’s only the second week in December. It’s a long time until Spring.

Even if layering up and donning a hat were enough to keep a body going, once cold properly gets a grip of a house, it too starts to die in its own way.

The creep of dampness that takes its own toll on house and health alike. Frozen pipes – followed by burst pipes – and not enough plumbers to go round. People who can’t afford to heat their homes are likely struggling with spiking food bills as well.

All of this in a first world country that was home to the industrial revolution that changed the world for the better and lifted billions out of poverty. Now the grannies saved by locking down the world until its heart stopped beating, are sitting down to die alone of cold and hunger. It’s amazing how inventive the Establishment has proven to be in coming up with ways to invite the elderly to die miserable lonely deaths.

Our so-called leaders tell us all of it is a price worth paying – by which they mean worth paying by us, the little people. All the decisions are being made by those who have no intention whatever of spending so much as five minutes in an unheated home. Turn up the thermostat and fill out the expenses claim – that’s the order of the day for our elected representatives. . . . 

Read the rest here (or listen to the video).

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Person of the Year?

 

Ben Garrison’s cartoon of Volodymyr Zelensky via NewsAmmo

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The Coming Crash of the Climate Cult

 

cartoon credit: saltbushclub [click to embiggen]

 

And it is a cult.  Viv Forbes “started his life with candles, kerosene lights, and a wood-burning stove.  His parents milked cows and harvested corn by hand.”  Over time, as energy sources improved, the result was a dramatic increase in the farm's surplus of food."  Now Mr Forbes has a prediction at American Thinker about the future of the Green New Deal:

. . . But what keeps trains, elevators, hospitals, and refrigerators going if we have a still night followed by another cloudy day?  More batteries or Snowy 9 Pumped Hydro?  And if the still cloudy weather continues, what will recharge the Big Batteries and re-pump the hydros?  And will Greens apply the same conservation standards and delaying tactics to wind, solar, hydro, and power line construction that they now apply to coal mines?

. . .

Soon after the last coal power plant is demolished, in a snap of still, cold, cloudy weather, the lights will go out, electric trains will stop, and battery-powered food deliveries to the cities will falter.  There will be uproar in Parliaments, and all Green/Teal/ALP governments will fall.  The media will blame "climate change."

Energy Realists will take over.  They will immediately place orders for dozens of modular nuclear power plants.

But this energy reality will come too late.  Long lines of city-dwellers with bicycles, wheelbarrows and old diesel utes [utility vehicles] will flee from the hungry cities.

Read the article here.  

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GOPe: Selling Out Your Own Side

 

Does anyone remember that the GOPe spent many years raising millions of dollars on the promise, the absolute promise to repeal Obamacare?  The GOP got the House, the Senate, and the White House, and Obamacare still stands.  It occurred to me then that the GOPe's strategy to raise lots and lots of money was/is to make promises that they do not intend to ever keep.  I figured that the GOPe did not WANT to be in the majority, lest it become obvious that they don’t mean what they say.  They just want your money.

Emerald Robinson’s latest column at The Right Way Substack has a take on this charming state of affairs:

. . . Right now, GOP leadership is working on a mass amnesty bill in the lame duck session that’s opposed by the overwhelming majority of GOP voters. To fully understand the depth of this treachery, you have to recall that GOP politicians spent the last two years complaining about the invasion on the Southern border. They did this every day — every hour! —on Fox News, and other corporate media outlets. It was the GOP’s daily drum beat. Kevin McCarthy even promised to impeach DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas over the border disaster.

In the midst of all those promises — and all that posturing — GOP Senate leadership is ready to deliver a mass amnesty bill? That’s either political malpractice of the highest order, or the ultimate sign that the GOP establishment stands for nothing and stands against nothing.

It’s the latter, of course. 

Read the rest here.  I would argue is that the collapse didn’t just happen in the past month or so.  It’s been in a state of collapse for years;  Unfortunately, it is only relatively recently that many conservatives have begun to recognize the collapse. 

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Do you have a 401(k)?

 

An alert for readers with 401(k) account, from Jeff Mordock at The Washington Times:

Biden Blasted For Weaponizing Corporations In
‘Woke Capitalism’ Retirement Ploy

The Biden administration has quietly finalized a rule allowing employers to funnel workers’ 401(k) funds into investments that support woke causes that address issues such as climate change and diversity.

The Labor Department recently approved the rule affecting roughly 150 million workers and $10 trillion in assets covered under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

The rule says asset managers and retirement plan administrators should consider environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors when selecting investments. . . .

The full article is behind a paywall, so here’s the rest of it from JD Rucker’s transcript via NOQ:

. . . That would encourage money managers to balance financial returns with investments that support wind and solar energy or have diverse boards of directors.

The rules also remove a restriction blocking employers from using an ESG fund as a default option for workers automatically enrolled in 401(k) plans. That means workers could be supporting causes that don’t align with their political views.

It also rescinds Trump-era regulations that require retirement plan administrators and asset managers to choose investments based solely on participants’ financial interests.

This is just another reason why I STRONGLY recommend everyone of all ages move their wealth or retirement into a self-directed IRA. Don’t let advisors and retirement companies quietly compel you to lose money on woke investments even as they make more money thanks to the Biden-Harris regime’s priorities.

Heads up.

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